33 ms·

This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. If there was competition in this space, then there would be incentive to improve the infrastruc

• Someone1234 9y ago
  The "last mile" is a utility, and by its very nature will always result in monopolistic control. It is impractical and irrational to wire up a home to multiple ISPs with their own fiber channels. Each channel could cost tens of thousands to install. Instead the "last mile" should be a non-profit funded by ISPs who lease the channels. The non-profit is responsible for installing the "last mile," upgrading it, and repairing defects in it. The ISP is responsible for everything that happens from the exchange upon up (inc. pricing, support, peerage agreements, interconnects, etc). This way you can still choose Comcast if you wish but may also have several local ISPs competing for your business. When you choose to change no engineer needs to come to your house, they just plug and unplug you at the exchange.
  • microcolonel 9y ago
    > Instead the "last mile" should be a non-profit funded by ISPs who lease the channels. That's an interesting idea, kinda like Interac for telecom. From what I hear, Interac has a bit of an issue with being fairly closed to new peering agreements, so I wonder how that could be solved for the telco space, maybe constitute the maintenance corporation to be open to bids from new ISPs.
  • juris 9y ago
    I think that would be a good value proposition for a city that does not already prefer one ISP over another. Interesting idea to spin something like this up.
    • zrail 9y ago
      Many states have laws that forbid this, along with any attempt at local control of the issue.
  • noetic_techy 9y ago
    How does this compare to municipal electricity companies? Do you think the same model could be applied?
    • Someone1234 9y ago
      Isn't that already the case? You don't have two electrical lines running into your house.
      • amdavidson 9y ago
        That's the argument. The power utilities are tightly regulated.
    • wlesieutre 9y ago
      Coming in 2019, electric companies monitor your usage profile to tell when you turn on different appliances and charge you a higher rate for running your TV or charging your electric car. But don't worry, the free market will fix it.
      • njarboe 9y ago
        In California you do get different rates if you get an electric car. You also get different rates (higher) if the State thinks you don't "need" air conditioning.
      • icelancer 9y ago
        This is already a thing in several states and the general consensus is that it saves citizens money.
        • wlesieutre 9y ago
          Is that because electric rates are heavily regulated as utilities, or because the free market let the only electric supplier do whatever they wanted to with your rate structure?
  • tcheard 9y ago
    So an open-access network (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network). This is done quite successfully in other countries around the world, like New Zealand where we mainly have one infrastructure provider (selected and monitored by the Government), who must offer fair and standard pricing to any ISP who wants to add value to the network. As a result, we have many ISP options throughout the country and competition between providers is high.
    • quasse 9y ago
      What value do the ISPs actually add to the market? It seems like a government granted middleman position to me, where I'd rather just purchase service from the government or the government's selected infrastructure manager. Presumably there's already some base price for service that this infrastructure provider is charging everyone (a controller monopolist), what are you gaining on top of that by having a second middleman that is presumably also making a profit?
      • jjeaff 9y ago
        Given the government's track record with some big projects like healthcare.gov which is still a nightmare to use, I would not trust them to be an ISP. In fact, in the past, some states did (or still do) have their own ISP that they use at a lot of schools and public facilities. Ours was always slow with frequent outages. I think a hybrid approach with the government managing and maintaining the physical lines and allowing isps to plug in and pay rent is the way to go. The ISP rent should be enough to cover the cost of physical line maintenance.
        • Larrikin 9y ago
          What are your specific complaints about healthcare.gov? I was out of the country when it initially rolled out, but have had no problems with it the past 2 years since I've moved back and needed to get it.
          • 9y ago
  • justsomedood 9y ago
    That has been tried in a few places, and I'm not sure that it has succeeded anywhere. Municipal fiber was laid where I used to live in Provo, UT and it had huge funding problems. ISPs could compete, but all the value is in the last mile not in the gateway. Eventually Google bought it out, but the city had to increase taxes to help pay for the current bond, and was looking at more bonds to pay for it before Google stepped in.
    • jjeaff 9y ago
      When I lived there, I had 200mbps up and 200 down for $70 a month and it was great. This was before Google came to town. But since I didn't own property, I guess I was out of the loop on property taxes.
      • justsomedood 9y ago
        I had it as well at 100Mbs before Google fiber. The service itself worked great, but it had to be subsidized by taxpayers throughout its lifetime - it never broke even after the subscribers fees.
    • chad_oliver 9y ago
      It has definitely succeeded. For example, New Zealand uses this model, and we're actually in the middle of rolling out fiber to almost every house in the country. Okay, so technically in New Zealand the last-mile infrastructure is owned by a utility company, not a non-profit. However, the utility companies are selected by the government and tightly regulated, so they act more like non-profits than typical companies. Also note that they aren't allowed to actually sell internet access to consumers; they only maintain the infrastructure.
    • renaudg 9y ago
      This is how it has worked for 15-20 years in France, the UK, and probably most of Europe.
  • ksk 9y ago
    Even if you avoid the last mile cluster F*, you still need to rent physical space to ISPs for setting up their network equipment. With multiple ISPs, its not clear who should "own" the space. I doubt individual homeowners want to deal with that headache.
  • jacobrobbins 9y ago
    cars cost "tens of thousands" yet personal automobile ownership has been feasible and has a huge positive impact on the economy. If that 10-90K ballpark cost estimate is accurate then accessing the information superhighway could be a similar situation.
    • tclancy 9y ago
      Right, but not being able to afford a car severely limits people's' access to jobs, care, entertainment, groceries, etc. And this would be worse; access to the Internet is starting to be assumed here in the US. If it's going to be it should be treated as a right.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • thadjo 9y ago
    > The "last mile" is a utility, and by its very nature will always result in monopolistic control. This is THE central point. Everyone saying that they would be OK with the latest FCC regs if there were only more competition need to consider this. In what bizarro world would anyone actually want ISPs competing for the last mile?
    • carry_bit 9y ago
      If you last mile is minimally-maintained aging copper far from the central office, and the competition is fiber...
    • azeotropic 9y ago
      The one where 5g is faster than my comcast connection.
    • 13years 9y ago
      I have options of cable, DSL, and fiber. With each new ISP offering service to my house my rates have gotten cheaper and bandwidth faster.
    • xentronium 9y ago
      > In what bizarro world would anyone actually want ISPs competing for the last mile You can easily have up to 1 gbit symmetric internet connection in Russia for $10 because of that competition. It's not rocket science, guys, US ISPs suck because your regulation killed all the competitors, and your solution is what, more regulation?
  • rayiner 9y ago
    > The non-profit is responsible for installing the "last mile," upgrading it, and repairing defects in it. What incentive does a non-profit have to invest the billions of dollars required to do these things? If you use public dollars to do it: what do you think happens when investment into upgrading from GPON to NGPON2 is competing for taxpayer dollars with roads and schools? I can't imagine that anyone in say San Francisco would rather have SFMTA running their internet than Comcast.
    • bigdubs 9y ago
      1) You get the government you deserve. If you're worried it would be mismanaged, become active. 2) I would absolutely rather have an unbiased and fair agency installing utilities than a rent seeking public company that is beholden to shareholder value.
      • rayiner 9y ago
        You get the government your neighbors want. I'd vote in a heartbeat to raise water and sewer rates to upgrade our water systems so we could stop dumping untreated sewage into the Chesapeake Bay: https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2017/08/01/baltimore-released-over-7-million-gallons-of-sewage-into-jones-falls https://www.baltimorebrew.com/2017/08/01/baltimore-released-.... But my neighbors won't do that. Do you think they'll be more forward looking when it comes to broadband? Or will all the retirees who dominate the voting decide that 50 mbps ought to be good enough for everybody? Since my parents first got fiber 10 years ago, Verizon has spent a ton of money upgrading from BPON to GPON, and now is working on NGPON2. If a public utility were in charge, even if they were willing to raise the money to install fiber in the first place, there is no way in hell they'd have made those upgrades. You can see this in practice. Here in Maryland, the only upgrade in transit service I can think of in my lifetime is running the Penn line from Baltimore on weekends. More typically, the public authorities run the transit systems on the edge of collapse. Simply maintaining existing service levels in the face of under-maintained infrastructure is considered a victory.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • test6554 9y ago
    How much money are we talking for a mile of fiber? $6K for materials and $12K for labor? Anything else? Could you do a neighborhood for $18K?
  • mozumder 9y ago
    Instead the "last mile" should be a non-profit funded by ISPs who lease the channels. The non-profit is responsible for installing the "last mile," upgrading it, and repairing defects in it. Yes, that's called "government". We do that with roads and mail, we can do the same with communications.
  • renaudg 9y ago
    You've just described Local Loop Unbundling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local-loop_unbundling), this has been the way things have worked for 15-20 years in France, the UK, and probably most of Europe.
• humanrebar 9y ago
  > This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. It would still be a problem for startup companies. If TimeWarner gives exclusive preferential pricing to Vimeo and Verizon gives exclusive preference to YouTube, your video-streaming startup still has an extra uphill battle even if there is competition among the established players.
  • vorotato 9y ago
    TimeWarner Cable no longer exists and was purchased by Charter.
    • spsful 9y ago
      I thought he meant TimeWarner -- the content company that owns TBS and Warner Bros-- not Time Warner Cable which was bought by Charter? (For the sake of correctness, the two companies are written as Time Warner Cable and TimeWarner, Inc)
      • humanrebar 9y ago
        I meant an arbitrary established player giving another arbitrary established player a nicer deal than a startup could get. Everyone should feel free to insert proper nouns that make more sense to them.
        • spsful 9y ago
          Agreed. And corporations like AT&T that not only provide ISP services but actually serve original content, they are uniquely positioned to push their services over their competitor's. Perhaps we'll be seeing streaming services like Netflix become slower, while, say, DirecTV Now runs at full speed.
• noetic_techy 9y ago
  I totally agree. Who cares if the worst case scenario is tiered pricing, as long as their is REAL competition, a competitor can come along and say "we offer it all for one flat fee because our infrastructure is better." Boom, done. These municipal exclusion deals are the real problem. I also think this is going to backfire and bite the telco's in the ass if they try to roll out tiers. The legislative outcry when joe schmo is affected could become so deafening that congress will be likely be forced to get up off their ass and intervene which is exactly what they don't want. If they were smart they would only go after the Netflix and Face-books of the world and leave the consumer out of it. Can you imagine the 2020 campaign slogan of "Donald Trump ruined the internet." Ignoring this issue was stupid but I don't think they thought this through.
  • pishpash 9y ago
    A rather naïve reading. People are stupid. They may even prefer the "simplicity" of tiered packages. They'll roll over.
    • juris 9y ago
      No way, man. People hate their ISP's, and would love to be able to switch.
    • beamatronic 9y ago
      Ok everyone, it's been fun. See you on America Online!
    • criddell 9y ago
      I predict the first package is going to be a gamer package. Image a low latency / high bandwidth connection tuned for gaming. Lots of people would pay $10 or $15 per month for that if it would give them an advantage in gaming.
  • nerfhammer 9y ago
    They could conceivably just demand subsidies from Google, Facebook etc. and charge customers nothing. Then they can say to some degree of truth say that bringing net neutrality back would force them to raise prices.
• komali2 9y ago
  I've been thinking this over for the past couple months, because I was pretty sure this would be the outcome - that we would lose our net neutrality protection. So let's play out the worse case - Comcast, AT&T etc wait out the shitstorm and then start throttling traffic and packaging the internet, releasing cable-esque "plans." Is it feasible to just start running our own fiber to hubs? I want to learn more about the internet and what it would take to bypass the ISPs. Can I do this? Do I need to be incorporated to do it? What would it take to start a new ISP with the premise "unthrottled, unmonitored traffic, charged by the gigabyte - an internet utility service"? As a private citizen, can I purchase a bunch of land between me and, I dunno, a DNS node or whatever and just lay a super long fiber cable straight to it? Who do I have to pay at the node to get to "plug into" it or whatever? Hmm. I should see if there's some "How the Internet Works: for Dummies" book.
  • sliverstorm 9y ago
    Mostly what you need is a lot of money and a legal team. There are some government granted monopolies in certain municipalities, but by and large I understand it's just a money problem. The incumbents have tons of established infrastructure; you're starting from scratch.
  • vmarsy 9y ago
    > As a private citizen, can I purchase a bunch of land between me and, I dunno, a DNS node or whatever and just lay a super long fiber cable straight to it? I'm sure you can, the issue is do you have a couple million $ in your bank account to do this?
    • maehwasu 9y ago
      I do; want to come and hang out on my compound?
      • muninn_ 9y ago
        Sure
      • deleted 9y ago
• dv_dt 9y ago
  Local governments have been legally prohibited from making exclusive ISP franchise agreements for quite a while now. IMHO the only thing really preventing local competition is the economic aspects of laying multiple physical wires to residences giving the setup strong natural monopoly conditions.
  • anthonybullard 9y ago
    Source? Every single city I've lived in has such an agreement. One cable provider, one phone(DSL) provider. There might be smaller, internet only companies.
    • dv_dt 9y ago
      Do they have an agreement with the local city, or is it a natural monopoly? It's unclear what causes that condition of a lack of choices in a given area. https://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.aspx?NewsPubId=90848 https://www.wilmerhale.com/pages/publicationsandnewsdetail.a... (March 5, 2007) >In streamlining the franchising process and preempting (Local Franchising Agency) LFAs from taking action inconsistent with its reforms, the FCC relied primarily on its statutory authority to carry out the Cable Act’s mandate that LFAs “may not grant an exclusive franchise and may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise.” The FCC interpreted that mandate to cover not only the unreasonable denial of a cable franchise, but also unreasonable delay in action on a franchise application and the conditioning of a franchise on unreasonable terms. Now local cable/isps do mess with the process of permitting and right of ways as much as they can when competitors arise, and local governments are susceptible to both corruption and being overwhelmed by the large corporations deploying such tactics. Just maybe not in that specific way of signing monopoly franchise agreements. So I'm under no illusions that this prohibition of monopoly franchise grants goes very far...
• ksk 9y ago
  Are you also in favor of bundling when it comes to TV/Cable?
• crisdux 9y ago
  I'm always surprised that folks on here don't think about the future of last mile connectivity being wireless, instead of wired. Next generation wireless networks (5G) are poised to have broadband like speeds, faster latency, and high bandwidth. Wireless operators have been pretty explicit in that their plan to get into the home broadband game. These networks are a few years away from a broad roll out, AT&T is starting next year. I predict there will soon be much more competition in the home broadband game and much of these net neutrality debates will seem pretty silly. Other cities like Boston already have a wireless broadband provider and are moving in this direction.
  • Corrado 9y ago
    I agree, to some extent, but I'm not sure if wireless will ever be able to give me gigabit speed with sub 10ms latency. If that's possible, then I'm ready to sign up right now!
    • Filligree 9y ago
      It can give you that. Unfortunately, it can't give everyone that.
    • tomchuk 9y ago
      http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6880152186 http://beta.speedtest.net/result/6880152186 - That's last mile wireless. Throughput is hampered by my crappy usb NIC because all of my thunderbolt ports are in use. With thunderbolt ethernet I'm getting the full 500Mpbs that I pay $45/mo for.
    • LeifCarrotson 9y ago
      Wireless can give you gigabit speed with sub 10ms latency, for sure! With a few assumptions and caveats. You have to work out a compromise involving spectrum width, power usage, transceiver positions, etc. etc. etc. to get optimal performance, for all the various definitions of optimal. And there are lots of games you can play with QAM, channel-hopping, frequency division, and I am sure that future DSP experts will invent still more ways of getting more data to more people faster with less power. But the basic compromises still need to be dealt with. Using a wired link, you can blast data as fast as you want to yourself without messing with other people, on wireless things are more complicated. But enough of that, to answer your question: here's a product that can get you 20 Gbps and 0.2 ms latency over hundreds of kilometers: https://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber24-hd/ https://www.ubnt.com/airfiber/airfiber24-hd/ https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-airFiber-AF-24-Worldwide-License-Free/dp/B00HXT813E https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-airFiber-AF-24-Worldwide-Lic... Easy as that! ...but you're not about to mount one of those on your cell phone. In an ideal world, all wireless access points could adjust their configurations as required. They'd share information on their physical locations, transceiver capabilities, power status, and bandwidth usage, with the data flowing across the landscape like electrical current in a sheet of metal or water in the shallow riffle of a stream. And of course all these devices would contain unimaginably brilliant and complex software that would manage all this with high efficiency, and they'd all interoperate seamlessly. And since this is the ideal world, no one would ever use the transceiver information from the network for nefarious purposes, and we'd all share the burden of keeping adequate transceiver power available, and the power would be generated from renewable energy sources. But that ideal wireless world would still have far less capacity than the ideal wired world. The question is whether you think a user-driven wireless setup can be superior to the crappy wired situation we have now.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• chisleu 9y ago
  YES. Hopefully when sanity takes office, we don't repeal the changes in net neutrality, but rather repeal the laws that created these insane corporate monopolies in the first place!
  • munk-a 9y ago
    Or we could do both...
    • spsful 9y ago
      queue the old el paso why not both commercial
• trappist 9y ago
  > ISP's kill competition by making legal arrangements with local governments... Seems like this should read "local governments monopolize ISPs." ISPs have no other access to this arrangement.
• gerbilly 9y ago
  > This wouldn't be a problem if ISP's weren't de facto monopolies. And even if they weren't monopolies, they would probably collude. Telcos in some countries, for example agree to not market services in each other's territories.
  • spsful 9y ago
    Comcast and TWC did that literally all the time. I can't back this up with a specific website link, but I have anecdotal evidence. When they tried to merge a couple of years ago a Comcast exec said in one interview that the move wouldn't affect consumers and isn't something intended to incite "anticompetitive" behavior because TWC and Comcast already do not compete. Ever noticed how a city is EITHER a Comcast or TWC city, and not both?
• mozumder 9y ago
  The reason ISPs are monopolies is because if they were unregulated, you'd have a thousand phone lines outside of everyone's house, from every single private phone network provider. You'd have a bunch of phones in everyone's houses, one for each network. This is what it looked like before the FCC: https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--FfVBroPT--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/xvcknezbz7ir9lhbbicu.jpg https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--FfVBroP... An unregulated ISP market is a safety hazard and ugly. Because of these issues, government eventually decided that only one phone company can serve each house, forcing a monopoly situation because of that. But that monopoly has to allow every other network access to that line so that callers can call anywhere. This is the origin of net neutrality. You're never going to go back to the situation where you have a thousand different lines to everyone's houses, so you're better off regulating them properly with net neutrality.
• equalunique 9y ago
  I agree with this point of view.
• Certhas 9y ago
  ISPs, like power network companies, and road and rail network operators, are natural monopolies. There is no theoretical or practical reason to believe that free markets are the appropriate tool to organize them.
• rosstex 9y ago
  Ha, I was in class with Rexford today and this is exactly what she thinks.
• jtl999 9y ago
  This. I wish something was done about the regulations that are de-facto monopolizing franchise agreements and such at a city level for telecom services. Not much better in Canada either.
• LinuxBender 9y ago
  If Comcast re-enable Sandvine and start tinkering with P2P and VPN traffic, will that be enough to start the conversations around anti-trust? Or is there already a precedent?
• jasonkostempski 9y ago
  It would still be a problem. Maybe if one of those providers is benevolent enough to have a sanely priced "package" that promises to treat all data neutrally there'd be a shot, but I think greed would prevent that from lasting if things start moving away from neutrality.
• deong 9y ago
  Their safety net is their lobbying power, which hasn't changed.
• jsonne 9y ago
  When I emailed my Senator this was essentially his response. Whether genuine or not he said he wants to see a permanent solution that creates more competition. Who knows if he's being truthful but it is an argument I've seen for a long term solution.
  • dragonwriter 9y ago
    If a Senator says he wants to see something as an alternative to a concrete option that exists (either as status quo policy under threat or a concrete proposal under debate) he's making excuses for not supporting the thing you care about. If a Senator says he's actively working on something and points you to specific legislation he sponsors or supports, well, that might also be political theater, but it's at least possible that there is real substance behind it.
• jpao79 9y ago
  There's a microwave based ISP in SF called Monkeybrains. From their about us page: "Monkeybrains is primarily a WISP (Wireless Internet Service Provider). What this means is Monkeybrains uses microwave technology to create a wireless network covering much of San Francisco. We deliver internet service to individual locations by placing an antenna on the roof. This antenna picks up an encrypted wireless signal from one of our network access points which can be found on over 1000 buildings city-wide. From the roof, we run a Cat5 Ethernet wire either to the unit, telecom closet, or the property's Ethernet patch panel. We are happy to comply with any building wiring guidelines or work with the building's riser company if required." https://www.monkeybrains.net/how-it-works https://www.monkeybrains.net/how-it-works http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a19741/can-an-indie-isp-beat-comcast/ http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a1... They are pretty responsive in terms of customer service. *Don't work for Monkeybrains but my company uses their service.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • shams93 9y ago
    Los Angeles is too big for that over the entire area but parts of LA like North Hollywood could become an opportunity to setup a microwave wireless ISP that covers an entire neighborhood in LA like North Hollywood or Santa Monica.
  • jzshen 9y ago
    I live in SF and I used to use Monkeybrains, but I switched to Comcast about 12 months ago. It felt like using MB was taking the moral high road, but there are some things that a wired connection just does better. MB would have very spotty signal during rainy days. A few of us play competitive games (eg Overwatch) and MB had too many latency spikes.
• zjaffee 9y ago
  5G networks could very well change that. Right now people rely on LAN, however it's very possible that with the growth of 5G people will just use over the air internet rather than having their own setups everywhere they go.
  • xbkingx 9y ago
    Not being sarcastic, but is this honestly better? There are only a few major cell providers that can roll out 5G, so it seems to me that instead of Comcast-TW-Cox we would have ATT-Verizon-Tmo. I guess it would be easier to set up municipal ISPs, since minimal wiring would be needed. But the lack of real competition in the cell market seems to indicate that the problems are pretty similar for small startups.
  • nickysielicki 9y ago
    What's special about 5GHz? What about 700MHz-2100MHz? Even with its high latency, packet loss, data caps, etc, LTE internet fits the need of a huge segment of casual internet users and has been doing so for some time now.
    • agar 9y ago
      Not sure if you're joking, but just in case... 5G in this context means 5th Generation, not 5 GHz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G
      • nickysielicki 9y ago
        Oh, whoops. I wasn't joking. I never realized that there's actually a definition of 3G/4G/5G that isn't just made up marketing lingo. Thanks for the link.
• nicolashahn 9y ago
  Would crowdfunding new local ISPs and boycotting the big ones be a viable option?
• nickysielicki 9y ago
  For power users on websites like HN and reddit, this might seem true. But if you take a step back and realize that the large majority of Americans don't use the internet like you do, and maybe never will use the internet like you do, I think this argument holds far less water. Consider that it's estimated that 13% of Americans don't use the internet-- at all, for anything, ever.[1] Think about how many people probably exclusively use their $60/mo cable internet to use Facebook, read news websites, and send emails. They don't use Netflix, they don't watch YouTube, they only do what they know and they're happy with it. Is it accurate to say that someone with these needs has no choice in their ISP? Where I am right now, in the middle of central Wisconsin surrounded by acres of farm fields in every direction, I have fiber all the way to my house. In addition, there is reliable LTE coverage on multiple carriers. There's also satellite internet. For the average internet user as of 2017, I really think it's inaccurate to imply that consumers lack choice. What you're really saying is that there's no competition in the very high end segment of consumer ISPs. And I'd agree with that, there is little choice when it comes to a provider that is willing to offer you a highspeed DOCSIS plan without a data cap, or fiber internet, etc. Most homes probably only have one provider that meets the needs of power users. And to that I say, "tough shit!" If you're an outlier as a consumer, you're going to pay through the nose for it and you're not going to have a ton of choice. It's not some giant conspiracy to milk consumers dry, it's a matter of business. ISPs don't want to invest billions into infrastructure that some trivial portion of their consumer market really would utilize. It would be fiscally irresponsible to spend all that money for such little return. If posing it that way doesn't appeal you, let me put it another way: it would be bad for the long term growth of the internet to spend all that money to appease a small portion of internet users. That money is better saved and spent later. You might say, "Consumers will certainly desire faster internet as years pass, so it's an investment they'll have to make eventually, and the taxpayer has subsidized this expansion, so they should be doing it now, anyway." I believe you'd be wrong to say that. ISPs shouldn't be obligated to be spending money now if they're meeting the majority of needs of their customers. I know online it maybe doesn't seem that way with all the "Comcast-are-Nazis memes", but it's just a matter of overlap between poweruser segment with high bandwidth requirements also being active on the social media you frequent. Elsewhere on the internet, there's a majority of casual internet users who are not coming close to being meaningfully impacted by technical limitations of their connection. If you're interested in stable growth of the internet as time goes on, you should root for them to save their money now so they can spend it later when demand from the average consumer catches up. Doing anything else would mean spending a lot of money on infrastructure that sits unused, that is antiquated by the time people want it. Think of China and their crumbling empty cities, let's not make the same sort of mistake with internet infrastructure. [1]: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/07/some-americans-dont-use-the-internet-who-are-they/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/07/some-america...
• billfor 9y ago
  Google, Facebook, and Amazon are de facto monopolies and we don't do anything to improve competition in that space either. Ironically they were the leading advocates of net neutrality. We should also pursue antitrust legal and foster competition in their space as well. In the meantime, we are back to the status quo that was present in 2015.
  • bo1024 9y ago
    This is incorrect on several points. Most importantly, the idea that this move returns to some "deregulated" 2015 is a myth and has been refuted so many times throughout the net neutrality discussion. The short version is that NN has always been roughly in place and has been enforced with legal action by regulators for many years prior to 2015.
• timtas 9y ago
  I have more ISP choices than grocery store choices.