Canadian Government Rejects Net Neutrality Rules 287
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian Press reports that the Canadian government appears ready to reject net neutrality legislation, instead heeding the arguments of large telecommunications companies . Michael Geist has posted transcripts of the documents which can be summarized as the government thinks that blocking or prioritizing content is acceptable, it knows that this runs counter to recommended policy, and it doesn't care because it plans to the leave the issue to the dominant telecommunications providers."
Conservative government in charge.. NOT FOR LONG (Score:5, Insightful)
Adi
Re:Conservative government in charge.. NOT FOR LON (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the odds are that whoever wins, it will be a minority government, and the Liberals are every bit as much the ass-whores of big business as the Conservatives.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know about Canada, but here in the USA the so-called conservatives and liberals are both populists. From your comment, it sounds like it's true up there, too.
Re:Conservative government in charge.. NOT FOR LON (Score:5, Funny)
Way off base (Score:2)
Re:Conservative government in charge.. NOT FOR LON (Score:3, Insightful)
The american FCC chairman said it best and the telco's are adopting a position simular to it. As long as the comitment to the consumer is met, there shouldn't be a
Eh? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
A Common Problem (Score:2)
Yeah! Screw the people! It's not like we work for them anyhow.
Re:A Common Problem (Score:5, Funny)
I wish I was allowed to vote for my own raises. All in favor of a 5000% raise? ME! Well that's settled.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A Common Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
I am a bit disappointed in the federal government now though...the Conservatives aren't changing the policies of the previous Liberals in terms of media consolidation and copyright law. The more things change, the more they stay the same. We have more 3rd parties in Canadian politics than the US, but they serve more to offset the balance of power and have no real chance at governing (NDP, Greens, Bloc Quebecois).
Re: (Score:2)
At least the Liberal party didn't go shooting its mouth off about how Israel is justified and measured in turning Lebanon into a smoking crater over an unsanctioned kidnapping, and then turn around and pat itself on the back about doing it [jta.org]. The first goddamn thing they did when they got into office was cut all aid to the Palestinians. There is no victim in the middle east, both parties are equally guilty. Give both sides aid during peace times, and
Re:A Common Problem (Score:5, Informative)
Actually NDP and libs were about neck and neck during the last election (within a few percentage points). No one really noticed because the big story was the conservatives winning. The NDPs greatest obstacle is getting the Canadian population to stop believing that the NDP will never win. They have alot of support. On top of that, because of our stupid voting system, there are ALOT of would-be NDP voters who are scared of the conservative party winning, and end up voting strategically in favour of libs. It is worth noting that all of our small useless parties are left leaning. It is also worth noting that our one big right leaning party was formed by combining two smaller right leaning parties. You can thank our voting system for this stupid states of affairs where the majority of Canadians are clearly and decisively left leaning, but we are ruled by a minority conservative government. Crappy.
I am a bit disappointed in the federal government now though..
I am more than a bit disappointed with this government. Besides hacking away at social programs, increasing taxes for the lowest bracket ( http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2006/01/06/taxes-tor
- Human rights commissions, as they are evolving, are an attack on our fundamental freedoms and the basic existence of a democratic society...
- I don't know all the facts o-n Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans.
- I've always been clear, I support the traditional definition of marriage.
-
In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.
- "I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians
I have nothing else to add except that I am saddened by the current leadership of my country .As a BC resident... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As a BC resident... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's been in their hands for over ten years now, and seems to be thriving. Why do we expect that to change anytime in the future?
Re:As a BC resident... (Score:4, Insightful)
See, if you advocate that there are certain things the government (and only they) should be in control of, people think you're left leaning. If you advocate that the government should stand back and allow business to do as they please, and the 'guiding hand' of the economy will keep it on track, people think you lean to the right.(*)
This government want to look like they're reducing the cost and size of government, so they're perfectly willing to feed us the lie that businesses are capable or interested in doing what is right for all of us, instead of just right for their bottom line. Basically, from my pespective, they keep trying to shove their own unpopular agenda down our throats under the pretext that, even though we all disagree with them, that they really do know the right thing to do for us.
So, yes, if the government is going to do that, I think we're fucked.
Cheers
(*) Grossly simplified for purposes of discussion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Correction to the article (Score:4, Insightful)
Net Neutrality? (Score:5, Interesting)
I've found other people throughout Utah who are dealing with this problem. My search has lead me to other states with people asking the same questions I have been asking [youtube.com].
This is just a couple of instances where Comcast has demonstrated unfair business practices. I'm wondering if Net Neutrality would curb this sort of abuse from companies. I'm ok with following the rules (don't get me wrong). But to be expected to minimize Internet usage without knowing what the rules are is pure B.S.
Heck, I've had people on my blog accuse me of all sorts of stuff. Unfortunately, it's not even close to the truth.
If I'm misunderstanding what Net Neutrality [wikipedia.org] is please enlighten me.
BTW, if you are from Utah and have been disconnected by Comcast please contact me by posting on the blog. I receive all messages. I'm compiling a list and plan on passing it along to Bill Gephart. We've been working for the last few weeks to resolve this. He's already begun interviewing people I've found. Thanks!
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Net neutrality is the opposite of that. It dictates that all traffic must be tr
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I'm ok with that. I pull down Linux ISO's occasionally, the WoW patches I believe are all through p2p plus I'm a big fan of Zudeo (reign of the fallen DVD rocks!). If it took longer to download I'm not terribly worried about it. Disconnecting customers on the other hand...
Lately, the telecom companies have started hinting th
Re:Net Neutrality? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Next thing, they'll charge me extra for high speed delivery of certain content. It'll be just like a satellite TV company... you pay $4/mo for youtube, $4/mo for google... etc. etc. etc.
Traffic
Re: (Score:2)
I don't see anything wrong with that.
What I would find troubling would be if my ISP throttled YouTube down to 1/8x the effective bandwidth they previously had available, because they DIDN'T pony up a "premium delivery fee". That's protection money, and would su
Re:Net Neutrality? (Score:5, Insightful)
Metaphor: If the network was like a system of roads, "optimal delivery" would describe what we give to emergency vehicles with their sirens and flashing lights on -- they get through, everyone else has to pull over and stop to let them by.
So if you haven't paid for optimal delivery, your packets are being slowed down. And the more providers who shell out for optimal delivery, the more it slows down the traffic of everyone who doesn't. And when at last EVERYONE is paying for optimal delivery, then what? We're back to where we started, except that now everyone is paying, and they can introduce super-duper-optimal-delivery, where your packets are prioritized over those from providers who merely paid for "regular-optimal" delivery.
Fun!
Re: (Score:3)
I mean, if you can't have a faster Internet if you're rich and powerful, what good is being rich and powerful?
Until now, any Joe with 'net access could conceivably create a website that would be just as capable of reaching the world as Microsoft, AT&T or a political party. This can't be allowed to go
Re:Net Neutrality? (Score:5, Informative)
However, VOIP & HTTP requests can be routed with different priorities - VOIP is sensative to lag, HTTP isn't.
The concept of traffic shaping is to provide a QoS [Quality of Service]flagged route for packets which maximizes the use of the fastest, cleanest routes for lag/packet loss sensative protocols, while relegating less sensative packets to routes which may not be as responsive. The Telco extention[perversion] of packet shaping is to convert the selection criteria from protocol needs to accounting balance. Thus some of the Canadian telcos have already started to throttle Vonage service to the point of compromising service quality - remarkably just before they roll out their own service which doesn't seem to suffer the same problems.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Net Neutrality does not mean that your ISP cannot impose caps. If you use too much bandwidth and they cut you off, there may be other laws or policies that your ISP violates, but not net neutrality. Net Neutrality means treating all packets the same, irrespective of origin or type. If your ISP cuts off all packets, they are treating all packets the same.
Now, if your ISP cut you off for using Vonage, or they imposed traffic shaping so that Vonage did not work well,
Re: (Score:2)
Right now, everyone gets treated equally among ISP's and such.
What telecoms and major ISP's want to do is throttle sites and force them to pay to have optimal delivery of their data.
That is, my news site will be sent to you very slowly because I can't afford to pay the ISP's and telecoms lots of money to prioritize my site. Meanwhile, another news source will go through their pipes rather quickly because they pay for it.
Right now they are us
How Much? (Score:2)
How much did you use? Did you get a warning letter or just summarily dropped? Local franchise agreements might have something to say about this.
It is complicated (Score:2)
What about big telecoms who have a vested interest in not allowing VOIP to cut into their profits?
It does worry me that spammers may use net neutrality laws to prevent their networks from being black holed.
easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:easy solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Let companies prioritize their delivery, but when they advertise performance, they're only allowed to use the lowest common denominator. Time Warner can then stream HD stuff just for their customers, but when they advertise 4 megabits down, they aren't allowed to throttle anyone below it.
Conceptually, this might make sense, but practically, it won't work. Can Time Warner guarantee that every service over the Web will be able to send them 4 mb? Look at it this way Time Warner Advertises 4mb and delivers it. AT&T, who happens to be sitting in between Time Warner and NetFlix, calls up NetFlix and says, "give us 10 million bucks or we slow down all packets from your servers that transit our network." If Netflix complies, maybe the end user will get 4mb through their network and all the way through Time Warner's as well. If Netflix does not comply and AT&T slows them all down, Netflix download at half that, but Time Warner hasn't done anything about it.
Theoretically, this probably violates AT&T and Time Warner's peering agreement and Time Warner can complain. Realistically, however, This isn't just Netflix, AT&T and Time Warner, but a dozen different networks in between, any of which might be the one degrading service because Netflix did not pay up. How much chance is their that Time Warner will be able to influence their peer's, peer's peer's peer's peer in getting them not violate a peering agreement they have with someone six contract negotiations removed from them?
On top of all that, even if it is Time Warner doing the extortion directly, they can advertise 4mb down, but still mess with latency or other traffic aspects that they don't advertise. Even if customers are smart enough to know what is up, in many localities they may be the only service provider and the law in that locality makes it illegal for anyone else to run lines to people's houses, even if they could afford to without the huge government subsidies given to Time Warner out of our tax dollars. Realistically speaking, I think legislation or free, government run internet access is the only way to solve this.
Re: (Score:2)
The other way is to pass the cost on to the consumer.
The cost is always passed on to the consumer, it is just who collects that cost which differs. Whether traffic is sold as a service with a flat rate, within certain parameters, or charged for by the bit, makes no difference to net neutrality. In my previous example of NetFlix, if Netflix pays the $10 million extortion fee, what happens to the prices they charge end users? it goes up. The money from the end user goes to NetFlix and then some is diverted
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The free market only works if there is a 'market' to work with. When it's a single provider, or providers working as a cartel, the free market cannot produce market corrections.
I had an AT&T fiber line run past my house close enough to spit on from my porch. It was 3 years before I could get broadband from them. It was 4 years before Verizon even offered DSL to me (768 is still the fastest they offer). Oh, and Direct Way satallite service is out too, I have a hill between me & the sat. That means t
Politicians and power (Score:2)
Harper's at it again (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, there's absolutely nothing that can be done. They'll just "go it alone" and do whatever they want to do anyway. All that without communicating at all with the media because they want our journalists to write down the question before press conferences and our journalists refused (yes we have real journalists here).
Hey, US people. We now have an un-government too! Now all of North America is fucked!
Re: (Score:2)
I was actually pretty pissed when they cut the GST.
That doesn't really affect me (seriously, a penny on a Tim's, who cares?) -- but it DOES affect our national debt AND poor people (I'll bet they get smaller GST cheques now).
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
The theory of the GST rebate is to compensate poor people for having to pay the tax. If the tax is reduced, then so is the amount they spend on it, and so is the amount the deserve to be compensated.
Most bleeding hearts say that consumption taxes unfairly target the poor people because they need to spend most of their income on consumable items (of course, rent doesn't have GST). It seems odd that you would
Re:Harper is Canada's Karl Rove. Be afraid.... (Score:2)
I have a lot of respect for his ability. Which is the scary part, because I completely oppose him. Nothing is more frightening, tha
TELUS is at it again (Score:3, Interesting)
However, TELUS has a terrible tendency to overcompensate when they actually do something. Don't like certain servers sitting on residential line? Block incomi
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, don't forget there's still Mexico. And they speak their own language down there, so there's no way to know how they're doing.
"""
Given the massive amounts of people illegally cross the US-Mexico boarder, I think that we can all agree that Mexico is rather messed up. At least to a significant degree for the average person.
QoS Argument Provides a Talking point (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again it seems that large corporations have managed to win the day because people are stupid and/or lazy. Whenever a remotely complex topic arises, they manage to confuse the issue by making claims that the topic being discussed is really something else and they're against that something else. In this way, they and politicians lobbied by them can argue against that something else, while voting against the topic at hand. People with party loyalty can simply choose to believe them, and most everyone else is confused enough by the disconnect so that the big boys get their way.
In this instance, the issue is net neutrality. Basically, it was asserted that since much of the infrastructure was funded by the government and since many of the last-mile providers have government enforced monopolies, maybe it would be wise to ensure that companies are forbidden by law from discriminating against traffic on their network based upon who sent that traffic. For example, this would mean AT&T cannot intentionally slow down or lose VoIP packets from some company unless they treat their own VoIP traffic the same way. Let me repeat the important part here. Net neutrality is about stopping discrimination based upon who sends something, not what is being sent.
So the big companies hire some PR firms to make up a new issue, which they can claim is what the net neutrality laws are really about, and which the average person might conceivably be against (since no one in their right mind could argue that net neutrality as described above is a bad idea). So they claim that Net Neutrality is about stopping telecos from discriminating based upon the type of traffic. They use the example of file sharing networks as "bad" traffic they want to be able to run slower. They use VoIP as traffic they want to ensure runs faster. All the while they make sure to outright lie and claim that the proposed net neutrality legislation would stop Quality of Service traffic shaping.
Every time an expert looks into it, this is shown to be false. How many evaluations have we had now that say QoS is not restricted by proposed net neutrality legislation? And what about encryption? Widespread deployment of encrypted tunnels makes discriminating based upon the type of traffic useless anyway, and would certainly be adopted (and has been) to foil and attempt to use QoS to discriminate. So the entire argument is bull crap.
The net result of all of this is most people who have heard of net neutrality being completely misinformed about what it is, or scratching their heads in confusion while the large network operators laugh their asses off and prepare to discriminate against competitors and start extorting money from certain Web services providers who don't have anything to do with them other than the fact that some of their traffic ends up transiting their network, providing an opportunity to waylay it like some sort of internet highwayman. Hey Canadian government, I hope you're proud of yourselves for helping to undermine the most important innovation in the last 20 years.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't matter, election comming, all gonna change.
Re: (Score:2)
Stupid or lazy?
People are too lazy or stupid to read the proposed legislation and understand it themselves. As a result, government officials and company spokespersons can happily lie about the issue without everyone voting them out of office.
Doesn't matter, election comming, all gonna change.
I doubt it, since no one knows what the issue is, why should any politician do anything but what lobbyists are willing to pay them for?
Same old same old... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wrote a quick-and-dirty anti-FUD article [mobydisk.com] in an attempt to correct these misunderstandings. If anyone is fooled by the above arguemnts, point them there.
Some corrections. (Score:2)
Incorrect [michaelgeist.ca]. In Canada, Roger's (major cable company) does try to traffic shape P2P traffic. Fire up bittorrent without protocol encryption and see. The public largely doesn't notice and Rogers can live without those who do.
Incorrect. In Canada last mile telco providers are forced to allow competit
Proving Once Again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, the Conservatives got in based on support of a lot of the older demographic, mostly in reaction to the horrid Liberal Government we had for years. The only thing I can't believe is that they were willing to elect Stephen Harper. The guy seems so insincere, so slimey, I wouldn't buy a used car from him. I can't believe hes head of the country at the moment. Its a sad period for Canada.
Time to contact your MP and protest I suppose, although I no longer have much hope that can accomplish anything. Our country seems to have the best politicians money can buy
Re: (Score:2)
Oh great. Now my country is exporting good old-fashioned American Passive Fatalism to our northern neighbor, too.
Not surprising... (Score:2)
Cost? (Score:5, Funny)
Tom
Lease.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Remind me Again... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No problem; here you go: "It's not just the weather that's cooler in Canada", by Samantha Bennett [post-gazette.com].
Oh, and Canada is also superior to the United States because Budweiser 'beer' isn't made there.
A Different Approach (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm moving! (Score:4, Funny)
NO TOLLS (Score:2, Insightful)
The big fish will rule the ocean (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yet all of those things happened without the laws that are currently being proposed. I'm with everyone else here in my belief that ISPs shouldn't
Cdn Content? (Score:2)
What's next: Every 4th byte of traffic passed by an ISP has to originate in Canada?
dave
I am not Canadian... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I bet Bell is happy (Score:2, Interesting)
The day I notice this in my day-to-day browsing is the day my ISP gets a call from a VERY pissed customer. I bet ISPs who don't do this will get a flood of people switching to them.
I wonder how much MORE $ it will cost the Can gov? (Score:2)
I know that they would like to keep their hands off but this might be an exception.
Somehow I don't see Google or MS paying Videotron in Quebec to get "better service".
I hope google and Friends just blackout Videotron to teach them a lesson.
Also, what happens if I get an email from a friend that's a Videotron customer.
did Rogers pay Videotron, yet?
did Videotron pay Rogers, yet?
Man this gets dumb very q
To my brethren Canucks out there. (Score:5, Informative)
Alberta [electionsalberta.ab.ca]
British Columbia [leg.bc.ca]
Manitoba [electionsmanitoba.ca]
New Brunswick [7700.gnb.ca]
Newfoundland [gov.nl.ca]
Northwest Territories [gov.nt.ca]
Nova Scotia [gov.ns.ca]
Nunavut Territory [assembly.nu.ca]
Ontario [listingsca.com]
Prince Edward Island [assembly.pe.ca]
Quebec [gouv.qc.ca]
Saskatchewan [legassembly.sk.ca]
Yukon Territory [gov.yk.ca]
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
There's one thing worse than the republican party. That's the Tory party that wishes it was republican.
North of the border (Score:2)
Re:Conservatives (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, if the people say, "Dumping pollution into the rivers is bad", in a free market they get together to define "pollution" and enforce the rule. Government is only the mechanism by which that happens. The market is still entirely free.
Of course, actual governments are composed of people who can be persuaded not to do their jobs properly. And the final results are always far more complicated than "don't pollute". That's why conservatives (confusingly also called "classic liberals" by economists) tend to prefer less government rather than more: the less there is the easier it is to see where it's going wrong. Just like in code.
So I'm reluctant to let the government enshrine net neutrality rules before we see what the big companies actually do. It restricts the ability to innovate, not just by big companies but also by small ones. Once the big companies actually start engaging in nightmare scenarios (e.g. forcing you to use their own download services rather than a competitor's), then regulation will be in order.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to remind people that Rogers (an enormous cable internet provider in Ontario, and elsewhere) are using traffic shaping with Bit Torrent traffic. Would net neutrality fix that problem? If so, I'd say the problem is already here!
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but this got modded insightful?
Let's wait until we're in the middle of the problem before we look at fixing i
Regulatory Capture (Score:2)
I only learned this term last week: Regulatory Capture [wikipedia.org]. It's very useful while discussing lots of what gets debated here.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First, what do you mean here by "free market"? The only consistent definition I've run across for the term essentially means a nonaggressive market society (i.e. a society where ethical/moral behavior is defined in terms of property rights, homesteading, and contractual transfer of ownership). However, since governments are defined by "legitimate" aggression -- a
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Haven't you heard of net neutrality before? This also have NOTHING to do with blocking content. Please look up what it actually is before you comment further.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:what's the problem? (Score:4, Informative)
Put another way, companies that can afford to pay the extra fees will be high-speed, while companies that can't will be on dial-up speed. Wanna go surfing at 1200 bps again?
Re:what's the problem? (Score:5, Interesting)
The internet is a marketplace and the ISPs are at the doors. If you're, say, Youtube, and have a really swell stand at the market selling refrigerators, they can in theory extort money out of Youtube by not letting people in to see the refrigerators at all, or by only letting people pass through turnstiles, thereby precluidng the purchase of refrigerators.
At the same time, they can fool people coming into the market by advertising having a really big gate that funnels down to turnstiles that you can't see from the outside. You pay to pass through the big gate and are later screwed at the turnstiles because you realize there's no way you can leave with a refrigerator. All this would be fine if the number of doors was large as market forces would dictate price and availability of access, but doors are few in any one area and it's hard to build new ones.
In the long run, the market may die from this, but it may not, and at any rate I don't like the situation.
How's my analogy meter?
On the upside, if there is an upside, the days of the current Canadian government are numbered. We have what you might call a multi-party system (multi > 2) and the current party rules only on account of tentative support from other parties, and that ought to run out on one issue or another sometime this calendar year. We can only hope they don't pass any legislation regarding this (or any other) matter in the meantime.
different levels of ISPs (Score:2)
The problem is that there are local ISPs, and then there are the 'Tier 1' folks who have the big networks where data flows through
I haven't looked at the wording of this bill, but many of the 'net neutrality' bills that I've seen would cause exactly the problems you're talking about. So, suddenly, as if 'CAN-SPAM' wasn't bad enough in legitimizing spam, we'd end up with the spammers calling 'ne
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. FCC net neutrality ring a bell? (Score:2)
I'm willing to bet that that time frame was set because it would give the dems enough time to pass Net Neutrality legislation. Yay for the FCC.
Re: (Score:2)
If we had competition (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole "net neutrality" debate is built on the assumption that the communication system will continue to be a either a monopoly or cartel with a very small number of players in the market.
Personally, I think the best solution to the bandwidth puzzle would be to have a vibrant infrastructure with a large number of companies providing backbone services. If there are enough players in the market, the market will help minimize prices.
With net neutrality ruling
Re:If we had competition (Score:5, Insightful)
And those magical hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber are going to come from where, exactly? Sorry, but the whole "let the market fix the problem" idea just won't fly with anyone who does the math.
The reason that we don't have a vibrant infrastructure is that it costs thousands of dollars to fiber a house. At 40 cents a foot, the cost for a single fiber from New York, NY to Los Angeles, CA would be $5,199,744, and that's not counting the cost of actually laying the fiber, splicing it every so often, adding repeaters every so often, routing equipment, commercial buildings to house the gear, etc. And a backbone would have a lot more than one fiber. Conservatively, it would probably cost billions of dollars to add a single nationwide backbone in the United States that can compete with the existing regional backbones. You're proposing multiple such backbones. Find a way to squeeze $1,000 out of every man, woman, and child in the U.S., and you're probably in the ballpark.
The alternative is leased line systems in which wire providers lease lines to pseudo-backbone providers. That's what we have now. The problem is that those wire providers are in competition with those pseudo-backbone providers, and when push comes to shove, the companies leasing the lines lose their lease. As long as the infrastructure costs as much as it does, backbone providers will always tend towards monopoly or at best oligopoly. It's the nature of that type of business, just as it is the nature of regional last-mile ISPs to tend towards monopoly, and for the same reason.
The cost of building out the infrastructure exceeds the amount of money you'd make off of it even when amortized over decades. Thus, short of the government building out a public infrastructure, the "cartel" situation you describe is unlikely to change.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are about 10 companies doing this so there is competition. We just happen to have the best prices and the best service.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like what your ISP does, then move to another ISP, or start your own ISP!
Way to completely miss the point of what net neutrality legislation does. Allow me to explain. I pay a monthly fee to Comcast to provide me with internet access. Comcast has a peering agreement with AT&T who has a peering agreement with Sprint who has a peering agreement with Telus who has a peering agreement with RBD who Netflix buys their big internet pipes from (theoretically speaking). So My business relation s