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back to article The American dilemma: Competition, or fast broadband? Pick one

A report out today into internet access in the United States has concluded – yet again – that the majority of netizens have a hard choice between competition or broadband speed. Thus, you can either have a decent number of ISPs to choose from, or one or two really fast ones. The study – Profiles of Monopoly: Big Cable and …

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  1. Youngone Silver badge

    How much does it all cost?

    I wonder how much the big Telcos spend on lobbying the politicians who make the rules?

    Turns out it's a lot. Quelle surprise.

    What happens when cities decide to provide community internet access?

    Money happens.

    This is just the US political system working as it is supposed to.

    23 0 Reply
    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: How much does it all cost?

      Chickens (customers) are for plucking ... customer satisfaction / service is irrelevant - the function of the customer is to make the company richer.

      14 1 Reply
    2. rskurat
      Reply Icon

      Re: How much does it all cost?

      ... as it has been contrived to do. FTFY

      1 0 Reply
  2. DanceMan

    Swamp -- Alligators

    Trump has put the alligators in charge of the swamp.

    16 0 Reply
    1. Martin Summers Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Swamp -- Alligators

      Erm, what else would be in charge of a swamp?

      3 0 Reply
      1. Mike 16
        Reply Icon

        Re: Swamp -- Alligators

        -- Erm, what else would be in charge of a swamp? --

        Piranhas, Catfish, and leeches, of course, just as it ever was, with maybe an increase attributable to increased temperatures and storm activity, if that was actually happening, which it of course isn't, as you'd know if you just listened to the Catfish.

        11 0 Reply
    2. theblackhand
      Reply Icon

      Re: Swamp -- Alligators

      Trump came 25+ years to late to hand over the keys to the swamp.

      The alligators had the keys to the swamp when it was just TV and long distance calls. The plan was simple:

      - negotiate with local government to provide roll out of cable and phone services in exchange for limiting competition to one or two providers

      - in the case of multiple providers, one would take cable (typically Comcast) and the other provider took voice.

      Adding internet to the mix just gave the providers the opportunity to take more...

      Naturally, every regulator has suggested a number of fixes (including net neutrality that seems to address the issues of Comcast etc by making large interconnects to content providers the only option while doing little for the majority of end users) while branding actual competition in cities afflicted by these duopolies some form of communism...

      11 0 Reply

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  4. Dubliner Express

    Light Speed

    Go Nextlight, how we did it in Longmont (Colorado) with a $42,000,000 municipal bond fund. I now have hardwired, a 960mbps @ 1-2ms latency up/download for $49.95 a month fiber optic, through my apartment wall. Comcast stand-alone hardwired internet (115mbps @ 60ms latency download [uploads are horrible] w/paid performance increase) was $67.00 after negotiations. Saving $17.00 a month now, service is great!

    24 1 Reply
    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Light Speed

      Communism!

      14 2 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Light Speed

        Yes. Communism. Just like municipal police and fire services (with the latter some _communities_ even allow for (gasp!) unpaid volunteers. While we're looking at community owned and operated services, let's not forget the biggest and most expensive on the planet: the US Department of Defense! Of course public ownership isn't a panacea, look at the Flint water system! You still need minimal regulation: the kind where crooked politicians are in actual danger of going to jail instead of retiring into a lucrative big company job after ther "service"

        1 0 Reply
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Competition, really?

    From firsthand experience Comcast and the only competition in my region - Wowway, use almost identical pricing. Where's the competition?

    As far as service neither company provides any. As far as network performance and reliability Comcast is marginally better but IME both SUCK terribly. Actual cable performance varies dramatically from day-to-day. Cable outages are frequent and repairs slow. Comcast has damaged people's credit rating by improper credit checks. Comcast has cost people their jobs for reporting Comcast's illegal customer abuse, missed appointments, chronic billing errors, etc.

    Comcast has a secret global automated e-mail blocking system that prevents legitimate international e-mail being delivered to U.S. Comcast customers under a ruse of being an anti-spam system. Comcast has even lied to federal and state consumer protection agencies regarding this secretive illegal e-mail blocking system.

    9 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Competition, really?

      I’ll agree with most of what

      For the email blocking, I’d suggest incompetence or lack of capacity rather than anything secretive in sticking to their corporate strengths...

      6 0 Reply
    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Competition, really?

      Comcast and the only competition in my region - Wowway, use almost identical pricing. ...

      As far as service neither company provides any.

      At one of my homes (the northern one), WOW and AT&T are the only ISPs available. WOW bought the bankrupt local cable company some years ago. We've actually been fairly pleased with them: they made a lot of major infrastructure upgrades, and did provide good service for a couple of calls. They replaced a pole hub, replaced the drop line, replaced a failed modem... haven't had equipment issues since then. Their techs used actual diagnostic equipment rather than the "eyeball it and replace something at random" system the old company used.

      That said, they are quite expensive.

      But neighboring communities have Comcast, and I've never heard a good word about them from anyone.

      0 0 Reply
  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Comcast has customer service?

    Who knew? Actually their idea of service seemed – a couple of years ago – to be to unilaterally add TV to my broadband only service. And hope I somehow wouldn't notice that my bill changed from about $50/month to $70/month.

    When I called them to politely insist that they cancel the TV service I hadn't ordered and adjust my bill, their first lie was to tell me that someone at my house had approved it. I asked for the name of this mythical person; the rep couldn't provide it. I told them it's my account, I'm the only one that could authorize a change, and I most certainly hadn't done so. Their next lie was to tell me I had to be at home for a technician to remove it. I told the rep that they managed to add it without me needing to be at home, they could certainly remove it the same way. And if I happened to be at home when this theoretical technician came by, great; I was not going to sit at home for some four hour window of time when a theoretical technician would theoretically come around to theoretically do something that would "remove" the TV service.

    Lying bastards. I should have brought charges against them for fraud.

    I can't wait for 5G. If 5G is as good as it sounds on paper I'll cut the final cord and use my phone's wifi hotspot for my home broadband needs. No reason to pay for an "always on" service when I'm not even at home for 10+ hours a day.

    25 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 5G

      Boy, I wish I could get cable to my workstation. 4G is nice when there's a line of sight to a local or semi-local tower, and the carrier isn't capping it, and tethering & mobile hotspot aren't being a bad joke. 5G presumably won't make any of that suck any less. My phone can get ~25mbps in itself right now only because it's up on the roof. It's tethered to an RPi at the end of a 25ft Cat5 supplying the WAN port on a router, but sadly the RPi only gets around 6mbps at best over the USB cable. I'm sure it would be just dandy if any tethering wasn't capped to 15KB/s after the first 8GB each month, so I could use the builtin USB tethering, so I wasn't all but forced to rely on that app and its PC-side relay thing written in javascript. I feel like I could rewrite it in some compiled language but that is The Wrong Thing. Cable would be The Right Thing but I'm just renting a room and the people who are allowed to decide seemingly don't care.

      2 1 Reply
  7. DCFusor

    I have

    Neither where I live. The most I can get with money without moving is 6 megabit down, 1.5 up.

    If I want more, it's rent a building in a nearby city, build a microwave repeater...and so on.

    Try living in a remote area of the mountains...some of us do. It's nice otherwise.

    6 0 Reply
    1. vtcodger Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: I have

      The article misframes the issue. A choice between competition or fast broadband is the best one can hope for in the US. For a large part of the population, one's only option is neither.

      12 1 Reply
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I have

        Exactly. I was actually angry when I read the headline. It's wholly inaccurate.

        It should read "Competition, fast broadband, or affordable? Pick none"

        1 0 Reply
    2. Sherrie Ludwig
      Reply Icon

      Re: I have

      Neither where I live. The most I can get with money without moving is 6 megabit down, 1.5 up.

      I would kill for that speed. In rural northern Illinois, no line of sight to any tower, I get up to 1.5mbps down, maybe .5 up on a good day. Complained to the FCC, and the supposed "competition" to AT&T DSL, who was Comcast, said yes, they would provide cable internet to me, IF I paid over $3,000 to LAY the cable to my house AND then pay for the service as well!!

      1 0 Reply
    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: I have

      Try living in a remote area of the mountains

      One of my houses (the Mountain Fastness) is in a rural mountain area,1 and I have fiber to the premises, courtesy of the local electric / telecom co-op. Unfortunately there aren't many companies wanting to roll out fiber in rural areas, and the co-op has the advantage of owning the electrical poles, access easements, etc already. They ran their fiber infrastructure while they were doing other infrastructure upgrades.

      1We don't have municipal services like water, sewer, mail delivery, or trash collection. The nearest incorporated municipality is only about 8 miles away, though. So not really "remote" except in the "no Starbucks in walking distance" sense. Which, admittedly, is equivalent to "the godforsaken wilderness" for many people in the US.

      0 0 Reply
  8. Mark 85

    In other words, America, you are being screwed by Big Cable: you know it, we know it, and every new report that doesn't come from the FCC points it out in stark detail.

    Yes, and you forgot to add "we don't kissed" and "we need to bring our own lube". The hell of it is, we really can't do anything about it as the FCC Despot-in-Charge is unaccountable to us citizens. If the administration were to change via the next election is a few years, it'll probably be too late to fix anything unless there's a drastic change much like when Bell was broken up into Baby Bells. One cannot "ask" a monopoly to place nice and be fair, they have to pushed, shoved, kicked, etc. and with the amount of money they "contribute" to politicians I don't think they'll ever change.

    11 1 Reply
  9. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    The 'Triple Play' is the 800lb gorilla that was overlooked

    Way back when, it was fairly easy for the Cable TV companies, with their coaxial cable based network, to add Internet and Telephone services to their TV offerings. Triple Play. And they became filthy rich and arguably evil.

    The telephone companies could use ADSL to provide poor Internet, but TV by ADSL on copper twisted pair was a joke (I've seen it, hilariously bad. YMMV). They have little choice but to install a fiber optic network, ideally FTTH. Then they can begin to offer TV service. Triple Play. Success. And perhaps up to Gbps Internet speed.

    This is the more common story of How and Why in Canada. YMMV.

    The local circumstances play a huge role. Installing fiber onto 'telephone' poles is extremely fast, and thus relatively cheap.

    Downtown is very different. But nobody lives downtown anymore; too crowded. ;-)

    1 1 Reply
  10. therealmav

    speaking as a brit

    i never thought id ever be grateful for openreach and sharon white, but...

    7 1 Reply
    1. AndrueC Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Meh

      Re: speaking as a brit

      Yeah. Things aren't always as rosy across the water as some would have us believe. In some ways (well okay, one way - availability of something useful) the UK is actually very good. It's only when you consider future requirements or accessing some of the very high bandwidth services that we start to look bad and even there, historically we have just about kept pace with what the majority want/need.

      So we've got 'adequate' down pat. It's 'very good' that we've never achieved.

      4 0 Reply
      1. phuzz Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: speaking as a brit

        It's surprising how available 1GB connections are, if you can afford them of course.

        Even in the little village my parents live in, now they've finally got a fibre connection (after years of <1MB ADSL) they could pick from a range of speeds. Of course, they're only paying for the cheapest tier, but I saw the price list and it was 'only' about £70 per month for a GB connection.

        Still capitalism is great, eh Americans?

        4 0 Reply
      2. JohnFen
        Reply Icon

        Re: speaking as a brit

        "So we've got 'adequate' down pat. It's 'very good' that we've never achieved."

        To my USian eyes, where we haven't really achieved "adequate", "adequate" looks like "very good".

        3 0 Reply
  11. Palladium

    Government regulation and management of infrastructure is so bad in Singapore that we poor folks here have to pay usd28/month for crappy actual 1gbps fiber to the house, available at anywhere we live.

    *sarcasm*

    12 1 Reply
    1. Sgt_Oddball
      Reply Icon

      Over the way (Malaysia for those unaware of the geography) its the same money for 20mbit on fibre... and thats government regulated too. It really is a hit and miss affair the world over.

      4 0 Reply
  12. DeeCee

    meanwhile

    i have 250Mb/s with 50Mb/s guaranteed for some 25 eur a month with interactive TV included, and downtimes are once a year or smth. and this is one of more premium priced options in a private home, could get 400Mb/s for 30 eur.

    1 2 Reply
    1. DJO Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: meanwhile

      Damn commies, the true American way is to pay twice as much for half (or less) of the service, think of the poor cable executives, if you're not robbed blind they can't have the lifestyle they obviously richly deserve.

      6 0 Reply
    2. find users who cut cat tail
      Reply Icon

      Re: meanwhile

      DeeCee: Don't brag, we are not comparing sizes here, do we? This would still not be a good deal where I live -- and I'm sure there are people who pay even less for higher speed than I do...

      0 0 Reply
  13. fruitoftheloon
    WTF?

    Welcome to The Land of the Fee

    It's shocking, and in the not the least surprising...

    Ooi we're in a 16c cottage in the middle of Devon in a little village - very rural by UK standards, we get BT Fibre 2 - 60 down/100 up most of the time, which costs £35/month (line rental & calls extra). Actually quite reasonable in comparison.

    It's funny when dim tourists/visitors are surprised that we even get broadband...

    I didn't realise how much you get screwed on the left side of the pond

    Jay

    2 0 Reply
  14. Mark 85

    The American dilemma: Competition, or fast broadband? Pick one

    To steal a movie line: "Why can't we have both, Coleman?"

    0 0 Reply
  15. hellwig

    No Competition? Bah.

    I have the free choice of Xfinity (Comcast), Charter (Spectrum), or uVerse (AT&T). My choices are limitless. No wait, that's three choices.

    When I called Xfinity to transfer my service to a new house (I was locked in at my apartment), they told me they may not offer support because they thought it was Charter territory. Carving out territories is an anti-trust violation if I'm not mistaken, but I'm sure the minimum-wage support tech I was talking to wasn't aware of that.

    I'm all for the free market, but when you lobby congress and local governments to pass laws in your favor, it's no longer a free market.

    2 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: No Competition? Bah.

      Calling it a free market is like calling a binary choice democracy....

      0 0 Reply
  16. DerekCurrie
    FAIL

    Cable Monopoly Deals: An Incredibly Stupid Idea That Created The Problem

    There should have been constant competition from Day 1. The cables themselves should have been installed across the entire nation and owned by the nation, either locally or by each state. Companies should have then competed to offer services, including eventually bandwidth. Both Verizon and Charter (Speculum & Time Warner Cable) have proven that neither financial inducement nor signed contracts will entice them to give a rat's about their customers or expanding their networks. Thanks to the monopoly nonsense, what we have are arrogant companies, corporatocracy parasites on the nation.

    I personally could not be happier to see Charter (Spectrenumb & Time Warner Cable) being kicked out of New York for their dirty dealings. Would that we could throw out Verizon and Comcast as well and start from scratch with companies that know how to provide quality capitalism instead of the abuse we customers suffer from now.

    2 0 Reply

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