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That makes TOTAL sense because companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable represent innovation and technical leadership, growth and profit while companies lik

That makes TOTAL sense because companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable represent innovation and technical leadership, growth and profit while companies like Google and Apple don't. Balderdash. Level3's article about congested peers (AKA telco monopolies) is much more on topic. It should capture the hearts and minds of most rabid capitalists better than anything I can think of.

deleted 13y ago
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prawks 13y ago
> Level3's article about congested peers > should capture the hearts and minds of most rabid capitalists This is what rayiner is talking about. It's not a captivating argument to people outside of technical circles. You need to meet them on a common ground of understanding, and talking about peering arrangements and telco monopolies hasn't been very successful thus far. The FCC's antiquated thinking is what opened the door for monopolies, and they don't look to be concerned about changing that, because it's easy to sell the current state of affairs as a success.
rayiner 13y ago
Are you talking about this article? http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-internet-middleman http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-inte... > A port that is on average utilised at 90 percent will be saturated, dropping packets, for several hours a day. We have congested ports saturated to those levels with 12 of our 51 peers. Six of those 12 have a single congested port, and we are both (Level 3 and our peer) in the process of making upgrades – this is business as usual and happens occasionally as traffic swings around the Internet as customers change providers. > That leaves the remaining six peers with congestion on almost all of the interconnect ports between us. Congestion that is permanent, has been in place for well over a year and where our peer refuses to augment capacity. They are deliberately harming the service they deliver to their paying customers. They are not allowing us to fulfil the requests their customers make for content. So I'm reading it with my republican hat on, and I'm thinking: why is this any business of the government's? This sounds like a contractual dispute between two network companies over upgrades. Why should the government get involved in this? The "consumer satisfaction" angle at the end might be more compelling, but more to a Ralph Nader type than even a Bill Clinton type much less a George Bush type. And the Ralph Nader types raised these objections in 1996 in opposition to telecoms deregulation, and they lost over a bi-partisan effort. You can raise the specter of "monopoly" but the fact is that the cable companies are by and large not legally monopolies (after the 1992 reforms), and nobody really wants to tackle the whole "natural monopoly" angle because it's hard and doesn't lend itself to any good solutions. I think the tech industry's best play is to keep pushing Google Fiber-type competitors hard and complain to Congress if states put up hurdles. Because what Congress and the FCC have been willing to do is step on the states when they try and raise barriers to competition (which is what the 1992 reform embodied). But this might make investors unhappy.
- kabdib 13y ago
  You can't have a "customer satisfaction" angle in the face of a monopoly (which Comcast essentially is, in many areas).
  - rhino369 13y ago
    Comcast is not a monopoly in many areas. It's only a monopoly in areas where DSL isn't available. Which is pretty small.
    - TheNetworkGuy 13y ago
      DSL is NOT reliable nor is it high speed, at least in my area - and I've heard the same from many others. In my case, DSL would swing from less than 1Mbps up to nearly 20 Mbps. But most of the time it was near the bottom the range (and virtually worthless), so I cancelled DSL and signed up with Comcast (my only other option for high speed broadband). CenturyLink (DSL) and Comcast are the only 2 providers in my area of the country (North Seattle, WA). And given the 5 months of DSL service we endured, it was more often unusable than useable. I had more service calls to them in that short period of time and nothing resolved the issue. Some other folks have better options (and maybe better DSL speeds), but your "small" number is more likely representative of the folks who do NOT have other choices when it comes to high speed broadband access. Comcast IS a monopoly when choices are between the lesser of 2 evils.
    - lawnchair_larry 13y ago
      Incorrect, DSL was left behind years ago. It's not a competitor. Most DSL offerings have upload speeds measured in kilobytes.
    - kabdib 12y ago
      My experience with DSL is that it is not reliable, and you are bit-rate limited by your distance to the central office or DSLAM. The bit rates are quite low in comparison to coax-based modems. ISDN is limited to just over 100Kbits/sec, which is a non-competitive joke. Comcast is a monopoly.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

prawks 13y ago

> Level3's article about congested peers > should capture the hearts and minds of most rabid capitalists This is what rayiner is talking about. It's not a captivating argument to people outside of technical circles. You need to meet them on a common ground of understanding, and talking about peering arrangements and telco monopolies hasn't been very successful thus far. The FCC's antiquated thinking is what opened the door for monopolies, and they don't look to be concerned about changing that, because it's easy to sell the current state of affairs as a success.

rayiner 13y ago

Are you talking about this article? http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-internet-middleman http://blog.level3.com/global-connectivity/observations-inte... > A port that is on average utilised at 90 percent will be saturated, dropping packets, for several hours a day. We have congested ports saturated to those levels with 12 of our 51 peers. Six of those 12 have a single congested port, and we are both (Level 3 and our peer) in the process of making upgrades – this is business as usual and happens occasionally as traffic swings around the Internet as customers change providers. > That leaves the remaining six peers with congestion on almost all of the interconnect ports between us. Congestion that is permanent, has been in place for well over a year and where our peer refuses to augment capacity. They are deliberately harming the service they deliver to their paying customers. They are not allowing us to fulfil the requests their customers make for content. So I'm reading it with my republican hat on, and I'm thinking: why is this any business of the government's? This sounds like a contractual dispute between two network companies over upgrades. Why should the government get involved in this? The "consumer satisfaction" angle at the end might be more compelling, but more to a Ralph Nader type than even a Bill Clinton type much less a George Bush type. And the Ralph Nader types raised these objections in 1996 in opposition to telecoms deregulation, and they lost over a bi-partisan effort. You can raise the specter of "monopoly" but the fact is that the cable companies are by and large not legally monopolies (after the 1992 reforms), and nobody really wants to tackle the whole "natural monopoly" angle because it's hard and doesn't lend itself to any good solutions. I think the tech industry's best play is to keep pushing Google Fiber-type competitors hard and complain to Congress if states put up hurdles. Because what Congress and the FCC have been willing to do is step on the states when they try and raise barriers to competition (which is what the 1992 reform embodied). But this might make investors unhappy.

kabdib 13y ago
You can't have a "customer satisfaction" angle in the face of a monopoly (which Comcast essentially is, in many areas).
- rhino369 13y ago
  Comcast is not a monopoly in many areas. It's only a monopoly in areas where DSL isn't available. Which is pretty small.
  - TheNetworkGuy 13y ago
    DSL is NOT reliable nor is it high speed, at least in my area - and I've heard the same from many others. In my case, DSL would swing from less than 1Mbps up to nearly 20 Mbps. But most of the time it was near the bottom the range (and virtually worthless), so I cancelled DSL and signed up with Comcast (my only other option for high speed broadband). CenturyLink (DSL) and Comcast are the only 2 providers in my area of the country (North Seattle, WA). And given the 5 months of DSL service we endured, it was more often unusable than useable. I had more service calls to them in that short period of time and nothing resolved the issue. Some other folks have better options (and maybe better DSL speeds), but your "small" number is more likely representative of the folks who do NOT have other choices when it comes to high speed broadband access. Comcast IS a monopoly when choices are between the lesser of 2 evils.
  - lawnchair_larry 13y ago
    Incorrect, DSL was left behind years ago. It's not a competitor. Most DSL offerings have upload speeds measured in kilobytes.
  - kabdib 12y ago
    My experience with DSL is that it is not reliable, and you are bit-rate limited by your distance to the central office or DSLAM. The bit rates are quite low in comparison to coax-based modems. ISDN is limited to just over 100Kbits/sec, which is a non-competitive joke. Comcast is a monopoly.