HardOCP News
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A new study by the Open Technology Institute found that bandwidth caps and high overages are the result of limited competition.
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Limited Competition Results in Caps, Overages
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Well... no shit. I live 32 miles East of Main St. Houston, TX. We have 1 internet provider, Suddenlink. No one is investing because they are already making money hand over fist so why expand or make it better? Cost/benefit ratio isn't there and that sucks for all of us.
sfsuphysics
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Oh big shocker, caps and tiered pricing for the same hardware/lines is a move to increase profit margins!
One of the reasons I left AT&T
One of the reasons I left AT&T
night_2004
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Fixed that for you.
ballistic90
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Yeah, but the more articles like this we see, the more we might actually see a larger amount of people becoming outraged.
I'm pretty lucky because I live just outside of Philadelphia, and Comcast and Verizon are competeing pretty hard for my business. Comcast is supposed to be dropping the bandwidth cap when they introduce their 100 mbps or whatever internet speed, but Verizon is a good deal cheaper.
/thread winner!
kbrickley
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Who says that high speed or unlimited internet isn't a luxury? We have only had phones capable of massive internet usage for about 5 years and the high speed internet access a little longer than that. Even if access to the internet was a basic human right (which it is not) there is nothing that says that access needs to be unlimited or high speed. For people in large urban areas they usually have choices that allow that access. For people in smaller areas or rural areas there may be fewer options. Let the market sort this out without government interference 
/dev/null
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Who says that high speed or unlimited internet isn't a luxury? We have only had phones capable of massive internet usage for about 5 years and the high speed internet access a little longer than that. Even if access to the internet was a basic human right (which it is not) there is nothing that says that access needs to be unlimited or high speed. For people in large urban areas they usually have choices that allow that access. For people in smaller areas or rural areas there may be fewer options. Let the market sort this out without government interference
I had high speed internet (SDSL) back in 1996......almost 20 years ago.
kbrickley
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I was thinking of the 30 Meg speeds or higher ... I think those are more recent
Who says that high speed or unlimited internet isn't a luxury? We have only had phones capable of massive internet usage for about 5 years and the high speed internet access a little longer than that. Even if access to the internet was a basic human right (which it is not) there is nothing that says that access needs to be unlimited or high speed. For people in large urban areas they usually have choices that allow that access. For people in smaller areas or rural areas there may be fewer options. Let the market sort this out without government interference
But limited competition is a result of government interference.
kbrickley
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Depends on your point of view ... right now it is regulated at the local and state level ... the only way to change that would be for the federal government to step in and regulate themselves
Actually what I would support (although it would never happen) would be for the federal government to lay fiber throughout the USA as a massive infrastructure project and then allow the open market to use it to provide that competition ... however, I don't think either party wants to spend that kind of money right now.
kbrickley
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http://theoatmeal.com/comics/state_web_winter_2012 ... how topical ... looks like the Oatmeal addressed this in his first cartoon
Yakk
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Wow... Oligopolies are bad for competition...
A...a...
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A...a...
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Ur_Mom
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You mean like the national freeway system by Eisenhower? I could get behind that. Sure, the highway system went WAY over budget, but having public fiber lines to help bring costs down would help consumers and enterprises. There was probably a lot more incentive for the highway system, though.
kbrickley
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That was kind of my thinking ... otherwise it isn't fair to make a company like Verizon share their fiber or wireless networks that they have invested billions of dollars installing with competitors ... and the high infrastructure cost does become a barrier to entry
If the government assumed the costly infrastructure costs they could allow bidders to use and maintain the structure under renewable contracts. This would allow more companies to come in and participate which would provide competition.
Although I don't like the high price of cell phone plan, I prefer that government does not get involved. It will destroy any innovation through its bureacracy.
kbrickley
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I would prefer the feds to stay out which leaves it up to local governments to control since they control zoning and authorize use of the right of way ... however, if government must be involved then letting them install the infrastructure and assign the leases of that infrastructure would be the extent I would want them involved.
Otherwise, I live in the Dallas metro area (Plano) and we have 5 or more high speed offerings available between phone data services, cable, wireless, and fiber. However, for smaller metro areas or rural areas it might not be cost competitive for even one high speed provider.
If they figure out how to do long range transmission of internet over the power lines that might open up competition but I don't think that is very easy to do, or if it is even possible.
Only option I have is Comcast. They just resigned their monopoly agreement with Arlington county so now chance for anything else here. Because they have no competition they just jack up the rates every year.
The pols were more than happy to sell out the consumers for some campaign cash and Comcast providing some tech to the local schools.
The pols were more than happy to sell out the consumers for some campaign cash and Comcast providing some tech to the local schools.
Semantics
2[H]4U
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Consolidations though lobbying the FTC stifled competition in the name of hitting high speed internet for most of the US, yeah that worked out...
Yup we all know how the US government killed the ARPANET.
Glad I'm not alone in realizing this.
kbrickley
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Just out of curiosity, which laws and regs would you get rid of to fix this ... most people aren't going to allow the roads to be dug up every few months to install more below ground infrastructure (and not all companies can afford this anyway) ... there is only so much room on the power poles to do above the ground infrastructure ... people have been fighting in many urban areas to get rid of cell phone towers in their area (everybody wants the coverage but no one wants the cell tower in their backyard) ... there are still a limited number of wide area wireless technologies available and there are still limits as to how much radio frequency spectrum is available (not just from a regulatory standpoint but from a physics standpoint) ...
I would agree that it would be nice if more cities had multiple providers but it is the cities/states that make those restrictions most of the time (and those people are much easier to vote in and out of office if you don't like what they are doing) ... it is only in the RF spectrum area that the feds are the gatekeepers (and somebody needs to monitor those since some of our biggest cities have more people in them than entire countries)
kbrickley
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There was a situation in North Carolina where the state legislature made it illegal for a city to provide its own internet competing with the business one (Time Warner in that case) ... and most cities grant access to internet companies by licensing who can lay the cable or place the cell towers in the city limits ... but this varies greatly from one city to the next ... the only way to prevent these things would be to pass a federal law superceding those laws and I doubt that would survive the Supreme Court
Although I agree this is part of the problem its not all the problem. Its annoying when people soap box a crisis and the real discussions can't happen.
The core of the real problem is that almost all municipalities allowed one set of coax hardwire to be laid. And until you either lay multipled sets of hardware, or make a robust sharing system, you won't get competition.
Back in the 80's Reagan split AT&T and we ended up with a ton of competition. Then Bush I came in and Congress (mostly D). The regulators allowed the owners of the hardwire a free hand to charge what they wanted. So basically they priced the big long distance companies out of business. Long story short, its how Bell South one of AT&T's former local subsidiaries came to end up buying its former owner, AT&T.
And so competition was undone with a wave of a regulator wand. Which means forcing the local hardwire owners to share hardwire that belongs to one company will eventually be tilted into the hardwire company's favor. Not to mention fundamental bandwidth issues of sharing.
OTOH, making the hardwire a public service is a freaking disaster. The fees would be astronomical and the service, even crappier. Bandwidth issues are still in effect here.
About the only option would be to either allow multiple companies to come through and lay their own hardwire. Or change the delivery system with a new technology.
Competition is allowed, however overbuilding isn't very profitable.
It works in some cities and suburbs. TWC and Cablevision in NYC is an example of this.
Semantics
2[H]4U
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Completion was also really just beaten out of other company's with high speed internet coming around, cable company's had a clear upper hand being able to deliver high amounts of bandwidth on the same cables but just changing hardware at the end of the cables, which is very cheap. While companies like At&t had to lay new wire to keep up and it is costly while also making their network a mess of different types. Although in part it's at&t own fault for what back in 2002 selling off their cable tv division to Comcast, either way it's deregulation of the market which let such mergers happen. Also why things like net neutrality is a thing just off the power just a few companies hold which is something we never had issue with, with things like the telephone in which it was treated as a civic duty not just a profit scheme.