4 ms·

I might be naive, but I would imagine that companies respond to incentives. So when they choose to upgrade networks in more prosperous neighborhoods, they proba

by bko 3y ago

I might be naive, but I would imagine that companies respond to incentives. So when they choose to upgrade networks in more prosperous neighborhoods, they probably estimate that the willingness to pay for such services is higher, or more sensitive to speed, or something else that means more money. And when a government says build X and we'll pay you Y, they consider alternatives and opportunity cost and do the most economical thing. If the state is unhappy with certain distributions they can try to change the economics, like giving vouchers. But overall the state has a bad history of trying to manipulate markets especially through dictate. If you look at everything through the lens of race you can say things like Versace is discriminating against certain groups by not placing their stores in their neighborhoods. It's just silly. Corporations can be stupid and discriminatory or smart and greedy. So I guess you have to choose which you believe it is.

wtallis 3y ago
I think ISPs mostly upgrade infrastructure when customer willingness to pay goes down, such as when Google Fiber or a similarly superior alternative comes to town. I'm having trouble thinking of instances when incumbent ISPs offered a substantial improvement to service or prices in response to positive incentives. Their main business model is sitting on the status quo for as long as money continues to flow in.
- kohbo 3y ago
  It's the same thing through a different lens. Customers willing to pay more for better service could be less willing to pay for standard service.
  - wtallis 3y ago
    When Google Fiber comes to town, it usually results in paying less for better service.
    - Spivak 3y ago
      The article agrees with you and it seems to be glossed over entirely in the comments. > We’ve also noted that when those big ISPs do finally deploy service, they tend to prioritize white, affluent neighborhoods — which generally see faster, cheaper, service than more diverse, poorer neighborhoods. Any argument that talks of following incentives needs to account for the fact that people with more money pay less.
grayhatter 3y ago
You cannot live a successful modern life without a number of things, power, clean running water, reasonable options for transportation, and I'll happily add high speed internet access. Comparing luxury things Versace to necessities of life is incredibly dishonest. There's plenty of space for a rational discussion about if LA County is behaving badly, but preventing people with power from taking advantage of, and abusive people without is the responsibility of a just society. High speed internet access is no longer a luxury. And ISP which have a much worse reputation for taking advantage, acting abusively to extract more profit, shouldn't get a pass on their generalized asshattery. PG&E's asshattery has led to fires, deaths, and entire towns being burned from the map. For profit utilities have proven that they indeed require assistance in acquiring alignment on their responsibilities to the communities they serve.
- gruez 3y ago
  >You cannot live a successful modern life without a number of things,[...] and I'll happily add high speed internet access Define "high speed". I understand that you need internet access to bank, interact with government, and receive education, but all these use cases don't require exceptionally fast internet. You can get 12Mb/s down with ADSL2 tech from the 2000s[1], which should be more than enough for essential use cases. True, it's probably not fast enough for multiple concurrent netflix/youtube streams, and updating steam games is going to be a slog, but those are arguably luxuries. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL#ADSL_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL#ADSL_standards
  - tremon 3y ago
    Why bring up ADSL2? It's not a long-distance protocol at all, you need to be within 2 miles of the exchange hub to reach that 12Mb/s that you quoted. That's probably fine for subscribers within the city limits, but for more rural areas it's hardly relevant. DOCSIS techniques (cable rather than telephone modems) had quoted distances of 20-50 miles IIRC (although I can't seem to find any authoritative figures on that, probably due to search engine deterioration).
    - 3y ago
lukeschlather 3y ago
This isn't about run-of-the-mill discrimination, this is about the companies receiving government money to build out broadband to areas and then just not doing it. The government should just claw back the money and impose fines on top of that but the regulatory agencies in charge are corrupt.
- gruez 3y ago
  >this is about the companies receiving government money to build out broadband to areas and then just not doing it. I see this repeated often, but I've seen very little in the way of details. What was the government program that gave ISPs money? Were there any strings attached?
  - mannyv 3y ago
    The FCC has spent tons of money on rural and underserved broadband. Search and ye shall find. Imo it was ridiculous that spacex got dinged in the program. Plenty of pigs at the trough have been promising and not delivering. Starlink has been delivering yet wasn't good enough...go figure.
    - inemesitaffia 3y ago
      SpaceX messed up their application
    - gruez 3y ago
      > The FCC has spent tons of money on rural and underserved broadband. Search and ye shall find. I did a search for "fcc rural broadband funding" and all that showed up was a bunch of programs from the post-pandemic era, and those have specific targets attached. Moreover, the programs in question are only a few years old so it seems a bit premature to conclude that the ISPs are not building out broadband. Finally this meme predates the pandemic by years, so I'm still at a loss as to whether the claim of "FCC gave a bunch of money to ISPs and they didn't do anything with it" is actually true or not.
      - 3y ago
yongjik 3y ago
> If the state is unhappy with certain distributions they can try to change the economics, like giving vouchers. That voucher is still being paid out of our tax. Either way, somebody's got to pay. The government saying "You can provide service at any rate, but you have to give the same rate to this whole area" sounds like a much more market-friendly solution to me. Providers can still compete and try to bring the cost down, they just can't do it in a way that leaves poorer part of the city unconnected. If you're against regulations because you don't trust government, consider what happens when the government gets to decide who receives vouchers, how much they are worth, and what services they are good for.
FireBeyond 3y ago
Said corporations should probably cease taking subsidies, then, no? Rather than taking the subsidies to build X, and then not doing so, anyway.
Wytwwww 3y ago
> But overall the state has a bad history of trying to manipulate markets especially through dictate. If the market is competitive and the cost is excessive then yes. If it's an oligopoly/local monopoly and the providers can charge as much as they want that just means there will be slightly less surplus left for the shareholders and management.

by bko 3y ago

wtallis 3y ago

I think ISPs mostly upgrade infrastructure when customer willingness to pay goes down, such as when Google Fiber or a similarly superior alternative comes to town. I'm having trouble thinking of instances when incumbent ISPs offered a substantial improvement to service or prices in response to positive incentives. Their main business model is sitting on the status quo for as long as money continues to flow in.

kohbo 3y ago
It's the same thing through a different lens. Customers willing to pay more for better service could be less willing to pay for standard service.
- wtallis 3y ago
  When Google Fiber comes to town, it usually results in paying less for better service.
  - Spivak 3y ago
    The article agrees with you and it seems to be glossed over entirely in the comments. > We’ve also noted that when those big ISPs do finally deploy service, they tend to prioritize white, affluent neighborhoods — which generally see faster, cheaper, service than more diverse, poorer neighborhoods. Any argument that talks of following incentives needs to account for the fact that people with more money pay less.

grayhatter 3y ago

You cannot live a successful modern life without a number of things, power, clean running water, reasonable options for transportation, and I'll happily add high speed internet access. Comparing luxury things Versace to necessities of life is incredibly dishonest. There's plenty of space for a rational discussion about if LA County is behaving badly, but preventing people with power from taking advantage of, and abusive people without is the responsibility of a just society. High speed internet access is no longer a luxury. And ISP which have a much worse reputation for taking advantage, acting abusively to extract more profit, shouldn't get a pass on their generalized asshattery. PG&E's asshattery has led to fires, deaths, and entire towns being burned from the map. For profit utilities have proven that they indeed require assistance in acquiring alignment on their responsibilities to the communities they serve.

gruez 3y ago
>You cannot live a successful modern life without a number of things,[...] and I'll happily add high speed internet access Define "high speed". I understand that you need internet access to bank, interact with government, and receive education, but all these use cases don't require exceptionally fast internet. You can get 12Mb/s down with ADSL2 tech from the 2000s[1], which should be more than enough for essential use cases. True, it's probably not fast enough for multiple concurrent netflix/youtube streams, and updating steam games is going to be a slog, but those are arguably luxuries. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL#ADSL_standards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADSL#ADSL_standards
- tremon 3y ago
  Why bring up ADSL2? It's not a long-distance protocol at all, you need to be within 2 miles of the exchange hub to reach that 12Mb/s that you quoted. That's probably fine for subscribers within the city limits, but for more rural areas it's hardly relevant. DOCSIS techniques (cable rather than telephone modems) had quoted distances of 20-50 miles IIRC (although I can't seem to find any authoritative figures on that, probably due to search engine deterioration).
  - 3y ago

lukeschlather 3y ago

This isn't about run-of-the-mill discrimination, this is about the companies receiving government money to build out broadband to areas and then just not doing it. The government should just claw back the money and impose fines on top of that but the regulatory agencies in charge are corrupt.

gruez 3y ago
>this is about the companies receiving government money to build out broadband to areas and then just not doing it. I see this repeated often, but I've seen very little in the way of details. What was the government program that gave ISPs money? Were there any strings attached?
- mannyv 3y ago
  The FCC has spent tons of money on rural and underserved broadband. Search and ye shall find. Imo it was ridiculous that spacex got dinged in the program. Plenty of pigs at the trough have been promising and not delivering. Starlink has been delivering yet wasn't good enough...go figure.
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    SpaceX messed up their application
  - gruez 3y ago
    > The FCC has spent tons of money on rural and underserved broadband. Search and ye shall find. I did a search for "fcc rural broadband funding" and all that showed up was a bunch of programs from the post-pandemic era, and those have specific targets attached. Moreover, the programs in question are only a few years old so it seems a bit premature to conclude that the ISPs are not building out broadband. Finally this meme predates the pandemic by years, so I'm still at a loss as to whether the claim of "FCC gave a bunch of money to ISPs and they didn't do anything with it" is actually true or not.
    - 3y ago

yongjik 3y ago

> If the state is unhappy with certain distributions they can try to change the economics, like giving vouchers. That voucher is still being paid out of our tax. Either way, somebody's got to pay. The government saying "You can provide service at any rate, but you have to give the same rate to this whole area" sounds like a much more market-friendly solution to me. Providers can still compete and try to bring the cost down, they just can't do it in a way that leaves poorer part of the city unconnected. If you're against regulations because you don't trust government, consider what happens when the government gets to decide who receives vouchers, how much they are worth, and what services they are good for.

FireBeyond 3y ago

Said corporations should probably cease taking subsidies, then, no? Rather than taking the subsidies to build X, and then not doing so, anyway.

Wytwwww 3y ago

> But overall the state has a bad history of trying to manipulate markets especially through dictate. If the market is competitive and the cost is excessive then yes. If it's an oligopoly/local monopoly and the providers can charge as much as they want that just means there will be slightly less surplus left for the shareholders and management.