4 ms·

The US should do what it does for gas mileage (CAFE Rules). A national roadmap for bandwidth speed (and latency).

AnthonyMouse 14y ago
This is actually not a bad idea. Or something similar but maybe even better: Set up a cross-ISP subsidy program. Whoever has the fastest connections in the country receives a subsidy and whoever has the slowest connections has to pay it. Don't even put bandwidth numbers in -- just rank them all by the speed of the unmetered connections they offer for less than $80/month, then the slowest 33% pays a substantial tax to subsidize the fastest 33%. Presto, instant competition to be the fastest, even though they're all in different geographic areas.
- rayiner 14y ago
  That makes absolutely no sense. What would happen is that urban ISP's would win immediately, and then rural ISP's would be stuck basically cementing that lead in place by subsidizing the leaders' capital expenditures.
  - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
    You're first assuming that there is such a thing as a rural or urban ISP. Have you seen the coverage map for AT&T or Comcast? They're all over the map. But more than that, there is no reason to think that building a high speed network in a rural area would be impossible rather than merely expensive. So all they have to do is to do it first and they'll be the ones receiving the subsidy. And actually digging the hole in the ground is what costs a lot in rural areas, the terminating equipment doesn't cost anything more just because the wires are longer. So they install fiber to the home once and having paid that cost, the future upgrade costs become equalized with urban areas because all future upgrades come from upgrading the terminating equipment rather than having to put any new wires in the ground. And if we ever want to have fiber in rural areas then that has to happen eventually anyway, so why put it off? And, even if you're right, the result is still for urban ISPs to compete with each other to be the fastest and for rural ISPs to compete with each other to not be the slowest. The losers of that competition then have less profit for their shareholders -- or, if they lose very badly, their network is auctioned off to someone with more capital who can make the necessary upgrades. I am not seeing how we can lose here unless "we" are greedy telco shareholders who don't want to pay for upgrades.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      One fiber run to a high rise in Chicago hits as many customers as wiring up an entire town in rural Illinois. The idea that ISP's that serve less populated areas could somehow beat ISP's that serve mostly urban areas is completely ridiculous. What would happen is that the urban ISP's would win the race, and the ISP's with low density service areas would just go out of business perpetually paying the subsidy. It's like trying to incentivize competition in baseball by requiring losing teams to subsidize winning ones. Basically everyone would just be paying to make the Yankee's roster even more iron clad than it is now.
      - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
        You're just making the argument that the amount of the cross-subsidy would have to be calibrated so that the losers are not bankrupted by it. We care about fairness in baseball because it's a game. Why do we care so much about it if this succeeds in getting the highrises in Chicago gigabit fiber, when up to this point we haven't been able to? And let's go with it say you're right. Why can't we just create two or three classes of ISPs (like "cars" and "light trucks" for CAFE) based on their coverage density, so that rural and urban ISPs only compete with other rural and urban ISPs respectively?
        rayiner 14y ago
        It's not a matter of fairness it's basic financial calculus. Internet speed is completely a function of capital expenditure. If you take the slower ISP's and siphon away money from them to give to faster ISP's, they'll never have any hope of catching up. At that point, the leading ISP's can just sit om their duff, because the other ISP's are basically paying to cement them in the lead. This is true even if you separate rural and urban ISP's. Verizon has a great network in the DC area. If they win, then say a Houston ISP subsidizes them. At that point they have zero incentive to improve. Moreover, people in Houston are stuck with even worse service, because money that might be spent on capital expenditures in Houston are going to pad Verizon's profits in DC. You're overly focused on the incentive part of the equation and ignoring the underlying market dynamics.

This is actually not a bad idea. Or something similar but maybe even better: Set up a cross-ISP subsidy program. Whoever has the fastest connections in the country receives a subsidy and whoever has the slowest connections has to pay it. Don't even put bandwidth numbers in -- just rank them all by the speed of the unmetered connections they offer for less than $80/month, then the slowest 33% pays a substantial tax to subsidize the fastest 33%. Presto, instant competition to be the fastest, even though they're all in different geographic areas.

rayiner 14y ago
That makes absolutely no sense. What would happen is that urban ISP's would win immediately, and then rural ISP's would be stuck basically cementing that lead in place by subsidizing the leaders' capital expenditures.
- AnthonyMouse 14y ago
  You're first assuming that there is such a thing as a rural or urban ISP. Have you seen the coverage map for AT&T or Comcast? They're all over the map. But more than that, there is no reason to think that building a high speed network in a rural area would be impossible rather than merely expensive. So all they have to do is to do it first and they'll be the ones receiving the subsidy. And actually digging the hole in the ground is what costs a lot in rural areas, the terminating equipment doesn't cost anything more just because the wires are longer. So they install fiber to the home once and having paid that cost, the future upgrade costs become equalized with urban areas because all future upgrades come from upgrading the terminating equipment rather than having to put any new wires in the ground. And if we ever want to have fiber in rural areas then that has to happen eventually anyway, so why put it off? And, even if you're right, the result is still for urban ISPs to compete with each other to be the fastest and for rural ISPs to compete with each other to not be the slowest. The losers of that competition then have less profit for their shareholders -- or, if they lose very badly, their network is auctioned off to someone with more capital who can make the necessary upgrades. I am not seeing how we can lose here unless "we" are greedy telco shareholders who don't want to pay for upgrades.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    One fiber run to a high rise in Chicago hits as many customers as wiring up an entire town in rural Illinois. The idea that ISP's that serve less populated areas could somehow beat ISP's that serve mostly urban areas is completely ridiculous. What would happen is that the urban ISP's would win the race, and the ISP's with low density service areas would just go out of business perpetually paying the subsidy. It's like trying to incentivize competition in baseball by requiring losing teams to subsidize winning ones. Basically everyone would just be paying to make the Yankee's roster even more iron clad than it is now.
    - AnthonyMouse 14y ago
      You're just making the argument that the amount of the cross-subsidy would have to be calibrated so that the losers are not bankrupted by it. We care about fairness in baseball because it's a game. Why do we care so much about it if this succeeds in getting the highrises in Chicago gigabit fiber, when up to this point we haven't been able to? And let's go with it say you're right. Why can't we just create two or three classes of ISPs (like "cars" and "light trucks" for CAFE) based on their coverage density, so that rural and urban ISPs only compete with other rural and urban ISPs respectively?
      - rayiner 14y ago
        It's not a matter of fairness it's basic financial calculus. Internet speed is completely a function of capital expenditure. If you take the slower ISP's and siphon away money from them to give to faster ISP's, they'll never have any hope of catching up. At that point, the leading ISP's can just sit om their duff, because the other ISP's are basically paying to cement them in the lead. This is true even if you separate rural and urban ISP's. Verizon has a great network in the DC area. If they win, then say a Houston ISP subsidizes them. At that point they have zero incentive to improve. Moreover, people in Houston are stuck with even worse service, because money that might be spent on capital expenditures in Houston are going to pad Verizon's profits in DC. You're overly focused on the incentive part of the equation and ignoring the underlying market dynamics.