Comcast is destroying the principle that makes a competitive internet possible

[coloradoatheist]

Comcast is advertising/selling a product they have little interest in providing.

They have an interest, but like all companies they aren't going to make it easier for their competitors.

Isn't this when we get into the Anti-Trust issue?

Go with DSL if you care.

I care to get what I paid for! I am paying AT&T for use of the Internet at a certain range of broadband speeds. There is no listing from them as to which sites they will or will not allow unrestricted access.

They are being paid pretty well for this access.

Except you aren't paying for AT&T for the access to the "Internet" at that speed. You are paying for the speed at the last hop into your house into their central office. You aren't paying for 10Mb service to Netflix.

 

[ksen]

That's bullshit equivocation.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Declare the internet a utility.

Allow municipalities to provide it at cost.

And be done with this nonsense.

You mean that infrastructure we are supposedly getting a D in..., with how badly our roads and bridges are, or how we need to spend trillions of dollars on it?

We need to speed trillions because a lot of the underground infrastructure is 100 years old.

- - - Updated - - -

Comcast is advertising/selling a product they have little interest in providing.

They have an interest, but like all companies they aren't going to make it easier for their competitors.

Isn't this when we get into the Anti-Trust issue?

Go with DSL if you care.

I care to get what I paid for! I am paying AT&T for use of the Internet at a certain range of broadband speeds. There is no listing from them as to which sites they will or will not allow unrestricted access.

They are being paid pretty well for this access.

Except you aren't paying for AT&T for the access to the "Internet" at that speed. You are paying for the speed at the last hop into your house into their central office. You aren't paying for 10Mb service to Netflix.

I'm pretty certain I'm paying for the entire ride, as Comcast has to pay companies like Level III for access to the fiber backbone.

 

[ksen]

I guess I should feel pretty fortunate that my ISP provider specifically says in their network management practices that they won't do any throttling and that they will do what it takes to maintain the speeds you are paying for:

As a result, on BHN’s own network, under normal operating conditions including peak-period demand, customers receive at least the data rates for which their service has been configured.

. . .

BHN’s network management approach is to add network capacity as needed so that its network delivers to customers at least the bandwidth and data speeds they are paying for, even when many customers are using the network at the same time. The key to accomplishing this goal is to carefully watch how much data customers are sending over the network and to add capacity well before any customer’s uploads or downloads get delayed as a result of network congestion. Specifically, BHN continuously monitors the usage of its broadband network throughout each day. If any portion of the network appears to be experiencing sustained usage levels that would, if growth continued, result in network congestion, BHN takes steps to increase the capacity of those portions of the network in order to prevent congestion from occurring.

 

[coloradoatheist]

And here is an AT&T blog post on this issue. His argument is that Netflix subscribers pay the cost of increased demand for Netflix

http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-for-netflix/

 

[ksen]

Yeah, Jim Cicconi is also full of shit.

 

[ksen]

I will clarify why I think Jim Cicconi is full of shit.

He says Netflix should pay for the expanded capacity for more video streaming. Netflix does that. They pay to keep in place enough infrastructure to connect their servers to the internet backbone, i.e. Level 3, etc.

But that's not enough for Cicconi. He also wants Netflix to pay AT&T to upgrade AT&T's infrastructure from the backbone to residences. Why should Netflix do that? Cicconi complains about non-Netflix subscribers subsidizing Netflix subscribers but then turns right around and calls for Netflix subscribers to subsidize non-Netflix subscribers. Wat?

All this in order to avoid doing what most other businesses just do, unless of course they find themselves in a monopolistic situation like AT&T does in their markets, pay to put in place increased capacity as customer demand for your service increases.

So I will reiterate, Jim Cicconi is full of shit.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I will clarify why I think Jim Cicconi is full of shit.

He says Netflix should pay for the expanded capacity for more video streaming. Netflix does that. They pay to keep in place enough infrastructure to connect their servers to the internet backbone, i.e. Level 3, etc.

But that's not enough for Cicconi. He also wants Netflix to pay AT&T to upgrade AT&T's infrastructure from the backbone to residences. Why should Netflix do that? Cicconi complains about non-Netflix subscribers subsidizing Netflix subscribers but then turns right around and calls for Netflix subscribers to subsidize non-Netflix subscribers. Wat?

All this in order to avoid doing what most other businesses just do, unless of course they find themselves in a monopolistic situation like AT&T does in their markets, pay to put in place increased capacity as customer demand for your service increases.

So I will reiterate, Jim Cicconi is full of shit.

But that gets back to the other argument. When you rely on someone else for a service, it may or may not be what you want and you may have to insource it. Rely on your competitor to do stuff, and it may not turn out the best.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I will clarify why I think Jim Cicconi is full of shit.

He says Netflix should pay for the expanded capacity for more video streaming. Netflix does that. They pay to keep in place enough infrastructure to connect their servers to the internet backbone, i.e. Level 3, etc.

But that's not enough for Cicconi. He also wants Netflix to pay AT&T to upgrade AT&T's infrastructure from the backbone to residences. Why should Netflix do that? Cicconi complains about non-Netflix subscribers subsidizing Netflix subscribers but then turns right around and calls for Netflix subscribers to subsidize non-Netflix subscribers. Wat?

All this in order to avoid doing what most other businesses just do, unless of course they find themselves in a monopolistic situation like AT&T does in their markets, pay to put in place increased capacity as customer demand for your service increases.

So I will reiterate, Jim Cicconi is full of shit.

But that gets back to the other argument. When you rely on someone else for a service, it may or may not be what you want and you may have to insource it. Rely on your competitor to do stuff, and it may not turn out the best.

Net Neutrality was designed to deal with that. This doesn't have to be the Wild West.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Declare the internet a utility.

Allow municipalities to provide it at cost.

And be done with this nonsense.

You mean that infrastructure we are supposedly getting a D in, with how badly our roads and bridges are, or how we need to spend trillions of dollars on it? It might be okay for a short period of time. Remember the Internet started as a government project and it really wasn't going anywhere.

yeah actually, I do.

the internet has become as essential to daily life as a telephone. And Comcast is bound and determine to become the only game in town And and unrefereed game at that.

I dont have a problem with nationalizing an industry. And if Comcast does, maybe Comcast needs to check itself before it wrecks itself.

 

[coloradoatheist]

I will clarify why I think Jim Cicconi is full of shit.

He says Netflix should pay for the expanded capacity for more video streaming. Netflix does that. They pay to keep in place enough infrastructure to connect their servers to the internet backbone, i.e. Level 3, etc.

But that's not enough for Cicconi. He also wants Netflix to pay AT&T to upgrade AT&T's infrastructure from the backbone to residences. Why should Netflix do that? Cicconi complains about non-Netflix subscribers subsidizing Netflix subscribers but then turns right around and calls for Netflix subscribers to subsidize non-Netflix subscribers. Wat?

All this in order to avoid doing what most other businesses just do, unless of course they find themselves in a monopolistic situation like AT&T does in their markets, pay to put in place increased capacity as customer demand for your service increases.

So I will reiterate, Jim Cicconi is full of shit.

But that gets back to the other argument. When you rely on someone else for a service, it may or may not be what you want and you may have to insource it. Rely on your competitor to do stuff, and it may not turn out the best.

Net Neutrality was designed to deal with that. This doesn't have to be the Wild West.

Actually it wasn't. Net Neutrality wasn't "The consumer gets as much bandwidth that they want to anywhere on the net"

 

[coloradoatheist]

Declare the internet a utility.

Allow municipalities to provide it at cost.

And be done with this nonsense.

You mean that infrastructure we are supposedly getting a D in, with how badly our roads and bridges are, or how we need to spend trillions of dollars on it? It might be okay for a short period of time. Remember the Internet started as a government project and it really wasn't going anywhere.

yeah actually, I do.

the internet has become as essential to daily life as a telephone. And Comcast is bound and determine to become the only game in town And and unrefereed game at that.

I dont have a problem with nationalizing an industry. And if Comcast does, maybe Comcast needs to check itself before it wrecks itself.

So we are nationalizing a company so we can download movies quicker?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Congress should give the USPS the authority to provide ISP services.

Bandwidth, yes, but what would the ping time be, though?!?!

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Declare the internet a utility.

Allow municipalities to provide it at cost.

And be done with this nonsense.

You mean that infrastructure we are supposedly getting a D in, with how badly our roads and bridges are, or how we need to spend trillions of dollars on it? It might be okay for a short period of time. Remember the Internet started as a government project and it really wasn't going anywhere.

yeah actually, I do.

the internet has become as essential to daily life as a telephone. And Comcast is bound and determine to become the only game in town And and unrefereed game at that.

I dont have a problem with nationalizing an industry. And if Comcast does, maybe Comcast needs to check itself before it wrecks itself.

So we are nationalizing a company so we can download movies quicker?

if you are so limited in your thinking that you think this is just about watching "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." We should end this right here

Have a good night.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Declare the internet a utility.

Allow municipalities to provide it at cost.

And be done with this nonsense.

You mean that infrastructure we are supposedly getting a D in, with how badly our roads and bridges are, or how we need to spend trillions of dollars on it? It might be okay for a short period of time. Remember the Internet started as a government project and it really wasn't going anywhere.

yeah actually, I do.

the internet has become as essential to daily life as a telephone. And Comcast is bound and determine to become the only game in town And and unrefereed game at that.

I dont have a problem with nationalizing an industry. And if Comcast does, maybe Comcast needs to check itself before it wrecks itself.

So we are nationalizing a company so we can download movies quicker?

if you are so limited in your thinking that you think this is just about watching "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." We should end this right here

Have a good night.

Except that is what we want faster Internet for. It's for watching movies, sports and porn.

 

[ksen]

But that gets back to the other argument. When you rely on someone else for a service, it may or may not be what you want and you may have to insource it. Rely on your competitor to do stuff, and it may not turn out the best.

No, it doesn't. That's not the situation here. It's the situation Comcast wants you to think it is, but it's not.

Comcast is offering a service: internet access at certain speeds.

Comcast is turning down that speed if you access a service they want to compete with.

Netflix pays to keep its infrastructure capable of handling the traffic to its servers.

If we use your argument then Netflix should be charging Comcast for the cost of upgrading its servers since Comcast customers are using so much of the service Netflix provides.

In general there are no other viable options for the service Comcast is providing in their areas so there is no option to just go with a different provider. Comcast has spent millions and maybe billions of dollars to make sure this is the case.

They are being dishonest and crooked.

 

[ksen]

Net Neutrality was designed to deal with that. This doesn't have to be the Wild West.

Actually it wasn't. Net Neutrality wasn't "The consumer gets as much bandwidth that they want to anywhere on the net"

Jimmy's right about Net Neutrality. It was meant to keep ISP companies from setting up toll lanes on the internet which is what Comcast is trying to do.

Nobody ever said Net Neutrality was about getting all the bandwidth you want. It's about getting the bandwidth you already pay for and being able to go anywhere on the net free from interference by your ISP.

 

[ksen]

So we are nationalizing a company so we can download movies quicker?

No, we're nationalizing them to put dishonest crooks like Jim Cicconi out of work . . . and for better access to porn.

 

[ksen]

Congress should give the USPS the authority to provide ISP services.

Bandwidth, yes, but what would the ping time be, though?!?!

Why should we think the ping would be bad?

Other nations have a national ISP that is much better than what we have here. I don't see why we can't do the same outside of conservative interference and handwringing.

 

[coloradoatheist]

The issue is when it goes through a third party and Netflix isn't directly paying Comcast for it. So the question is who pays for it and when. Netflix could look into buying a Comcast circuit and looking at storing servers (paying Comcast) for that service. The Internet has created some strange models that are different than normal.