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This is so gross. Related, I work for a large, publicly-traded American software company and I'm constantly amazed/frustrated by the internet connection in our

This is so gross. Related, I work for a large, publicly-traded American software company and I'm constantly amazed/frustrated by the internet connection in our office. We constantly deal with connectivity issues and bandwidth restrictions, all while the executive leadership cuts back on working from home/remotely. A multi-billion dollar software company literally cannot buy consistent internet access. The bottom line is that we're completely at the mercy of Time Warner Cable/Spectrum, and no amount of cajoling/threatening/pleading seems to improve our internet service. We're kidding ourselves as a society if we truly think that the established private entities that rule the internet infrastructure are our best shot at a faster, more reliable internet.

MisterOctober 8y ago
Reading the above list made me feel genuinely queasy. I'm no stranger to the warped side of politics, but this is really just ugly from a "balance of public and private interest in governance" standpoint.
PaulHoule 8y ago
An awful thing you will find is that the vc funded folks, google, and "big tech" are not on our side. Somehow they think it is cool for China to break the neoliberal consensus and invest in infrastructure, but no way should there be competition for better internet or better airplanes here.
- utopcell 8y ago
  Didn't Google try to disrupt the market with Fiber ?
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    Considering the discrepancy between the resources available to Google and the results achieved, I think it's safe to say that was a half-hearted attempt at most. There is part of me that thinks the whole thing was a PR stunt.
  - kevingadd 8y ago
    If a billion-dollar company gives up after rolling out in that few cities, they weren't really trying. Hard to know what their goals were initially since it seems like it wasn't actually market disruption.
    - PaulHoule 8y ago
      I think they did create the "level set" that gigabit speeds were possible. In the short term they may have spurred more competition, but in the long term they've simply caused despair in everyone except for the incumbent ISPs.
    - utopcell 8y ago
      I interpreted that failure as Google being powerless against big ISPs.
      - kevingadd 8y ago
        It's really hard for me to believe that a company with a billion dollars couldn't buy their way to favorable laws. Everyone else does it.
        dnicjwbfic82 8y ago
        The fact that this is even a thing makes me sick. The american political system is royaly f'ed up.
        rayiner 8y ago
        Google negotiated extremely favorable terms with Fiber cities, much more favorable than the terms the incumbents received: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-att-want-kansas-city-to-give-them-google-fiber-style-deal https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-att-.... > As we’ve reported on in the past, Kansas City has rolled out the digital red carpet for Google: giving rights of way, prime office space, expedited permitting, fee waivers, and more. In a notable example, the city charged only $10 per pole for Google to string its cable on municipal utility poles—as opposed to the usual $18.95 per pole rate. But now, local incumbents Time Warner Cable and AT&T want to feel the love, too. It wouldn’t be fair to accuse Google if “buying” anything—it’s modus operandi was to approach second tier cities in low-cost states that would see fiber as a differentiating factor to help boost their economy. (That’s why they refused to deal with Boston, SF, or NYC.) Then Google gave them extremely aggressive terms, such as waiver of build-out requirements (the obligation to serve the whole city, even unprofitable areas) that are otherwise universal in such deals. And Google still couldn’t make the numbers work!
  - username223 8y ago
    I would say "cherry-pick" rather than "disrupt." They thought they could pick out a handful of the most profitable markets, then only deploy to those. Sadly, they failed to do even that.
- screye 8y ago
  I feel like big tech has realized that it is not a war worth fighting. All of the investment here is upfront. Ie. Laying down infrastructure and these cable companies hold greater political influence on the current government, one place where IT companies are particularly weak. It just doesn't make sense. There are easier and higher ROI problems that they would rather solve.
- KorematsuFred 8y ago
  Gobermint run internet would be worse than Comcast and ATT in USA.
  - jniedrauer 8y ago
    What do you base that on?
    - rayiner 8y ago
      The US is in the top 10 for global broadband speeds, according to Ookla and Akamai data. We’re not in the top 10 for any sort of government infrastructure (trains, roads, etc). Compare the US to say Germany or Sweden, and the only area of infrastructure where we can hold a candle is broadband. In the NYT article detailing why it costs NYC 7x as much money per mile to build subway than other countries, leaders of subway projects in London and Paris pointed out how inefficient MTA projects are compared to theirs. Why would you expect government run broadband in the US to be better when our other government run services are so much worse? Here in Maryland, our Comcast/Verizon duopoly is working pretty well. 60% of households have access to fiber. Most of the rest have access to gigabit cable, which in a few years will be symmetric gigabit. (I’ve got fiber from both Comcast and Verizon into my house.) Prices are comparable to Sweden or Switzerland for gigabit (places that also have high labor costs and don’t subsidize their fiber.) Municipal fiber fills the gap in rural areas. The one gap is Baltimore, where Verizon doesn’t have FiOS. Should Baltimore build a municipal fiber network? I don’t think so. Baltimore recently celebrated hitting 75% on-time performance on their subway. MARC had 75% on-time performance this summer. My Metro commute is slower and less reliable than it would’ve been in 1985. They literally had to slow down the trains and run them less often because they botched the maintenance so bad. (And these are well-funded systems. We’re a heavily urbanized blue state.) Why on earth would I want to put those same people in charge of my broadband?
      - jogjayr 8y ago
        > Here in Maryland, our Comcast/Verizon duopoly is working pretty well. 60% of households have access to fiber. Only 2 providers, especially in a heavily urbanized area, is not that many. How do your rates compare to other countries? > our other government run services are so much worse? Surely the answer is to improve the quality of government run services then, instead of accepting that the US is somehow intrinsically bad at providing them. In many cases, it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy: government services suck, so let's underfund/have low expectations of them, now they really do suck. For many functions government services are the only game in town, so it's in everyone's interest to have them be as efficient as possible.
yeahitslikethat 8y ago
Then are we kidding ourselves that capitalism is our best shot at a social system?
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  A lot of us think so. Assuming that uncoordinated market forces and powerful people seeking profit is the best way to care for human happiness comes off as absurd to a lot of people. I’m all for markets most of the time, but some good old fashioned coordination and cooperation seems lacking from bare capitalism. Luckily capitalism doesn’t prevent cooperation, we just need to get it in our heads to actually do it.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > Luckily capitalism doesn’t prevent cooperation, we just need to get it in our heads to actually do it. It effectively does, under enough competitive pressure. Incentives are stacked in such a way that for any attempt at coordination, it's profitable to be the one to defect. In fact, a big (if not the main) job of regulations is to enforce cooperation in situations where market guides people to defect.
    - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
      I don’t like using the government for these problems. I think private collectives could be very powerful here. If you have a collective of a few thousand members cooperating with another collective, the members would have to all choose profit over cooperation to defect. Our normal corporate structure with a tiny board of directors creates perverse incentives for the board to profit greatly at everyone else’s expense. Collectives can be designed without a board of directors, or the board can be better held accountable to the members. That means collectives are less likely to choose profit over public interest, because the voting members are the public much more so than the few members of some corporate board.
      - TeMPOraL 8y ago
notyourday 8y ago
> A multi-billion dollar software company literally cannot buy consistent internet access. Oh come on. If you are a billion dollar software company the solution is simple: order dark fiber to your offices and hire a dozen of network engineers to cover the entire US. Problem solved. If you only have a few locations, you would need only a couple of network engineers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
slg 8y ago
As someone who has been tangentially involved in this process in the past, what you describe seems super weird to me. Getting upgrades to business internet access is shockingly expensive when you are accustomed to purchasing consumer internet, but there has always been multiple companies willing to lay new cable for us at a price that is well within the budget of a multi-billion dollar company. As a general rule, most ISPs stink, but they still are businesses. It seems strange for them to literally refuse your money. Is your office in some remote location or is there some legal restriction that prevents one of these companies from doing the work at any price?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Indeed. I have never had a problem getting commercial gigabit fiber pulled when the business was willing to spend $20k-$50k up front and a few thousand a month. And at enterprise scale, those costs are minimal.
  - djhn 8y ago
    Am I misunderstanding American internet service completely, or is this as obscene as it sounds? I pay 40€ a month for a gigabit connection to my flat in 18th-19th century built neighbourhood. 25€ for unlimited 400 Mbit/s to my phone. Actual speeds match what is promised.
    - Jonnax 8y ago
      No. Your connection is not a business broadband connection. You pay that much to get guaranteed throughout and bandwidth at the max whenever. Guaranteed with an SLA. Your residential broadband is contented, you share a pipe with multiple households. Like with GPON passive optical, your connection to the exchange point may be shared with 32 homes and is a 2.5 Gbps downstream and 1.25 Gbps link.
    - swebs 8y ago
      You don't have a gigabit connection, your building does. You split the cost and bandwidth with all other residents.
tokyodude 8y ago
Why do you believe governments will do a better job? Seeing how well the SF government is at doing anything? Or the state of NYC public transit. Even worse, unlike say roads which probably last 15-20 years, tech will be obsolete in 5 and you expect the government to some how keep paying for upgrades? Also, it seems relatively hard to abuse electricity as it's billed by unit but I'm guessing you'd expect municipal broadband to somehow be unlimited access and still let everyone who wants to torrent movies all day long? Will there be a push for government to prevent undesirable content (ie, porn) from being transmitted on public networks? I'm not saying the system there today is good. The monopolies Time Warner / Spectrum have need to be fixed but it doesn't seem that municipal broadband is a better solution.

MisterOctober 8y ago

Reading the above list made me feel genuinely queasy. I'm no stranger to the warped side of politics, but this is really just ugly from a "balance of public and private interest in governance" standpoint.

PaulHoule 8y ago

An awful thing you will find is that the vc funded folks, google, and "big tech" are not on our side. Somehow they think it is cool for China to break the neoliberal consensus and invest in infrastructure, but no way should there be competition for better internet or better airplanes here.

utopcell 8y ago
Didn't Google try to disrupt the market with Fiber ?
- darkpuma 8y ago
  Considering the discrepancy between the resources available to Google and the results achieved, I think it's safe to say that was a half-hearted attempt at most. There is part of me that thinks the whole thing was a PR stunt.
- kevingadd 8y ago
  If a billion-dollar company gives up after rolling out in that few cities, they weren't really trying. Hard to know what their goals were initially since it seems like it wasn't actually market disruption.
  - PaulHoule 8y ago
    I think they did create the "level set" that gigabit speeds were possible. In the short term they may have spurred more competition, but in the long term they've simply caused despair in everyone except for the incumbent ISPs.
  - utopcell 8y ago
    I interpreted that failure as Google being powerless against big ISPs.
    - kevingadd 8y ago
      It's really hard for me to believe that a company with a billion dollars couldn't buy their way to favorable laws. Everyone else does it.
      - dnicjwbfic82 8y ago
        The fact that this is even a thing makes me sick. The american political system is royaly f'ed up.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        Google negotiated extremely favorable terms with Fiber cities, much more favorable than the terms the incumbents received: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-att-want-kansas-city-to-give-them-google-fiber-style-deal https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-att-.... > As we’ve reported on in the past, Kansas City has rolled out the digital red carpet for Google: giving rights of way, prime office space, expedited permitting, fee waivers, and more. In a notable example, the city charged only $10 per pole for Google to string its cable on municipal utility poles—as opposed to the usual $18.95 per pole rate. But now, local incumbents Time Warner Cable and AT&T want to feel the love, too. It wouldn’t be fair to accuse Google if “buying” anything—it’s modus operandi was to approach second tier cities in low-cost states that would see fiber as a differentiating factor to help boost their economy. (That’s why they refused to deal with Boston, SF, or NYC.) Then Google gave them extremely aggressive terms, such as waiver of build-out requirements (the obligation to serve the whole city, even unprofitable areas) that are otherwise universal in such deals. And Google still couldn’t make the numbers work!
- username223 8y ago
  I would say "cherry-pick" rather than "disrupt." They thought they could pick out a handful of the most profitable markets, then only deploy to those. Sadly, they failed to do even that.
screye 8y ago
I feel like big tech has realized that it is not a war worth fighting. All of the investment here is upfront. Ie. Laying down infrastructure and these cable companies hold greater political influence on the current government, one place where IT companies are particularly weak. It just doesn't make sense. There are easier and higher ROI problems that they would rather solve.
KorematsuFred 8y ago
Gobermint run internet would be worse than Comcast and ATT in USA.
- jniedrauer 8y ago
  What do you base that on?
  - rayiner 8y ago
    The US is in the top 10 for global broadband speeds, according to Ookla and Akamai data. We’re not in the top 10 for any sort of government infrastructure (trains, roads, etc). Compare the US to say Germany or Sweden, and the only area of infrastructure where we can hold a candle is broadband. In the NYT article detailing why it costs NYC 7x as much money per mile to build subway than other countries, leaders of subway projects in London and Paris pointed out how inefficient MTA projects are compared to theirs. Why would you expect government run broadband in the US to be better when our other government run services are so much worse? Here in Maryland, our Comcast/Verizon duopoly is working pretty well. 60% of households have access to fiber. Most of the rest have access to gigabit cable, which in a few years will be symmetric gigabit. (I’ve got fiber from both Comcast and Verizon into my house.) Prices are comparable to Sweden or Switzerland for gigabit (places that also have high labor costs and don’t subsidize their fiber.) Municipal fiber fills the gap in rural areas. The one gap is Baltimore, where Verizon doesn’t have FiOS. Should Baltimore build a municipal fiber network? I don’t think so. Baltimore recently celebrated hitting 75% on-time performance on their subway. MARC had 75% on-time performance this summer. My Metro commute is slower and less reliable than it would’ve been in 1985. They literally had to slow down the trains and run them less often because they botched the maintenance so bad. (And these are well-funded systems. We’re a heavily urbanized blue state.) Why on earth would I want to put those same people in charge of my broadband?
    - jogjayr 8y ago
      > Here in Maryland, our Comcast/Verizon duopoly is working pretty well. 60% of households have access to fiber. Only 2 providers, especially in a heavily urbanized area, is not that many. How do your rates compare to other countries? > our other government run services are so much worse? Surely the answer is to improve the quality of government run services then, instead of accepting that the US is somehow intrinsically bad at providing them. In many cases, it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy: government services suck, so let's underfund/have low expectations of them, now they really do suck. For many functions government services are the only game in town, so it's in everyone's interest to have them be as efficient as possible.

yeahitslikethat 8y ago

Then are we kidding ourselves that capitalism is our best shot at a social system?

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
A lot of us think so. Assuming that uncoordinated market forces and powerful people seeking profit is the best way to care for human happiness comes off as absurd to a lot of people. I’m all for markets most of the time, but some good old fashioned coordination and cooperation seems lacking from bare capitalism. Luckily capitalism doesn’t prevent cooperation, we just need to get it in our heads to actually do it.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > Luckily capitalism doesn’t prevent cooperation, we just need to get it in our heads to actually do it. It effectively does, under enough competitive pressure. Incentives are stacked in such a way that for any attempt at coordination, it's profitable to be the one to defect. In fact, a big (if not the main) job of regulations is to enforce cooperation in situations where market guides people to defect.
  - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
    I don’t like using the government for these problems. I think private collectives could be very powerful here. If you have a collective of a few thousand members cooperating with another collective, the members would have to all choose profit over cooperation to defect. Our normal corporate structure with a tiny board of directors creates perverse incentives for the board to profit greatly at everyone else’s expense. Collectives can be designed without a board of directors, or the board can be better held accountable to the members. That means collectives are less likely to choose profit over public interest, because the voting members are the public much more so than the few members of some corporate board.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago

notyourday 8y ago

> A multi-billion dollar software company literally cannot buy consistent internet access. Oh come on. If you are a billion dollar software company the solution is simple: order dark fiber to your offices and hire a dozen of network engineers to cover the entire US. Problem solved. If you only have a few locations, you would need only a couple of network engineers.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

slg 8y ago

As someone who has been tangentially involved in this process in the past, what you describe seems super weird to me. Getting upgrades to business internet access is shockingly expensive when you are accustomed to purchasing consumer internet, but there has always been multiple companies willing to lay new cable for us at a price that is well within the budget of a multi-billion dollar company. As a general rule, most ISPs stink, but they still are businesses. It seems strange for them to literally refuse your money. Is your office in some remote location or is there some legal restriction that prevents one of these companies from doing the work at any price?

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Indeed. I have never had a problem getting commercial gigabit fiber pulled when the business was willing to spend $20k-$50k up front and a few thousand a month. And at enterprise scale, those costs are minimal.
- djhn 8y ago
  Am I misunderstanding American internet service completely, or is this as obscene as it sounds? I pay 40€ a month for a gigabit connection to my flat in 18th-19th century built neighbourhood. 25€ for unlimited 400 Mbit/s to my phone. Actual speeds match what is promised.
  - Jonnax 8y ago
    No. Your connection is not a business broadband connection. You pay that much to get guaranteed throughout and bandwidth at the max whenever. Guaranteed with an SLA. Your residential broadband is contented, you share a pipe with multiple households. Like with GPON passive optical, your connection to the exchange point may be shared with 32 homes and is a 2.5 Gbps downstream and 1.25 Gbps link.
  - swebs 8y ago
    You don't have a gigabit connection, your building does. You split the cost and bandwidth with all other residents.

tokyodude 8y ago

Why do you believe governments will do a better job? Seeing how well the SF government is at doing anything? Or the state of NYC public transit. Even worse, unlike say roads which probably last 15-20 years, tech will be obsolete in 5 and you expect the government to some how keep paying for upgrades? Also, it seems relatively hard to abuse electricity as it's billed by unit but I'm guessing you'd expect municipal broadband to somehow be unlimited access and still let everyone who wants to torrent movies all day long? Will there be a push for government to prevent undesirable content (ie, porn) from being transmitted on public networks? I'm not saying the system there today is good. The monopolies Time Warner / Spectrum have need to be fixed but it doesn't seem that municipal broadband is a better solution.