4 ms·

>Fast lanes are just one horrible side effect of our "everything capitalism" country. The fact that most cities in the USA are duopolies when it comes to wired

>Fast lanes are just one horrible side effect of our "everything capitalism" country. The fact that most cities in the USA are duopolies when it comes to wired internet means essentially everyone is screwed. The duopolies you describe are definitely terrible. They are cronyism and corporatism operating under the guise of capitalism, but they are very far from the free markets of capitalism. It's worth noting that these monopolies could not exist without government regulation. More ISP's can't run fiber to your house because the local law prevents them. I'd rather get rid of those bad laws instead of piling more bandaid laws on top of them.

_delirium 12y ago
> More ISP's can't run fiber to your house because the local law prevents them. Wouldn't these companies need some kind of affirmative government assistance, not only the lack of government prohibition? Very few (if any) potential new entrants into the market actually own land or rights of way sufficient to run "last-mile" cables to residential homes. At the very least it seems like they'd need permission to dig up streets (which they don't own) and get some kind of easement rights across property they don't own. Or are there really utility companies that 100% own all the land (or delegated rights such as an easement) needed to do a run, and are still being prohibited by local law from running the cables on their own land? I could imagine the latter situation existing in a few cases, but not many; more or less only in the case of a greenfield development where the developer owns the entire subdivision.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
digikata 12y ago
How many times to you think companies would pay to run a connection to a house? After the first, or maybe even the second time, does the financial payback for laying additional redundant physical lines make sense? City gov't is a minor problem, but remove that and you still have strong natural monopoly conditions. It seems like the only way to get competition in the last mile is that the entity which owns the last mile infrastructure must be required to provide competitive access to that network. Ideally that might have been government owning the infrastructure, with a market of multiple competitors running services across the last mile. It seems like many nations with competitive last-time ISP markets got there by starting out with national ownership of much of that infrastructure, but when much of that network is privately owned - it's much harder to get there.
- crazy1van 12y ago
  > How many times to you think companies would pay to run a connection to a house? After the first, or maybe even the second time, does the financial payback for laying additional redundant physical lines make sense? I think that depends on the current market. If there's room to make money in the long run by either offering better service or cheaper service, then I think companies will take the plunge and run the cables. In my area, we had DSL over phone lines and cable internet over coax for years. That didn't stop Verizon from laying all new fiber to nearly every house in the area. They smelled profit in doubling existing internet speeds in my area. What did nearly stop them was intense lobbying by the existing players to deny them access to run cable. What bothers me is that it required huge lobbying muscles to get through the red tape. What about all the other less politically connected companies with innovative ideas that could revolutionize our connectivity in ways most people have never considered? That's the beauty of the Internet. Got a great idea for a new web service? There's no government wheels to grease, no need to lobby the FCC for broadcasting permission. You just do it and let the consumer decide your fate.
  - digikata 12y ago
    You mean the Verizon fiber service whose expansion was halted in 2012ish time frame because it wasn't paying back, and was recently reiterated that they wouldn't be investing more into for some time? http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizons-shammo-well-look-fios-expansions-once-it-returns-cost-capital/2014-03-10 http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizons-shammo-well-look... Or actively trying to reverse rollout agreements in NJ http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Will_Verizon_be_allowed_to_break_its_FiOS_promise_to_New_Jersey.html http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Will_Verizon_be_allowe... I'm no expert analyst of Verizon, but even during the expansion many wall street analysts were skeptical of the ROI of Verizon's FIOS rollout. If companies are going to be digging up the street in front of my house, I want a certain amount of red tape to ensure it's not multiple separate times instead of fewer times with better coordination to minimize inconvenience. I also don't want some undercapitalized startup to start digging, run out of funding, go out of business and leave a bunch of open trench - so I'm fine with cities verifying plans and funding too.
deciplex 12y ago
Cronyism and corporatism are a very common failure mode of capitalism, though. Perhaps it's time to recognize that capitalism can also fail, as opposed to just be failed, and deal with the world as it is, and not just as we wish it to be.

_delirium 12y ago

> More ISP's can't run fiber to your house because the local law prevents them. Wouldn't these companies need some kind of affirmative government assistance, not only the lack of government prohibition? Very few (if any) potential new entrants into the market actually own land or rights of way sufficient to run "last-mile" cables to residential homes. At the very least it seems like they'd need permission to dig up streets (which they don't own) and get some kind of easement rights across property they don't own. Or are there really utility companies that 100% own all the land (or delegated rights such as an easement) needed to do a run, and are still being prohibited by local law from running the cables on their own land? I could imagine the latter situation existing in a few cases, but not many; more or less only in the case of a greenfield development where the developer owns the entire subdivision.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

digikata 12y ago

How many times to you think companies would pay to run a connection to a house? After the first, or maybe even the second time, does the financial payback for laying additional redundant physical lines make sense? City gov't is a minor problem, but remove that and you still have strong natural monopoly conditions. It seems like the only way to get competition in the last mile is that the entity which owns the last mile infrastructure must be required to provide competitive access to that network. Ideally that might have been government owning the infrastructure, with a market of multiple competitors running services across the last mile. It seems like many nations with competitive last-time ISP markets got there by starting out with national ownership of much of that infrastructure, but when much of that network is privately owned - it's much harder to get there.

crazy1van 12y ago
> How many times to you think companies would pay to run a connection to a house? After the first, or maybe even the second time, does the financial payback for laying additional redundant physical lines make sense? I think that depends on the current market. If there's room to make money in the long run by either offering better service or cheaper service, then I think companies will take the plunge and run the cables. In my area, we had DSL over phone lines and cable internet over coax for years. That didn't stop Verizon from laying all new fiber to nearly every house in the area. They smelled profit in doubling existing internet speeds in my area. What did nearly stop them was intense lobbying by the existing players to deny them access to run cable. What bothers me is that it required huge lobbying muscles to get through the red tape. What about all the other less politically connected companies with innovative ideas that could revolutionize our connectivity in ways most people have never considered? That's the beauty of the Internet. Got a great idea for a new web service? There's no government wheels to grease, no need to lobby the FCC for broadcasting permission. You just do it and let the consumer decide your fate.
- digikata 12y ago
  You mean the Verizon fiber service whose expansion was halted in 2012ish time frame because it wasn't paying back, and was recently reiterated that they wouldn't be investing more into for some time? http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizons-shammo-well-look-fios-expansions-once-it-returns-cost-capital/2014-03-10 http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/verizons-shammo-well-look... Or actively trying to reverse rollout agreements in NJ http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Will_Verizon_be_allowed_to_break_its_FiOS_promise_to_New_Jersey.html http://www.philly.com/philly/business/Will_Verizon_be_allowe... I'm no expert analyst of Verizon, but even during the expansion many wall street analysts were skeptical of the ROI of Verizon's FIOS rollout. If companies are going to be digging up the street in front of my house, I want a certain amount of red tape to ensure it's not multiple separate times instead of fewer times with better coordination to minimize inconvenience. I also don't want some undercapitalized startup to start digging, run out of funding, go out of business and leave a bunch of open trench - so I'm fine with cities verifying plans and funding too.

deciplex 12y ago

Cronyism and corporatism are a very common failure mode of capitalism, though. Perhaps it's time to recognize that capitalism can also fail, as opposed to just be failed, and deal with the world as it is, and not just as we wish it to be.