US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet • Hacker News Board

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#91

Post by kalleboo » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 11:29 PM UTC

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #61

muhfuhkuh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. However, having gone down that rabbit hole too often, the arguments devolve. One particularly puzzling exchange devolved from my position of "Japan and Korea has ultra high speed Internet, why doesn't the US?" to "population density" on the other side, then to this same argument about Sweden's density, then to "cultural homogeneity" on the other. That made me pause. "Cultural homogeneity?" I asked. And, the d…

Hmmm. "All-white like Sweden", is a poor way of describing Sweden. "As of 2011, Statistics Sweden reported that around 19.6% or 1.858.000 inhabitants of Sweden had foreign background, defined as born abroad or born in Sweden by two parents born abroad." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Sweden#Immigr... That said, I think that the fact that the Swedish regulatory and legislative process isn't captured by…

Although of those born abroad, only 40% were born outside of the EU, so you'll probably have to cut your number in half

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#92

Post by Reeve » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 11:33 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #80

rayiner wrote: post #5

This is a really good example of how lobbying works. On one hand, these telecom companies have a clear interest in not having to "compete" with cheap, publicly funded broadband. On the other hand, their position just happens to tie in with a broader political debate: states and municipalities are on the verge of bankruptcy, and municipal infrastructure projects are a disaster outside a few well-managed cities like NY…

Honest question, does your repeated support of the cable companies' excuses have anything to do with your living in Philadelphia (per your profile) near Comcast HQ?

Rayiner Hashem, Law Clerk at U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia.

Interned at the FCC for 3 years. Previously worked for Telchemy, and other telecommunication companies.

It's evident his biases and that he's a shill for telecoms. He down votes any post that he disagrees with on YN. God only knows how he has so much karma. Probably part of a circlejerk or botnet.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#93

Post by kalleboo » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 11:38 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #39

Smudge wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or disproportionately benefit parts of the population Wouldn't more people be able to afford internet access under this municipal connection's pricing than under Comcast/Verizon/Time Warner/etc? I have trouble understanding how that would be a disproportionate benefit.

It disproportionately benefits those who have and use home computers. Almost everyone has a cell phone, but many poor or older people don't have home computers.

But increasingly they have Wifi devices such as tablets and smartphones

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#94

Post by foobarqux » Sat, Aug 30, 2014, 11:42 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #22

raarts wrote: post #19

I think by now it's hard to deny that Comcast & friends are stifling the progress of the US economy. The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone), consumers and businesses are complaining across the board about high pricing, bad service, and lack of options. These companies do the country and its inhabitants a big disservice. I think the only reasonable option f…

> The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone) By what measure? Certainly not Akamai's ( http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q114.pdf?WT.mc_i... ). The top 10 U.S. states (much of which are in the Northeast and are Comcast territory), would appear comfortably in the top 10 of the global rankings (compare page 14-15 with page 18). On Ookla's ranking, the…

I have challenged you about this topic several times and backed it up.

I still think the best public data is the FCC international broadband survey and report which I have previously referenced. The Ookla "promise" figures can be used to validate the advertised speeds in that dataset versus actual speeds.

The issue is not merely of availability of very high speed (>25mbps) connections but its price, an area in which the FCC study demonstrates the US is not competitive. [This information cannot be obtained from the data sets you mentioned].

Moreover, most people, certainly most people here, don't care about nation-wide or even state-wide averages, and they distort the figures, in favor of the US no less (rural Wyoming probably has better access than rural Romania, nobody cares about either). What are the figures for the main urban centers? As a datapoint, based on the FCC data I don't think there is a major US city which is competitive with Warsaw, Poland except possibly for Austin due to Google Fiber.

What would help settle this issue is if someone like Netflix , Google or Dropbox incorporated a speed test (they don't seem to test beyond their stream rates currently) and made the granular data public.

Finally, it is anecdotal but I have found those who have lived in Scandinavia (or Eastern Europe) and the US say pretty consistently that the broadband is much worse in the latter.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#95

Post by kordless » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 12:09 AM UTC

sandstrom wrote: post #89

sehrope wrote: post #4

> Chattanooga has the largest high-speed internet service in the US, offering customers access to speeds of 1 gigabit per second – about 50 times faster than the US average. The service, provided by municipally owned EPB, has sparked a tech boom in the city and attracted international attention. EPB is now petitioning the FCC to expand its territory. Comcast and others have previously sued unsuccessfully to stop EPB’…

I agree it's cheap by US standards. My 100 Mpbs (symmetric, fiber) is $42. It's in Sweden though.

I don't suppose you have a few servers laying around, do you? :)

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#96

Post by kordless » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 12:12 AM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #33

radicalbyte wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OT: this post is the 4th result in Google. Comment on HN indexed within 35 minutes. Crazy. It kind of sucks for companies like that, but competition is good. In an ideal situation you'd have "the people" own the pipes which they then rent at cost to commercial providers. In practice this would usually be via local government, but I'd prefer it via some kind of mutual society (where residents own a share, is open only…

The last mile should be open to the people and supported as infrastructure. I should be able to send packets across town for zero cost.

You should also be able to host your own services. These two things are more closely related than a lot of people realize.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#97

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 12:28 AM UTC

hayksaakian wrote: post #45

sitkack wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unconstrained corporatism.

literally state sanctioned monopolies there was a website posted to HN a while ago that described the hurdles for municipal fiber in each state, i don't have the link any more, but it seems very relevant to this discussion

[deleted]

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#98

Post by raarts » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 12:30 AM UTC

harryh wrote: post #83

nitrogen wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturally, at least as fast as the other guy or gal competing for the same job.

If all you're doing is moving text around then faster internet isn't going to help any. Unless you're streaming video or doing a few other high bandwidth activities then even really shitty broadband is going to service your needs just fine.

Nobody is only moving text around, occasionally (how often depends on the type of work) you need to move a lot of data. In that case a low speed connection stops you in your tracks.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#99

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 12:32 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #41

rayiner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it completely distasteful the number of laws that prevent other entities from passing laws in certain domains. Washington state has a law that prevents cities from legislating any form of rent control. Are you serious? Rent control laws are awful, destroy the incentive to maintain housing stock or build new housing stock, and ultimately raise rents for everyone except the lucky few who can get rent controlle…

I'm with you on rent control, but states banning municipalities from owning their own broadband networks is at least as myopic. Thea rgument is that publicly owned utilities crowd out competition, but we have abundant evidence for the argument that (unlike typical residential rent markets) utility markets are dominated by oligopolies who are easily able to engage in anti-competitive behaviors without having to form a…

> Now I'm not such a big fan of municipal legislation - as a European, I think American democracy may be too decentralized and exacerbate the public choice problem, but I don't see a clear organizing principle that will only prevent economically bad legislation while allowing economically good legislation.

Operating utilities (especially last mile internet) at the municipal level makes much better sense than federalizing it. The transit market is sufficiently competitive that there is no need for the last mile operator to own a national network. Meanwhile with a national network operator, if the service is unusually terrible in a specific city there is nothing that city's residents can do about it because even when they're all in agreement they don't have enough votes to move the needle at the federal level.

And then you can have laboratories of democracy: If one city funds their network entirely through subscription fees and another funds it entirely through property taxes then maybe we discover that one works much better and other cities can start doing that.

Re: US cable giants calls on FCC to block cities' expansion of high-speed internet

#100

Post by rayiner » Sun, Aug 31, 2014, 12:47 AM UTC

bicknergseng wrote: post #74

rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is 31st worldwide on bandwidth speed (which really can't be explained by the US's size alone) By what measure? Certainly not Akamai's ( http://www.akamai.com/dl/akamai/akamai-soti-q114.pdf?WT.mc_i... ). The top 10 U.S. states (much of which are in the Northeast and are Comcast territory), would appear comfortably in the top 10 of the global rankings (compare page 14-15 with page 18). On Ookla's ranking, the…

I think the problem is that you compare population densities without comparing population distributions. The comparison with the Scandinavian countries is less unfair than you claim: "almost everyone lives on the coasts, unlike in the U.S." Over 50% of the US population lives in the largest 20 cities, and > 75% live in cities, mostly near coasts and rivers and the great lakes. The centers of population in the US are…

Comparing population distributions makes the distinctions even more stark. 80% of the U.S. population lives in an "urban area" but that definition includes towns of 2,500 people. My friend in rural Georgia that has to drive several hours to get to an international airport technically lives in an "urban area" according to the Census Bureau.

The population of the 20 largest cities (New York down to Memphis) is 33 million, or about 10% of the U.S. population. 9% of Sweden's population lives in Stockholm, and the next 10% lives in the three largest cities after that.

Half the population might live in the 20 largest metro areas, but American metro areas are structured very differently than European cities. Stockholm's 900,000 people anchors a metro area of about 2.2 million people. That 40-50% ratio is typical of European cities, but atypical here in the U.S. Out of the largest 20 metro areas in the U.S., only San Diego has more than 40% of the overall metro population in the core city.

The population distribution in the U.S. is very different than in Europe, even if you restrict your attention to large metro areas. In the U.S., much more of the population lives in sprawling suburbs.