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It's a fact of life that more people will want to consume data than a network can support. Is this actually true or is it just a matter of the isp not building

by 14 7y ago

It's a fact of life that more people will want to consume data than a network can support. Is this actually true or is it just a matter of the isp not building the needed infrastructure required? Because if it is just an infrastructure issue then I would question why they choose to not expand to a better service. Is it because they can get away with providing crappy service as many people only have a single choice of what isp is available in their area? I highly agree with your final statement and it’s true people just want to know what they can count on and not play the guessing game.

nerdponx 7y ago
It seems to be mostly true for most infrastructure (especially roadways), so it would be weird if it weren't true here.
crazygringo 7y ago
It's a matter of economics. An ISP could build the required infrastructure to support everyone's peak desired simultaneous usage... but then they'd probably have to quadruple (or worse) what people are paying for it just to break even, which the market wouldn't support, so they'd go out of business. The same way restaurants could invest in enough space to handle all demand for Friday nights and Valentine's Day... but would go out of business because they couldn't keep it full enough to pay the rent the rest of the week/year.
- plopz 7y ago
  Didn't we already give the ISPs money to upgrade their infrastructure? Something like $400 billion.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5...
  - rayiner 7y ago
    No we didn’t: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556. Even if that number wasn’t fictional, even by its own narrative it applies to money supposedly paid to telephone companies for fiber deployment. The gist of the argument is that by promising to build fiber, telephone companies got regulators to let them increase phone charges and depreciate phone infrastructure faster than otherwise would have been the case. That’s where the $400 billion comes from. These arguments are all based on the peculiarly of his telephone service was regulated before 1996 (and in the authors view the way it should have continued to be regulated—even though all of Western Europe went away from this sort of rate regulation around the same time the US did). That has nothing to do with cellular, which was always regulated under a totally different regime, and was built more than a decade after these events.
Balanceinfinity 7y ago
Basic laws of supply and demand state that when you charge a fixed price and permit unlimited usage at that price, usage will approach infinity (that is, when the marginal price is zero). Everyone with a fixed price, unlimited usage plan has no incentive at all to restrain use. The wireless carriers cannot provide infinite service (the bandwidth simply doesn't exist).
usrusr 7y ago
Take any public space. Now imagine it at it's peak density, when it is as crowded as it gets, maybe due to a once-a-decade event. Now imagine installing cells in sufficient density to avoid any oversubscription on that day. This density will never happen.

by 14 7y ago

nerdponx 7y ago

It seems to be mostly true for most infrastructure (especially roadways), so it would be weird if it weren't true here.

crazygringo 7y ago

It's a matter of economics. An ISP could build the required infrastructure to support everyone's peak desired simultaneous usage... but then they'd probably have to quadruple (or worse) what people are paying for it just to break even, which the market wouldn't support, so they'd go out of business. The same way restaurants could invest in enough space to handle all demand for Friday nights and Valentine's Day... but would go out of business because they couldn't keep it full enough to pay the rent the rest of the week/year.

plopz 7y ago
Didn't we already give the ISPs money to upgrade their infrastructure? Something like $400 billion.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-book-of-broken-promis_b_5...
- rayiner 7y ago
  No we didn’t: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556. Even if that number wasn’t fictional, even by its own narrative it applies to money supposedly paid to telephone companies for fiber deployment. The gist of the argument is that by promising to build fiber, telephone companies got regulators to let them increase phone charges and depreciate phone infrastructure faster than otherwise would have been the case. That’s where the $400 billion comes from. These arguments are all based on the peculiarly of his telephone service was regulated before 1996 (and in the authors view the way it should have continued to be regulated—even though all of Western Europe went away from this sort of rate regulation around the same time the US did). That has nothing to do with cellular, which was always regulated under a totally different regime, and was built more than a decade after these events.

Balanceinfinity 7y ago

Basic laws of supply and demand state that when you charge a fixed price and permit unlimited usage at that price, usage will approach infinity (that is, when the marginal price is zero). Everyone with a fixed price, unlimited usage plan has no incentive at all to restrain use. The wireless carriers cannot provide infinite service (the bandwidth simply doesn't exist).

usrusr 7y ago

Take any public space. Now imagine it at it's peak density, when it is as crowded as it gets, maybe due to a once-a-decade event. Now imagine installing cells in sufficient density to avoid any oversubscription on that day. This density will never happen.