5 ms·
Competitor access to telco fiber would fix “net neutrality”
- thechut 14y agoThis is a good idea except for the part where big telco's have more lobbying power in congress than oil companies and this would never happen
- gojomo 14y agoSo 'net neutrality' regulations can somehow get around this lobbying power, but fixing the competitive dynamic can't? Both face the risk of being twisted to the incumbent's advantage, so why not shoot for the more comprehensive solution -- real competition -- rather than solidifying in place a duopoly with slow-moving rulemaking?
- lucian303 14y agoYes, and in my experience, they have no one in direct customer support that has heard of internet basics like DNS (Comcast), let alone how to keep up such essential network services. Well we know where the money from the overpriced, underpowered ISP bill is going to indeed.
- dfc 14y ago"telcos have more power than oil companies." This is demonstrably false. From opensecrets: Lobbying money by industry 1998-2012[1] Industry Total $ --------------------------------------------------- Pharmaceuticals/Health Products 2,505,357,767 Insurance 1,774,111,357 Electric Utilities 1,663,072,243 Business Associations 1,438,954,214 Computers/Internet 1,359,204,389 Oil & Gas 1,329,100,727 Education 1,159,377,327 Misc Manufacturing & Distributing 1,147,911,037 Hospitals/Nursing Homes 1,069,574,050 TV/Movies/Music 1,022,160,821 Civil Servants/Public Officials 1,014,054,831 Securities & Investment 980,371,025 Real Estate 975,927,683 Health Professionals 941,438,165 Air Transport 896,844,603 Misc Issues 773,377,869 Telephone Utilities 746,207,234 Automotive 732,207,809 Telecom Services & Equipment 701,829,850 Defense Aerospace 647,089,847 Lobbying money by industry 2012[2] (Telcos did not even make the list in 2012. Industry Total $ ------------------------------------------------- Pharmaceuticals/Health Products 180,048,744 Business Associations 121,893,383 Insurance 113,540,783 Electric Utilities 108,068,579 Oil & Gas 103,734,662 Computers/Internet 96,569,868 TV/Movies/Music 89,178,807 Misc Manufacturing & Distributing 79,921,881 Securities & Investment 74,038,412 Hospitals/Nursing Homes 68,677,679 Education 67,041,930 Air Transport 58,666,778 Health Professionals 57,991,637 Real Estate 55,517,526 Civil Servants/Public Officials 54,276,821 Health Services/HMOs 50,248,170 Commercial Banks 44,376,751 Automotive 42,835,629 Chemical & Related Manufacturing 42,435,792 Defense Aerospace 42,398,654 Lobbying money by industry 2011[3] Industry Total $ ------------------------------------------------- Pharmaceuticals/Health Products 241,462,770 Insurance 159,878,505 Oil & Gas 149,169,677 Electric Utilities 145,285,040 Computers/Internet 126,911,432 TV/Movies/Music 122,898,063 Misc Manufacturing & Distributing 118,668,254 Education 106,246,285 Business Associations 106,139,640 Securities & Investment 101,913,226 Hospitals/Nursing Homes 100,768,231 Civil Servants/Public Officials 83,236,247 Health Professionals 81,006,752 Air Transport 80,773,141 Health Services/HMOs 74,033,507 Real Estate 67,178,304 Automotive 61,776,786 Commercial Banks 61,376,654 Defense Aerospace 59,702,900 Telecom Services & Equipment 57,736,688 [1] https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=a&indexType=i https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=a&ind... [2] https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2012&indexType=i https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2012&... [3] https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2011&indexType=i https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2011&...
- nitrogen 14y agoYour list reports Computers/Internet as a separate category from Telecom Services & Equipment, and Computers/Internet beats out Oil & Gas on the 1998-2012 list. How much of Computers/Internet should be counted as Telecom?
- dfc 14y agoI would like to point out that it is not "my list." I do not want to mislead anyone, the data was compiled by openserets.org (hence the reference links). With that being said it is fairly easy to check and see what companies were included in the Computers and Internet category. The list for 2012 is quite long so I do not want to paste all the entries. Here are the links for 2012, 2011 and 2010 respectively: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B12&year=2012 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B12&... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B12&year=2011 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B12&... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B12&year=2010 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B12&... What companies do you think should be included in Telecom? How do they compare to the top 5 in Oil and Gas? Royal Dutch Shell $10,860,000 Exxon Mobil $9,870,000 Koch Industries $7,800,000 Chevron Corp $7,080,000 BP $6,860,000
- nitrogen 14y agoSorry, by "your" I meant "the list you quoted." Thanks for the links to the breakdowns; they succinctly answer my previous question: "very little."
- 001sky 14y agoIts not just in congress, but at the state and local level. The political ad-spend on TV and internet marketing is massive. Its a corrupt circle, not just a one-way deal. Thats why its so pernicious, unseemly, and to most unseen.
- lucian303 14y agoSad but true. America loves to fuck its citizens over, online and offline, for money. They broke Ma' Bell up into companies that have become monopolies in their own right. Cable was never actually regulated against monopoly (despite appearances to the contrary) and neither are new new children Bells (ATT and Verizon being high at the top of that list). Monopoly or duopoly or oligopoly. It's all the same. However, this is not a problem inherent to ISPs and telcos but across the whole American and world-wide economy. The next time you buy cereal, soda, water, etc. at a supermarket ask how many choices you have as far as actual, separate, competing companies making the product. And if you don't like the choices ... I suppose you can still grow your own. Good luck with that.
- javert 14y agoCable was never actually regulated against monopoly (despite appearances to the contrary) and neither are new new children Bells (ATT and Verizon being high at the top of that list). You've got it backwards. Cable and telephone companies were granted local monopolies all over America, which is why there is a legally enforced duopoly now all over the whole country. Monopolies only exist when created by regulation. By the way, to head off a common concern, by example: People who think Microsoft ever had a monopoly are using the word "monopoly" wrong. Consumers were always free to go a different way, or start a competitor (and many did). In fact, MS would probably be weaker today had regulation not forced it to improve its self-defeating business practices.
- jauer 14y agoExcept that there is no legally enforced duopoly. By and large the only legal restriction on building a network in the US are related to construction permits & zoning. Cable franchises restricted competition for wireline video delivery but that got tossed a few years back. If you would like to bury your own wires and use them to deliver Internet, you can. It is just like any other significant construction effort where the costs & paperwork may be daunting to some.
- javert 14y ago
- tzs 14y agoI recall watching a documentary that looked at internet access in various countries. The most interesting was the UK. Their approach is interesting and successful. Basically, the government forced local loop unbundling, so that the phone companies were required to lease space in their equipment centers to competing ISPs at fair prices and give them access to local loops to offer DSL and other services. Of course, the phone companies said this would be disastrous. Turns out it was not. A huge number of ISPs jumped in to compete in the DSL market, and the phone companies found they were making more money as landlords leasing out space for equipment than they had been making from running their own ISP business. On the consumer side of things, there was a big increase in choice, with ISPs jumping in to offer everything from serious power user plans and low latency plans for gamers to cheap plans for people who just use email. Amusingly, AT&T and Verizon from the US both wrote to British regulators when unbundling was under discussion and provided strong arguments in favor of it. However, when asked if the US should do something similar, they say it is bad for consumers. Ahh...found the documentary. It was an episode of the PBS series "Need to Know". The journalist who did the segment on broadband also writes for Engadget, and that segment of "Need to Know" and a text version of the story is available at Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/why-is-european-broadband-faster-and-cheaper-blame-the-governme/ http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/why-is-european-broadband...
- spindritf 14y ago> Basically, the government forced local loop unbundling, so that the phone companies were required to lease space in their equipment centers to competing ISPs at fair prices and give them access to local loops to offer DSL and other services. Similar idea was implemented in Poland. It mostly means that you can now get the same crappy DSL connection from a number of providers instead of the single (formerly national) telecom. The quality probably did increase a little, and it is fairly affordable but I don't know a single person who's genuinely happy with that sort of Internet access. Most live in suburbs or outright rural areas and have no choice (the other options are flaky mobile, or expensive and high-latency satellite link). Only real competition leads to improved quality. In large cities where you have properly separate providers -- cable companies, local area networks, mobile providers and the large telcos -- actually competing, you can get a decent TV package, phone with a local number, DVR, 10+MBit (and going as high as 120MBit) connection and maybe even mobile Internet dongle thrown in for ~$40.
- josh2600 14y agoThe common carriage laws are some of the most important laws for the future of this nation. One possible solution is public maintained networks which operators could use. Every carrier would be a virtual network overlaid on top of the public physical infrastructure. The problem with this, of course, is that some very large companies have spent quite a bit of money building out these networks and thus simply nationalizing them would be unfair. I contend that an amicable solution to this problem is a fund to help the top 100 metro areas build ubiquitous public backbones and sell access at an agreed upon (but fair) rate. In reality, there may be very little that any one can do to disrupt big telcos. It is simply a difficult and slow moving market. You'd need something like LightSquared to really have a lasting impact. Time will tell if they get their spectrum swap; here's hoping.
- cap10morgan 14y agoThere's a common fallacious argument in here: A. The corporations that have the most power in this industry have lobbied for and gotten a consumer-hostile regulatory regime. B. It's the government's fault that the regulations are less than ideal. Therefore the consumer would be best served by getting the government out of it. This is like saying, "The problem with being stranded in the desert is the lack of water. Therefore water is the problem. Therefore we should remove all the water from the desert."
- gizmo686 14y agoThe article is not arguing that we should remove government regulations. It is arguing that we should re-instate a particular regulation that has been shown to work for very similar systems (and would already apply if not for a specific exception).
- 001sky 14y agoThe answer needs to be proper regulation. not "de-regulation". the corruption and collusion of the regulatory process needs to be addressed head on. there is an interim step of "de-regulating" but that is to enable proper regulations to be put into place.
- pootch 14y agoTalk to the DSL providers who went out of business about competitive access.