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Cenodoxus posted:From the consumer's point of view, sure, but how do four electric companies on the same block play nicely with each other? Four sets of lines on four poles?
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Feb 15, 2014 16:59
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brothertim posted:
When the grease gets too thin for palms.
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Feb 15, 2014 20:11
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computer parts posted:No one cares about uplink unless you have a server at home (which is the one thing Google Fiber explicitly prohibits). I have 1.5mb up in vancouver and streaming a game like League is agonizing and essentially impossible, even at low quality
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Feb 15, 2014 23:21
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I have 20Mb up and it's made so much stuff possible that I don't know what I'd do without it.
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Feb 15, 2014 23:34
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brothertim posted:What. the. gently caress. The merger will have to be approved by the FTC, which it probably will be. Monopolies aren't illegal, but once your market share grows large enough that you begin to stamp out all competition (in the case of AT&T back in the 80s), they government can step in. Gross abuse of market dominance will also sometimes spur the feds to action, as was the case with Microsoft in the late 90s.
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Feb 16, 2014 03:42
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I am actually ok with this merger as long as the government imposes net neutrality and no data caps for perpetuity on the company.
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Feb 16, 2014 05:53
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I don't understand how this will get approval. I know they struck down the rule where you couldn't have more than 30% of the market (lobbying? what happened here?) but this will clearly be anti competitive by pretty much any definition. The only companies left in the space will be Cox and smaller regional players, right? I think AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS, and Google Fiber are all fiber based, and DirecTV is satellite service. I have had horrible customer service experiences with both. TWC came out and cut the wire to my cable for days meaning to have cut it on someone's apartment (why not disconnect it instead if it's in a locked box???) and after trying to get someone out for repairs and being promised 8-5 on a weekday when I had to work, I finally gave up and canceled. The guy asked me what he could do so that I could continue to have TWC, I told him I'd rather have HIV and hung up. Anyone who thinks or buys the argument that they won't do anything in their power to keep prices skyrocketing is kidding themselves. They've escalated prices individually for years.
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Feb 16, 2014 05:59
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shizengiggles posted:I don't understand how this will get approval. I know they struck down the rule where you couldn't have more than 30% of the market (lobbying? what happened here?) but this will clearly be anti competitive by pretty much any definition. The only companies left in the space will be Cox and smaller regional players, right? I think AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS, and Google Fiber are all fiber based, and DirecTV is satellite service. The same way the previous Comcast deal got approved: a vague offer of a cushy job, some perks and benefits and bam we get another giant conglomerate going. Ask Meredith Baker.
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Feb 16, 2014 06:37
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psydude posted:once your market share grows large enough that you begin to stamp out all competition (in the case of AT&T back in the 80s), they government can step in. Gross abuse of market dominance will also sometimes spur the feds to action, as was the case with Microsoft in the late 90s. What you said here seems to be exactly what is happening. Seems to me that swallowing up a competitor is the same as stamping out all competition. It's only a matter of time before they own the entire cable ISP market. And when that happens, skyrocketing prices.
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Feb 16, 2014 06:52
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shizengiggles posted:I don't understand how this will get approval. I know they struck down the rule where you couldn't have more than 30% of the market (lobbying? what happened here?) but this will clearly be anti competitive by pretty much any definition. The only companies left in the space will be Cox and smaller regional players, right? I think AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS, and Google Fiber are all fiber based, and DirecTV is satellite service. U-Verse is fiber-to-the-node but uses crappy old DSL for the last 1/2 mile or so. They rolled it out here, but the VRADs are spaced quite far apart and there are a lot of unserviced homes since the distance limits, even with two pairs of lines, top out under a mile. Probably less here since the lines are really lovely and couldn't even provide clear voice service on the best days in the past.
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Feb 16, 2014 06:57
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shizengiggles posted:I don't understand how this will get approval. It'll get approved very easily just like Stanos said. You don't ascend the ranks of the FCC without making a few friends in the business. There will probably be a hearing of sorts. Comcast will make vague, hand-waving arguments about "fairness for the consumer" and "saving billions but we'll still raise rates because yacht party" and "well technically it won't create a monopoly because most people didn't have a choice in the first place". The commissioners will take their hands out of Comcast's back pocket long enough to give them the stamp of approval, and in 1-4 years when each of their terms expires, they'll become lobbyists or officers at the same companies they regulated just months prior.  For $3000 + roof access fees at the data center downtown, I can have a 24GHz backhaul to an ISP that won't actively try to gently caress me over. It would be the gooniest internet connection known to man.  shizengiggles posted:I think AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS, and Google Fiber are all fiber based, and DirecTV is satellite service. DirecTV might as well be Comcast in the sky. Teaser rates, obscenely long contracts, horrible support, pushy salespeople, and so on. Cenodoxus fucked around with this message at 07:44 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 07:36
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brothertim posted:That's pretty stupid. 300GB can go extremely fast if you spend any amount of time on steam (endless updates). Are they trying to curtail the transition to digital downloading? Most people don't want to leave the house to rent movies/buy games these days. I'm not calling bullshit, but what on Earth have you got installed through Steam that's churning through that much bandwidth? I'm capped at 90GB with close to a terabyte of Steam crap, and automatic updates never go anywhere near that much usage. But yes, throttling competing download sites is a large reason for instituting caps; it's one of the reasons the big incumbents up here in Canada give us such wretched service by default. Netflix was eating the cable companies' lunch, once upon a time, and they'll be god damned if they let something like that happen again while there's the opportunity to add something else to your bill.
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Feb 16, 2014 08:47
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Bieeardo posted:I'm not calling bullshit, but what on Earth have you got installed through Steam that's churning through that much bandwidth? I'm capped at 90GB with close to a terabyte of Steam crap, and automatic updates never go anywhere near that much usage. I was speaking generally. God forbid a game messes up and you need to reinstall it, because that never happens on steam. Just for the ESO beta alone was 20+GB of downloading (not steam, but still). There's a lot of sales on steam where they offer packages. Usually they aren't small downloads.
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Feb 16, 2014 10:00
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Well, in Comcast's defense, they never really enforced the cap when they had it in my area. If you're pushing enough data where you're constantly hitting the cap and getting shut off, you should probably just cough up the extra money (I believe it's 10-15 a month) for a business line so you can at least get some form of SLA and less-lovely support.
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Feb 16, 2014 10:57
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As I recall, the requirement for cap enforcement is "over 300GB in a month, and in the top 10 percent of your area". I don't remember exactly how they define area, but judging from the time I had to reinstall my entire Steam library because of a hard drive failure it seems likely that my area includes the nearby college dorms. That said, I'm tentatively unopposed to the merger if only because TWC can't get much worse, but I am hoping that the FCC extends the duration to which Comcast is required to abide by net neutrality principles as a condition of the merger.
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Feb 16, 2014 13:52
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agentxavier posted:I am actually ok with this merger as long as the government imposes net neutrality and no data caps for perpetuity on the company. Considering that by the time this is voted for the house and senate will probably be Republican controlled it's unlikely net neutrality will be considered. Most of them have argued for years that it kills jobs and innovation.
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Feb 16, 2014 15:11
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Verviticus posted:I have 1.5mb up in vancouver and streaming a game like League is agonizing and essentially impossible, even at low quality And that's a very edge case scenario. Online backups are also edge case but after the initial backup they're very low intensive for bandwidth, especially if you just do daily backups overnight. It also helps that the biggest files that an average person works with (movies, music, etc) are being moved to streaming services.
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Feb 16, 2014 15:59
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The advent of VoIP and VTC applications and services like Skype and Google Voice can be hamstrung by poor upstream bandwidth, especially since they often operate over port 80/443 and most home routers and ISPs don't actively support CoS or QoS handling (unless you're paying for their separate VoIP service).
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Feb 16, 2014 16:16
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Even if you can't think of an immediate use for higher upstream bandwidth, or think that streaming video is an edge case, why would you almost rally against it?
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Feb 16, 2014 16:18
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Caged posted:Even if you can't think of an immediate use for higher upstream bandwidth, or think that streaming video is an edge case, why would you almost rally against it? I never rallied against it, I said little to no people would notice if it was there or not.
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Feb 16, 2014 16:19
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Cable companies will be moving away from coax last mile to ftth, at least the one I am working at is deploying a small test region this year. From what I understand in our meetings this movement is across the entire MSO
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Feb 16, 2014 16:27
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I just think it's a bit short sighted to not pay attention to upload speeds because nothing uses it today, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. If nobody really uploads then have a higher contention on the upstream, but don't cap it at 2Mbps or anything daft like that. A 10Mbps+ upload speeds makes any sort of content uploading quite painless, and home working becomes something that provides as good a client experience as being in an office would in a lot of cases. If faster upload speeds were common then I think you'd soon see services start to use it, and not just the ones that a tiny proportion of the subscriber base care about.
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Feb 16, 2014 16:28
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Caged posted:I just think it's a bit short sighted to not pay attention to upload speeds because nothing uses it today, it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation. If nobody really uploads then have a higher contention on the upstream, but don't cap it at 2Mbps or anything daft like that. And over time speeds *are* increasing, they just don't need to be equal to download speeds (again, from most people's perspective). e: A situation where working from home is effective is in itself an edge case scenario as well, though (less edge case than video game streaming but still).
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Feb 16, 2014 16:32
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computer parts posted:And over time speeds *are* increasing, they just don't need to be equal to download speeds (again, from most people's perspective). WFH is becoming huge in major metropolitan areas, so I wouldn't call it an "edge case".
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Feb 16, 2014 17:02
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psydude posted:WFH is becoming huge in major metropolitan areas, so I wouldn't call it an "edge case". It's becoming huge for a certain subset of white collar workers that don't need to actually interact with stuff in the office and who can adequately separate their work and home thinking. And even with that in mind, there's a large amount of stuff which does not need a very fast connection to do. Basically everything but video conferencing (like, professional video conferencing not Skype) and uploading large (think gigabyte sized) files could be done with existing connections, and lots of people don't deal with those things on a regular basis.
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Feb 16, 2014 17:14
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First you said the only people that care about upload are those hosting servers. Then when people provided half a dozen other examples you claim they don't count for whatever reasons. Please just stop.
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Feb 16, 2014 18:00
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Sepist posted:Cable companies will be moving away from coax last mile to ftth, at least the one I am working at is deploying a small test region this year. From what I understand in our meetings this movement is across the entire MSO Some of the smaller companies are doing that, but pretty much all of the big boys have backed off from that. Verizon isn't expanding Fios anymore, AT&T only did FTTH in new subdivisions and also do not have plans on expanding except in areas like Austin where they need to to stay competitive. What more than likely will happen if this goes through and the need arises Comcast will convert their network to switched digital which is what TWC has done in some areas. Maybe they'll to 10gb service in some areas like what's happening in Austin now but Comcast ain't going to spend the money to send fiber to the home or curb when they are the only game in town.
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Feb 16, 2014 18:08
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Yip Yips posted:First you said the only people that care about upload are those hosting servers. Then when people provided half a dozen other examples you claim they don't count for whatever reasons. Please just stop. People provided at most 3 other examples, 2 of which are definitely edge cases and one of which is incredibly low bandwidth in the long term.
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Feb 16, 2014 19:02
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I don't know why threads about ISPs always turns into people defending the ridiculous things that ISPs do for... reasons?
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Feb 16, 2014 20:24
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Ryokurin posted:Comcast ain't going to spend the money to send fiber to the home or curb when they are the only game in town. If you're right, and you probably will be, this is horse poo poo. This is one huge reason this merger shouldn't be allowed. When they have no competition, they have no reason to improve their networks and knowing how comcast/capitalism works, they wont.
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Feb 16, 2014 20:26
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brothertim posted:If you're right, and you probably will be, this is horse poo poo. This is one huge reason this merger shouldn't be allowed. When they have no competition, they have no reason to improve their networks and knowing how comcast/capitalism works, they wont. Its not like time warner was going to start offering services in comcast areas.
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Feb 16, 2014 20:41
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Don Lapre posted:Its not like time warner was going to start offering services in comcast areas. Other way around seems more plausible.
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Feb 16, 2014 20:46
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computer parts posted:People provided at most 3 other examples, 2 of which are definitely edge cases and one of which is incredibly low bandwidth in the long term. The internet is quickly transitioning to a place where users generate as much content than they consume. People share photos, videos, and music constantly and there are more and more services popping up that allow for people to access information from their home networks easily. Most consumer-grade routers come with an easy to setup "personal cloud" feature to enable people to access their home networks from anywhere online. Services like Skype, Dropbox, Vine, Picasa/Flickr and YouTube are not just used by the fringes of Internet society, they are used constantly by everyday folks. You're either living in a bubble, ignorant of the changes that have taken place over the years or are just too stubborn to admit that you're wrong. Either way, consumer class upload speeds are horrible for all tiers of service and it is a major limiting factor for residential connections (especially with multiple users).
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Feb 17, 2014 00:50
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computer parts posted:People provided at most 3 other examples, 2 of which are definitely edge cases and one of which is incredibly low bandwidth in the long term. I don't even understand the point you're trying to make here. Some people want/need good upload.
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Feb 17, 2014 07:29
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I'm currently posting from my Verizon phone via hotspot since Comcast has been down for 110~ hours in my whole city. Just sayin'. gently caress Comcast.
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Feb 17, 2014 08:10
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Cenodoxus posted:Another factor preventing shared cable markets is that many municipalities offer a pseudo-"protected monopoly" status to cable carriers in exchange for the carrier agreeing to provide service to the entire area. The local government gets their constituents internet access, and the cable company gets so many years of almost guaranteed It's this right here, mainly. Cable companies go to local governments and whinge about how much they're gonna have to invest for INFRASTRUCTURE and how they can't possibly bear the burden of competition and get INCREDIBLY favorable arrangements for decades and decades. psydude posted:Well, in Comcast's defense, they never really enforced the cap when they had it in my area. Because gently caress them, that's why. Data caps are completely arbitrary and the companies themselves have outright admitted this. "B-b-b-but you're affecting performance for other users!!" is complete bullshit and always has been.
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Feb 17, 2014 18:12
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AlternateAccount posted:Data caps are completely arbitrary and the companies themselves have outright admitted this. There should be no reason anyone's internet activities are affecting others. Don't offer a 100Mbit service if your infrastructure can't handle it. Seems as arbitrary as being forced to pay extra to use your cell phone as a hotspot when you already have a data plan.
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Feb 17, 2014 19:23
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If the FCC puts special requirements on comcast for the merger to go through then i hope it happens, as im in one of the only markets with an enforced data cap.
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Feb 17, 2014 20:11
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Hey folks here's a friendly reminder of what current cable territories look like (yes this is from 2011, but there have been only minor chagnes to the boundaries since then) brothertim posted:What you said here seems to be exactly what is happening. Seems to me that swallowing up a competitor is the same as stamping out all competition. It's only a matter of time before they own the entire cable ISP market. And when that happens, skyrocketing prices. Time Warner Cable (which is a separate entity from Time Warner for the past few years after a spinoff) does not and cannot compete with Comcast. There are no locations where you can choose between the two providers without moving. brothertim posted:If you're right, and you probably will be, this is horse poo poo. This is one huge reason this merger shouldn't be allowed. When they have no competition, they have no reason to improve their networks and knowing how comcast/capitalism works, they wont. They already have no cable competition in most of their service territory, and none of those competitors in overbuild areas are TWC.
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Feb 17, 2014 20:25
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Yea, stop thinking of them as competitors. Just because you are in the same business does not mean you compete with each other. Think of it like Verizon buying vodofone. It doesn't lower competition because they arn't in the same markets.
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Feb 17, 2014 20:38
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