"The mayor [of New York] recognizes this as an economic justice issue, and economic justice issues tend to be fought in the courts," said Andrew Rasiej, chairman of the NY Tech Meetup. "It's natural that [the mayor's] counsel would be engaged in that fight."
When you turn fiber deployment into an "economic justice issue" you can't be surprised that nobody wants to compete in your community.
Yes, build out requirements are stupid. If the government wants companies to build infrastructure in locations where it isn't profitable then they should supply the money to do it rather than imposing a severe hidden tax on the locations where it is profitable and driving out investment.
But I still don't see how competition is going to fix it. It's obvious why a newcomer would want to enter a market where its incumbent competitors have build out requirements and it doesn't -- it would have a cost advantage with which to bludgeon the incumbents. But that would destroy the incumbents. How could they compete in the long run on such unequal terms?
Presumably the incumbents would (successfully) lobby to get build-out requirements eliminated. Or, the incumbent would die, leaving multiple companies to compete for the profitable business. Getting rid of the build-out requirement would open the field of competitors. As it stands, build-out requirements mean only big companies with large amounts of capital can enter a decently-sized market. Those companies want to make big returns. But as long as their is some profit to be made, small companies could come in and serve parts of the market that are ignored by the big companies. A small utility company might be happy with 5-10% margins.
Without build out requirements you would be back to a playing field tilted in favor of the incumbents. Much of their infrastructure is paid off and they could engage in strategic behavior by slashing prices in whatever area a competitor puts a shovel in the ground, which would make investors in competitors skittish to invest only to enter a price war.
You're also only solving the problem for a minority of people. Competition could be effective in the highest density areas, but what about all the areas that are only profitable enough to justify a fiber roll out for a provider with more than 50% of the customers? No one is going to be the second to enter a market in which the existence of a competitor would destroy profitability for both providers.
I'll give you that eliminating the build out requirements is worth doing. I'm just not convinced that it's enough on its own.
That first link is pretty useless since it never mentions what the terms VZ failed to meet actually are.
I would imagine it's most likely something about coverage. That they aren't going to let VZ get a franchise that allows them to only offer service to only the most profitable few.
Which seems in the public interest.
How much would "jpl" be complaining if the actual deployment meant his street wasn't worth covering even though the high-rise apartments down the block were?
Great for what looks like a spontaneous turnout!! Every bit helps (look at this photo/post reaching the top of hacker news) -- I've been a part of much smaller demonstrations :-)
Net neutrality needs to be protected & it's great many are getting involved and angry about this & not just because their netflix is going up $1 and they're already paying Verizon or Comcast or someone else a small fortune every year. I predicted abuses like Verizon 5+ years ago and strongly advocated to only allow what I call "Net Prejudice" or prejudicial networks (what Verizon/Cisco euphemistically call QoS) if there is no additional payment involved, otherwise such networks would strongly tend to be extortionist. Sadly only Wikipedia & the Economist of more mainstream publications picked up on it & cited the warning.
(Great coverage from Golden Frog & I love their VyprVPN though Hulu seems to have them and everyone figured out ;-)
What exactly is "disgusting" about the idea that the FCC is hesitating to implement something that was struck down by a federal court, and is inconsistent with Congress's regulatory agenda for telecom, and amounts to telling companies what they can['t] do with their private property?
I can understand believing that net neutrality is, on the balance, the most beneficial regulatory solution. But dismissing the opposition as "disgusting" shows nothing more than small-mindedness.
Because these private companies have monopolies on their infrastructures and use protectionist measures to keep it that way. And on top of that, companies like Comcast have created a huge conflict of interest by owning content providers like NBC. Is it fair if the only high speed internet in an area is Comcast, and they make CBS video load slow because it is a competitor? I run a VoIP company. Should comcast be allowed to charge me so my clients get quality phone service since Comcast offers its own VoIP service? The Internet should be treated as a utility. If you want to be an ISP, you have to treat all sites equally.
> Because these private companies have monopolies on their infrastructures and use protectionist measures to keep it that way.
Cable companies are not legally monopolies almost anywhere. Any franchise renegotiated since 1992 must be non-exclusive under federal law. And if you dig into it, it's cities that kill competition deals, not cable companies. Houses have FIOS in the shadow of Comcast Center in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, San Francisco blocked U-Verse expansion because AT&T's cabinets were ugly. Who exactly is at fault of perpetuating the lack of competition?
> The Internet should be treated as a utility.
That's how we got in this mess in the first place, monopolies and all. Cable companies were treated as public utility monopolies. Capital investment stagnated, because public utilities have little financial incentive to do anything other than simply keep infrastructure (barely) functional. The 1992 reform to deregulate cable and make exclusive franchises illegal wasn't a total success, but look at what happened to cable technology and investment since then relative to DSL (which remained relatively more regulated).
I think that's FUD, first of all, and unlikely to come about. Also, if there was QoS, etc, I wouldn't mind having a dedicated "Netflix ISP." The streaming experience still sucks compared to flipping a cable channel, and co-location and integration of the software stack could make such a service better. Heck, I'd love it if this was Apple's play after an iTV. Vertical integration can lead to a marvelous user experience, as Apple has shown.
What irks me about this is that services like edX are going to be affected. I didn't want MIT et al. being charged for the free video lectures they provide. Now people who used to provide high quality material for free are disincentived doing such things.
I don't love the internet because of Hulu or Netflix or iTunes or whatever else, I love it because of Wikipedia and edX, and countless other stuff that's put there by everyday people. That's what's in danger.
I honestly don't think it would happen. The cable companies have no incentive to go after sites like that. They don't use much bandwidth, wouldn't pay much before just shutting down, and are very sympathetic. There's nothing but downside for a cable company to go after such a site. It'd be irrational. They're going after Netflix because their site is responsible for a ton of bandwidth on their network and Netflix makes a lot of money leveraging their network.
No, they are going after Netflix because Netflix streaming video service competes directly with the cable companies own TV and streaming video services. It's a straight up toll to compete.
All I can think of at your response is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_. A few years ago I would have thought it to be be simply unthinkable that FCC would be considering such a proposition. Now, I'm all but certain that this would be the natural next step.
> They don't use much bandwidth, wouldn't pay much before just shutting down, and are very sympathetic.
Wikipedia consumes a lot of bandwidth. Okay, not as much as Netflix, but what about the Wikipedia of tomorrow - which houses lots of high-quality media? It feels like there might not be one if net neutrality is beaten. Or the future of education that's video lectures for the masses. Etc.
What is disgustingly necessary, and currently only being done by the opponents of net netruality, is breaking out the check books and purchasing some elected representatives.
There is a petition to remove Tom Wheeler from the FCC. Here is how it starts:
"Before he became Chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler was a lobbyist for the cable and wireless industry, which the FCC is supposed to regulate."
Not to be overly obvious about this, but we're asking a pool of power (the FCC) to use their weakly held power to force another pool of power (large companies) to do things for us, the public (a highly distributed pool of power). Given the public's trust has been continuously violated by the US Government over the past years, I'm not sure why we're expecting much out of them and why we're not looking for other ways to implement a fair and equitable Internet for ourselves, by ourselves.
I used to be unconvinced that physical 'on location' demonstrations with signs and whatnot were useful. I no longer think that.
Now I suspect that they are actively harmful. The moment you do that, you invite easy comparisons between yourself/your cause and several heavily maligned causes/groups which use similar tactics, such as anti-abortion protesters, tea party groups, and worse of all: "Occupy [location]" groups.
If the objective is to increase public awareness, then there are more media-savvy ways of going about that. If the objective is to influence the opinions of the people who are in the immediate geographic neighborhood of your protest, then it might work but not in the way that you intended... You will likely inspire disdain where there was once apathy.
Physical, on-site protests using signs to convey disdain is not a tactic limited to any one group, it is the universal protest technique throughout the globe and has been so for longer than I can probably imagine.
I did not say that it is or has been limited to any one group. I am saying that several different groups have poisoned the well for other groups who wish to use that tactic.
They are "covered" by the news for values of "covered" which include "mocked".
When you give a third party (the media, in this case) the ability to MITM your message (through selective editing, and 'editorial' segments in which the talking heads openly insult and belittle the protesters), "any publicity is good publicity" is no longer true.
The way to avoid this is to not rely on the media to broadcast your message, but to do it yourself. That way concerned or interested members of the public can access your unadulterated message, not just a version of it that was hashed up by cable news.
"The mayor [of New York] recognizes this as an economic justice issue, and economic justice issues tend to be fought in the courts," said Andrew Rasiej, chairman of the NY Tech Meetup. "It's natural that [the mayor's] counsel would be engaged in that fight."
When you turn fiber deployment into an "economic justice issue" you can't be surprised that nobody wants to compete in your community.