Bill Proposes Regulation of ISP Bandwidth Caps

[chripuck]

[citation][nom]dealcorn[/nom]What strikes me about the bulk of these comments is that they generally represent a lack of understanding of how free markets are supposed to work. If Joe is the sole service provider in an area and he gouges, the market will look real attractive to Jane who will enter the market and compete using lower prices to rapidly gain market share. Of course, this only works where there is a viable market and price gouging makes the economic potential of the market appealing. Thus capital gets allocated only where Jane or someone else with their own money makes a determination that the allocation has potential to generate real economic returns. Bureaucrats have little interest in economic returns where voters are involved. Really stupid economic decisions get made when politicians get involved. While FDR is generally regarded as one of America's greatest presidents, the consensus view among economists is that his economic programs targeted to aid workers the economy had the opposite effect resulting in what we now refer to as the great depression. We can run fiber to every resident in Alaska. It ain't rocket science and it it ain't hard if we all join together to ensure this vital priority gets satisfied. Though, to build a consensus, it will be necessary to ensure that no worker swats a fly during the project and as this is a national project the racial composition of the workforce must mirror national demographics rather than local demographics and some time will be required to build the 98 temporary worker housing sites necessary to house the workforce in fully biodegradable structures. We have the bureaucrats necessary to get this done. Lets unleash them.[/citation]

Problem is Joe has an agreement with Jane not to go into her territory if she doesn't come into his... Comcast and Charter have that agreement in Atlanta. I'd love to ditch Comcast for Charter but can't...

 

[Onus]

Like Macky1, I have bones to pick with Comcast also. Service interruptions are frequent enough that I've added a DSL line as "insurance." That said, the vast majority of the time, when Comcast is working, it is blazing fast. I don't like the fact that my bill has gone up a few times, but it seems the speeds I'm getting have been going up as well. I believe they have made, and are making, infrastructure improvements in my area.
Don't rule out the possibility that your own equipment may be involved in any problems you are having. I replaced my 4-yr. old wireless router recently (to get "N") and noticed an improvement in my wired connections as well.

 

[grimfox]

The problem with the US infrastructure is it's size, countries like japan and korea can afford to update their networks because the backbones are shorter. Here we have thousands of miles of cables that run through empty fields, there's little return on investment for updating those lines. Sure i could change them all out with fiber lines but there's no one to pay for those 12 miles of line. Where in japan and korea 100feet of fiber line could server more than 100 people. On average there's fewer people per foot of line in the US than in those countries. This is why America is lagging behind in this type of infrastructure growth.

The ISP's are not the only ones lording over the internet jacks. In my area the apartment complex decides what kind of internet you get most of the time. There are other options that might be better or faster but you can't access them because you can't install the lines, even if the money is coming out of your pocket. Or my last apartment you had to pay the complex $60 a month to activate a phone jack, on top of the DSL service plan fees. You couldn't get cable either because all of the apartments were wired for satelite TV. So you either lived with a terrible wireless internet service from airimba or payed over $100 a month to get DSL.

Net neutrality ends at the jack. Take back the jack!

 

[blazeorangeman]

Here is the solution:
Form a union.

Seriously. Condos, apartment complexes, etc. all form together with their tenets to negotiate a price with the local ISP and cable company for a better price (at least in my area).

Get together with your sub-division, neighborhood, etc. and all demand a lower price. If they don't comply, invest in satellites. Get enough people and economics will do the talking, because congress can't anymore (especially when these cable companies are lining the pockets of our elected officials).

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

You would think because of how popular the internet and digital tv are now, that some more new companies would emerge and compete with better prices. But the truth is if you want decent service in the US most time you are limited to one option (which in some cases sucks to lol).

 

[ik242]

[citation][nom]deltatux[/nom]I wish they would get a bill like this here in Canada ... the monopoly situation is even worse here since all cable in the Greater Toronto Area is all owned by Rogers. Most satellite TV is owned by Bell Canada with the only competitor to that being StarChoice. Bell Canada has a monopoly on all the phonelines in the province of Ontario which DSL needs for it to work. Even smaller ISPs rely on Bell for connection. So we have a nationwide duopoly here. Bell Canada owning all the phone lines and Rogers (east coast) and Shaw (west coast) owns all the residential cable services.As always when duopolies appear, the consumer gets f**k'd.[/citation]

agree but there is a solution. i switched from Rogers to Acanac and I'm very happy. the net bandwith is the same but instead of $80/month, it's $18 unlimited.

 

[greenspoon]

The last thing we need to another government hand in the private sector. While I do not want to see caps, I would rather have caps then allow the government to get involved.

 

[thegh0st]

at least the bill is trying to help I guess - they really should just make a bill banning caps and be asking the question why only in America we are looking into caps and why our internet speeds suck compared to the rest of the world.

tayb - I see what you were trying to say and I read the 4th sentence. I think what people are trying to say back though is that the majority of places in America there are no options or very limited options with which to speak with your wallet so that won't work for the vast majority.

to me it's kinda like gas stations - I mean really are they even competing with each other? I never see a gas company with lower gas prices than the place across the street (1 or 2 cents is nothing - give me a break). the only time that even happens is during grand openings/or some radio promotion and magically the place or places across the street can lower their prices to match then. but do they ever do this in practice to get people's gas business or to actually "compete"? seems to me like the different gas stations are there for each other so technically there is not a monopoly and sure they are all owned by different company's but do they compete? psssh - not at the pumps they don't. which all seems just like how the internet company's are trying to operate. you sell it for $39.99 and we will sell it for $39.98.

 

[Titanius]

The problem with cable companies is that they are all in-bed together. Ever notice that cable companies don't move into an area where another cable company already exists? Yeah, and you thought that was fishy, well they have people operating within the FCC itself, so this bill won't do didly-scwat to "regulate" the cable companies.

Welcome to the new monopoly, where many companies are all operating under a single "idealogy", to rob the people and give to themselves. Why do you think they are putting so much pressure on little ISPs, offering better service for less and including no caps whatsoever, to shut down...its because these little ISPs have the power to destroy them and that is exactly what should happen.

 

[dealcorn]

Excellent points,to ensure to enhance manageability the government often finds it necessary to limit competition and prevent new entrants from disrupting settled markets. Does anyone seriously believe that the U.S. failure to deploy technology largely developed here is attributable to anything other than that we have highly regulated markets where regulator priorities are something other than economic or consumer benefit. The last thing regulators want is a meaningful wallet vote.

 

[scryer_360]

Eric Massa has my vote.

And hopiamani has it right: if we removed the right of a company to hold a monopoly over these area's of service, we wouldn't have this problem anyway.

How would that work? All lines into the home would be owned by a independent government entity (think of the Fed, but for broadband). This company's only job would be to collect fee's from ISP's, and use that money to make infrastructure upgrades. ISP's would then compete by providing the servers and support for the infrastructure.

The model used by the Federal Reserve for the banking industry has proven effective again and again for the last 75 years (its sad to see some misguided attempts by congress to make it a government department now). Given that the lines to someone's home are right now owned exclusively by only one company, and that company faces very few or no competition in many cases, the Fed for broadband makes sense, I think.

 

[dark_lord69]

I have already written my congressmen about this.

 

[croc]

[citation][nom]randomizer[/nom]Now why the heck can't they pass a bill like that here?[/citation]

Be careful what you wish for...

Actually, they are looking (still or again?) at forcing a seperation of Telstra's xmission and retail divisions.

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]croc[/nom]Be careful what you wish for...[/citation]
I should have said "Now why the heck can't we pass a bill like that here?", "we" being the people not Kevin-747 and his merry men.

 

[dealcorn]

Excellent points,to ensure to enhance manageability the government often finds it necessary to limit competition and prevent new entrants from disrupting settled markets. Does anyone seriously believe that the U.S. failure to deploy technology largely developed here is attributable to anything other than that we have highly regulated markets where regulator priorities are something other than economic or consumer benefit. The last thing regulators want is a meaningful wallet vote.

 

[croc]

[citation][nom]randomizer[/nom]I should have said "Now why the heck can't we pass a bill like that here?", "we" being the people not Kevin-747 and his merry men.[/citation]

Work up a petition for a federal referendum... I'll sign.

 

[thebeastie]

You don't get unlimited electricity or heating gas do you? There is a reason, because there are always, Always people who would abuse it.
I can't blame you guys from quite literally "wanting it all" but it just 1 inch thinking of pure selfishness.
As new modem technologies give people fast and faster broad band there will be some people who will abuse internet bandwidth like never before.
Its just that simple, you will never get unlimited electricity and its only fair you don't get unlimited bandwidth, unless its at the choice of the provider.
Sorry to be realistic, if I could have unlimited broad band I would want it to.

 

[SAL-e]

[citation][nom]thebeastie[/nom]You don't get unlimited electricity or heating gas do you? There is a reason, because there are always, Always people who would abuse it.I can't blame you guys from quite literally "wanting it all" but it just 1 inch thinking of pure selfishness.As new modem technologies give people fast and faster broad band there will be some people who will abuse internet bandwidth like never before.Its just that simple, you will never get unlimited electricity and its only fair you don't get unlimited bandwidth, unless its at the choice of the provider.Sorry to be realistic, if I could have unlimited broad band I would want it to.[/citation]
There are at least three problems with your argument:
1. You are confusing bandwidth with Gigabite. The bandwidth is derivative. I will use the famous analogy about the tubes. Bandwidth is the diameter of the tube. The Gigabyte is the actual commodity like water passing through the tube. So ISP is providing the pipe and we are paying for the size of that pipe. The GB (or the water or electricity) is provided by Hulu.com and other sites.
2. The second problem is the same cable companies are refusing to provide billing scheme that allow me to select which channel I want to watch and pay only for those channels. All you can eat for one of their service, but meter billing for other. Hypocrites.
3. The GB-s that I receive are generated by the Internet not by the cable company. If you are using toll road you pay for the size of the vehicle, not by the goods inside of the truck. Only the mafia is trying to racketeer like that.
Are you trying to re-educate us on behalf of the cable companies or you have been re-educated by them? Even the grandmothers are not buying cable companies' BS.
AT&T’s “Grandma” Analogy Upsets Grandmothers - They Don’t Want Overcharges Either

 

[redgarl]

In Canada, every big internet provider are using bandwith gap... You got the choice of speed or data. Here there is only a handful of service providers, it's a damn oligopoly. The fastest high speed internet service goes like this...

7 MBPS with 20 gig at an outrageous 39.99 (Videotron)

Well, I choose Bell due to their latest promotion...

5 MBPS with 60 gig at 25$... without any contracts...

 

[AdamB5000]

I'm not a fan of government intrusion, but if it's strictly for a purpose of preventing price gouging, have at it.

Sucks being mired with 1.5meg service at the introductory price of $20/mo. At the end of the year my 1.5meg service will be $42/mo. That's insane. I often struggle to have problem free streaming at hulu.com.

My other option is 1.5meg dsl for $40/mo + a phone line. Ug. It's insane. I have no other options!!

 

[mlcloud]

[citation][nom]thebeastie[/nom]You don't get unlimited electricity or heating gas do you? There is a reason, because there are always, Always people who would abuse it.I can't blame you guys from quite literally "wanting it all" but it just 1 inch thinking of pure selfishness.As new modem technologies give people fast and faster broad band there will be some people who will abuse internet bandwidth like never before.Its just that simple, you will never get unlimited electricity and its only fair you don't get unlimited bandwidth, unless its at the choice of the provider.Sorry to be realistic, if I could have unlimited broad band I would want it to.[/citation]

In addition to what SAL-e said (although he spells gigabyte incorrectly. Perhaps he meant gigabits, like minus the e?)
Abuse internet bandwidth huh? Props to America's ISP server/routers outdated technology that can't handle the combined (crappy) bandwidths of the people then, right? Oh dear, limiting the people to sh*t 5mbit/512kbit up/downs wasn't enough to slow down the nation's usage. LG and KTF in Korea can handle terabytes at a time while our nation has had so many issues with gigabytes that they have to THROTTLE services, right? The fact that we *can* abuse "teh internetz" makes me laugh.

I'm starting to imagine that the backbone of the networks in the U.S. is composed of rooms full of rusty ethernet cables and servers made with some ancient pentium 300mhz chips and 32 megabytes of RAM, just like the entry-level routers that Linksys sells much overpriced.

 

[anamaniac]

I have a 1 megabyte DL and 50 kilobyte upload with a 60 gigabyte cap... I pay $40 a month.
The only other option I actually have is a service with 300 kilobyte upload and 300 kilobyte upload. I prefer this for the heavily increased upload (and I rarely need much DL), but it comes at $60 a month.

So, short story, though lame, my current ISP is my best option until FIOS comes to Calgary, Canada...

HOWEVER
My ISP has awful monitoring. I used 120-150 gigs last month, and my ISP only reports I used 55. In contact with my ISP, they said that those were the numbers used for their monitoring... so I was just fine.

 

[Guest]

OK I know this is already old news, but I have to put my foot in my mouth also. All I have to say is I don't want a cap at all, or do I want a Government ran anything tell me what I'm going to have to pay. So you know Government works for Big Business. You can say all you want that they don't, but I'm sure even the dumbest ppl can see that now with what has been going on. NO!!!!! CAPS!!! ON MY FREEDOM OF SPEACH!!! P.S. I'm sure if cable was worth watching ppl would but it. It's not!

 

[mikepaul]

Things would be different if Netflix and all the other interesting ways to burn your download capabilities had been there from Day 1 of "broadband". We would NEVER have been offfered All You Can Eat pricing, and just like good old CompuServe dialup service, the faster we got it the more we'd pay for it.

Now we are judged as greedy for wanting the good times to continue since things to DO with the Internet have cropped up left and right. The ISPs think the Gravy Train has finally pulled into their station, and WE are the spoilsports. Here I thought it was THEM at fault. Silly me...

 

[Computer_Lots]

This bill has one major purpose, re-election. While I don't like the idea of bandwidth caps, it's a private business. If Time Warner wants to cap bandwidth, I'll switch to AT&T, or Satellite or whatever. If the government keeps regulating everything, we won't have any services left. They've already regulated the auto industry into near extinction. You want to live in a world where the government owns the "Internet" also like it is in communist countries?