7 ms·

> "Click here to find Netflix Certified providers in your area." Followed by: "I'm sorry, there are no Netflix Certified providers in your area." When Comcas

> "Click here to find Netflix Certified providers in your area." Followed by: "I'm sorry, there are no Netflix Certified providers in your area." When Comcast is rated as one of the worst companies for customer satisfaction, customers aren't staying with them because they are ignorant when it comes to the alternatives. They are staying with them because there are no alternatives.

hayksaakian 13y ago
while this pessimistic perspective might be factual[1], those who do have a choice should be encouraged to switch. [1] 30% of Americans can't choose their ISP http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-americans-cant-choose-their-service-provider http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-...
- ZachPruckowski 13y ago
  A majority of the people who can pick ISPs (37% of the country) have only two choices. I'd bet in most cases those two choices are Comcast and Verizon. The odds you'll have a neutral ISP as an option are pretty tiny.
snambi 13y ago
It is absolutely true. Even in the middle of silicon valley for many houses comcast is the only viable option. In that regard, internet service is very similar to public utility like electricity, water, sewage and phone service. And it should be treated as such.
- rayiner 13y ago
  Do you actually know what kind of bad shape our electric, water, and sewage systems are in? In many cases, they consist of century old infrastructure with pipes leaching lead into water, sewage systems overflowing raw sewage into rivers, etc. Even with these companies being defacto monopolies in many places, they keep the infrastructure in far better condition and invest much more on upgrades than public utilities do. And I doubt you'd like the result if telecom infrastructure was upgraded on the timelines utilities operate under.
  - 001sky 13y ago
    This amusing anecdote belies a key fact: Comcast and other Cable Industry Groups proposed and lobbied for laws making municipal internet services <illegal>.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      How is that relevant to my point? If anything, it supports my point. Municipal utilities tend towards monopoly, because private entities can't compete with a universal government funded service. But what makes you think that these municipal broadband networks would be better maintained than our aging and deteriorating power, sewer, and water infrastructure? Humor me for a second and get past the fact that such a law would benefit cable companies. Is it a bad idea on its own merits? I don't think so. Municipal broadband would crowd out private investment in broadband. Given the state of other municipal infrastructure, there's a high probability it would be underfunded and low quality. Would that be a better state of affairs? Being stuck with an overloaded municipal system that never received enough funding because voters don't really care enough allocate a lot of money maintaining and upgrading it, that at the same time makes it impractical for private systems to operate? I don't think the solution is to allow municipalities to do more things that undermine competition. The solution is to deregulate at the state level. Force municipalities to make the kind of "hands off" deal Google demands in return for rolling out Google Fiber to any company willing to make the investment.
      - ynniv 13y ago
        Force municipalities to make the kind of "hands off" deal Google demands in return for rolling out Google Fiber to any company willing to make the investment. This is really foolish. A company that wants to be a monopoly will provide fantastic service, but a company that has succeeded in establishing a monopoly no longer has any motivation to treat you as anything other than property. Why would any rational citizen let their municipality make such a deal?
      - 001sky 13y ago
        This is a bizarre series of comments. (Q1) Regulators should encourage competition? True/False (Q2) All government services are monopolies? True/False. (Q3) All municipal services are either (utilities, monopolies)? True/False. These are all absurd formulations. Public Services are a thing. Some examples: Ex 1> My public library is an ISP. Ex 2> My public library is Tax Filing Center. Ex 3> My public library is a copyright depository. Ex 4> My public libary is a copy/fax location. Competitors: Ex1'> Comcast Ex2'> TurboTax Ex3'> Netflix Ex4'> Staples I don't think the solution is to allow municipalities to do more things that undermine competition. Again, this is absurd. Public services do not undermine competition by implication. This formulation is akin to saying: "a good competitor undermines competition by being good." Or, "a new competitor undermines the competition, by entering the competition."... Um, no. This is not to say single payer healthcare would not change the business/policy landscape in the USA. But to even suggest that any municipal provisioning of communications services (public radio, public TV, public internet access) would be aking to "single payer healthcare" in scale/scope/completeness etc is simpley a rhetorical exaggeration. I think its interesting to debate the pitfalls here, butnot with such extreme poles as a starting point. Limited scope incremental services are fine, IMHO. Feasible, cost-effective, and market & competition extending. And the existence of national parks does not make the government a "land monopolist" or what not. =D
- exelius 13y ago
  But I bet you want to keep your unlimited usage, right? Water, phone service and electricity are metered; sewage isn't because it's just too hard to measure. If you want to treat broadband as a utility, you have to pay for it as such. Which means metered billing, which I don't think anyone wants.
  - cmiles74 13y ago
    If metered billing wasn't simply an excuse to gouge me for money then I might be interested. As it is now, we're seeing metered usage tacked on to plans that were sold under the title of "unlimited". In that situation, it feels like the ISP is trying to work around increasing capacity by discouraging usage.
CoolGuySteve 13y ago
"I'm sorry, there are no Netflix Certified providers in your area." Seems like a natural place to put "click here to contact your state/federal representative" While I grant that cynisim is definitely warranted, at the end of the day, these companies have monopoly jurisdiction because we the people allow them to.
- logicchains 13y ago
  Because there are laws on the books explicitly preventing anyone else from competing with Comcast.
  - anologwintermut 13y ago
    http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-already-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-alr...
    - logicchains 13y ago
      Can anyone tell me what would be the problem with just having a law "no law is allowed to be passed preventing any individual or entity from providing broadband service to any other individual or entity"? And how said problem would be worse than the current dismal arrangements?
      - arg01 13y ago
        "Look I'm sorry mate but I'm just running this wire through your house to give your neighbor internet, if you don't let me you're in the wrong" "Sorry but we need to tear up this highway and disrupt traffic for the next couple of weeks to lay some fibre. I know someone else did the same thing last week but they were another company and it's illegal for the local government body to stop any of us laying stuff on public land when we want" Obviously that extreme is untenable. You may be after something a bit more useful like unbundling, but in the US you have to explain how forcing a private company to let competitors use it's cable is not outright stalinistic communism.

hayksaakian 13y ago

while this pessimistic perspective might be factual[1], those who do have a choice should be encouraged to switch. [1] 30% of Americans can't choose their ISP http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-americans-cant-choose-their-service-provider http://www.extremetech.com/internet/178465-woe-is-isp-30-of-...

ZachPruckowski 13y ago
A majority of the people who can pick ISPs (37% of the country) have only two choices. I'd bet in most cases those two choices are Comcast and Verizon. The odds you'll have a neutral ISP as an option are pretty tiny.

snambi 13y ago

It is absolutely true. Even in the middle of silicon valley for many houses comcast is the only viable option. In that regard, internet service is very similar to public utility like electricity, water, sewage and phone service. And it should be treated as such.

rayiner 13y ago
Do you actually know what kind of bad shape our electric, water, and sewage systems are in? In many cases, they consist of century old infrastructure with pipes leaching lead into water, sewage systems overflowing raw sewage into rivers, etc. Even with these companies being defacto monopolies in many places, they keep the infrastructure in far better condition and invest much more on upgrades than public utilities do. And I doubt you'd like the result if telecom infrastructure was upgraded on the timelines utilities operate under.
- 001sky 13y ago
  This amusing anecdote belies a key fact: Comcast and other Cable Industry Groups proposed and lobbied for laws making municipal internet services <illegal>.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    How is that relevant to my point? If anything, it supports my point. Municipal utilities tend towards monopoly, because private entities can't compete with a universal government funded service. But what makes you think that these municipal broadband networks would be better maintained than our aging and deteriorating power, sewer, and water infrastructure? Humor me for a second and get past the fact that such a law would benefit cable companies. Is it a bad idea on its own merits? I don't think so. Municipal broadband would crowd out private investment in broadband. Given the state of other municipal infrastructure, there's a high probability it would be underfunded and low quality. Would that be a better state of affairs? Being stuck with an overloaded municipal system that never received enough funding because voters don't really care enough allocate a lot of money maintaining and upgrading it, that at the same time makes it impractical for private systems to operate? I don't think the solution is to allow municipalities to do more things that undermine competition. The solution is to deregulate at the state level. Force municipalities to make the kind of "hands off" deal Google demands in return for rolling out Google Fiber to any company willing to make the investment.
    - ynniv 13y ago
      Force municipalities to make the kind of "hands off" deal Google demands in return for rolling out Google Fiber to any company willing to make the investment. This is really foolish. A company that wants to be a monopoly will provide fantastic service, but a company that has succeeded in establishing a monopoly no longer has any motivation to treat you as anything other than property. Why would any rational citizen let their municipality make such a deal?
    - 001sky 13y ago
      This is a bizarre series of comments. (Q1) Regulators should encourage competition? True/False (Q2) All government services are monopolies? True/False. (Q3) All municipal services are either (utilities, monopolies)? True/False. These are all absurd formulations. Public Services are a thing. Some examples: Ex 1> My public library is an ISP. Ex 2> My public library is Tax Filing Center. Ex 3> My public library is a copyright depository. Ex 4> My public libary is a copy/fax location. Competitors: Ex1'> Comcast Ex2'> TurboTax Ex3'> Netflix Ex4'> Staples I don't think the solution is to allow municipalities to do more things that undermine competition. Again, this is absurd. Public services do not undermine competition by implication. This formulation is akin to saying: "a good competitor undermines competition by being good." Or, "a new competitor undermines the competition, by entering the competition."... Um, no. This is not to say single payer healthcare would not change the business/policy landscape in the USA. But to even suggest that any municipal provisioning of communications services (public radio, public TV, public internet access) would be aking to "single payer healthcare" in scale/scope/completeness etc is simpley a rhetorical exaggeration. I think its interesting to debate the pitfalls here, butnot with such extreme poles as a starting point. Limited scope incremental services are fine, IMHO. Feasible, cost-effective, and market & competition extending. And the existence of national parks does not make the government a "land monopolist" or what not. =D
exelius 13y ago
But I bet you want to keep your unlimited usage, right? Water, phone service and electricity are metered; sewage isn't because it's just too hard to measure. If you want to treat broadband as a utility, you have to pay for it as such. Which means metered billing, which I don't think anyone wants.
- cmiles74 13y ago
  If metered billing wasn't simply an excuse to gouge me for money then I might be interested. As it is now, we're seeing metered usage tacked on to plans that were sold under the title of "unlimited". In that situation, it feels like the ISP is trying to work around increasing capacity by discouraging usage.

CoolGuySteve 13y ago

"I'm sorry, there are no Netflix Certified providers in your area." Seems like a natural place to put "click here to contact your state/federal representative" While I grant that cynisim is definitely warranted, at the end of the day, these companies have monopoly jurisdiction because we the people allow them to.

logicchains 13y ago
Because there are laws on the books explicitly preventing anyone else from competing with Comcast.
- anologwintermut 13y ago
  http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-already-won-limits-on-public-broadband-in-20-states/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/isp-lobby-has-alr...
  - logicchains 13y ago
    Can anyone tell me what would be the problem with just having a law "no law is allowed to be passed preventing any individual or entity from providing broadband service to any other individual or entity"? And how said problem would be worse than the current dismal arrangements?
    - arg01 13y ago
      "Look I'm sorry mate but I'm just running this wire through your house to give your neighbor internet, if you don't let me you're in the wrong" "Sorry but we need to tear up this highway and disrupt traffic for the next couple of weeks to lay some fibre. I know someone else did the same thing last week but they were another company and it's illegal for the local government body to stop any of us laying stuff on public land when we want" Obviously that extreme is untenable. You may be after something a bit more useful like unbundling, but in the US you have to explain how forcing a private company to let competitors use it's cable is not outright stalinistic communism.