Net Neutrality and Bandwidth Caps Don't Matter

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Charlie over at TheInq has an interesting editorial posted today that basically says bandwidth caps don’t matter to big cable companies because their true goal is something far more nefarious <instert evil laugh here>. Thanks to Valset for the link.

Cable companies are throwing the idea of usage quotas out now, starting absurdly low in order to get something in place. With tactics that would make Karl Rove proud, they are picking a fight over nothing to get their opponents to agree on a cap, any cap, without realizing the true goals.
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They only want caps now because everyones starting to go to the computer for entertainment now rather than the TV. US is getting worse and worse. We are already behind in internet speeds. Japan is coming out with 1gb to the house already. Everyone else is taking off while we wave good bye lol.
 
weather the inq is right or not (hey they gotta get a few right by blind luck) find out what the bandwidth actually costs the companies...not very much. any provider with a cap i say no to.
 
Conker said:
They only want caps now because everyones starting to go to the computer for entertainment now rather than the TV. US is getting worse and worse. We are already behind in internet speeds. Japan is coming out with 1gb to the house already. Everyone else is taking off while we wave good bye lol.
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As the Big Corporations say "We love Capitalism and Free Enterprise as long as we get to Monopolize it."
 
I have to agree with the article 100%. Its amazing that I have to get 100 channels to watch the same stuff that I used to get on less than 30 not that long ago. They come up with a new cable channel that puts the decent content from a older channel on it and put crap on the old channel. And people wonder why there cable bills are so huge. Now I can just put up a antenna where I live to get the local channels and download what I want from the rest.
Now the cable company has found a new way to limit what I want to do.
 
Conker said:
They only want caps now because everyones starting to go to the computer for entertainment now rather than the TV. US is getting worse and worse. We are already behind in internet speeds. Japan is coming out with 1gb to the house already. Everyone else is taking off while we wave good bye lol.
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Japan is what, the size of California maybe smaller? Lot easier to upgrade network infrastructure than the US.
 
Uncle said:
As the Big Corporations say "We love Capitalism and Free Enterprise as long as we get to Monopolize it."
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:eek: Do you have any idea what you have just done? Lock this thread before the usual suspects turn it into a 10 page thread about Obama destroying America.
 
I just got a HD projector, and literally the only two channels I care about are fox for house and 24 and NESN HD for red sox games. I had to get direcTV's $85 a month package just to get NESN.
 
Crimson said:
Japan is what, the size of California maybe smaller? Lot easier to upgrade network infrastructure than the US.
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its not just Japan, most country in Asia such as China/Hong Kong are having the same thing now..

and what type of country they are? second world country..... and why we even fall behind them? :rolleyes:
 
Crimson said:
Japan is what, the size of California maybe smaller? Lot easier to upgrade network infrastructure than the US.
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ok so why not in places like LA, New York and the like?
sure Japan as a whole is smaller but that doesnt account for why major US cities still suck
 
shansoft said:
its not just Japan, most country in Asia such as China/Hong Kong are having the same thing now..

and what type of country they are? second world country..... and why we even fall behind them? :rolleyes:
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Don't forget Europe, their ahead. Nothing is going to change, until Africa pulls ahead of us. I get tired of hearing excuses such as "Japan is what, the size of California maybe smaller? Lot easier to upgrade network infrastructure than the US."
Well whats stopping California or New York or any other Big city or small state from moving ahead. The fiber lines are all laid out, Use them. Instead of thinking of excuses for why were falling behind the rest of the world, we should be asking, why are we being held behind. They just laid out a large trunk from India to Africa or are planning on it. Again "why are we being held behind".
 
This is a great article! It sums up the every problem of this cap problem, and this is with wire and not fiberoptics so bandwith is even less of a problem for these companies.
 
Katalysis said:
:eek: Do you have any idea what you have just done? Lock this thread before the usual suspects turn it into a 10 page thread about Obama destroying America.
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Lol yep. Guaranteed in,......5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Elios said:
ok so why not in places like LA, New York and the like?
sure Japan as a whole is smaller but that doesnt account for why major US cities still suck
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Because these services are controlled by private companies that, in many areas, hold a geographic monopoly. Being in business to make as much money as possible, they're not going to spend money on infrastructure until a competitive environment forces them to to maintain their customer base. That or the government forces them to, are the only two ways it's ever going to happen.

Back to the point though, I have to agree, that the combination of geographic monopolies & conflict of interest with broadband heavy services (Hulu, netflix, etc. etc.), is an unhealthy situation for the market.
 
Crimson said:
Japan is what, the size of California maybe smaller? Lot easier to upgrade network infrastructure than the US.
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Forget the rest of the country, let's at least get California up to speed.
 
Pittsburgh PA is a perfect case study,

Comcrooks bought up all the local providers and are now locked into the city because of contracts that were in place in the companies they bought out. when Fios TV tried to move in, they dusted them off and waved and bitched and threatened so that they can stay the only land based provider (you can get directv) and charge exorbitant amounts.
 
Not much to say except:

1. Rumor has it that Comcast is buying up quite a few smaller companies (where I am in the SE "Windstream" is shopping for a buyer and Comcast made an offer - from what I heard they're not taking but, but point remains)

2. it's not ALL falling behind. In around 1-2 years Sprint will be rolling out WiMAX services, which, I'm told, are faster cell services than anyplace else on the planet.

3. We are slower but we have it for less. From what I'm told it costs a LOT more for interent in the EU, etc. (Though I could be confusing landline cost with cellular cost)

4. I agree entirely with everything said above (and as much hope as I had for obama, I am forced to say that so far things are all going the wrong direction... though I dont think McCain would have done any better... why cant we ever have a GOOD candidate!!?!!)
 
Crimson said:
Japan is what, the size of California maybe smaller? Lot easier to upgrade network infrastructure than the US.
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ROFLMAO...

No, they've got even less room to lay new pipe and run new copper/fiber to the home.

Sorry, but it's just the opposite.

On top of that, there's still tons of dark fiber already in place.
 
Ashton said:
Not much to say except:

3. We are slower but we have it for less. From what I'm told it costs a LOT more for interent in the EU, etc. (Though I could be confusing landline cost with cellular cost)
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actually, from what I've heard from those in the UK, it's actually quite a bit cheaper for more bandwidth.
 
I'd say he is at least 90% right on the money...because that's what it's about.
 
Conker said:
They only want caps now because everyones starting to go to the computer for entertainment now rather than the TV. US is getting worse and worse. We are already behind in internet speeds. Japan is coming out with 1gb to the house already. Everyone else is taking off while we wave good bye lol.
Click to expand...

Agreed.. One of my favorite sites to visit is dannychoo.com. When I came across his page about Fiber internet in Japan I about freaked.

100M connection = ~$10 a month for a year. $67 the second year! :eek:
the guy even does some site hosting from the home, so I assume dedicated IP(s) and no bitching from the ISP.

His article about mobile broadband speeds through E Mobile is also amazing.

HSDPA 7.2Mbps = ~$67 (according to the article - unlimited, no cap)

That's twice the speed of my wired connection, and 7 times the speed of what my iPhone pulls according to the speedtest.net app.
 
I'm not quite sure if I agree, but I can see how it all comes together, and it makes sense.

And honestly, it pisses me off that Comcrap is all that's available out here.
 
Man that was a pretty hard read, first part needs to be condensed get to the point a little more quickly.

While I agree, and it is sad that many people get riled up about one thing and makes them conveniently forget about other issues that probably are more important... war on terror? YEAH!!!! (ooops there go your basic liberties..).

That said I would like to have a little faith in people they can be pissed about caps as well as net neutrality.
 
While I agree that at least part of the reason for the caps is to stop the loss of video revenues, Comcasts cap given current content is very reasonable. I get almost all of my TV via torrents. With the exception of 2 shows, they're all 720p. I generally try to up whatever I down and I've never come close to 250GB of usage.

When we had this debate several months ago, the one person who objected the most pointed out that he used far more than that each month. He was literally running a server on a consumer line.

With that said, it's pretty clear that FTTH can be done for a reasonable price. Just don't expect that to happen from Cable and Telecom companies.

They'll tack on as many fees as possible. Want to activate a new phone? That's $36.00 (costs the company almost nothing). Want to use that machine to pay your bill with cash? Sure, but we want 10% extra -- though the transaction costs us less than if you mailed us a check or used a credit card.....but we know people who pay cash probably don't have a credit card....cha ching!

Don't like the cable guys and I think the folks that use more than Comcast's cap are abusing the System.

5 years from now, that type of usage probably wouldn't be abuse. If you've got a solid municipal Untility company, like the one linked above, then perhaps municipal cable will work...but if that company isn't well run today, then it's unlikely that they'll do a good job with Internet/Video service.....regardless, the Cable/Phone companies will fight to keep it from happening for as long as possible.
 
shansoft said:
its not just Japan, most country in Asia such as China/Hong Kong are having the same thing now..

and what type of country they are? second world country..... and why we even fall behind them? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

China? Maybe Hong Kong, but that's one city.

The data system in China is crazy messy.
 
As long as an ISP has to pay per byte for their bandwidth they will need to either: cap users, go to tiered packages or just pass on the pay per byte rates to the users. The only people who pay flat rate for net access are folks like us and the current rates charged don't cover aggressive streaming of HD content or your 24/7 seedbox.

I do agree that the ISPs that get their revenue from, say, PPV and cable fees are not interested in letting people get those same services from other providers.

Want to piss them off even more? Deploy an awesome HD media services that uses P2P to help it scale. Now you're not only biting into their PPV and cable business, you're doing on their dime, bandwidth wise if their users go ape for your service.

The cable guys need to evolve. I think that eventually net access will be seen as a necessity (it's not today) and it will get regulated like any other utility or co-ops will pop up as they are in many places disaffected with the lameness of slow moving, vision-less ISPs.
 
It's really stupid with bandwidth caps. People are already paying a monthly fee for a fast connections and then they can't even utilize it fully. It's true that when the traffic grows ISPs need a sufficient amount of bandwidth to be able to function, ie their backbone must have enough capacity. But the amount of data to transfer should not be limited, only by the speed which you're paying for. Cellphone transactions is a different thing. This model seems mostly to be only in USA, in Europe we don't have caps.
 
VERIZON FIOS FTW

no caps
massive bandwidth
all fiber
taste great less filling
 
I think it will take quite a while before all of America is even up to 10 Mbps let alone 100 like Japan, I wan to say the Midwest is stuck at like 1.5 or something equally sad compared to the world. All these recent articles just makes me not want to move out of Cablevisions network (Optimum), with boost it's 30 but I never go below 26 Mbps, unlimited bandwidth, can host servers pretty much use the net as I want without being told what I can't do.
 
Of course that's what is happening. Same thing's happening in the mobile phone world as well: companies like Verizon are working very hard to make themselves content providers because they are deathly afraid of just becoming a pipe. It's why they turned down the iPhone and have no interest in getting it back from Apple: the bandwidth sales mean nothing to them because they want to sell you their vCrap (music at $2/song, ringtones at $1/each, games at $5/each). It's like extended warranties at Best Buy: costs them literally nothing to produce and is pure gravy.

What I want to know is why the FTC isn't involved. These cable companies already have a monopoly in most areas, and now they are using bandwidth caps to place unreasonable barriers to entry for TV and Phone competitors. Why should I pay $30/month for Comcast's phone service when Skype costs a few bucks?!
 
mullet said:
VERIZON FIOS FTW

no caps
massive bandwidth
all fiber
taste great less filling
Click to expand...

And if they cut their price in half, they'd still be profitable....unless they're less efficient than municipal fiber

InorganicMatter said:
Of course that's what is happening. Same thing's happening in the mobile phone world as well: companies like Verizon are working very hard to make themselves content providers because they are deathly afraid of just becoming a pipe. It's why they turned down the iPhone and have no interest in getting it back from Apple: the bandwidth sales mean nothing to them because they want to sell you their vCrap (music at $2/song, ringtones at $1/each, games at $5/each). It's like extended warranties at Best Buy: costs them literally nothing to produce and is pure gravy.

What I want to know is why the FTC isn't involved. These cable companies already have a monopoly in most areas, and now they are using bandwidth caps to place unreasonable barriers to entry for TV and Phone competitors. Why should I pay $30/month for Comcast's phone service when Skype costs a few bucks?!
Click to expand...

I don't see how the bandwidth caps (especially Comcast's) affect Skype. IP Telephony is a low bandwidth application. There's really nothing out there that's going to eat up 250GB of bandwidth other than a server or some serious P2P.

I think that might change if we see some higher bandwidth services that directly compete with Cable.

But the answer to your question is there's no reason to pay for Comcast....but I suspect many (most?) that go IP use their ISP's service.
 
Their business model is to make as much money as possible. so of course they are going to bill as much as they can providing the least as they can. they are not here to provide you a service as much as to make money for their shareholders.

This sort of thing ALWAYS happen when there aren't enough competition around to force companies to lower prices.

why charge less when you dont have to when there's no competition?

i believe they also do this as a buffer for when there is competition coming in that initially charge less than them, because then they can effortlessly charge less than the competition while still making money.

I'm pretty sure anyone here in comcast situation would be doing the same thing, there is never enough money you can make.
 
The only way to get the price down (at least in USA) is to either have companies understand that making money isnt the only reason a company exist (not going to happen, EVER). or significantly change the anti-competition laws we have now to encourage smaller ISPs to expand.
 
Hyperian said:
Their business model is to make as much money as possible. so of course they are going to bill as much as they can providing the least as they can. they are not here to provide you a service as much as to make money for their shareholders.

This sort of thing ALWAYS happen when there aren't enough competition around to force companies to lower prices.

why charge less when you dont have to when there's no competition?
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And that's the problem with the current system. Most people have, at most, a choice of one DSL provider and one Cable provider. In many cases, the cable company has an exclusive in an area. If you're in an apartment, you often have no choice at all.

In Lafayette, Cox and Bell South (now AT&T) fought for years to prevent the city from building a FTTH network. During that time, did either of them make any effort to match what LUS had proposed? nope. AT&T has at best done a half hearted upgrade in Baton Rouge (where their best is worse than LUS's slowest connection and more than 2x LUS's price).

How long did it take LUS to get the first home turned after they broke ground? About a year give or take. It's early in the game (3 months since the first customer go service), but better prices, better speads, no contracts, and they don't charge you extra for not buying multiple services -- most cable/dsl provider do, including FIOS.

All that and you get 100mb p2p on the network.
 
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