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OJ MIST 2 THE DICK
Sep 11, 2008

Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola

-Cheap Trick

Nap Ghost

Ocrassus posted:

Sim only. 200 minutes, 5000 texts, unlimited data. 12.90 per month. 1 month rolling contract (can cancel at any time) on network three.

Idk where you got the idea that they don't offer such plans. :/

You're not going to find a lot of good comparisons with the US, because most of our rolling SIM plans are unlimited talk/text, and in the $40-$50 range to get unlimited data.

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK fucked around with this message at 01:16 on Jun 16, 2014

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Pauline Kael
Oct 9, 2012

by Shine

Ocrassus posted:

I mean he's wrong that I'm lying and a cursory google would reveal that fact. 12.90 for unlimited 4G. In practice this results in ~20-25 Mbps in the city centre and 10 Mbps in my house.

Add to that I have HSPA+ in most towns which averages 5 Mbps and American broadband begins to look really quite goofy. Especially considering three is a terrible network with terrible customer service and terrible bandwidth allocations.

This is England for Christ sake, we only just got round to implementing 4G because our goddamn government took forever to auction off the spectrum.

So, you have better broadband connectivity that some Americans, not as good as some others, but for less money than most? Congratulations? I'm not sure your post amounts to any more than me saying I filled my truck with 24 gallons of 93 octane gas today for $3.79 a gallon. And our county government just raised taxes on gas.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

Ocrassus posted:

Sim only. 200 minutes, 5000 texts, unlimited data. 12.90 per month. 1 month rolling contract (can cancel at any time) on network three.

Idk where you got the idea that they don't offer such plans. :/

I looked at their site. Wasn't familiar with SIM only plans - found it once I knew what to look for.

a neurotic ai
Mar 22, 2012

ayn rand hand job posted:

You're not going to find a lot of good comparisons with the US, because most of our rolling SIM plans are unlimited talk/text, and in the $40-$50 range to get unlimited data.

Yes and the point of discussion in this thread is to pinpoint exactly why this is the case. Texts are basically free/inbuilt costs at this point and so any limitation on them is essentially for pure profit. (Except on NYE where I am told the sheer mass volume of texts is so huge that the networks have to work very hard on keeping up service).

Why is it that a fledgling 4G network, with far too many users using it's bandwidth, is still capable of outpacing wired broadband in the majorUS cities? As I said, those places ought to be the fastest places in the world, the vast majority of important servers lie in the country.

a neurotic ai
Mar 22, 2012

Pauline Kael posted:

So, you have better broadband connectivity that some Americans, not as good as some others, but for less money than most? Congratulations? I'm not sure your post amounts to any more than me saying I filled my truck with 24 gallons of 93 octane gas today for $3.79 a gallon. And our county government just raised taxes on gas.

There are good reasons for cheap gas in your country. The EU has a far higher tax on it and aside from the North Sea, we don't have a whole lot of our own production facilities. So basically, logistics.

I have better internet connectivity through my phone than 90 percent of Americans Atleast. For half the price or more.

I have better Internet connectivity through my fibre than 99% of Americans and I estimate a lot of business users too. Again, this seems significantly cheaper than alternatives for Americans in major cities.


I'm not comparing places out in the boonies, Internet is always invariably poo poo and expensive there. I am concerned with the fact that the population centres, many functioning as the heart of tech commerce (SF, New York), largely offer slower packages for far more money.

The barriers to Setting up intercity fibre don't seem prohibitively expensive given the margins that your providers operate on. The EU taxes the poo poo out of our providers and yet the service is still cheaper. BT and virgin are both running around filling as much of the country as they can with fibre and actively replacing Copper wire.

And there really is no excuse for any under developed 4G networks on your part. The upgrades are modular to existing infrastructure. Why is 'unlimited' (ie so significant that it is out of reach for all but people who torrent 24/7) bandwidth so expensive again?

So what's the problem?

a neurotic ai fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Jun 16, 2014

Pauline Kael
Oct 9, 2012

by Shine

Ocrassus posted:

There are good reasons for cheap gas in your country. The EU has a far higher tax on it and aside from the North Sea, we don't have a whole lot of our own production facilities. So basically, logistics.

I have better internet connectivity through my phone than 90 percent of Americans Atleast. For half the price or more.

I have better Internet connectivity through my fibre than 99% of Americans and I estimate a lot of business users too. Again, this seems significantly cheaper than alternatives for Americans in major cities.


I'm not comparing places out in the boonies, Internet is always invariably poo poo and expensive there. I am concerned with the fact that the population centres, many functioning as the heart of tech commerce (SF, New York), largely offer slower packages for far more money.

The barriers to Setting up intercity fibre don't seem prohibitively expensive given the margins that your providers operate on. The EU taxes the poo poo out of our providers and yet the service is still cheaper. BT and virgin are both running around filling as much of the country as they can with fibre and actively replacing Copper wire.

And there really is no excuse for any under developed 4G networks on your part. The upgrades are modular to existing infrastructure. Why is 'unlimited' (ie so significant that it is out of reach for all but people who torrent 24/7) bandwidth so expensive again?

So what's the problem?

Excuse for what? Are you complaining that US prices are too high? Anyone can go buy a phone with a second tier cellular carrier like Virgin or netzero or whatever it's called with the kiosks in the mall. The fact that the vast majority of customers stay on the big 2 or 3 networks tell you that price isn't their only determinant, or that people are sensitive to price as much as other factors such as phone choice or availability of service.

Or are you complaining about speeds? We've discussed this extensively. Very few customer choose the top bandwidth tier, or even anything faster than the absolute cheapest option, because that's all they feel they need. If you want or need more, you can pay a few bucks more. I don't really know anyone that is having to choose between their broadband and feeding their dog.

edit: also, it should be noted, covering a lovely little country smaller than a lot of US States is a pretty trivial task compared to covering the entire populated US. Thanks for explaining that 4g is a modular upgrade to existing networks. 2 years ago called, they want their breaking news back.

Pauline Kael fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Jun 16, 2014

a neurotic ai
Mar 22, 2012

Pauline Kael posted:

Excuse for what? Are you complaining that US prices are too high? Anyone can go buy a phone with a second tier cellular carrier like Virgin or netzero or whatever it's called with the kiosks in the mall. The fact that the vast majority of customers stay on the big 2 or 3 networks tell you that price isn't their only determinant, or that people are sensitive to price as much as other factors such as phone choice or availability of service.

Or are you complaining about speeds? We've discussed this extensively. Very few customer choose the top bandwidth tier, or even anything faster than the absolute cheapest option, because that's all they feel they need. If you want or need more, you can pay a few bucks more. I don't really know anyone that is having to choose between their broadband and feeding their dog.

edit: also, it should be noted, covering a lovely little country smaller than a lot of US States is a pretty trivial task compared to covering the entire populated US. Thanks for explaining that 4g is a modular upgrade to existing networks. 2 years ago called, they want their breaking news back.

Way to ignore the largest parts of my post.

Let me bulletpoint it for you.

-The concentrated population in the US have, on average, worse Internet in terms of price/performance than this 'lovely little country'.

-I am not advocating giving everybody in the US gigabit fibre, because outside of cities, that is impractical. I accept that in very rural areas, Internet is more expensive to deliver and the price reflects that.

-I am questioning why is it that the US, a country that ought to be far more developed than this 'lovely little country', is lagging behind on price/performance in the urban areas.

-Can you suggest any other valuable metric other than price/performance that justifies the higher price tag that equivalent US services command. Reliability? Comparable with other countries.

-Do you think you can adequately justify the huge disparity in performance between countries in urban areas?

-do you believe the Swedish, the Singaporean, the UK, [infact pretty much the entirety of the Western EU] Indian, Chinese governments are all wrong and investing in high speed urban internet infrastructure is a waste of time?

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Ocrassus posted:


-The concentrated population in the US have, on average, worse Internet in terms of price/performance than this 'lovely little country'.

-I am questioning why is it that the US, a country that ought to be far more developed than this 'lovely little country', is lagging behind on price/performance in the urban areas.

Not according to this UK government report: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploa...014_-_Final.pdf (see especially page 13)
Or this further reporting http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/other/telecoms-research/broadband-speeds/broadband-speeds-may2013/

Which you can further compare with the data from http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america/2013/February

Pauline Kael
Oct 9, 2012

by Shine

Ocrassus posted:

Way to ignore the largest parts of my post.

Let me bulletpoint it for you.

-The concentrated population in the US have, on average, worse Internet in terms of price/performance than this 'lovely little country'.

-I am not advocating giving everybody in the US gigabit fibre, because outside of cities, that is impractical. I accept that in very rural areas, Internet is more expensive to deliver and the price reflects that.

-I am questioning why is it that the US, a country that ought to be far more developed than this 'lovely little country', is lagging behind on price/performance in the urban areas.

-Can you suggest any other valuable metric other than price/performance that justifies the higher price tag that equivalent US services command. Reliability? Comparable with other countries.

-Do you think you can adequately justify the huge disparity in performance between countries in urban areas?

-do you believe the Swedish, the Singaporean, the UK, [infact pretty much the entirety of the Western EU] Indian, Chinese governments are all wrong and investing in high speed urban internet infrastructure is a waste of time?

Those Governments are welcome to invest their tax revenues however they see fit. In most of those cases, it's not even like the people paying the taxes get any say in it! The point I've made repeatedly here is that if the market demanded more bandwidth, people would be buying the higher tiers of service. They're not. The US is 'lagging behind' for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that most of the investment from the biggest players has gone towards the cellular buildout, even while also having to subsidize their own wireline efforts. If you're arguing that your country has better performance overall than the US, then fine. Nobody has claimed the US is the best in the world. Also, nobody in this thread has provided any sort of correlation between higher ISP speeds and any kind of societal good, outside of "I like it". Would I like 1gb to my house? Sure, of course I would. I'd also like a 500hp truck. They are both good things. I can, however, do what I need to do with my 80mb cable connection and 250hp truck. I'd expect that with all the additional bandwidth to peoples homes at such a low cost, that GB and India could show a quantifiable positive benefit, at a higher rate than the US could?

a neurotic ai
Mar 22, 2012

Pauline Kael posted:

Those Governments are welcome to invest their tax revenues however they see fit. In most of those cases, it's not even like the people paying the taxes get any say in it! [I]The point I've made repeatedly here is that if the market demanded more bandwidth, people would be buying the higher tiers of service. [/IThey're not. The US is 'lagging behind' for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that most of the investment from the biggest players has gone towards the cellular buildout, even while also having to subsidize their own wireline efforts. If you're arguing that your country has better performance overall than the US, then fine. Nobody has claimed the US is the best in the world.

And that point that I have italicised is one of the most fallacious statements I have seen on this forum.

The fact that people don't purchase higher broad and doesn't suddenly prove that there isn't a demand, even a sufficiently high demand for high speed broadband. There are any number of reasons why people might not purchase higher tiers of broadband even if they could use it.

-expense [a pretty crucial one for most people given the current economic climate]

-availability

-reliability

-Lack of understandin about the product (how many people know what a megabit even is?].


It is absolutely a fallacious argument to claim, as you are doing, 'if people wanted faster, cheaper networks, they would buy faster, expensive networks'. That's not how economics works, especially in duopoly, oligopoly and monopoly conditions. As it is, the carriers in the US are acting under the former and not in as competitive a manner as possible.


You are also going further and suggesting that these governments are going to great lengths to expand these networks for very little tangible gain and even contrary to the wishes of their own population!

Let me substantiate a few utility arguments for you here.

-higher speed Internet for lower cost, lowers the burdens on new companies, in particular service based industries.

-Higher speed Internet opens up far wider consumption streams for all sorts of content providers. Contrary to what a poster mentioned in this thread, it really isn't a chicken and egg scenario. The network must come before the application, but the applications will soon follow.

Some examples of applications that require high, consistent bandwidth performance that are either needed now or will be in the very near future.

-Updates. Companies like apple, google and Microsoft are releasing larger updates year on year, and spending significant amounts on their infrastructure to do so. Add to that, patches for video games and other software

-the death of physical media. It's happening. CD drives are rapidly leaving the building, cloud storage usage increases significantly year on year. Many services now place a premium on 'syncing' Multics devices instantaneously. Software is downloaded.

-Streaming. Currently music and video streaming exists. Games are following shortly. Both the ps4 and the Xbox one include cloud processing capabilities, but are latency dependent and therefore require good network infrastructure.

-content providers. People who make a living at home working on the Internet are an ever growing group of people. People need to be able to upload content quickly and efficiently, and have it so people can download their content as quickly and as painlessly as possible. This reduces inefficiency in the market of these goods and allows both the production of more content, and the more consumption.

-TBA. Technology moves at a rapid pace and can surprise us. Do you think the iPhone was a completely one-off thing? It is entirely possible and even probable a new game changer will come along, and likely require significant bandwidth. Doesn't it make sense, whilst there is breathing room, to build that up for that event. (Focus on urban areas first. Some have argued that the providers are doing expansion, but it isn't sufficient in urban areas because price/performance doesn't match up). Urban areas are likely where these applications matter most

Slanderer
May 6, 2007
In other news--I was bored the other night so I chatted up Comcast support and said I wanted to change providers and now I'm paying $35 less per month and I get 100/5Mbps so everything worked out I guess.

Pauline Kael
Oct 9, 2012

by Shine

Ocrassus posted:

And that point that I have italicised is one of the most fallacious statements I have seen on this forum.

The fact that people don't purchase higher broad and doesn't suddenly prove that there isn't a demand, even a sufficiently high demand for high speed broadband. There are any number of reasons why people might not purchase higher tiers of broadband even if they could use it.

-expense [a pretty crucial one for most people given the current economic climate]

-availability

-reliability

-Lack of understandin about the product (how many people know what a megabit even is?].


It is absolutely a fallacious argument to claim, as you are doing, 'if people wanted faster, cheaper networks, they would buy faster, expensive networks'. That's not how economics works, especially in duopoly, oligopoly and monopoly conditions. As it is, the carriers in the US are acting under the former and not in as competitive a manner as possible.


You are also going further and suggesting that these governments are going to great lengths to expand these networks for very little tangible gain and even contrary to the wishes of their own population!

Let me substantiate a few utility arguments for you here.

-higher speed Internet for lower cost, lowers the burdens on new companies, in particular service based industries.

-Higher speed Internet opens up far wider consumption streams for all sorts of content providers. Contrary to what a poster mentioned in this thread, it really isn't a chicken and egg scenario. The network must come before the application, but the applications will soon follow.

Some examples of applications that require high, consistent bandwidth performance that are either needed now or will be in the very near future.

-Updates. Companies like apple, google and Microsoft are releasing larger updates year on year, and spending significant amounts on their infrastructure to do so. Add to that, patches for video games and other software

-the death of physical media. It's happening. CD drives are rapidly leaving the building, cloud storage usage increases significantly year on year. Many services now place a premium on 'syncing' Multics devices instantaneously. Software is downloaded.

-Streaming. Currently music and video streaming exists. Games are following shortly. Both the ps4 and the Xbox one include cloud processing capabilities, but are latency dependent and therefore require good network infrastructure.

-content providers. People who make a living at home working on the Internet are an ever growing group of people. People need to be able to upload content quickly and efficiently, and have it so people can download their content as quickly and as painlessly as possible. This reduces inefficiency in the market of these goods and allows both the production of more content, and the more consumption.

-TBA. Technology moves at a rapid pace and can surprise us. Do you think the iPhone was a completely one-off thing? It is entirely possible and even probable a new game changer will come along, and likely require significant bandwidth. Doesn't it make sense, whilst there is breathing room, to build that up for that event. (Focus on urban areas first. Some have argued that the providers are doing expansion, but it isn't sufficient in urban areas because price/performance doesn't match up). Urban areas are likely where these applications matter most


So your longwinded jeremiad amounts to 'because of the US's lovely/overpriced broadband and cellular infrastructure, innovation has not/can not/will not occur'

That's pretty dumb. Also, if you're right about that people dying for more bandwidth, how come nobody buys the higher tiers? I mean, I do, and my friends too, but the vast vast vast majority of cable broadband customers get whatever the minimum is. The difference in cost to move up to the next tier might be $5 a month, or less than half the cost of adding another movie channel, but very few do. Why do you think that is? Because they are too poor? They're spending $180 with Time Warner today, what another $5 to double their available bandwidth?

It's ok though, if you like your taxes going to pay for your broadband build out, I'm not coming into the GB broadband thread and making GBS threads it up about how you're wasting your money.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
Just going to point out again that according to the UK's commissioned studies, speeds and availability in the UK are very similar to the US.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Pauline Kael posted:

So your longwinded jeremiad amounts to 'because of the US's lovely/overpriced broadband and cellular infrastructure, innovation has not/can not/will not occur'

That's pretty dumb. Also, if you're right about that people dying for more bandwidth, how come nobody buys the higher tiers? I mean, I do, and my friends too, but the vast vast vast majority of cable broadband customers get whatever the minimum is. The difference in cost to move up to the next tier might be $5 a month, or less than half the cost of adding another movie channel, but very few do. Why do you think that is? Because they are too poor? They're spending $180 with Time Warner today, what another $5 to double their available bandwidth?

Haha, "that's pretty dumb" is a great way to refute that argument. Proving a negative will always be impossible, so proving that something will not happen in the future if we don't do something will always be hard, but at least he tried. He didn't just post an opinion as if it refuted someone else's well-documented thoughts.

I think if you just go back to the tiers and pricing posted in the thread you will find the next tier is not $5 more per month at all.

Many people have said it at this point and I don't understand why it's not getting through: prices can be too high across the whole pricing structure.

I suspect what we're seeing is inelastic demand for any internet access leading buyers to pay what they consider outrageous* prices for the basic package. Marginal demand after the point of having some internet access is going to be much more elastic, leading people to not spring for the more advanced options. It's simple monopoly economics, only the inelasticity of demand for internet access has increased to the point that people are paying the monopolist's inflated price. But they certainly aren't happy about it or willing to shell out for higher tiers.

Actually, thinking about this has convinced me that the whole situation is the classic monopolist's dilemma, complete with the monopolist complaining about lack of demand and dragging its feet on production increases while everyone else perceives shortages. Broadband is clearly a natural monopoly market, and we wouldn't expect any other natural monopoly to behave itself without significant government intervention. It should be no surprise that we find classic monopolist behavior in this market. The only surprising thing should be that US broadband carriers have managed to evade FCC Title 2 regulations for this long.

*People hate their broadband providers, this is not hyperbole.

karthun
Nov 16, 2006

I forgot to post my food for USPOL Thanksgiving but that's okay too!

Arglebargle III posted:

The only surprising thing should be that US broadband carriers have managed to evade FCC Title 2 regulations for this long.

What is it that you think FCC Title 2 regulations would do for US broadband carriers and their customers?

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Nice trap. That could easily have turned the next 3 pages into discussion of what Title 2 regulations really are.

I think broadband should be regulated like any monopoly.

Pauline Kael
Oct 9, 2012

by Shine

Arglebargle III posted:

Haha, "that's pretty dumb" is a great way to refute that argument. Proving a negative will always be impossible, so proving that something will not happen in the future if we don't do something will always be hard, but at least he tried. He didn't just post an opinion as if it refuted someone else's well-documented thoughts.

I think if you just go back to the tiers and pricing posted in the thread you will find the next tier is not $5 more per month at all.

Many people have said it at this point and I don't understand why it's not getting through: prices can be too high across the whole pricing structure.

I suspect what we're seeing is inelastic demand for any internet access leading buyers to pay what they consider outrageous* prices for the basic package. Marginal demand after the point of having some internet access is going to be much more elastic, leading people to not spring for the more advanced options. It's simple monopoly economics, only the inelasticity of demand for internet access has increased to the point that people are paying the monopolist's inflated price. But they certainly aren't happy about it or willing to shell out for higher tiers.

Actually, thinking about this has convinced me that the whole situation is the classic monopolist's dilemma, complete with the monopolist complaining about lack of demand and dragging its feet on production increases while everyone else perceives shortages. Broadband is clearly a natural monopoly market, and we wouldn't expect any other natural monopoly to behave itself without significant government intervention. It should be no surprise that we find classic monopolist behavior in this market. The only surprising thing should be that US broadband carriers have managed to evade FCC Title 2 regulations for this long.

*People hate their broadband providers, this is not hyperbole.

Ok, so let's say it's $10 to the next tier (TWC where I live, $30 for basic tier, $40 for the next tier, then it's $5 increments) so technically you're right. The rest of the cable package is 3-6x that much depending on what you get. You, and the rest of the chronic complainers in this thread, are coming from a position that everyone would love more bandwidth and would utilize it for all sort of magnificent things, but the grim reality is that most people would MUCH rather get STARZ or ENCORE as their 3rd/4th premium movie channels than to get the next tier up for internet access. It's a choice that real earth people make every single day. this isn't even remotely controversial.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

Arglebargle III posted:

Nice trap. That could easily have turned the next 3 pages into discussion of what Title 2 regulations really are.

I think broadband should be regulated like any monopoly.

Meaning what, exactly?

Xae
Jan 19, 2005

Pauline Kael posted:

Ok, so let's say it's $10 to the next tier (TWC where I live, $30 for basic tier, $40 for the next tier, then it's $5 increments) so technically you're right. The rest of the cable package is 3-6x that much depending on what you get. You, and the rest of the chronic complainers in this thread, are coming from a position that everyone would love more bandwidth and would utilize it for all sort of magnificent things, but the grim reality is that most people would MUCH rather get STARZ or ENCORE as their 3rd/4th premium movie channels than to get the next tier up for internet access. It's a choice that real earth people make every single day. this isn't even remotely controversial.

That may be where YOU live, but that isn't how it works for me.

Comcast is just nonsensical with their pricing because they use 12 month offers to hide actual pricing.

$50 for 6Mbps, $115 for 105Mbps. With 25Mbps and 50Mbps somewhere in between there.

According to the fine print 25Mbps is between $40 and $65. Even in the fine print there for 50Mbps there is no pricing information past 12 months. Given that 6Mbps is $50, I would guess 25Mbps is closer to $65, with 50Mbps around $85.

Your area may have $5 price points between packages, but at least in my area the price points are $20 apart. Your posts always seem to be "Well, I have good internet in my area, so gently caress you guys who don't".

Xae fucked around with this message at 14:32 on Jun 17, 2014

Pauline Kael
Oct 9, 2012

by Shine

Arglebargle III posted:

Nice trap. That could easily have turned the next 3 pages into discussion of what Title 2 regulations really are.

I think broadband should be regulated like any monopoly.

Except it's not a monopoly in many places?

Let's try this, instead of diffuse mewling about broadband pricing, what do YOU think the price should be? What should 3mb cost, 10, 20, 50, 100? How do you arrive at those values?

Dallan Invictus
Oct 11, 2007

The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Kalman posted:

Meaning what, exactly?

The broader point, Arglebargle, is that three pages of discussion about what Title 2 requirements actually are, why they are that way, what they should be, and how that can be accomplished is actually a useful direction for this thread to go, because at the end of the day, barring the revolution coming, someone actually has to write those regulations and they actually have to try and balance the demands of consumers, content providers, and ISPs/infrastructure providers while staying within the bounds set by legislatures and occasionally unsympathetic courts.

I have a professional curiosity about this debate in the States because I work as junior staff for a telecom regulator in another country - went there straight from school, worked for a public interest legal clinic in school, have no particular desire to jump ship to the dark side, but at the same time I lean more to Kalman's corner of this debate than anyone else's: the actual content of what's being demanded is really rather important and worth trying to understand.

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 15:18 on Jun 17, 2014

OJ MIST 2 THE DICK
Sep 11, 2008

Anytime I need to see your face I just close my eyes
And I am taken to a place
Where your crystal minds and magenta feelings
Take up shelter in the base of my spine
Sweet like a chica cherry cola

-Cheap Trick

Nap Ghost

Arglebargle III posted:

Nice trap. That could easily have turned the next 3 pages into discussion of what Title 2 regulations really are.

I think broadband should be regulated like any monopoly.

Chanting magic words without understanding the significance of the decision is something that I would expect from a sovereign citizen, not D&D.

How on earth it is a trap to engage in an actual germane topic? This isn't like the time the thread spent 5 pages discussing bailouts.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Arglebargle III posted:


I think broadband should be regulated like any monopoly.

Broadband is regulated.

Pauline Kael
Oct 9, 2012

by Shine

Nintendo Kid posted:

Broadband is regulated.

No, REGULATED, as in free internet for everyone, 1 petabyte direct backbone connection to each house. Don't you understand telecom?

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE

Nintendo Kid posted:

Broadband is regulated.

Broadband is inadequately regulated. It's less regulated than even cable tv, thanks to the FCC preempting state PUCs from regulating it as well.

Basically fair Title 2 regulation would involve broadband providers being subject to the same rules for filing public and joinable interconnection agreements. As well as the FCC opening the way for state PUCs to emplace price controls on basic levels of service, similar to the current rules for Basic Cable.

I think its crazy to give Broadband providers access to E-Rate, but exempt them from even the most basic telecom regulations.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe
A basic level of service for broadband would by nature be the slowest speeds offered, I don't see where the pressing need is to make sure there's $20 a month 3 megabit service.

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE

Nintendo Kid posted:

A basic level of service for broadband would by nature be the slowest speeds offered, I don't see where the pressing need is to make sure there's $20 a month 3 megabit service.

I think its telling you ignored the point about interconnection, but there are two other problems with your statement.

1 - Taking steps to ensure that low income individuals have access to the internet is a pretty necessary policy goal.

2 - the FCC is almost certainly going to raise the definition of broad and up to 10 mbps in the next year.

It's manifestly silly that the broadband companies get the benefits of Title 2 such as mandatory pole access and right of way without having to comply with its requirements. Essentially, its a huge handout to the broadband companies at the expense of taxpayers and municipal utilities.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Valhawk posted:

I think its telling you ignored the point about interconnection, but there are two other problems with your statement.

1 - Taking steps to ensure that low income individuals have access to the internet is a pretty necessary policy goal.

2 - the FCC is almost certainly going to raise the definition of broad and up to 10 mbps in the next year.

It's manifestly silly that the broadband companies get the benefits of Title 2 such as mandatory pole access and right of way without having to comply with its requirements. Essentially, its a huge handout to the broadband companies at the expense of taxpayers and municipal utilities.

1 is already happening.

2 is irrelevant. $20 for 10 megabits still doesn't mean jack poo poo and incidentally 10 megabit as a lower limit means almost all DSL stops being broadband.

Interconnection is also irrelevant in any normal sense of the term so I really wonder what you think you mean by it here. One of the major forms of broadband today is already subject to it.

Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Jun 17, 2014

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE

Nintendo Kid posted:

1 is already happening.

Proof please.

quote:

Interconnection is also irrelevant in any normal sense of the term so I really wonder what you think you mean by it here. One of the major forms of broadband today is already subject to it.

The Communication Act of 1996 lays out rules that Interconnection Agreements must follow. First and foremost they have to be publicly filed with state PUCs. Second those filed Interconnection Agreements are considered open for other CLECs to join using the existing terms.

Currently broadband companies are not subject to either the public filing requirement or the open join requirement. Both would do a lot to weaken the overweening bargaining power of broadband who use thier power as ILECs and Incumbent Cable Providers to build their network.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Valhawk posted:

Proof please.

http://www.internetessentials.com/

Also, please consult the FCC site I've linked numerous times before that shows how access speeds have changed over time.

Valhawk posted:

The Communication Act of 1996 lays out rules that Interconnection Agreements must follow. First and foremost they have to be publicly filed with state PUCs. Second those filed Interconnection Agreements are considered open for other CLECs to join using the existing terms.

Currently broadband companies are not subject to either the public filing requirement or the open join requirement. Both would do a lot to weaken the overweening bargaining power of broadband who use thier power as ILECs and Incumbent Cable Providers to build their network.

Ok, we've already seen that in technologies with interconnect agreements, they do not create or promote any form of meaningful competition, and the actual equipment owner retains control over what actually happens with the network. I don't know why you think having 5 cable companies offering to sell you the exact same service within 1% of each other's prices is desirable or going to lead to better service, that's what happened with DSL after all. We can even directly see this with Utah's UTOPIA fiber network, where 7 different companies resell the same fiber network to customers and provide barely differing service and prices. Or any region that still has "competitive" electricity companies.

In other words "we need more competition" is a neoliberal lie.

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE

Nintendo Kid posted:

http://www.internetessentials.com/

Also, please consult the FCC site I've linked numerous times before that shows how access speeds have changed over time.


Ok, we've already seen that in technologies with interconnect agreements, they do not create or promote any form of meaningful competition, and the actual equipment owner retains control over what actually happens with the network. I don't know why you think having 5 cable companies offering to sell you the exact same service within 1% of
each other's prices is desirable or going to lead to better service, that's what happened with DSL after all. We can even directly see this with Utah's UTOPIA fiber network, where 7 different companies resell the same fiber network to customers and provide barely differing service and prices. Or any region that still has "competitive" electricity companies.

In other words "we need more competition" is a neoliberal lie.

The Comcast program didn't cover anyone who didn't have a kid. Try again.

Also, I'd be in favor of a full on public utility option, I just think there isn't the political will for it. Title 2 with Forbearance is just the best we can expect.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Valhawk posted:

The Comcast program didn't cover anyone who didn't have a kid. Try again.

Also, I'd be in favor of a full on public utility option, I just think there isn't the political will for it. Title 2 with Forbearance is just the best we can expect.

So what? It's just one example. Again, the FCC says we're seeing ongoing expansion of affordable services in places that didn't have them before.

Ok, well guess what? Title 2 with forbearance doesn't do anything but create an illusion of competition that would be used to justify not changing services.

Valhawk
Dec 15, 2007

EXCEED CHARGE

Nintendo Kid posted:

So what? It's just one example. Again, the FCC says we're seeing ongoing expansion of affordable services in places that didn't have them before.

Ok, well guess what? Title 2 with forbearance doesn't do anything but create an illusion of competition that would be used to justify not changing services.

So we agree that the best course would be the establishment of a nationwide internet service utility with CoLR obligations and fixed prices. Good to know.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

Interconnect agreements between telcos and interconnect agreements between IP transit providers are very different animals and we probably don't want to regulate them in the same ways, which makes this thread's hardon for Title II very confusing.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Valhawk posted:

So we agree that the best course would be the establishment of a nationwide internet service utility with CoLR obligations and fixed prices. Good to know.

Yes we do agree on that. What I disagree with is the idea that things like tying cable/fiber into the same sort of regulations the DSL market is in can get us any closer to that, or even provide any benefit.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

New FCC broadband testing report came out today.

Points of interest:

The only ISPs not delivering sustained 90% advertised speed during peak periods are Verizon DSL, Century Link, Windstream, and Frontier DSL. (Comcast delivered 105/110% of advertised for down/up respectively.)

There's a new metric for consistency this year - what percent of advertised speed is delivered to 80% of subscribers during 80% of peak period. More variation here - some ISPs deliver essentially the same for 80/80 (Charter, Comcast, Cox, time warner, Verizon fios.). Some suck (frontier DSL, via sat, Verizon DSL.). There are cdf charts for stats nerds.

Consumers moved up to higher speeds at about a 35 percent year-on-year improvement in average speed, but some of this is due to tier upgrades made by providers. The report doesn't study what percent is due to what and what consumer motivations for upgrading are.

FRINGE
May 23, 2003
title stolen for lf posting
.

Fans
Jun 27, 2013

A reptile dysfunction

enbot posted:

The vitriol in this thread simply does not match the facts in any way shape or form. Yes we pay a little bit more than countries that are both tiny and have highly clustered populations- as an example, something would have to be seriously hosed for Seoul not to be "better" than the US average. You have literally 50% of the population of the entire country living in one freaking city. Turns out it's pretty drat easy to bump your average speeds up when all you have to worry about is about 200 square miles to serve half your drat country. Contrast that to the US, where 200 sq mi of our most densely populated area will net you about 5 percent- an order of a magnitude difference.

You're behind pretty much the entire of Europe. France, Germany, UK, Spain and none of those are tiny and highly clustered populations. It's not a "Little bit more expensive" either, you're paying at least twice as much for a service that just isn't as good.

We used to suck too though don't get me wrong. In the UK we used to have a choice between BT and Cable just like most of the US. The Internet was slow and it was expensive as hell. So the Government in a rare display of competence and balls forced BT to allow other companies to use their lines to deliver service and set up routers in BT facilities where needed.

Ignoring Cable I have five decent internet providers now and I live in a sleepy village in the middle of Wales miles from any city. A bunch of the new providers chipped in with BT to start a massive roll out of Fiber Optic because the system was getting strained and I'm getting it before the end of the year. Weirdly AT&T and Verizon are actually one of them and not that bad either, they've got the odd stance of praising the Local-Loop Unbundling laws here but also insisting they'd never work in the US for a variety of reasons that are all full of poo poo.

The idea that people can't compete directly because of the infrastructure cost is absolutely true. But that doesn't mean you need to go Public Utility, just push for Local-Loop Unbundling laws to allow some real competition and desire for faster improvement.

Fans fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Jun 19, 2014

Pauline Kael
Oct 9, 2012

by Shine

Fans posted:

You're behind pretty much the entire of Europe. France, Germany, UK, Spain and none of those are tiny and highly clustered populations. It's not a "Little bit more expensive" either, you're paying at least twice as much for a service that just isn't as good.

We used to suck too though don't get me wrong. In the UK we used to have a choice between BT and Cable just like most of the US. The Internet was slow and it was expensive as hell. So the Government in a rare display of competence and balls forced BT to allow other companies to use their lines to deliver service and set up routers in BT facilities where needed.

Ignoring Cable I have five decent internet providers now and I live in a sleepy village in the middle of Wales miles from any city. A bunch of the new providers chipped in with BT to start a massive roll out of Fiber Optic because the system was getting strained and I'm getting it before the end of the year. Weirdly AT&T and Verizon are actually one of them and not that bad either, they've got the odd stance of praising the Local-Loop Unbundling laws here but also insisting they'd never work in the US for a variety of reasons that are all full of poo poo.

The idea that people can't compete directly because of the infrastructure cost is absolutely true. But that doesn't mean you need to go Public Utility, just push for Local-Loop Unbundling laws to allow some real competition and desire for faster improvement.

We've had 'local loop unbundling' in the US for almost 20 years.

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Fans
Jun 27, 2013

A reptile dysfunction

Pauline Kael posted:

We've had 'local loop unbundling' in the US for almost 20 years.

You started doing it in 1996, stopped doing it in 2001 due to legal struggles and finally reversed the main parts of it in 2005, including Optical Fiber and Line Sharing.

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