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This seems... excessive. I'm all for cheaper internet, but why even bother with $15 at this point? Why not just make it free? Both companies and consumers are

This seems... excessive. I'm all for cheaper internet, but why even bother with $15 at this point? Why not just make it free? Both companies and consumers are going to be completely at the whim of regulators. If they start jiggering around with the means testing and or the completely arbitrary price point, I'm not confident the quality won't deteriorate or ISPs pull out of the state altogether.

MathMonkeyMan 3y ago
At this point, internet is like electricity. Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet. In my building in New York City, I have one option (cable via Spectrum), and the cheapest plan they offer is $80 per month. It recently got a lot faster, which is nice, but I'd happily pay $30/month instead for a small fraction of the bandwidth. But I can't. I wouldn't qualify for the hypothetical state enforced $15 option anyway.
- legitster 3y ago
  > Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet I've lived in over 15 different places in the US, and I have never, ever had more than 1 option for power provider.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    >> Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet >I've lived in over 15 different places in the US, and I have never, ever had more than 1 option for power provider. In NYC, Con Edison[0] delivers power to customers. It also generates power, but other power generation companies share their delivery infrastructure in NYC. As such, there are at least half a dozen folks I can buy my power from. But all of it is delivered by Con Edison -- which, by the way, charges more for delivery than it does for the power itself. This may well be different from other places in the US/world, but that's how it is here. N.B.: I too, have only two choices (spectrum and RCN) for broadband where I live, but (as I mentioned) at least half a dozen power providers. [0] https://www.coned.com/en https://www.coned.com/en Edit: Added the missing link
    - legitster 3y ago
      This seems like a specific feature to NYC.
      - mckn1ght 3y ago
        It was also possible when I lived in Boston, see for example: https://www.energyswitchma.gov/#/compare/2/1/02108// https://www.energyswitchma.gov/#/compare/2/1/02108//
      - jessriedel 3y ago
        In SF I have two power generation options and one delivery option. It’s stupid because one of the generation options is both cheaper and greener (I don’t know of any reason to prefer the other), and delivery is literally 3x the generation cost so it doesn’t matter much either way.
      - buzer 3y ago
        In bay area I can choose between PG&E and Silicon Valley Clean Energy for power. PG&E even handles the billing for SVCE. In Finland there was local monopoly for delivery and power could be bought from numerous companies. I just checked offers for my old place and I could choose between 250 different products, some from same companies (e.g. fixed term/permanent, guaranteed wind power, market rate). In there you would get separate bill from your power company rather than it being handled by the local delivery company.
      - throwaway290232 3y ago
        US Law often requires power generators to operate separately from distributors. Even when it's the same company, they have to operate as two separate businesses, and it's illegal for them to even mention certain information to each other as it's considered anti-competitive. The purpose is to allow the market to provide competition. This is not specific to NYC. An Introductory Guide to Electricity Markets regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: https://www.ferc.gov/introductory-guide-electricity-markets-regulated-federal-energy-regulatory-commission https://www.ferc.gov/introductory-guide-electricity-markets-... Deregulation and competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_United_States#Deregulation_and_competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_Unit...
  - illusive4080 3y ago
    In many places your delivery is fixed but you can choose who to buy the power from. It’s all mixed in the grid of course but they do buy proportionate power from the generation companies. It’s more common in gas service in my experience than in electric. Personally I have 10+ choices for gas supplier, 2 choices for buried internet (eg excluding Starlink, etc), and 1 choice for power (co-op)
- gruez 3y ago
  >At this point, internet is like electricity. Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet. "choices for power providers" in this context is probably the choice of the company that generates your electricity, not the company that delivers those electrons to your house. Given how the electricity grid works, the exact electrons you're getting might not even be related to the company you're supposedly buying power from. In this respect the electricity provider can't really be compared to an ISP.
  - mindslight 3y ago
    Electrons aren't being delivered. The drift velocity of electrons at typical currents is very low, alternating current all but guarantees they're not going anywhere anyway, and even if they did it would only be to the local distribution transformer.
- qaisjp 3y ago
  And Spectrum has interruptions all the time.
- tedmiston 3y ago
  > At this point, internet is like electricity. Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet. In my building in New York City, I have one option (cable via Spectrum), and the cheapest plan they offer is $80 per month. Why limit yourself to cable internet in 2024? Cellular home internet is widely available and fast. https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/cellular-home-internet-overview/ https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/cellular-home-internet-ov... https://www.usnews.com/360-reviews/services/internet-providers/best-5g-home-internet https://www.usnews.com/360-reviews/services/internet-provide... https://broadbandnow.com/5G/home-internet https://broadbandnow.com/5G/home-internet
internetter 3y ago
$15 is a fair price for 25mbit
- Glant 3y ago
  100mbps now https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/fcc-scraps-old-speed-benchmark-says-broadband-should-be-at-least-100mbps/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/fcc-scraps-old-s...
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  I agree. That's almost 1/10th what I pay.
- travoc 3y ago
  My guess is you've never had to provide network support for 10,000 households, with their busted up routers, virus-filled PCs, and the helpless people who own them.
- yxhuvud 3y ago
  It's roughly twice what I pay for 1gbit. So no, it is not fair.
- ngokevin 3y ago
  I'm at $25 for 500mbit fiber in LA
rconti 3y ago
Considering I pay $50 for 10 gig internet here in the US, I suspect those poor downtrodden ISPs can afford to add a small percentage of marginal customers at $15/mo and still at least break even on all of them.
- gruez 3y ago
  You paying $50 for 10 gig doesn't mean internet costs $5/gig to provide and you can give the poor broadband access for 13 cents. Most of the cost is fixed, $15 is uneconomical for any ISP in the US.
  - rconti 3y ago
    that was neither stated nor implied as you intuited by your "13 cents" vs my comment about $15 being break-even. Curious about a source for $15 being uneconomical. It's just a SWAG on my part that it's break-even, but if you can state that it's uneconomical for any ISP, I'd love to see it. And is that uneconomical to do for 100% of their subscribers? or even for a small share? As you know there's a difference between marginal cost per additional subscriber vs each subscriber's share of the total fixed costs.
- datascienced 3y ago
  $50 for 10g sounds dreamy awesome. I think in Australia that’d be US$3k at least.
Wowfunhappy 3y ago
> I'm all for cheaper internet, but why even bother with $15 at this point? Why not just make it free? If we were talking about 15¢ per month, I would ask the same question. But, like... $180 every year seems like a lot of money to me? For comparison, ad-free Netflix costs $15.50 per month. Youtube Premium is $14 per month. And while I haven't looked into the details, I keep hearing Mint Mobile podcast ads for a cell phone plan with unlimited data for $15 per month.
- craftkiller 3y ago
  That mint mobile $15/month offering is only for the first 3 months, after which your rate doubles to $30/month, and after 40GB in a month you will be throttled.

MathMonkeyMan 3y ago

At this point, internet is like electricity. Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet. In my building in New York City, I have one option (cable via Spectrum), and the cheapest plan they offer is $80 per month. It recently got a lot faster, which is nice, but I'd happily pay $30/month instead for a small fraction of the bandwidth. But I can't. I wouldn't qualify for the hypothetical state enforced $15 option anyway.

legitster 3y ago
> Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet I've lived in over 15 different places in the US, and I have never, ever had more than 1 option for power provider.
- nobody9999 3y ago
  >> Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet >I've lived in over 15 different places in the US, and I have never, ever had more than 1 option for power provider. In NYC, Con Edison[0] delivers power to customers. It also generates power, but other power generation companies share their delivery infrastructure in NYC. As such, there are at least half a dozen folks I can buy my power from. But all of it is delivered by Con Edison -- which, by the way, charges more for delivery than it does for the power itself. This may well be different from other places in the US/world, but that's how it is here. N.B.: I too, have only two choices (spectrum and RCN) for broadband where I live, but (as I mentioned) at least half a dozen power providers. [0] https://www.coned.com/en https://www.coned.com/en Edit: Added the missing link
  - legitster 3y ago
    This seems like a specific feature to NYC.
    - mckn1ght 3y ago
      It was also possible when I lived in Boston, see for example: https://www.energyswitchma.gov/#/compare/2/1/02108// https://www.energyswitchma.gov/#/compare/2/1/02108//
    - jessriedel 3y ago
      In SF I have two power generation options and one delivery option. It’s stupid because one of the generation options is both cheaper and greener (I don’t know of any reason to prefer the other), and delivery is literally 3x the generation cost so it doesn’t matter much either way.
    - buzer 3y ago
      In bay area I can choose between PG&E and Silicon Valley Clean Energy for power. PG&E even handles the billing for SVCE. In Finland there was local monopoly for delivery and power could be bought from numerous companies. I just checked offers for my old place and I could choose between 250 different products, some from same companies (e.g. fixed term/permanent, guaranteed wind power, market rate). In there you would get separate bill from your power company rather than it being handled by the local delivery company.
    - throwaway290232 3y ago
      US Law often requires power generators to operate separately from distributors. Even when it's the same company, they have to operate as two separate businesses, and it's illegal for them to even mention certain information to each other as it's considered anti-competitive. The purpose is to allow the market to provide competition. This is not specific to NYC. An Introductory Guide to Electricity Markets regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: https://www.ferc.gov/introductory-guide-electricity-markets-regulated-federal-energy-regulatory-commission https://www.ferc.gov/introductory-guide-electricity-markets-... Deregulation and competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_United_States#Deregulation_and_competition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_Unit...
- illusive4080 3y ago
  In many places your delivery is fixed but you can choose who to buy the power from. It’s all mixed in the grid of course but they do buy proportionate power from the generation companies. It’s more common in gas service in my experience than in electric. Personally I have 10+ choices for gas supplier, 2 choices for buried internet (eg excluding Starlink, etc), and 1 choice for power (co-op)
gruez 3y ago
>At this point, internet is like electricity. Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet. "choices for power providers" in this context is probably the choice of the company that generates your electricity, not the company that delivers those electrons to your house. Given how the electricity grid works, the exact electrons you're getting might not even be related to the company you're supposedly buying power from. In this respect the electricity provider can't really be compared to an ISP.
- mindslight 3y ago
  Electrons aren't being delivered. The drift velocity of electrons at typical currents is very low, alternating current all but guarantees they're not going anywhere anyway, and even if they did it would only be to the local distribution transformer.
qaisjp 3y ago
And Spectrum has interruptions all the time.
tedmiston 3y ago
> At this point, internet is like electricity. Except that I have more choices for power providers than I do for internet. In my building in New York City, I have one option (cable via Spectrum), and the cheapest plan they offer is $80 per month. Why limit yourself to cable internet in 2024? Cellular home internet is widely available and fast. https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/cellular-home-internet-overview/ https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/cellular-home-internet-ov... https://www.usnews.com/360-reviews/services/internet-providers/best-5g-home-internet https://www.usnews.com/360-reviews/services/internet-provide... https://broadbandnow.com/5G/home-internet https://broadbandnow.com/5G/home-internet

internetter 3y ago

$15 is a fair price for 25mbit

Glant 3y ago
100mbps now https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/fcc-scraps-old-speed-benchmark-says-broadband-should-be-at-least-100mbps/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/fcc-scraps-old-s...
HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
I agree. That's almost 1/10th what I pay.
travoc 3y ago
My guess is you've never had to provide network support for 10,000 households, with their busted up routers, virus-filled PCs, and the helpless people who own them.
yxhuvud 3y ago
It's roughly twice what I pay for 1gbit. So no, it is not fair.
ngokevin 3y ago
I'm at $25 for 500mbit fiber in LA

rconti 3y ago

Considering I pay $50 for 10 gig internet here in the US, I suspect those poor downtrodden ISPs can afford to add a small percentage of marginal customers at $15/mo and still at least break even on all of them.

gruez 3y ago
You paying $50 for 10 gig doesn't mean internet costs $5/gig to provide and you can give the poor broadband access for 13 cents. Most of the cost is fixed, $15 is uneconomical for any ISP in the US.
- rconti 3y ago
  that was neither stated nor implied as you intuited by your "13 cents" vs my comment about $15 being break-even. Curious about a source for $15 being uneconomical. It's just a SWAG on my part that it's break-even, but if you can state that it's uneconomical for any ISP, I'd love to see it. And is that uneconomical to do for 100% of their subscribers? or even for a small share? As you know there's a difference between marginal cost per additional subscriber vs each subscriber's share of the total fixed costs.
datascienced 3y ago
$50 for 10g sounds dreamy awesome. I think in Australia that’d be US$3k at least.

Wowfunhappy 3y ago

> I'm all for cheaper internet, but why even bother with $15 at this point? Why not just make it free? If we were talking about 15¢ per month, I would ask the same question. But, like... $180 every year seems like a lot of money to me? For comparison, ad-free Netflix costs $15.50 per month. Youtube Premium is $14 per month. And while I haven't looked into the details, I keep hearing Mint Mobile podcast ads for a cell phone plan with unlimited data for $15 per month.

craftkiller 3y ago
That mint mobile $15/month offering is only for the first 3 months, after which your rate doubles to $30/month, and after 40GB in a month you will be throttled.