Feds to Cable Industry: Embrace Broadband Competition or Else

[OP20]

Hi All

That is true. Until money is taken out of the equation, meaning the lobbyist & their legalized bribery of politicians, this will always be hanging over the consumers head

As long as politicians have power to sell someone will be there to buy it. The only way to remove money from politics will be to remove the incentive. Government has too much power. Some government is essential but what we have today is over reaching.

When you hear wealth redistribution you get a mental picture of some republican talking about food stamps.
When I hear wealth redistribution I just picture all the government contracts making campaign donors filthy rich.
If your money didn't put them there then they aren't working for you.

 

[mesyn191]

If a company doesnt have to care about what its customers think then its not a free market.

You're soooo close to figuring out that free markets are something that can't actually exist and are just a econ101 logical tool at best and at worst just ideological pap.

Comcast has used government to keep out competition so they can keep their rediculous profit margins.

And most would put nearly all the blame on Comcast for that, since you know, they're the ones throwing their economic weight around to push around the local small and state govts. and get preferential treatment.

Standard Oil and any other monopoly has just such a lock. Historically it was quite common for monopolies to abuse their market position and essentially do whatever they want. Pinkertons and company towns were already mentioned previously for a reason.

Seriously you don't know crap about the subjects you're talking about and just cracking open some good history books on the subject will show you how obvious of a failure small/limited govt. and free markets are. They've been tried over and over again all throughout history in various ways and different societies with different levels of tech and laws and it always ends badly.

 

[Lith1um]

When you mention companies like Standard Oil you have to understand that they didn't evolve in a free market, the US Government used military force to advance and protect their interests in third world countries around the globe.

United States Marine Corp Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, the most decorated marine in history at the time of his death, eventually came to realize that he was just a muscle man for the interests of US corporations.

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

War is a Racket by Smedley Butler , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

Our current situation with Cuba is a perfect example, everything was fine when the US was completely exploiting Cuba, but the day they began to resist that exploitation the US they became public enemy number one from that day forward.

Secondly, in a manner certain to antagonize the Cuban people, we used the influence of our Government to advance the interests of and increase the profits of the private American companies, which dominated the island's economy. At the beginning of 1959 U.S. companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands - almost all the cattle ranches - 90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions - 80 percent of the utilities - and practically all the oil industry - and supplied two-thirds of Cuba's imports.

The role of the US and the role of capitalism in the exploitation of the world, and in particular Cuba and South America, has been completely "White Washed".

 

[Lith1um]

It's too early in the morning, made a typo . The sentence should read as follows,

"Our current situation with Cuba is a perfect example, everything was fine when the US was completely exploiting Cuba, but the day they began to resist that exploitation they became public enemy number one from that day forward. "

 

[Lith1um]

Damn, I'm batting 1000.

I forgot to note that John Kennedy was the author of that quote I posted.

Secondly, in a manner certain to antagonize the Cuban people, we used the influence of our Government to advance the interests of and increase the profits of the private American companies, which dominated the island's economy. At the beginning of 1959 U.S. companies owned about 40 percent of the Cuban sugar lands - almost all the cattle ranches - 90 percent of the mines and mineral concessions - 80 percent of the utilities - and practically all the oil industry - and supplied two-thirds of Cuba's imports.

 

[ep0x73]

It isn't the ISP's that are preventing competition. The government is the one who writes the regulations for their cronies in the ISP industry. The government needs to get out of the business of attempting to regulate the internet and prices will come down, speed will go up, and reliability will be at an all time high.

Everything the government gets their greedy hands on turns to shit.

They ruin everything they touch, the list is a mile long.

Cable companies now have monopolies in sections of the country and kill any competition.

You get the speeds they give you and pay what they want or else you get nothing.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

i am also interested in his explanation but im willing to bet it will amount to uninformed right wing opinions that have been paid for like "its obamacare for the internet"

Can we just leave the fucking stupid political name-calling out of it?

This has NOTHING to do with right or left.

From a business-oriented standpoint, these large, monolithic broadband monopolies, while good for shareholders, are NOT good for the market. As they're now attempting to strangle and middle-man the other service and supply markets to multiply the effectiveness of their monopoly power.

And the fact is, there's almost no direct competition, save for a handful areas that have gone municipal broadband or that have had Google move in and disrupt. Period.

Basically, the current setup leaves the internet services market in a precarious place. As the market is already pre-cornered. And if there's any sort of economic downturn in said market, the effects on sole carriers gets multiplied. Making it easier to crash companies.

 

[Deleted member 126051]

What's to stop Comcast from approaching a neighborhood HOA and paying them to only allow Comcast to run cables to the houses and nobody else? Where does your competition go then?

Uh. They ALREADY do this.

 

[mesyn191]

When you mention companies like Standard Oil you have to understand that they didn't evolve in a free market, the US Government used military force to advance and protect their interests in third world countries around the globe.

Standard Oil precedes Butler's jingoistic military adventures by decades though. If you want a historical example of a extra legal private monopoly then there is the Dutch East India Co. who were huge into the slavery business and had their own private armies around the world.

If you want other examples read up on the Laissez Faire rentiers who nearly destroyed France's economy following the Suez canal debacle.

Removing the govt. monopoly on force and splitting it up amongst private interests doesn't fix anything. It makes it worse.

Damn, I'm batting 1000.

Nope. You're just cherry picking quotes and misrepresenting some very complex historical figures and situations to try and prove your point. You don't know jack about history.

 

[mesyn191]

I mean, shit, the whole reason Smedly finally got fed up and came forward with his story was that private interests wanted him to overthrow the US govt. and set up a fascist one in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

The rich at the time loved the crap out of Hitler. There was a reason why he got Time's man of the year back then. They thought he was the future of Capitalism.

 

[dandragonrage]

So many terrible responses in here, especially the ones saying Comcast is amazing and government is the issue.

BOTH ARE THE ISSUE.

Comcast lobbies the government which is wrong. Comcast implements anti-consumer policies which is wrong. Comcast uses their weight to exercise some control over other businesses which is wrong. These things should not be allowed.

Some local governments sign exclusivity contracts with companies like Comcast which is wrong. Some local governments just make it extremely hard for other companies to get the permits and other stuff which is wrong.

Anyone here pretending only Comcast is wrong or only the government is wrong is a fool. Here's another example of how both are wrong, often hand-in-hand. There are regulations that require communications companies to provide service to poor areas in order to provide service to people who can actually afford it. It makes politicians look good and can get votes but it's a scam because it costs Comcast very little (due to their size) yet it completely prevents new companies from entering the market because they would be too small to meet such ridiculous legislation.

Also, companies like Comcast only have this much power because they've had a lot of time to merge. Comcast didn't just pop up as a large company one day. They are made of a lot of small companies that slowly merged over time and eventually became Comcast. No small company could do that today. There is not even an opportunity for competition.

We already have legislation against Comcast's monopoly and their actions of antitrust. We need state and federal governments to step in and prevent local governments like that of Worcester, MA from signing exclusivity contracts. We need someone to make sure that anti-monopoly/antitrust laws are actually used when warranted.

Anyone suggesting that the government stepping in at all being the problem has absolutely no idea how the world works. Companies are not inherently honest - it's competition that can achieve such things for consumers. And government needs checks and balances and that includes larger government entities stepping in to prevent the smaller and less-informed government entities from doing stupid things like signing exclusivity deals.

 

[Lith1um]

Standard Oil precedes Butler's jingoistic military adventures by decades though. If you want a historical example of a extra legal private monopoly then there is the Dutch East India Co. who were huge into the slavery business and had their own private armies around the world.

If you want other examples read up on the Laissez Faire rentiers who nearly destroyed France's economy following the Suez canal debacle.

Removing the govt. monopoly on force and splitting it up amongst private interests doesn't fix anything. It makes it worse.


Nope. You're just cherry picking quotes and misrepresenting some very complex historical figures and situations to try and prove your point. You don't know jack about history.

Misrepresenting what exactly?

 

[JMccovery]

Only because we let the government regulate everything. Get the government out of the regulating business and competition will occur.

While I hate the idea of franchise monopolies, allowing any cable provider to install their own lines would've been a nightmare.

Everything has to be a minimum distance below the power lines, but also a minimum height above the street. With Comcast, Mediacom and Cablevision (what's left of them) in my county, 3 sets of cable lines strung between phone and power lines would've not only made zero sense, but also could've been dangerous.