7 ms·

Classifying ISPs as the utility companies they are is the only way to end the gouging and systematic fraud.

wpietri 6y ago
Yup. I'd love to see some sort of automatic regulation for situations of market failure. E.g., If the 2 largest players in a market have more than an 80% market share, the presumption should be regulation. In SF, I have multiple ISP options. I get gigabit fiber for $40/month and no nonsense. But my girlfriend lives in an area with Comcast only, where the price is much higher, the service is much worse, and they had loaded her bill down with absurd equipment rental charges. When sufficient competition doesn't exist, we shouldn't just abandon people to predatory companies.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  In general, I agree, though I think I'd also include some consideration of size or barriers to entry. As an example, photomultiplier tubes are used to detect very small amounts of light, down to a few photons. They are primarily produced by Hamamatsu, which has about 90% market share for PMTs. And they are ridiculously reliable, used in detectors that last for decades. Even without competition in PMTs, they make good products. It's a very small market, and doesn't have room for much competition, so I don't think that market share alone can be the sole determinant. That said, if the quality were to drop, if they were to engage in anticompetitive behavior, if they were to provide tools to subvert an election, if they were to repeatedly buy out competitors, or any combination of the above, I would drop them in a heartbeat.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    In that case, I think there's not a lot a regulator has to do. But I think it's still appropriate to have a regulator tracking the space, so that they can quickly respond to the sorts of declines you discuss.
- tesmar2 6y ago
  > the presumption should be regulation. No. The presumption should be making it easy to enable competition, which the current rules don't do. Make it easy for Google to come in and lay fiber on their own dime.
  - _underfl0w_ 6y ago
    Am I the only one that would be apprehensive about Big-G's fiber for privacy reasons?
    - tesmar2 6y ago
      No, lol. I don't think I'd want it either. But it's a moot point, currently.
- tw25485966 6y ago
  >I'd love to see some sort of automatic regulation for situations of market failure. Why do you assume "market failure", and not "regulatory capture"? > the presumption should be regulation Can we first get rid of the extant anti-competitive regulations that create and maintain monopolies? > But my girlfriend lives in an area with Comcast only Have you looked into what's stopping a would-be competing ISP?
tesmar2 6y ago
Instead of such an overreach, we should go the other direction towards a freer market. We should get rid of the red tape that lets these cable companies hold a monopoly so that companies like Google can come in and lay fiber at their own expense if they so desire.
- ianwalter 6y ago
  Implying "red tape" is the only barrier to entry is a pretty big oversimplification. Also calling it an "overreach" without any justification for that characterization doesn't help anyone.
  - tesmar2 6y ago
    I never said it was the only barrier, but it is far and away the primary barrier. Google was laying fiber in many cities but the regulatory burden was quite stifling. As far as justification, it goes the other way around. If you want to interfere in the free market, you need to provide good justification that this problem is not being created by the regulatory environment already. 99.9% of the time, it is.
  - tw25485966 6y ago
    He didn't claim it was the only barrier to entry. To extend his point, "red tape" isn't the only regulation-related problem. Don't forget that in many local governments gave monopoly grants to select ISPs. Then there's the "bootleggers and baptists" [1] effect, where well-meaning regulation has a larger anti-competitive effect benefiting extant firms, e.g., requiring would-be ISPs to also serve cost-prohibitive rural areas. Pretending that extant government regulation is the never the problem is just as bad as pretending it's the only problem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists
greggyb 6y ago
I've had the privilege to live for the last five years or so in locations with multiple options for ISP, each with a major cable provider and another ISP offering gigabit fiber to the home. Specifically, markets where both providers can offer high speed connections and you can realistically expect both to serve your residence. My experience is that even this minimal amount of competition absolutely cuts through the bullshit that you get from a monopoly provider. Classifying as utility companies may be one path to the end state we both desire, but lived experience proves it is not singularly so. Do note that in the US, the largest influence on the monopoly position of ISPs is not to do with any inherent property of the industry, but due to exclusive contracts/rights of way that local governments grant to ISPs. Obviously, the ISPs seek this sort of arrangement and lobby for it. The regulation that can help the ISP situation in the US may just as well be restrictions on municipalities as restrictions on ISPs.
- to11mtm 6y ago
  So true. Last year I had to deal with Comcast with regards to an identity theft. When I refused to jump through their extra hoops (I had provided them more than enough information to prove my claim, they wanted everything just short of a DNA Swab,) they told me that I would never be able to get service through them unless I kissed the ring. When I told them that I base my residency choices on being able to -not- have Comcast as a cable provider, their script rather obviously did not have a response to that based on where the conversation went after. They -expect- to be a a monopoly, and their internal policies already reflect that.
throw0101a 6y ago
> Classifying ISPs as the utility companies they are is the only way to end the gouging and systematic fraud. Separate the running of OSI Layer 1/2 from Layer 3: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network Some examples: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23734319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23734319 * https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-if-switching-fiber-isps-was-as-easy-as-clicking-a-mouse/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-...
- innocenat 6y ago
  I think Japan does that. NTT provide physical connection, but you also need a separated contract with ISP. The problem is that everything just become more complex and two side blaming each other when something go wrong.
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    > but you also need a separated contract with ISP. Which is unnecessary: only the 'retail' ISP should really need to talk to the 'wholesale' fibre provider. In fact, in the Ars example, on initial connection, if the fibre has no existing contract, you are sent to a landing page which lists all the available ISPs. Clicking on one (AFAICT) sends you to their order page where you enter your personal/billing information to sign up, and henceforth they are your Layer 3 ISP.
    - innocenat 6y ago
      And that would allow people to move ISP easily? In Japan, there are some ISP that bundle the contract (they deal with NTT (the fiber provider) themselves). In that case, if you are moving ISP, you need to re-do the entire contract, including another set-up fee for the fiber line.
      - throw0101a 6y ago
tw25485966 6y ago
> Classifying ISPs as the utility companies they are is the only way to end the gouging and systematic fraud. This would further entrench them as government-chartered monopolies. Heck, most of the current anti-competitive forces extend from either explicit government monopoly grants or regulatory capture. Or continue to beg the political process to solve the problems they created when they interfered with the market process. "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."
- II2II 6y ago
  > This would further entrench them as government-chartered monopolies. They are going to be entrenched as government-chartered monopolies any way you look at it. ISPs either need a right of way to lay cable or a license to use RF spectrum. Even if you could magically overcome those problems, or are willing to deal with the chaos of removing the applicable regulations, the Internet would become fragmented since the dominant players would freeze competition out of the market. (Recall the olden days of online service providers when everyone's network was independent of everyone else's, and even then it was only regulation of the telephone companies that allowed those service providers to exist.)
  - tw25485966 6y ago
    > ISPs either need a right of way to lay cable or a license to use RF spectrum. As I understand it, both of those can (and do) support multiple competing services. Further, regulation dealing with scarce (ostensibly government-owned) resources is significantly less anti-competitive than, say, regulation requiring all would-be ISPs to also serve cost-prohibitive rural areas. Look, I can appreciate the position that a government-granted public monopoly might be better for consumers than a government-granted private monopoly, but consumers might still be better served by removing those government-created barriers to competition. > the dominant players would freeze competition out of the market How do you imagine they would achieve that using only market forces? > it was only regulation of the telephone companies that allowed those service providers to exist I'm not grasping your argument. Perhaps unrelated to your point, but telephone service was (and largely still is) a government-granted monopoly. And there too, rather than removing those regulatory barriers to competition, the illusion of competition was created by adding more regulations.

Yup. I'd love to see some sort of automatic regulation for situations of market failure. E.g., If the 2 largest players in a market have more than an 80% market share, the presumption should be regulation. In SF, I have multiple ISP options. I get gigabit fiber for $40/month and no nonsense. But my girlfriend lives in an area with Comcast only, where the price is much higher, the service is much worse, and they had loaded her bill down with absurd equipment rental charges. When sufficient competition doesn't exist, we shouldn't just abandon people to predatory companies.

MereInterest 6y ago
In general, I agree, though I think I'd also include some consideration of size or barriers to entry. As an example, photomultiplier tubes are used to detect very small amounts of light, down to a few photons. They are primarily produced by Hamamatsu, which has about 90% market share for PMTs. And they are ridiculously reliable, used in detectors that last for decades. Even without competition in PMTs, they make good products. It's a very small market, and doesn't have room for much competition, so I don't think that market share alone can be the sole determinant. That said, if the quality were to drop, if they were to engage in anticompetitive behavior, if they were to provide tools to subvert an election, if they were to repeatedly buy out competitors, or any combination of the above, I would drop them in a heartbeat.
- wpietri 6y ago
  In that case, I think there's not a lot a regulator has to do. But I think it's still appropriate to have a regulator tracking the space, so that they can quickly respond to the sorts of declines you discuss.
tesmar2 6y ago
> the presumption should be regulation. No. The presumption should be making it easy to enable competition, which the current rules don't do. Make it easy for Google to come in and lay fiber on their own dime.
- _underfl0w_ 6y ago
  Am I the only one that would be apprehensive about Big-G's fiber for privacy reasons?
  - tesmar2 6y ago
    No, lol. I don't think I'd want it either. But it's a moot point, currently.
tw25485966 6y ago
>I'd love to see some sort of automatic regulation for situations of market failure. Why do you assume "market failure", and not "regulatory capture"? > the presumption should be regulation Can we first get rid of the extant anti-competitive regulations that create and maintain monopolies? > But my girlfriend lives in an area with Comcast only Have you looked into what's stopping a would-be competing ISP?

tesmar2 6y ago

Instead of such an overreach, we should go the other direction towards a freer market. We should get rid of the red tape that lets these cable companies hold a monopoly so that companies like Google can come in and lay fiber at their own expense if they so desire.

ianwalter 6y ago
Implying "red tape" is the only barrier to entry is a pretty big oversimplification. Also calling it an "overreach" without any justification for that characterization doesn't help anyone.
- tesmar2 6y ago
  I never said it was the only barrier, but it is far and away the primary barrier. Google was laying fiber in many cities but the regulatory burden was quite stifling. As far as justification, it goes the other way around. If you want to interfere in the free market, you need to provide good justification that this problem is not being created by the regulatory environment already. 99.9% of the time, it is.
- tw25485966 6y ago
  He didn't claim it was the only barrier to entry. To extend his point, "red tape" isn't the only regulation-related problem. Don't forget that in many local governments gave monopoly grants to select ISPs. Then there's the "bootleggers and baptists" [1] effect, where well-meaning regulation has a larger anti-competitive effect benefiting extant firms, e.g., requiring would-be ISPs to also serve cost-prohibitive rural areas. Pretending that extant government regulation is the never the problem is just as bad as pretending it's the only problem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootleggers_and_Baptists

greggyb 6y ago

I've had the privilege to live for the last five years or so in locations with multiple options for ISP, each with a major cable provider and another ISP offering gigabit fiber to the home. Specifically, markets where both providers can offer high speed connections and you can realistically expect both to serve your residence. My experience is that even this minimal amount of competition absolutely cuts through the bullshit that you get from a monopoly provider. Classifying as utility companies may be one path to the end state we both desire, but lived experience proves it is not singularly so. Do note that in the US, the largest influence on the monopoly position of ISPs is not to do with any inherent property of the industry, but due to exclusive contracts/rights of way that local governments grant to ISPs. Obviously, the ISPs seek this sort of arrangement and lobby for it. The regulation that can help the ISP situation in the US may just as well be restrictions on municipalities as restrictions on ISPs.

to11mtm 6y ago
So true. Last year I had to deal with Comcast with regards to an identity theft. When I refused to jump through their extra hoops (I had provided them more than enough information to prove my claim, they wanted everything just short of a DNA Swab,) they told me that I would never be able to get service through them unless I kissed the ring. When I told them that I base my residency choices on being able to -not- have Comcast as a cable provider, their script rather obviously did not have a response to that based on where the conversation went after. They -expect- to be a a monopoly, and their internal policies already reflect that.

throw0101a 6y ago

> Classifying ISPs as the utility companies they are is the only way to end the gouging and systematic fraud. Separate the running of OSI Layer 1/2 from Layer 3: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_broadband * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network Some examples: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23734319 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23734319 * https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-if-switching-fiber-isps-was-as-easy-as-clicking-a-mouse/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-...

innocenat 6y ago
I think Japan does that. NTT provide physical connection, but you also need a separated contract with ISP. The problem is that everything just become more complex and two side blaming each other when something go wrong.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > but you also need a separated contract with ISP. Which is unnecessary: only the 'retail' ISP should really need to talk to the 'wholesale' fibre provider. In fact, in the Ars example, on initial connection, if the fibre has no existing contract, you are sent to a landing page which lists all the available ISPs. Clicking on one (AFAICT) sends you to their order page where you enter your personal/billing information to sign up, and henceforth they are your Layer 3 ISP.
  - innocenat 6y ago
    And that would allow people to move ISP easily? In Japan, there are some ISP that bundle the contract (they deal with NTT (the fiber provider) themselves). In that case, if you are moving ISP, you need to re-do the entire contract, including another set-up fee for the fiber line.
    - throw0101a 6y ago

tw25485966 6y ago

> Classifying ISPs as the utility companies they are is the only way to end the gouging and systematic fraud. This would further entrench them as government-chartered monopolies. Heck, most of the current anti-competitive forces extend from either explicit government monopoly grants or regulatory capture. Or continue to beg the political process to solve the problems they created when they interfered with the market process. "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

II2II 6y ago
> This would further entrench them as government-chartered monopolies. They are going to be entrenched as government-chartered monopolies any way you look at it. ISPs either need a right of way to lay cable or a license to use RF spectrum. Even if you could magically overcome those problems, or are willing to deal with the chaos of removing the applicable regulations, the Internet would become fragmented since the dominant players would freeze competition out of the market. (Recall the olden days of online service providers when everyone's network was independent of everyone else's, and even then it was only regulation of the telephone companies that allowed those service providers to exist.)
- tw25485966 6y ago
  > ISPs either need a right of way to lay cable or a license to use RF spectrum. As I understand it, both of those can (and do) support multiple competing services. Further, regulation dealing with scarce (ostensibly government-owned) resources is significantly less anti-competitive than, say, regulation requiring all would-be ISPs to also serve cost-prohibitive rural areas. Look, I can appreciate the position that a government-granted public monopoly might be better for consumers than a government-granted private monopoly, but consumers might still be better served by removing those government-created barriers to competition. > the dominant players would freeze competition out of the market How do you imagine they would achieve that using only market forces? > it was only regulation of the telephone companies that allowed those service providers to exist I'm not grasping your argument. Perhaps unrelated to your point, but telephone service was (and largely still is) a government-granted monopoly. And there too, rather than removing those regulatory barriers to competition, the illusion of competition was created by adding more regulations.