9 ms·

Serious question here. Is this law more or less stating that the business gets no revenue back from local or state government? I have no issue with the argument

Serious question here. Is this law more or less stating that the business gets no revenue back from local or state government? I have no issue with the argument that internet service is a basic right but if that is the case, I would expect the government to either offer the service or pay a market/agreed price to cover the cost for low income users.

ceejayoz 3y ago
$15 probably does cover the costs of these plans. 25 megabit?
- infecto 3y ago
  I don't know what the costs are but my point is more that its setting price for a for-profit entity. It gets sticky because I don't know NY state law and perhaps these groups have lobbied for getting regions where you are unable to compete as n independent and with that defacto monopoly they should play by any additional rules. I would just assume that if you want to provide broadband service to low-income that the government would be making up for some of the lost revenue.
  - outofpaper 3y ago
    The government is letting you provide service using tax-payer fiber. That makes for a fair bit of profit. Take away the fiber n try operating an ISP. Oh I know there's StarLink but that's not going to giver everyone in a city broadband.
- toast0 3y ago
  25 mbps isn't much, but... $15/month probably doesn't cover any line to your house. A low cost landline was $10/month 10+ years ago, and usage was extra. I think that's an ok baseline for a connection that needs maintenance and service.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    I think there's also the factor that the US government has already paid ISPs for last mile installations several times now - the line to everyone's house has been paid for... if an ISP diverted that money into stock buy backs I'm sure they can explain that to the court and instead be found to have fraudulently expended that subsidy.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Some of that is one time cost, but you've got ongoing costs like pole maintenance and replacement, repairing breaks, trouble tickets, call centers, etc. I just don't think you can do that for $15/month, even if the capex of build out has already been paid for. Maaaybe if you had near 100% uptake, like landlines used to have. But no ISP is getting that. Most (certainly not all) people can choose between wired internet from a telco and a cable company, and 4g/5g is available in a lot of places, starlink in less dense places, and a lot of people don't need a separate home internet plan because the only networked device is their phone.
      - awad 3y ago
        My understanding is there are already federal incentives to get less dense areas wired, though I'm not up to speed on the state of that - a quick Google tells me that USDA has loan and grants for it but unclear how well funded that is and how that would impact economics at $15 and $20 a month. Given that more than half of the population of NY is in NYC and Long Island, I would imagine that there is enough density and economic diversity at least downstate to make this at minimum cost neutral though this is total conjecture. As an aside, I remember the days of companies partnering with CLECs taking advantage of rural connectivity loopholes to create free conference calling services by billing larger upstream carriers and splitting that revenue with service providers, which was pretty clever.
      - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
        I think $180/year/person would more than cover what little maintenance is needed in non-disaster situations. I've maybe made a few phone support calls over the last 1 or 2 decades of broadband service. That would add up to $1,800 – $3,600 for 5 or 10 minutes worth of work. If it's cheaper to build out their own fiber and not have these plans, that is an option these companies have, too.
- matt-p 3y ago
  25Mb doesn't cost any more or less to provide than say 500Mb in reality. If your last mile infrastructure supports those speeds then it supports those speeds. Even the cheapest router possible to buy will do 500Mb. This comes down to an argument about what "cost", it will cover the marginal cost of an additional subscriber sure (e.g additional customer support, sending a router out, taking a payment each month, 500GB/month across the backbone etc) but will not really be enough to payback the capital cost of the original fibre or coax rollout.
  - throw0101d 3y ago
    > 25Mb doesn't cost any more or less to provide than say 500Mb in reality. If your last mile infrastructure supports those speeds then it supports those speeds. Even the cheapest router possible to buy will do 500Mb. It can once you start adding up all the customers and worrying about 'upstream' connectivity. One thousand customers at 500Mb can potentially saturate a 400Gb link; one thousand at 25Gb cannot. One has to do capacity planning and average and worst case scenarios to worry about, especially at peak times.
    - matt-p 3y ago
      It's only slightly more peaky, and there is no more, or very little additional aggregate bandwidth used. I promise you if you've got 2 x 100G links out of an exchange you will not be able to visually tell from the traffic profile which is 5000 500Mb customers Vs 4000 25Mb customers and 1000 500Mb customers.
singlow 3y ago
I think the logic here is that the government has already subsidized them by granting privileges to use public infrastrucure that was built with tax dollars. There can only be so many wires running on the poles or under the streets so in return for that privilege, you have to provide this in return.
- infecto 3y ago
  Yeah I was thinking that might be the case as well and I can see that argument making sense too. This especially makes sense if they get assigned regions with zero competition. On the other hand these types of rules seem like they would be hard to perfect I would almost rather have municipal run internet.
  - throwaway48476 3y ago
    It would be nice if there was as much interest in making laying new fiber cheaper as there seems to be in shuffling pieces around via regulation.
- tshaddox 3y ago
  The term of art is "natural monopoly," and ISPs (at least landlines) are a textbook example.
- legitster 3y ago
  Governments already charge ISPs to use said infrastructure: https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/ad-hoc-commitee-survey-04242018.pdf https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/ad-hoc-commitee-surv... So for those poles running down the street in front of your house, ISPs are already paying ~$20 per pole per year. Places like NYC probably also take a cut of the revenue on top. In some regions, this is the primary gatekeeper against competition! It's really hard to argue that this is a subsidy - if anything it's the municipalities using the power of their natural monopoly.
  - BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
    > $20 per pole per year So low? That's approximately 0% of what the ISP makes from the homes served by that pole. I figured it would be more.
jballer 3y ago
> have no issue with the argument that internet service is a basic right I am curious how you would define “a right”?
- AndrewDucker 3y ago
  Something society says that you have to be allowed.
csomar 3y ago
My limited experience seeing how some of these deals play from the inside, it's usually some sort of a conflict or hostile take over; and the "poor"/"rights" argument is leveraged to attack the other party. This applies also to politicians buying votes and getting random companies to pay for it. It's easy when it's someone else money.

ceejayoz 3y ago

$15 probably does cover the costs of these plans. 25 megabit?

infecto 3y ago
I don't know what the costs are but my point is more that its setting price for a for-profit entity. It gets sticky because I don't know NY state law and perhaps these groups have lobbied for getting regions where you are unable to compete as n independent and with that defacto monopoly they should play by any additional rules. I would just assume that if you want to provide broadband service to low-income that the government would be making up for some of the lost revenue.
- outofpaper 3y ago
  The government is letting you provide service using tax-payer fiber. That makes for a fair bit of profit. Take away the fiber n try operating an ISP. Oh I know there's StarLink but that's not going to giver everyone in a city broadband.
toast0 3y ago
25 mbps isn't much, but... $15/month probably doesn't cover any line to your house. A low cost landline was $10/month 10+ years ago, and usage was extra. I think that's an ok baseline for a connection that needs maintenance and service.
- munk-a 3y ago
  I think there's also the factor that the US government has already paid ISPs for last mile installations several times now - the line to everyone's house has been paid for... if an ISP diverted that money into stock buy backs I'm sure they can explain that to the court and instead be found to have fraudulently expended that subsidy.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Some of that is one time cost, but you've got ongoing costs like pole maintenance and replacement, repairing breaks, trouble tickets, call centers, etc. I just don't think you can do that for $15/month, even if the capex of build out has already been paid for. Maaaybe if you had near 100% uptake, like landlines used to have. But no ISP is getting that. Most (certainly not all) people can choose between wired internet from a telco and a cable company, and 4g/5g is available in a lot of places, starlink in less dense places, and a lot of people don't need a separate home internet plan because the only networked device is their phone.
    - awad 3y ago
      My understanding is there are already federal incentives to get less dense areas wired, though I'm not up to speed on the state of that - a quick Google tells me that USDA has loan and grants for it but unclear how well funded that is and how that would impact economics at $15 and $20 a month. Given that more than half of the population of NY is in NYC and Long Island, I would imagine that there is enough density and economic diversity at least downstate to make this at minimum cost neutral though this is total conjecture. As an aside, I remember the days of companies partnering with CLECs taking advantage of rural connectivity loopholes to create free conference calling services by billing larger upstream carriers and splitting that revenue with service providers, which was pretty clever.
    - ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
      I think $180/year/person would more than cover what little maintenance is needed in non-disaster situations. I've maybe made a few phone support calls over the last 1 or 2 decades of broadband service. That would add up to $1,800 – $3,600 for 5 or 10 minutes worth of work. If it's cheaper to build out their own fiber and not have these plans, that is an option these companies have, too.
matt-p 3y ago
25Mb doesn't cost any more or less to provide than say 500Mb in reality. If your last mile infrastructure supports those speeds then it supports those speeds. Even the cheapest router possible to buy will do 500Mb. This comes down to an argument about what "cost", it will cover the marginal cost of an additional subscriber sure (e.g additional customer support, sending a router out, taking a payment each month, 500GB/month across the backbone etc) but will not really be enough to payback the capital cost of the original fibre or coax rollout.
- throw0101d 3y ago
  > 25Mb doesn't cost any more or less to provide than say 500Mb in reality. If your last mile infrastructure supports those speeds then it supports those speeds. Even the cheapest router possible to buy will do 500Mb. It can once you start adding up all the customers and worrying about 'upstream' connectivity. One thousand customers at 500Mb can potentially saturate a 400Gb link; one thousand at 25Gb cannot. One has to do capacity planning and average and worst case scenarios to worry about, especially at peak times.
  - matt-p 3y ago
    It's only slightly more peaky, and there is no more, or very little additional aggregate bandwidth used. I promise you if you've got 2 x 100G links out of an exchange you will not be able to visually tell from the traffic profile which is 5000 500Mb customers Vs 4000 25Mb customers and 1000 500Mb customers.

singlow 3y ago

I think the logic here is that the government has already subsidized them by granting privileges to use public infrastrucure that was built with tax dollars. There can only be so many wires running on the poles or under the streets so in return for that privilege, you have to provide this in return.

infecto 3y ago
Yeah I was thinking that might be the case as well and I can see that argument making sense too. This especially makes sense if they get assigned regions with zero competition. On the other hand these types of rules seem like they would be hard to perfect I would almost rather have municipal run internet.
- throwaway48476 3y ago
  It would be nice if there was as much interest in making laying new fiber cheaper as there seems to be in shuffling pieces around via regulation.
tshaddox 3y ago
The term of art is "natural monopoly," and ISPs (at least landlines) are a textbook example.
legitster 3y ago
Governments already charge ISPs to use said infrastructure: https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/ad-hoc-commitee-survey-04242018.pdf https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/ad-hoc-commitee-surv... So for those poles running down the street in front of your house, ISPs are already paying ~$20 per pole per year. Places like NYC probably also take a cut of the revenue on top. In some regions, this is the primary gatekeeper against competition! It's really hard to argue that this is a subsidy - if anything it's the municipalities using the power of their natural monopoly.
- BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
  > $20 per pole per year So low? That's approximately 0% of what the ISP makes from the homes served by that pole. I figured it would be more.

jballer 3y ago

> have no issue with the argument that internet service is a basic right I am curious how you would define “a right”?

AndrewDucker 3y ago
Something society says that you have to be allowed.

csomar 3y ago

My limited experience seeing how some of these deals play from the inside, it's usually some sort of a conflict or hostile take over; and the "poor"/"rights" argument is leveraged to attack the other party. This applies also to politicians buying votes and getting random companies to pay for it. It's easy when it's someone else money.