FCC Commish - US Playing 'Russian Roulette' with Broadband 290
LarryBoy writes "In a speech given at the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps lambasted US broadband policy, saying that the US is 'playing "Russian roulette with broadband and Internet and more traditional media."' Copps also took issue with an op-ed piece ('Broadband Baloney') by fellow commissioner Robert McDowell last week. 'In his speech, Copps didn't mention McDowell by name, but he did claim that broadband in the US is "so poor that every citizen in the country ought to be outraged." Back when then OECD said that we were number four in the world, he said, no one objected to its methodology. Copps also had fighting words for those who blame the US broadband problems on our less-dense population; Canada, Norway, and Sweden are ranked above us, but all are less dense than the US. Besides, this argument implies that broadband is absolutely super within American urban areas. Copps noted, though, that his own broadband connection in Washington, DC was "nothing compared to Seoul."'"
Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:5, Insightful)
>broadband in the US is "so poor that every citizen in the country ought to be outraged."
I don't know if the average citizen would even realize if their downstream bandwidth were boosted significantly. If my mother can download her web page in 3 seconds instead of 5, I am not sure she really cares.
The real battle seems to be with the upstream. Face it, sending photos sucks. If I have to do any sort of large
And to worsen things, I don't believe this is an infrastructure issue. These are obviously artificial caps levied against all users (both the legitimate and abusing customers). Maybe they could throttle the upstream for those with prolonged heightened levels of usage?
Jim
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Re:Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Meh (Score:2, Insightful)
The real problem ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:3, Insightful)
Better yet...stop overselling bandwidth! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not so much the caps that are the problem it's the fact that your broadband provider is selling 10x (or more) the bandwidth they have available working on the presumption that you will not actually use your full bandwidth most of the time.
This was all good and well when email (not spam) and simple web pages were the Internet norm, but with dynamic pages, streaming video, audio, other content, and unparalleled levels of email we need to stop over-selling the actual bandwidth available. If what we have isn't good enough to service the customers -- upgrade the infrastructure to something that can handled 30MiB/s down and 15MiBs up (or whatever)
Also, stop calling them "unlimited" plans with the simple truth is every provider limits your bandwidth usage either by threats or through packet shaping.
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:5, Insightful)
If I get 11Mb/s total (I do, 10Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up), let me adjust the caps myself. If I want 5.5/5.5, or 9/2, let me have it. If I want 1/10, it's the same difference to the local cable loop.
Re:Meh (Score:1, Insightful)
You got lucky. Don't move near a city.
Godwin's (Score:5, Insightful)
About time. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, everyone on YouTube is a techno-nerd.
Incorrect Priority Alignment (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to fix this, I suggest the following it: take all of the cables away from the existing telcos and make one nationwide heavily regulated company that would just maintain the lines and sell bandwidth to whoever could afford it. That would go a long way towards leveling the playing field.
Sure, you could de-regulate: end geographical monopolies and grant any company wanting to run cables access to the public rights-of-way. However, this would needlessly duplicate infrastructure, and companies would use inter-networking contracts to limit competition. The biggest impediment to offering new services in a telecomm market is to connect to existing networks. Incumbent networks have a huge advantage because they already connect many, many customers. If you create a startup telco, your customers expect to be able to talk to people on the other network. The incumbents can simply price you out of the market by making it expensive for your customers to talk to theirs.
Re:Density *could* be factor, mostly just monopoli (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that the country is larger shouldn't make it more difficult as such. Making a large network is just connecting two smaller ones no?
Re:Godwin's (Score:2, Insightful)
So claim it! It can be "El Cabri's Law," or something to that effect. :)
Re:Godwin's (Score:3, Insightful)
One of these recent squabbles had someone insisting that Japan isn't densely populated. Well, it's not, -- if you assume that those people are evenly distributed across all the islands, including Hokkaido and a bunch of isolated volcanic rocks.
Monopolistic Conflict of Interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Enter the loophole in the law that states that if they build a brand new line from the central office to your house, they can control its content. Guess who can't put in new lines? Right... the "competing services" who are supposed to be able to access the lines that already exist. Therefore, you have a conflict of interest in that the line maintainers are the only ones capable of putting up new infrastructure... thus guaranteeing a monopoly of service. Now, while it may make business sense to wire up the areas that can and will be heavily subscribing first (it's called "return on investment"), you'll find that some other areas that have gotten it only did because they're in between the source and target area, so they just went and wired up that section too.
That said, I cannot get FiOS in my neighborhood. Neighborhoods around me are getting wired for it and receiving it. We aren't... and believe me, it's not because we're a poor neighborhood (probably has more to do with our being an older subdivision that still has above-ground lines). I've called Verizon a few times and the response I always get when I ask for a date is, "We can't give you a date because that would commit us." Duh! That's the point of my asking for a date or time frame! Verizon first sticks it to us with FITL, so we can't get any form of DSL other than IDSL/ISDN, unless you go with a T-1 or other dedicated line like that... then they stick it to us by not wiring up the neighborhood... and they further stick it to us by being the only telco that can do so, and limit the service to themselves. I'm sure there are other companies that could be wiring up neighborhoods too, and would love a shot at doing it... if they were legally allowed to do so.
Basically, like you said... the ones who maintain the lines should not be allowed to sell the services. Give the line maintainers one responsibility: infrastructure maintenance and upgrades. Everyone else, including Verizon, would have to "buy" their time and space on the lines.
Re:Better yet...stop overselling bandwidth! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Incorrect Priority Alignment (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Because the mandate for a governmental body is to, above all else, benefit *the people*, as opposed to the pockets of the shareholders.
We have watched as the monopolies have leveraged their power, money and influence over plenty of other government entities (financially mostly) and what makes you think that they won't do the same thing here?
Uhh, that's what rules and the legal system exist to solve. If the wire-leasing entity is required, by law, to be neutral, and there's evidence of impropriety, then the victims sue. Problem = solved.
Of course, this is all based on the assumption that you have a fair, functioning democracy that would create such an entity and set up it's mandate appropriately. Unfortunately, institutionalized bribary (aka, lobbying) in the US system makes this all but impossible (see the US Copyright Board for an example).
Yes, I just contradicted myself in my own post.
companies companies companies = a dirty word (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm afraid that that's not even remotely true. The upstream bandwidth available on almost all US cable plant is a tiny fraction of the downstream bandwidth available. The system only became (theoretically) symmetrical with DOCSIS 2.0. But all the deployments I know of in the US are still at DOCSIS 1.1. Even if they have a fully DOCSIS-2.0-compliant network (which is no one I know of in the US, but there may be some) I believe that no US cable operator has actually turned on the 2.0 features.
There is some hope that deployment of DOCSIS 3.0 will be faster and more widespread than deployment of DOCSIS 2.0 has been, but I wouldn't recommend holding your breath.
Re:Density? (Score:3, Insightful)
The rate of urbanization in the US at 75% is average among developed countries. Compare Ireland at 60% to see if your theory holds up. I suspect not, as it seems to me that broadband access depends entirely on the political will to make it happen. The US's problem is that they have offloaded all responsibility for important infrastructure from the government to local monopoly corporations. Perhaps if there was true competition, the market would sort it out, but there isn't, so only the short-term interests of the shareholders matter.
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:4, Insightful)
Just look at NY (Score:4, Insightful)
So the connections between the cities are fine, what about the cities themselves? Take NY City. It's the biggest and densest city in the U.S. There's no distance argument to be made here. And there are 10 million potential customers -- that's more than the entire country of Sweden, all in one compact area! Yet if you only compare NY and ignore the rest of the country, we're still way behind in broadband.
No, sorry, the density argument holds no water at all. At least, it is clearly not the limiting factor on broadband, because where it isn't a factor at all broadband is still limited.
You are however absolutely correct about the monopolies being the cause. Why don't we have better broadband? Because the telcos neither want nor need to provide it. Hell, it wasn't until the mid to late nineties that we started to see sub-$0.10/min long-distance POTS because of the lack of competition before that. Why would they go run off and invest in more technology when there's nobody for you to go to if you think they're too slow? Right now the only "competition" we have is DSL vs cable, and they have apparently decided that it's perfectly adequate to just compete on price and the slightly different features of DSL vs cable.
There is ONE reason broadband penetration sucks. (Score:3, Insightful)
'nuff said.
Whether we're talking about the old, monopoly-that-was AT&T, or the current, Dr. Frankenstein built me a monster AT&T, the moniker AT&T represents a lack of progress. Verizon, although late, is moving in the correct direction. Sprint is deploying WiMax as fast as it can. Some cable companies are exactly where they should be (OptimumOnline, RCN, I'm looking at you), and other, although a little slower, are getting there (Comcast, WOW, Time Warner, Charter).
Notice that in areas where Verizon is competing with Comcast (or other cable companies), broadband is doing *well*. Also notice that in areas where 5-10 mile fixed wireless is implemented, things are good to. In other areas with some competition, things are okay, too: It's a little expensive, but in Chicago I have options for 8 Mbps cable (Comcast), 25 Mbps cable (RCN), 15 Mbps ADSL2+ (Cyberonic), 3 Mbps fixed wireless (multiple WISPs), or 3 Mbps mobile wireless (EVDO, Sprint, Verizon, both RevA).
But areas dominated by AT&T? The *vast* majority of customers are locked in at 3 Mbps down, 384 kbps up. A few (located close to AT&T DSLAMs) can get 6 Mbps down, 768 kbps up. And AT&T's "new" U-verse is limited to 6 Mbps/1 Mbps.
This is unacceptable.
Frankly, AT&T's status as a monopoly provider in the old days fucked up the market so badly that it took decades to recover; and the recover some how involved putting a new AT&T together that is poised to fuck up the market again. The single *best* thing that the FCC can do now is strongly regulate AT&T's capability to strangle other providers, giving time for less-evil companies like Comcast to put up some decent infrastructure.
Anyone who disagrees with me; try and imagine what the U.S. broadband market would look like if AT&T was really pushing the curve in terms of what was possible. They're financial stable, profitable, and have plenty of cash on hand; if AT&T was deploying "true" next gen broadband infrastructure (at least as good as Verizon, or perhaps better), it would fundamentally change the market. The cable cos would be rushing out the door to deploy 25+ Mbps everywhere, and Sprint wouldn't be the only company pushing WiMax.
The U.S. broadband market would be a different place if you could get Verizon FTTP everywhere. Sadly, AT&T is still the dominant company, and until either A) the FCC starts to regulate the hell out of them, or B) Consumers & Businesses wise up and stop purchasing service from them, we'll be stuck with shitty broadband.
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:3, Insightful)
This problem isn't about the internet at all. If you don't believe me, go sign up a Vongo account. The internet can handle high quality video feeds.
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:5, Insightful)
Do not confuse your crap filter for infrastructure issues. Many television stations use the internet as an infrastructure adequately. Movies are distributed over it commercially. Video phones have been working fine for almost a decade now. The internet does require that you have a good solid connection at the server end to pull it off, but any Joe Average can get a ten meg unmetered line with a box for around $1200/y; that's not exactly huge scratch.
Moving to the internet reduces costs dramatically. If anything, it makes the kind of broad, high availability content you're currently desiring easier, in that the people who have the means to pull off two big things can focus on funding and production, and leave distribution to the world wide wank. Look what's happened with gaming for a similar clear example.
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:3, Insightful)
What would I do with 1Gb fiber. I'd not have to go to work haldf the time. I could call up a video "chat" with coworkers and export the screen from the compters in the lab to my house with almost zero lag. I'd pay for the 1Gb service with not having to drive my car.
To say "my current 1Mbps gets the job done" is backwards. No, you created to "job" to fit the connection speed. If the connection where 1000 faster you would create a different, bigger job.
Actually my old 300 baud dial up modem "got the job" done too back in the 1980's but back then the "job" was USNET access, email and maybe a telnet seesion and and their was no "web" as "Mosaic" was yet to be written. But I was very happy to have Internet access 25 years ago because most people didn't have it at all.
Re:YearlyKos Convention? Guess what he is! (Score:3, Insightful)
Steal taxpayer dollars? Wake the fuck up. The pendulum has swung far, far in the other direction. The main beneficiaries of government freebies over the last several years are corporations. Quite literally the governement is letting bridges fall down so that rich people and powerful corprorations can get more money that they didn't earn.
And it gets worse.
Government-sponsored monopolies get to rule our broadband and give nothing back in return. Most places, most of the time, unless you want to pay hundreds a month, your bandwith is capped at 50K up. So you can suck at the tit of major media corporations, or go fuck yourself. And pay attention to net neutrality - the major broadband providers in the US, who operate virtually without competition, want to decide who gets to be on the internet and who doesn't. It could easily be the most powerful anti-freedom move in hundreds of years.
Go fuck yourself. Go back and suck the King's ass. You give not one shit about freedom.
It's probably the same implementation. (Score:3, Insightful)
I know this probably sounds crazy. Why would a company cripple user features this way, right?
Well, it turns out that some people are willing to pay more for internet than others, but you can't just sell it at the highest price, because then people who aren't willing to pay that much won't buy your service. You don't want to price it low, because then people will pay the low price, even though they were willing to pay more. So, what sellers do is they try to segment the market. You can see this everywhere (Do you think organic salad actually costs twice as much to grow as regular salad? Of course not, but you can charge twice as much for it. Does a Cadillac Escalade actually cost 80% more to manufacture than a GM Suburban, it's the same damn vehicle with a leather interior!) Of course it's a lore more obvious when you use software to achieve market segmentation (since nothing is physically different) but it's the same principle.
Re:Funny thing on NPR today ... (Score:3, Insightful)
very simply: bad projections that never happened.
During the peak of the dot com boom, people started to build the infrastructure to sustain the current growth. At the time, *everything* was turning into a web service and everyone and their dogs were creating new internet startups. The prediction for bandwidth was through the roof and backbone companies took notice and started building more infrastructure.
Next thing you know, the dot crash was here and all those companies that served useless but bandwidth intensive services died. The infrastructure had been built though and is still here. 6+ years later, we finally see the same services re-emerge, but with an actual business plan and revenue stream (for example internet storage).
The infrastructure does not vanish once it's been built. Predictions may not happen, but you still need to act on them to sustain business.
Google has been said to buy a lot of that dark fiber... We may learn one day for what usage...
Re:About time. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Quit Capping the Upstream (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no way a cable company will provision 10Mb (or 25Mb) upstream. Frequency space is just too tight. Hell, many companies are deploying switched digital, which is nothing more than a hack IMHO, specifically because channels are so scarce, and it only gets worse in the face of HD.
In short, what you're asking simply isn't doable given current network infrastructure. Things may get a little easier following the digital switchover, as that will free up frequency space previously used up by analog channels, but given the plethora of specialty channels, not to mention services like VOD, cable (and DSL) operators simply aren't in the position to offer the kind of service you want.
What the actual frequency spectrum does has little bearing on what the modem caps are,
That's just naive. Frequency spectrum dictates the top-most bandwidth one can offer. IOW, if you want to offer 10Mb upstream, you must provision channels to support it. Period. And there's no way a cable operator will do that given the spectrum crunch they're in, now.