[aklug] Re: Last days of unlimited?

I generally oppose regulation and believe in free enterprise. However, the
government forces a monopoly on 1 phone line cable and 1 TV cable per
household. Also our tax dollars were spent installing fiber backbones and
these leeches want a government granted monopoly but do not want to play by
special rules by being in a unique situation.

Its not capitalism if no competitors exist because there is no free market.
In Europe you can use an Iphone with unlimited data and use another network
if you wish without throwing away the phone for 1/4 the price of here. Oh
and no abusive contracts! The fact that ATT is getting rid of unlimited
bandwidth angers me and why my wife refuses to buy I-phones. She does not
want to be pulled in and nickeled and dimed and then be stuck with higher
fees every 2 years after the contract ends. I do not blame her. If ATT wants
to do this that is there perogative but if my tax dollars go to their
network then I feel I should have a say because I own part of it.

The lack of bandwidth is all made up and artificially limited. 98% of all
fiber is dark because the mega telecom companies want to charge consumers
more. They hire lobbyists to ensure this stays. In a free market competitors
would be coming in and supplying better services at a cheaper price. I do
not know if GCI has government subsidized cable backbones are not so this is
debatable if bandwidth is truly limited or not. If they are then I would be
angry as hell.

Imagine paying $600 a month for water or $400 for sewer? If these utilities
were not regulated we would paying this believe it or not. What else would
we do? Regulations are needed if you are granting someone infinite
bargaining power via a monopoly or oligopoly.

I am glad Google at least is buying some of the dark cable and is starting
their own ISP. They are furious of the net neutrality rules and being double
dipped by the mega telecoms.

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Arthur Corliss
<acorliss@nevaeh-linux.org>wrote:

> On Mon, 21 Jun 2010, Tim Gibney wrote:
>
> Isn't deregulation great?
>> Someone here did a traceroute a few weeks ago from an MTA network and
>> guess
>> what ... GCI is their backbone.
>>
>> Likely GCI arm twisted them to throw them out of business or exploited the
>> fact that they own the backbone and could charge whatever they want for
>> usage. It is no different than AT&T and Verizon. How many mom and pop ISPs
>> are left outside of Alaska? None. They big boys threw them out as soon as
>> they were deregulated. Now AT&T is capping as well as soon as the
>> competition was eliminated.
>>
>> GCI was the one who invested in the lines because no one wanted to invest
>> in
>> Alaska so they win. You bet they want to oay $500 a month for Netlfix as
>> most people are stupid and would rather pay than complain or get
>> politically
>> involved. We could take a lesson from Asia and Europe who laugh at this
>> situation because of regulation. You can get a whole fiber connection for
>> $30 a month.
>>
>
> Maybe I'm naive, but this seems a bit over the top. From my perspective
> deregulation has nothing to do with it. The reality is that technology
> (and
> applications) have progressed to the point where devices are not only
> always-on, always-attached, but actively consuming data on a regular basis.
> The basic expection of broadband as a minimum has also fostered a
> media-rich/bandwidth-intensive delivery system.
>
> In other words, what what's causing all this is a technology and cultural
> shift. People have to always have the lastest RSS feeds available, even if
> they only glance at it twice a day. They want their constant flow of
> communication (twitter, IM, etc.) and instant availability of media
> (youtube, etc.).
>
> This isn't rocket science, I saw the same thing when computers started
> having MBs of RAM available. Developers started going hog wide, leveraging
> RAD systems that made development quick, but less efficient use of
> resources.
>
> End sum: the goldfish grows to the size of the bowl. No big surprise
> there.
>
> Now, couple *that* with a business model that was based on the traditional
> oversubscription telco business plan, and you'll see that the math simply
> won't work. This is a collision that has been long coming, and we'll need
> to make adjustments to find something more sustainable. Running a network
> for mass consumers is neither simple or cheap.
>
> As for what's happening in Asia, I couldn't care less. The reality from
> everything I've read is that they haven't achieved economies of scale, but
> instead have gotten massive government subsidies by reclassifying Internet
> access as an essential service. Something I think is ridiculous on
> multiple
> levels.
>
> Sorry, but if your "netopia" requires more government and more regulation,
> you can keep it.
>
> --Arthur Corliss
> Live Free or Die
>

---------
To unsubscribe, send email to <aklug-request@aklug.org>
with 'unsubscribe' in the message body.
Received on Mon Jun 21 21:54:31 2010