re: Group Questions Comcast's Net NeutralityYou have now argued that both the Telcos and the MSOs are both monopolies in the same market. You have argued that there is no thing as bi-modal competition.
Seven. Almost. Here is my position.
Telcos are a monopoly in voice communications, both land line and mobile. MSOs are a monopoly in broadcast communications. (Hence why government imposes things like must carry laws on them.) Both of them should be regulated as such. They should be prohibited from real broadband markets. (100Mbs, full duplex or greater with some other caveats)
There is no real data network built to residences yet. It's a natural monopoly and should be recognized for what it is. That means that during the pre build out days the sunk costs are so large that no private entity will build it unless they are protected in a manner that insures an ROI. After the build out is done, and the ROI has been achieved, government will need to regulate it in a manner that deals with issues such monopoly rents.
Today's access networks provided by Telcos and Calbe cos are a farce. So is bimodal competition. Calling it broadband would be like previous generations calling a horse with wheels strapped to its legs an automobile and claiming that to be competition with the railroads for delivering freight.
Today, to get a real internet connection, I know of three choices. First, be a college student and connect to a university network. Second, work for a major corporation who has fiber access to their business park. Or third rent space and place your computers at an internet collocation point.
So, can you point to a single fact that supports your claim that MSO and Cable do not compete for consumer broadband services?
This issue was addressed over five years ago. You just don't want to hear and acknowledge it. Probably because you want to sell your equipment to monopolists who are behaving like charlatans and playing with semantics (e.g. defining broadband as 200Kbs) instead of doing some real work.
Contrary to popular belief, it is not a chicken-or-egg problem. The connectivity has to be there first, before the application development resources will be allocated. Imagine a start-up trying to get funding for an application that requires 100Mbps peak network connections. TheyGÇÖd be laughed out of the VCGÇÖs office. Same holds for trying to get resources to develop the same application within a companyGÇÖs R&D budget. No support for its development because thereGÇÖs no platform or marketplace to sell it into. There are plenty of startups working on FTTH equipment and infrastructure products though.
Would any of todayGÇÖs PC applications have had a snowballGÇÖs chance in hell of getting funding if they were pitched back in the days when the PC platform was based on CPU speeds in the tens of MHz, 2Meg of RAM, a 50Meg hard drive, and a 16 bit ISA bus? No. Few saw any reason weGÇÖd ever need more than that. After the next 10x improvement, people said the same thing: Why do we need more? Only after about 100x improvement did people finally stop saying that, though IGÇÖve noticed it has returned of-late. The cost declines were a vital part of this too, along with the performance increases.
The lack of profitability in todayGÇÖs consumer data services, and the low subscription percentages even thought there is fairly wide availability does not mean that the GÇ£build it and they will comeGÇ¥ mantra has failed for broadband. There is no broadband, so the mantra has not even been tested yet. Build it, and operate it under an open access model, with content and connectivity as separate entities, and they will come. Without that second condition, I have serious doubts about the possibility for successful PC-like growth in broadband, even if it is built.
re: Group Questions Comcast's Net Neutrality The cable and telephone companies already dominate 98 percent of the broadband access market. So NN is in trouble if the network owners collude and start abusing their control of the access pipes, since there will be nowhere else for consumers to turn.
Perhaps utility companies can offer a viable access solution.
re: Group Questions Comcast's Net Neutralitybollocks,
Read up on your own a bit and see where that takes you. Sorry, I don't have time to guide you through it. Read and look for dissonance which attacks your beliefs. Try to advance yourself, not by discounting to support inaccurate beliefs, but by developing new understandings of the world you are a member of. The fact that you asked me to show you reveals you are a person who will advance, not because I'm somebody special, but you are. You asked somebody who doesn't see things your way, "Why?" Good for you.
re: Group Questions Comcast's Net NeutralityFred; I think our differing perspectives may be the result of different agendas. You're hoping that government will re institute and enforce common carriage regulations on fraudband. I've conceded this won't happen. I'm hoping that government puts in place polices such that real broadband gets built out by future generations (as this generation has demonstrated itself as incompetent to get the job done.)
I don't see how bit torrent of linux distributions helps in either of the above. Historically, common carriage regulation has been put in place when powerful interests come together and use government to impose such regulations. It happened in telco networks, oil pipelines, etc. when financial interests needed it to be so. There is no powerful interest pushing for common carriage now that all the access networks have been consolidated. Guys with linux distros and P2P pirates are not strong enough to win the battle let alone the war.
One shift I can see which will help to move things along is when media companies choose to distribute unicast content over data networks. When they do this they can't allow bit torrent users to pirate their works. So they must manage distribution in a manner that they can enforce copyrights. (Scout honor systems won't work.)
Another long shot is user based content drives progress. I don't believe user based content's advertising revenues will stimulate investment or drive progressive policy for unicast access networks. GOOG is an example of what to expect. Nothing there w/respect to investment not with respect to progressive policy.
So in a way, I'd actually prefer to see the access network owners misbehave in a manner that causes more than public outrage. I'd like to see people get so mad they vote with their wallets and completely bypass them.
Sending a bunch of naive lawyers to argue tcp resets seems inconsequential to the above.
Seven. Almost. Here is my position.
Telcos are a monopoly in voice communications, both land line and mobile. MSOs are a monopoly in broadcast communications. (Hence why government imposes things like must carry laws on them.) Both of them should be regulated as such. They should be prohibited from real broadband markets. (100Mbs, full duplex or greater with some other caveats)
There is no real data network built to residences yet. It's a natural monopoly and should be recognized for what it is. That means that during the pre build out days the sunk costs are so large that no private entity will build it unless they are protected in a manner that insures an ROI. After the build out is done, and the ROI has been achieved, government will need to regulate it in a manner that deals with issues such monopoly rents.
Today's access networks provided by Telcos and Calbe cos are a farce. So is bimodal competition. Calling it broadband would be like previous generations calling a horse with wheels strapped to its legs an automobile and claiming that to be competition with the railroads for delivering freight.
Today, to get a real internet connection, I know of three choices. First, be a college student and connect to a university network. Second, work for a major corporation who has fiber access to their business park. Or third rent space and place your computers at an internet collocation point.
So, can you point to a single fact that supports your claim that MSO and Cable do not compete for consumer broadband services?
This issue was addressed over five years ago. You just don't want to hear and acknowledge it. Probably because you want to sell your equipment to monopolists who are behaving like charlatans and playing with semantics (e.g. defining broadband as 200Kbs) instead of doing some real work.
http://www.lightreading.com/bo...
Contrary to popular belief, it is not a chicken-or-egg problem. The connectivity has to be there first, before the application development resources will be allocated. Imagine a start-up trying to get funding for an application that requires 100Mbps peak network connections. TheyGÇÖd be laughed out of the VCGÇÖs office. Same holds for trying to get resources to develop the same application within a companyGÇÖs R&D budget. No support for its development because thereGÇÖs no platform or marketplace to sell it into. There are plenty of startups working on FTTH equipment and infrastructure products though.
Would any of todayGÇÖs PC applications have had a snowballGÇÖs chance in hell of getting funding if they were pitched back in the days when the PC platform was based on CPU speeds in the tens of MHz, 2Meg of RAM, a 50Meg hard drive, and a 16 bit ISA bus? No. Few saw any reason weGÇÖd ever need more than that. After the next 10x improvement, people said the same thing: Why do we need more? Only after about 100x improvement did people finally stop saying that, though IGÇÖve noticed it has returned of-late. The cost declines were a vital part of this too, along with the performance increases.
The lack of profitability in todayGÇÖs consumer data services, and the low subscription percentages even thought there is fairly wide availability does not mean that the GÇ£build it and they will comeGÇ¥ mantra has failed for broadband. There is no broadband, so the mantra has not even been tested yet. Build it, and operate it under an open access model, with content and connectivity as separate entities, and they will come. Without that second condition, I have serious doubts about the possibility for successful PC-like growth in broadband, even if it is built.