5 ms·

Two words: Tacit Collusion And to all those libertarians here, no just market forces wont fix it, as in this case they are clearly broken. As long as the car

by ardit33 18y ago

Two words: Tacit Collusion And to all those libertarians here, no just market forces wont fix it, as in this case they are clearly broken. As long as the carriers have a lock on the data on your phone, and what applications you use on your phone. This is a classic examples where some gov. regulation is required, by: 1. Forcing prices down. 2. Or forcing carriers to allow users to use their prefered SMS provider EU has been using option 1., where it recently forced carriers to put caps on insanely "roaming data" pricing. (or better rip-off). The internet equivalent of this would be that your ISP forces you to use only one kind of push email that they provide. Kinda outrageous, no?

fallentimes 18y ago
I think the internet equivalent of the wireless industry as a whole (instead of just this situation, which you noted) would be the following: 1. Misleading pricing that never matches the advertised rates 2. Unexplained and unrefunded outages 3. Misleading services that have built in caps that aren't explicitly stated in company literature or advertising 4. For consumers, only able to choose between 1-4 providers, based on your location 5. Normal hold times of 30 to 60 minutes Oh wait, that's how the internet is if you're stuck with Comcast, RCN, et al in the States. It's almost uncanny how much the internet providers, wireless providers and the RIAA/Big Labels have in common including their share prices.
- time_management 18y ago
  Automatic bill payment is a great thing, especially for people who are busy and would miss payments if it didn't exist. However, it unfortunately allows companies to get away with a lot of crap, given that the majority of customers are no longer reading monthly bills and don't notice the fluctuations.
mseebach 18y ago
The market forces work just fine. It's just that there isn't a free market. If every mom and pop could set up a cellular service with a reasonable investment, there'd be a bunch of community providers, and prices would go down - just as we've been seeing with internet connections. But the spectrum is intensely regulated by authorities, frequencies are not just expensive, they are usually not available at all(:1) - because the authorities want to protect the investment of the early providers. Effectively, they made a deal that created a government sponsored monopoly, which, even if you can privately buy a share in it, is the opposite of free markets. 1: This is true for most of Europe, can't say for the US.
biohacker42 18y ago
Three words: High entry cost. As a libertarian, I blame regulation for that.
- ardit33 18y ago
  That's trivializing a not so simple problem. In a pure market, with no regulation whatsover, anybody could just stick an high power antena on it's roof, and bam, they have their own network. But, also spectrum is finite, especially on what we can use with the current technologies. If everybody puts it's own high powered antenas, it would just make everbody's service unsuable. And taking out your competitor, ment to just place a bigger antena. Also, high costs and barriers of entry don't just come b/c regulation. There is huge capital costs to build a infrastructure (towers, technology, etc.) Look at Wimax, (which has less regulations than cellular telephone) where two companies had to merge in order to make it feasable. What I would like, is option 2. The goverment makes sure there is fair competition for services, and where a carrier shouldn't lock your devices, and not allow you have your own apps and services in your phone. If you look a classical use of goverment regulation: Road traffic, traffic lights, rules etc. In the early days of the car, none existed, and it used to be every man for each own. Result was lots of accidents, traffic jams (deadlocks everywhere), making cities almost too chaotic. People driving without knowing how to really drive (accident rates where very high). Regulation brought some control to the chaos, where it made roads usable, traffic flowing, and make sure only people that know how to drive, drove. But, regulation can also go too far, but making things expensive, excessive tickets that serve only to make revenue to cities and states. etc. And yes, I have real life experience with this. I come from an ex-communist country, where twice in my life time goverment basically ceased to exist (once in 90-92, and once in 97). It was everybody on it's own, and it wasn't pretty. I remember my favorite TV channel went off air, b/c one their competitors decided to erect a bigger antena, and use the same band. Overegulation is bad, but under regulation is surely aweful. And I lived through it. Most of you probably just dream about it, and think it is cool, but it is not.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    Spectrum is finite. But consider that the "junk" spectrum was left unregulated, completely unregulated and pretty much every exciting wireless tech started in this unregulated junk spectrum. Obviously you're right too, we could come up with examples all day long, suffice it to say I think that a big part of texting costs is due to regulation driven high entry costs.
kingkongrevenge 18y ago
What market forces? Telecoms in the US comes in just behind medicine as the most heavily regulated and protected business.
- kingkongrevenge 18y ago
  Also, I just learned that 46% of a cell phone bill is taxes.
jmatt 18y ago
Ok I am admittedly one of the many libertarians that use NewsYC. I think ardit33 is being a little bit unfair. Not all libertarians necessarily want 8 year old crack dealers and the right to individually own nuclear weapons. There is something in between. There was a similar problem back in the early-mid 1990s with internet and broadband. The market of the time often charged per minute or per data transfered. Especially when stepping up to ISDN or a T1. Everyone said this was crazy and a total rip off. And that without government intervention the phone companies would just continue to rip everyone off forever. Then cable came along and provided some serious competition and now everything is changed. (Though if uptime is THAT important customers can still pay per bandwidth on a T1...) Internet worked itself out with the same high entry costs and regulation. Wireless will also work itself out. Government intervention may speed up the process, in this case, but that is (as others have pointed out) only because there is such regulation and high entry costs. I'm all for the senate putting some pressure on the industry. They should bring the issue to the public. But I don't know if this necessarily requires additional regulation. As for the phone companies screwing the customers - they will get what's coming. Just wait for there to be another option. Everyone will flood to this alternative and the phone companies will immediately adjust their business model and pricing to compete. And I imagine most people will be so bitter they'll abandon the telcos over issues such as this.
- anewaccountname 18y ago
  Talk all about the regulation and leave out the massive subsidies that were given to broadband providers to build out their networks...
  - jmatt 18y ago
    I also disagree with the subsidies... but I thought that was apparent. It's hypocritical to be against regulation and for subsidies. I don't know which subsidies you are referring to though. Since telcos, cable and wireless were/are all subsidized at different times to "build out their networks". Either way it's a good point. To me it's just proof that competition is more effective than government support. Even with the government subsidizing entrenched old technologies, the competition still wins out.

by ardit33 18y ago

fallentimes 18y ago

I think the internet equivalent of the wireless industry as a whole (instead of just this situation, which you noted) would be the following: 1. Misleading pricing that never matches the advertised rates 2. Unexplained and unrefunded outages 3. Misleading services that have built in caps that aren't explicitly stated in company literature or advertising 4. For consumers, only able to choose between 1-4 providers, based on your location 5. Normal hold times of 30 to 60 minutes Oh wait, that's how the internet is if you're stuck with Comcast, RCN, et al in the States. It's almost uncanny how much the internet providers, wireless providers and the RIAA/Big Labels have in common including their share prices.

time_management 18y ago
Automatic bill payment is a great thing, especially for people who are busy and would miss payments if it didn't exist. However, it unfortunately allows companies to get away with a lot of crap, given that the majority of customers are no longer reading monthly bills and don't notice the fluctuations.

mseebach 18y ago

The market forces work just fine. It's just that there isn't a free market. If every mom and pop could set up a cellular service with a reasonable investment, there'd be a bunch of community providers, and prices would go down - just as we've been seeing with internet connections. But the spectrum is intensely regulated by authorities, frequencies are not just expensive, they are usually not available at all(:1) - because the authorities want to protect the investment of the early providers. Effectively, they made a deal that created a government sponsored monopoly, which, even if you can privately buy a share in it, is the opposite of free markets. 1: This is true for most of Europe, can't say for the US.

biohacker42 18y ago

Three words: High entry cost. As a libertarian, I blame regulation for that.

ardit33 18y ago
That's trivializing a not so simple problem. In a pure market, with no regulation whatsover, anybody could just stick an high power antena on it's roof, and bam, they have their own network. But, also spectrum is finite, especially on what we can use with the current technologies. If everybody puts it's own high powered antenas, it would just make everbody's service unsuable. And taking out your competitor, ment to just place a bigger antena. Also, high costs and barriers of entry don't just come b/c regulation. There is huge capital costs to build a infrastructure (towers, technology, etc.) Look at Wimax, (which has less regulations than cellular telephone) where two companies had to merge in order to make it feasable. What I would like, is option 2. The goverment makes sure there is fair competition for services, and where a carrier shouldn't lock your devices, and not allow you have your own apps and services in your phone. If you look a classical use of goverment regulation: Road traffic, traffic lights, rules etc. In the early days of the car, none existed, and it used to be every man for each own. Result was lots of accidents, traffic jams (deadlocks everywhere), making cities almost too chaotic. People driving without knowing how to really drive (accident rates where very high). Regulation brought some control to the chaos, where it made roads usable, traffic flowing, and make sure only people that know how to drive, drove. But, regulation can also go too far, but making things expensive, excessive tickets that serve only to make revenue to cities and states. etc. And yes, I have real life experience with this. I come from an ex-communist country, where twice in my life time goverment basically ceased to exist (once in 90-92, and once in 97). It was everybody on it's own, and it wasn't pretty. I remember my favorite TV channel went off air, b/c one their competitors decided to erect a bigger antena, and use the same band. Overegulation is bad, but under regulation is surely aweful. And I lived through it. Most of you probably just dream about it, and think it is cool, but it is not.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  Spectrum is finite. But consider that the "junk" spectrum was left unregulated, completely unregulated and pretty much every exciting wireless tech started in this unregulated junk spectrum. Obviously you're right too, we could come up with examples all day long, suffice it to say I think that a big part of texting costs is due to regulation driven high entry costs.

kingkongrevenge 18y ago

What market forces? Telecoms in the US comes in just behind medicine as the most heavily regulated and protected business.

kingkongrevenge 18y ago
Also, I just learned that 46% of a cell phone bill is taxes.

jmatt 18y ago

Ok I am admittedly one of the many libertarians that use NewsYC. I think ardit33 is being a little bit unfair. Not all libertarians necessarily want 8 year old crack dealers and the right to individually own nuclear weapons. There is something in between. There was a similar problem back in the early-mid 1990s with internet and broadband. The market of the time often charged per minute or per data transfered. Especially when stepping up to ISDN or a T1. Everyone said this was crazy and a total rip off. And that without government intervention the phone companies would just continue to rip everyone off forever. Then cable came along and provided some serious competition and now everything is changed. (Though if uptime is THAT important customers can still pay per bandwidth on a T1...) Internet worked itself out with the same high entry costs and regulation. Wireless will also work itself out. Government intervention may speed up the process, in this case, but that is (as others have pointed out) only because there is such regulation and high entry costs. I'm all for the senate putting some pressure on the industry. They should bring the issue to the public. But I don't know if this necessarily requires additional regulation. As for the phone companies screwing the customers - they will get what's coming. Just wait for there to be another option. Everyone will flood to this alternative and the phone companies will immediately adjust their business model and pricing to compete. And I imagine most people will be so bitter they'll abandon the telcos over issues such as this.

anewaccountname 18y ago
Talk all about the regulation and leave out the massive subsidies that were given to broadband providers to build out their networks...
- jmatt 18y ago
  I also disagree with the subsidies... but I thought that was apparent. It's hypocritical to be against regulation and for subsidies. I don't know which subsidies you are referring to though. Since telcos, cable and wireless were/are all subsidized at different times to "build out their networks". Either way it's a good point. To me it's just proof that competition is more effective than government support. Even with the government subsidizing entrenched old technologies, the competition still wins out.