The $200 Billion Broadband Rip-Off 464
Jamie noted that Cringley has a piece about the US Broadband situation. He talks about where we were and where we are: 'not very fast, not very cheap Internet service that is hurting our ability to compete economically with the rest of the world' and about the $200B the phone companies got to make it that way.
Don't blame Canada (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Don't blame Canada (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only that, but it's horribly inefficient for us to build multiple networks. There should be one physical network, and competition should exist on it.
The problem is that in most of the country (Everywhere non-Verizon), this network isn't being built. And in Verizon territory, there is no competition allowed. Worse, in some areas, inferior technology is being installed (FTTN, etc..) that will actually delay the possibility of anything but 7ish Mbit ADSL. Even worse, we paid for the fiber network, but we don't actually have it.
What is needed? We need some politicians with ethics who aren't in the pocket of the telcos to actually stand up and hold them to their promises. Either that, or we need the physical network to be a public utility. The former would be best for everybody, but it hardly seems likely... Everybody up the chain from the local town governments on up to the senate and even the executive branch is used to receiving their cut of what are essentially bribes from last-mile carriers (unscrutinized regressive taxes on citizens, really, funneled through telcos and cable-cos into local treasuries and national campaigns), and nobody is going to give the money back unless the voters hold them accountable. Most of the voters don't even know what's going on.
Re:Don't blame Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
What is needed? We need some politicians with ethics who aren't in the pocket of the telcos to actually stand up and hold them to their promises.
Then end corporate personhood. In fact, why not write your Congressman about it today?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Canada [wikipedia.org]
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If you wanted to discuss how giving money to politians should or shouldn't be protected speech I'm sure someone could oblige you; there are reasonable arguments to be made for both sides. But it's ridiculous to pretend that the problem is with financial entities and not people -- if we didn't let cor
Re:Don't blame Canada (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Don't blame Canada (Score:5, Informative)
There are lots of other ways in which corporations are treated as people, but most of it comes down to "they are non-person entities which can own property" -- this is the root of their ability to be slandered or libeled, their ability to be a party to a lawsuit, and so forth.
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Re:Don't blame Canada (Score:4, Insightful)
When it costs in the neighbourhood of $200 million to run a presidential campaign they're going to be in a number of pockets.
Re:Don't blame Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it will do when you make the campaign season last over a freaking year. I always cringe around election time in the US. How much productivity and money is wasted in this regular orgy of popularity contests?
Go for the British model. Announce elections, campaign 5 weeks, over and done with.
Forget campaign finance laws and lobbying problems. Just drastically shortening the election season alone would make a huge postive difference in the US.
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I'm Canadian too. The NDP defeated the Liberals in Ontario when the Liberals chose the date (Majority Gov't). The Conservatives had a majority govt in Ontario when they were defeated by the current Liberal govt. Trudeau had a majority govt when he lost to Joe Clark who won with a minority govt. Turner lost a majority govt to Mulroney. In Manitoba, the elections swing back and forth about every second or third election. Alberta and Sask are a bit one sided in their elections but every once in a while they s
For new installations fiber is cheap (Score:2)
What costs the most is stringing the wire. For new construction you have to string the wire, so omitting the fiber at the same time is negligent.
Congratulations! You have the right answer. Now what do we do?
Re:Don't blame Canada (Score:5, Interesting)
Why do the congress critters need to hold the telcos responsible when we the customers can. As you pointed out, we paid for a service that was not delivered. That sounds like a giant class action lawsuit to me. Now if it were an individual person I think that it would qualify as fraud, and that person would face prison, but in this case the criminal is a corporation with corporate personhood. So how do you jail a corporation? Well jail is basically the loss of you freedoms to the state, so that is what we should do here and in other cases of corporate criminal activity, take away control from the those in control and give it to the state for the duration of the sentence. That would mean the stock shares are frozen and cannot vote, the upper management/board of directors is not paid or allowed accept new employment, and a state Warden will run the company with the sole goal of maximizing the public good through the companies line of business, shareholder profits or losses are not considered in state Wardens decision making process, only the maximum quality at best possible cost to the existing customers. Yes the executives and the shareholders will get screwed in this scenario, but they are the ones who's greed and poor decisions lead to the fraud in the first place.
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Re: "... physical network be a public utility" (Score:5, Insightful)
Our postal network and roads and highways are generally recognized as common shared infrastructure; we don't allow the construction companies that build and maintain them to OWN the sections upon which they work, do we? Given that telecom and data networks are every bit as much shared public infrastructure, why then have we allowed the corporations that built those to own the pieces?
We fucked up many decades ago, perhaps as far back as the first telegraph lines, when we failed to recognize that the components that make up electronic (and now digital) public networks are common infrastructure, of the same sort as highways, and thus infrastructure which should be publicly owned. This is one instance where MORE socialism, not less, would be an enormously good thing.
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Back to the Big Telecoms, need I remind you that cities and counties can't even manage to create their own publicly owned w
DIY Broadband (Score:4, Informative)
There is a partial solution. Thanks to the telephone investment earlier, you can get a T1 anywhere, and pay from $300 to $600 / month for 1.5Mb service. Get the neighbors together for a coop, add some WLAN, and you have almost broadband in the sticks that doesn't have multi-second latency like satellite. Get enough neighbors together with a lily pad WLAN, and you can upgrade to T3. (I know people who have done this. Don't use consumer WAPs designed for indoor use. Use outdoor models for a few $100 more that have lightning protection.)
If you can get line of sight to a friend/business partner in a nearby city, you can get 54Mb via a point to point wireless connection. With parabolic antenna, you can go quite a ways. The current record is 237 miles [engadget.com] from a city to the side of a mountain in Venezuela (the mountain is critical to this setup as otherwise the horizon would block line of sight at this distance).
Finally, cell phone service goes many more places than broadband, and cell carriers offer broadband plans via their network. (So long, and thanks for all the honey...)
I blame convolution... (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I'd rather have two bills - one for the physical layer (cables, swtiches, and maintenance) provided either by the government or pseudo-governmental corporation, and one or more for the data (of any kind - voice, video, internet). By segregating the two, you can allow local issues to be dealt with as a local problem, and offermake up funding for low-density where "the government" feels necessary (rural electric comes to mind as an example, if not the best one). For those afraid of government, realize that most areas run their own water and sewer, and do a fairly good job, on the whole. And I'm not saying it has to be government - a corporation can run the plant (under gov. supervision - any monopoly needs close oversight).
By separating the physical and the data, you can offer _real_ competition by local or national providers. Think of long distance telephone service - it's in a hell of a lot better shape (for the consumers and competitive pricing) than, say, local telephone or cell service (Verizon, anyone?). Most places don't even have the possibility of a competing high speed carrier because the physical plant operators can charge whatever they want for access, and as a result their services will always end up being more competitive.
Power would be nice this way, too. I already have the physical plant portion broken out on my bill with generation costs separate. By prohibiting the physical plant operators from having any financial interest in the service operators, there will be a more level footing - and more opportunity for competition.
Oh, in case you're curious, the incumebents know this, and would lobby to their deaths against any mandated separation.
more evidence (Score:3, Insightful)
Mainstream economic theory clearly states that free markets only work when they are both competitive and transparent, and yet, just as clearly, the profit motive drives companies to minimize both competition and transparency. Profit itself is therefore inherently at loggerheads with the two prerequisites of free markets. As competition and transparency decline, so does market efficiency, until at some point inefficiency yields to outright market failure. We already have market failure in many industries - oil, diamonds, OS and Office software, telecommunications - and now broadband too, it seems. It's funny this contradiction raises so few eyebrows...
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Dogma is rarely questioned and when it is you get called a heretic/commie
Re:more evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
I know an economics professor, incidentally, who noted that regulations on trade are generally put in place by the rich and powerful and act to keep the little people down. This is a textbook example.
Re:more evidence (Score:4, Informative)
Re:more evidence (Score:4, Informative)
A very heavily government protected monopoly. Hardly a case of "lack of regulation" I guarantee you. In fact it's a prime example for the libertarians to use against regulation. What we need is for the public to keep a close eye on how things are regulated and actually use their vote to weed out the crooks, otherwise it will only get worse.
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Which will never happen. Most Americans, let's face it, are simply disinterested when it comes to politics. And the ones who aren't are too stupid or corrupt to move beyond the surface picture painted for them by the national Parties.
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While you're right, of course, about this being a story about government regulation, I don't see how that negates the contradiction I pointed out in my post. Without regulation, corporations would have even more leeway to stifle competition and transparency - examples of which abound, especially outside of western culture (example: the now richest guy in the world, the Mexican telecom magnate and his monopoly in Mexico).
Hmm. Okay. I won't speak to that directly, but I'll offer a Milton Friedman quote that expresses a related sentiment: ... every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that's a different question. He's always the special case. He ought to get special privileges from the government, a tariff, this, that, and the other t
"The two chief enemies of the free society or free enterprise are intellectuals on the one hand and businessmen on the other, for opposite reasons
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I agree with this and have said it myself many times. It is a wonderful quote. It is in the headlines everyday, "free markets for everyone else, protection for me". As an example, watch how this sub-prime mortgage market plays out. Watch how the government will jump in and bail thses folks out. If it were you or I making these very poor quality business decisions, we would be ridiculed, and basically told you get what you deserve. You can also see this applied in a class sense as well. Free markets for the
Re:more evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
The irony here is that, despite the heavy-handed government regulation, that's actually not true in telecommunications. The lack of competition would still exist without the regulation, because once one participant has built infrastructure, other participants will usually not find their return on building duplicate infrastructure to be worth the very intensive investment it would take. The regulation simply forestalls the natural solution to this problem: making the capital-intensive infrastructure a public utility and allowing providers to do the much less capital-intensive job of competing on the public infrastructure, which would still provide the benefits of competition to consumers.
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The telephone (from the user interface perspective) did not change much over the course of 100 years. How can you use that same mindset in an era where the customer demands on the infrastructure double every couple of years?
The incen
Re:more evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Since no where on earth (no country I have ever read about) has had a company build the infrastructure from scratch if there is already an existing infrastructure, it strongly suggests that the situation you desire for "true" competition is impossible and this crippled regulatory "competition" is the best we can manage. Idealists (as capitalists are) tend to neglect data and lean heavily on appeals to emotion, authority, or down right repetition. True unbridled capitalism is impossible due entirely to not making the right assumptions about people. Just as Marxist communism is impossible because it fails to account for the same thing. Given the ability to really compete or to bride, cheat, and monopolize all companies would prefer the later.
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The lack of competition would still exist without the regulation, because once one participant has built infrastructure, other participants will usually not find their return on building duplicate infrastructure to be worth the very intensive investment it would take.
That certainly is a seductive theory, but history shows us that before the US government granted a telephone monopoly to AT&T, competing telcos had no problems stringing up multiple sets of wire.
The reason is because the capital markets are quite capable of investing large quantities of cash for a potential future return.
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You sure about that? TFA seemed more to point out how government basically abdicated most of their oversight duties simply because the telcos told 'em everything was just peachy.
And though "The FCC was (and probably still is) managed for the benefit of the companies and their lobbyists, not for you and me," that makes it even less free-market, not more.
I must need more coffee. How does that sentence even make sense?
Re:more evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
Telecoms are using government regulation in their favor. They don't want capitalism.
You coulnd not be more wrong... (Score:2, Insightful)
What we have here is the exact opposite: Central-planning. And it has gone haywire, as it usually does.
Throw in a touch of the corruption that centralized power allows, add a little protective legislation, and you get what we have today.
Methinks you tend toward Marxist-style central control.
Re:You coulnd not be more wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
What you don't understand, is that effective regulation is required to have any kind of long-term competitive market, especially when the product is not a commodity.
Re:more evidence (Score:4, Funny)
Re:more evidence (Score:5, Informative)
The federal government allowed monopoly control of the copper by one company, as long as it agreed to follow certain rules that a normal company would not need to. That is why multiple phone companies were allowed to compete on the same copper.
Now we have the case where companies are not fulfilling their part of the bargain and the government isn't enforcing it any more.
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I wouldn't call a utility easement a property seizure by "immanent" domain. Nothing was taken.
Re:more evidence (Score:5, Interesting)
The original copper network was a private/public compromise built on private property seized by the government
No sir. The original copper was being put in place in the mid 1800's along with the railways. The land was "seized" from the native Americans.
The federal government allowed monopoly control of the copper by one company, as long as it agreed to follow certain rules
Bell was given credit for the phone making The Bell Telephone Company was the only player in the market. The government owned the copper it put in place until the, then, "American Bell Telephone Company" built enough exchanges to receive through government grants the existing copper because uncle sam didn't want to pay for upkeep not to mention it needed private phone system and couldn't do it due to patents:
Until Bell's second patent expired in 1894, only Bell Telephone and its licensees could legally operate telephone systems in the United States http://www.corp.att.com/history/history1.html [att.com]
Up until the 80's the majority of old folks had their money tied up in phone stocks and government savings bonds. The industry was broken up to get that stagnant money back out in the world to pump the U.S. economy back to life.
The reason we don't have good network connectivity is the constant fighting for control of what is unarguably the biggest industry in the U.S. Everything, in one way or another, is dependent on communication. The people in the industry are the second most greedy pieces of sh't on the face of the earth. Absolutely everything they do is for their own benefit. The massive tax cuts they received to "modernize the infrastructure of our nations communications" went directly onto their bottom line. The proposals that Google et. el. are putting together are the only signs of hope the people have to break free from the same ol sh't.
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I'm not so sure about that "f'd up". Audio quality used to be "So clear, you can hear a pin drop". Now, it's some guy yelling into the phone "Can you hear me now?" or "Fewest dropped calls" (how about 'no' dropped calls).
To be sure, the AT&T monopoly was screwed up in it's own way. But what we have now is still screwed up, just differently. Having said that, I can get 20/5 cable, or 15/2 FIOS for under $50/month.
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Many publicly traded companies have been considered monopolies. Whether a company is publicly traded, privately held, or government owned is orthogonal to whether it's considered a monopoly. All that's required to be a monopoly is to have effective control of the largest part of the market for a particular good or service.
Is it your theory that the stockholders would be motivated to have the company they own give up its monopol
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While there are indeed still exceptions, there's no question it's getting harder and harder to find an industry where monopolies don't tend to form of their own volition in the absence of regulatory intervention. Local mom-and-pop shops, for example, are almost completely extinct now. Acquisitions and mergers are ensuring that the corporations who put small businesses under eventually get swall
Re:more evidence (Score:4, Interesting)
Brewing.
Restauranting.
Just to name two. In 1907, there were a few hundred breweries in the US; after prohibition and into the 50's, there were fewer than 60. Now there are over 1400, not counting house brews, homebrew, and smaller microbrews. In 1980, your options were bud lite or michelob. Now, almost everywhere you go, there are import selections as well as a number of american small brewer options - Sierra Nevada, Blue Moon, Magic Hat, Rolling Rock, Red Dog, etc.
Likewise, in 1907, most people cooked and ate at home 97 times out of 100 or more. Granted, there's a lot of culinary conformity at the exits on the interstates, and there's an Applebees in every large city from here to Houston. But, there's also tons and tons of mom-and-pop restaurants, most ready and willing to give you excellent (or sub-par) food and service - often far more varied than you can get from the commercial conformists. Don't believe me, go to Brooklyn some time and find the Dominos, and compare its volume of business to diFara's on Avenue J. Restaurants are a competitive business - far more so than in 1907, and with far more consumer choice.
~Wx
For A Start (Score:5, Insightful)
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1999 called. It wants it's internet connection back.
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Go outside and look at the electric lines leading into your house. How much current can you draw over them? It's probably a hefty amount. Now go look at all your neighbors and add it up. Then look at the distribution system. Guess what will happen if you all start drawing the maximum amount of current at the same time.
Go into your bathroom and turn on your shower full blast. Guess what will happen if everyone in your neighborhood did the same thing at the same time.
Go to you
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The electric company provided me with a contract that specifies exact voltage tolerance limits. This contract also states that they will make their "best attempt" at providing power for a reasonable time (99% of the month, or something), and are not responsible for interruptions in emergency/disaster situations. Guess who has to pay for my refrigerator motor/electronics if suddenly the electric company decid
Re:For A Start (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they don't. A grocery store doesn't charge you for a full loaf of bread and then tell you sorry, you can have only two slices because they sold that same loaf to 9 other people.
The gas company doesn't charge you for 10,000 cubic feet of gas and then come back and tell you that you can use only 1,000 cubic feet because they oversold.
A law company doesn't work for 3 hours and charge you for 30.
That would be called "fraud" in any industry other than telecom.
Re:For A Start (Score:4, Funny)
Gee, and you were doing so well with the other examples...
Re:For A Start (Score:4, Insightful)
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I already pay $50 a month for a 10Gb download cap. I *am* paying by the megabyte, whether I use it or not. And if they throttle me enough, I won't even be able to download every megabyte I paid for in the first place.
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Think of it as insurance, or banks. If we all needed our insurance to pay up, we'd get nothing and the insurance
So what? (Score:2)
What is relevant is how OFTEN they hit their maximum capacity, and for HOW LONG when it happens.
As long as I get the capacity I need and pay for, who cares if the total capacity is lower? No user actually uses their lines 100% 24/7 (unless they are software pirates in which case they deserve to have their connection terminated anyway).
- Jesper
The State of Broadband Today? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Broadband in Holland (Score:5, Insightful)
He pays some ridiculous amount of money monthly, 10 or 20 Euros, and gets high speed broadband, TV (including the porn channels) and phone. His mortgage is 3.8%. Sex of any kind is not against the law and he can travel to any country in the EU without even slowing down as he drives across the border. At the risk of going off topic, do I need to add that health care and education are free.
Could it be that there's something not quite right here in America?
Must be the pot... (Score:2, Funny)
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Just because someone else (or, really, everyone else) pays for it doesn't mean it's free.
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Re:Broadband in Holland (Score:4, Interesting)
That sounds like a good excuse until one realizes that in the WWII the USA's involvement in Europe was far behind that of the Soviets, even ignoring the fact that the British faught a prolonged aerial war to hold Hitler at bay. The majority of the WWII action for the USA was its tangle with Japan, not in Europe. As a matter of fact, a significant portion of the business elites of the USA were sympathetic to Hitler and did brisk business with him, until (and for some even after this point) it became very dangerous for them to do so.
As to Communism, if the Soviets managed to take over Holland (an exceedingly unlikely scenario since all the other countries they took over were in their path to Berlin, at which point the Soviet public had no apetite whatsoever for further warfare after paying such a horrendous price so far, and by the time they did, the Western Europe already had nukes), their empire would have crumbled that much sooner, as its inherent internal deficiencies, accelerated by its being an over-stretched military monstrosity, brought it down, Reagan's hand waving nothwistanding.
And to truly put a lie to all these claims of "protection" of Europe in post WWII era (never you mind that both UK and France are nuclear powers) the USA kept on building its ever-more expensive arsenals and armies long after the Cold War ended, and now it seeks to employ these armies in an effort to brutally impose its will on random resource-rich countries. So much for all the bullshit. After Vietnam and Iraq, attempts at painting the USA as a "protector" of anything but its own elites and profits have become an exercise in pathetically comical futility.
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The rates are comparatively high, but not higher then they used to be in the 50-60s in the USA, at the height of the post-WWII prosperity boom.
Furthermore, a majority of Americans are now realizing that saving some few hundred to few thousand bucks (at the majorities' income levels) a year in exchange for not being able to afford medical care or education for one's children is a rather rotten deal. Hence strong (and getting stronger) support amongst the American
Re:Broadband in Holland (Score:4, Interesting)
And with the top 2% owning over 50% of all the assets in the USA, you see absolutely nothing wrong with that situation?
The top income brackets in the period I mentioned were 90%. Now they are around 35% or so, not taking into account all the loopholes. Most of the largest US corporations and their billionaire owners pay no taxes whatsoever due to "creative" accounting. Failing that, they move their HQ to Dubai, or some such.
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Yes, our taxes are too damn low!
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He also pays ~$7/gal for gas (the highest in Europe).
If he makes more than EUR$53,000, he pays 52% in income tax. Add on to that 6.5% for the "free" health insurance premium, a flat tax of 25% on any 'substantial business interest'. There are other taxes as well.
Holland is great. Lived there for 3 years. But there are substantial differences between Holland and the US. Differences that make a direct comparison, on narrowly selected data points, silly.
I don't believe you. (Score:2)
he can travel to any country in the EU without even slowing down as he drives across the border.
I call bullshit on that. -- any european want to chime in here? from ANY country to any country- so long as it's all EU? I simply find that ubelievable...
and therefore- the rest of it I find hard to believe...
Re:I don't believe you. (Score:4, Informative)
Your bullshit call is for the most part the only thing that is bullshit. The grand parent is correct you can travel between any of the original 13 EU members without stopping. Since the Schengen agreement all interior border controls were removed and the only border and customer enforcement is around the edges. If you have an EU passport its relatively easy to move around and work in EU countries.
The grandparent slightly overstates when he said "any country in the EU" since I don't think the newer members have signed on to these open borders yet.
The EU has really become the United States of Europe. Its more like the early United States since the states still retain a lot of power, but assuming it holds together it will probably continue to become more like one nation over time.
Re:Umm... have a look at their taxes.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Umm... have a look at their taxes.... (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, the U.S. is still the best place to go and start a business, thanks in no small part to their labour mobility (easier to hire and fire).
Re:Umm... have a look at their taxes.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would happily pay double my existing taxes to get a country with effective universal health care, a modern and well-maintained infrastructure, a people-focused government, and the financial condition of the Netherlands. Instead, I get low taxes and... nothing at all to show for those low taxes, because the people are so ignorant and apathetic that the government long ago stopped bothering with trying to serve them.
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Re:Umm... have a look at their taxes.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's see... about 24% of my income goes to federal & state (no local) income and payroll taxes... and, my best back-of-the-envelope guess is that I pay another 1%-2% in gas taxes, my car tab, and other user fees. (I own no property.) Yes, I'd happily pay half of my income to live in a country where we really had all of that stuff. Many Americans react just like you did when I say that, because the government is so ineffective here that they can't believe it would actually work. But there are a number of countries where it does, most notably a few of those evil European welfare states.
Obviously, competent management and fiscal discipline are necessary for such a state to succeed. Ultimately, those are political problems and are the responsibility of the people. Ask yourself why certain other countries have them and the U.S. doesn't. I think you will find the answer has to do with how people are educated.
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As for transportation, I picked out a lease car from my work, which had a retail price of 23k euro's, and a before-taxes price of 14k euro's (19% sales tax and 'BPM', a separate tax on new vehicles). After this, a car owner would pay road tax, several hundred a year. Then you pay the equivalent of US$7.25 per US gallon for gas, which mostly comprises tax.
Mostly I don't consider th
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A GOVERNMENT OF THE ignorant and apathetic PEOPLE, BY THE ignorant and apathetic PEOPLE.
I wonder what the key to a good "GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE" is? Maybe it is keeping bad things from getting in between THE PEOPLE?
Re:Umm... have a look at their taxes.... (Score:4, Interesting)
The tax rate percentage is irrelevant. What is relevant is how much money a taxpayes has in his/her pocket after paying taxes, and what he/she can buy with it. In short: purchase power.
I wouldn't mind paying 90% taxes if I lived in a country where my salary was a million USD for the same job I have today.
As it happens, I live in Denmark. Our average taxes are around 46% and on top of that we have a 25% VAT (sales tax). Does that mean I am poor? No! It means my salary and the entire economy around me has been adjusted to that level. My purchasing power is equal to (and in many cases greater than) most other people in other countries with a job just like mine.
And btw... even though we have a social system which gives us free healthcare, free education and better social security that doesn't mean we are a "highly-socialist" country. In fact I think our liberal prime minister would find your comment rather funny.
- Jesper
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The above would seem to suggest link between inflation and taxes. So, for example, if Danish taxes were 90%, are you saying that Danish salaries would have to spiral up by several factors? If so, I think you would quickly discover that Danish currency would drop relative to those USD that you seem to covet.
C//
Re:Umm... have a look at their taxes.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Our country was founded that government is evil. The tradeoff here is that no government is worse, so it's a lesser of 2 evils choice.
Because of the belief that government (and direct influence, like govt provided health) is evil, we should keep as much as we can away from it. Also, most have a deep distrust against government.
Nations like Denmark are not evil, or disgusting because they have socialized medicine, or they provide subsidized university degrees, but we distrust it. Quite a few people don't understand why they do "hate" it, but many do understand that government will screw it up. That's just our culture.
I'd say it probably also has to do with Randian-like beliefs within one of our ruling parties (Republicans). However, due to Bush, 2006 congressional elections swayed to strong Democrat, and we will most likely have a Democrat ruler at 2008.
USA is a 2-party election with very small 3rd parties that have little/no sway. We have an election every 2 years, changing all of the House and 1/3 of senate. The House and Senate are a bicameral Legislative body. House terms are 2 years, while Senate terms are 6. Every 4 years is a presidential election.
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Uhm... and why not? Does it matter what it's CALLED?
Btw, would you say Sweden is a socialist country, for example? If so, would you mind explaining me what's wrong with them, and why you think US is then so much better than Sweden, considering they apply lots of "social" principles?
(most people whining about socialism have no fucking idea what word "social" in "socialism" means, it seems)
Well, what did you expect? (Score:5, Interesting)
My own feeling is that the very idea of regulated telecommunications is inconsistent with the First Amendment. I don't think it could be any plainer. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for the court decision.
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My own feeling is that the very idea of regulated telecommunications is inconsistent with the First Amendment.
That's a very interesting and thought-provoking way of putting it. The problem is that completely unregulated telecommunications, as we saw in the very earliest days of radio, are even less effective, because no messages can get through at all. While there are obvious free-speech problems with any government involvement, I think some level of regulation is necessary to ensure that speech actually happens in a more or less organized fashion.
I think a solution that would not run into any potential First A
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Not true. In California (and many other states), there is no dejure cable monopoly. All cable companies are "allowed" to run cable if they so elect. The nature of the problem isn't that they aren't allowed, but rather that they'd rather not. I.e., they are indeed a natural monopoly. Alas, they are not regulated as one.
C//
any more detail on the $200B figure? (Score:2, Interesting)
For instance, later in TFA Cringley says that a five-year phone rate freeze was part of the deal at one point, then says that rates should have really fall
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http://www.teletruth.org/docs/SCANDALFINAL92006.pd f [teletruth.org]
I'm glad its free now, the author used to charge for it. Maybe I can finally read it.
Essentially very little of the $200 billion is anything to do with phone rates. Its mostly stuff like corporate tax breaks from states and local gov to the companies.
A quick check of the ebook shows:
Chapter 19 on page 191 of the PDF starts the coverage of the money
Old news to revisit, but /. is 10yo on 20070901 (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep, that long ago, but do you think any of you younger
Should we ask CmdrTaco and Hemos; When/What/Where are the 10th year celebration' keggers, or is it a BYOB in Death Valley?
Optimum profit is created by a balance between.... (Score:2)
Blame it on spammers... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Not cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because in several other countries your $15 a month would get you between 20-100 Mb/s both down and up.
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South Korea, most of northern Europe (excepting the UK), and soon Australia.
Let's see (Score:4, Insightful)
I get 8 Mb download and 385 Kb upload, at about 30 percent higher pricing.
Basically broadband in the US is crap. If those various companies mentioned in the article
were forced to refund the money they got for giving us nothing, and I agree we got nothing,
they would be singing a different tune. I say send them a bill for the money they received, but did
not spend on actually providing that which they said they would, PLUS interest.
Broadband should be defined at 20Mb down and 20 Mb up. Period. Too much time has elapsed
with basically zero quality or quantity increases.
Re:How exactly non-competitive? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't watch live video of any quality; you can't use any sort of interactive video link; you can't use any remote desktop solution with any level of fluidity; you can only participate in collaborative development with a very limited number of participants; you can't participate in e-commerce of any significant volume; you can't download software updates or revisions without tying up your connection entirely for minutes or hours; and, perhaps most significantly for the economy, you can't consume new, bandwidth-intensive applications such as sophisticated online gaming.
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Re:Simple question (Score:4, Insightful)
OK everyone in rural areas stop working, and let's see what happens when kamapuaa realizes that his food is not grown in the supermarket. Rural areas DO drive the economy - just not the part YOU think is important.
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Re:Simple question (Score:5, Interesting)
A salary of $60k in Iowa is equivalent to $100k in California. $60k/year will buy you a nice family house, decent car, and a easy-going lifestyle. If the national telecom infrastructure was up to date, there would be many jobs that can be done in the middle of Iowa that are now done in California. Alternately, for a bit more than the salary you pay to an Indian programmer (well, a bit more than those who now are demanding more money...), you can get a native English speaker *in a nearby timezone*.
With low-quality or no broadband, you lose this potential workforce.
Or, at least, so goes the theory.
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If you live outside of town you can just about forget it. Go get satellite internet.
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