These are interesting ideas; universal service, mandatory speeds for every customer, and bandwidth caps if providers can provide a bandwidth maximum not to exceed without additional charges.
The Universal Service, (I don't know); enhanced speeds for preferred customers, (yes); published cap limits on bandwidth, (yes);I beleive the Pipelines are going to move in this direction, they are just not there yet with the needed upgrades to infrastructure. Docsis 3 should be helping with conjestion problems, but it probably depends on where you are located.
Step 2: Require Broadband of a goodly (this is what we should argue about) becomes a Universal Service. Let me start with a 10Mb/s by 1Mb/s service as the MANDATORY to every residence in the US by cable and telco.
To follow on, I am okay with adding bandwidth caps if we can have guaranteed maximum rates of oversubscription.
i'm not sure from a business scenerio they can accomplish this one!
Pipelines have to spread out the cost, (use economies of scale), to reach a broad audience to get the "pay-back" needed from infrastructure build-outs, upgrades, plus overhead and programming costs, while not excluding personel costs......
Packages allow them to attract a wide variety of customers, but what they really want is a "Triple or Quad Play" customer who is willing to let them build a package suitable for their needs, whicle offering it at an attractive price as compared to shopping al-a-carte.
Ok, I'm getting there....delete the Stimulus Package!
Well, it could be deleted because it does not seem to be working as it is structured.
Yes, these companies mentioned are making money, which afterall is the "American Way", and Wall Street demands they make it every quarter, so rates have to go up as their markets mature. The problem is a lack of competition, but this continues to evolve with Verizon's (FTTH), and AT&T's (U-Verse), and DBS on the Digital Video side. The larger companies realized early on that to compete in this type market, they needed to be large. They also needed "economies of scale" to offer all that was demanded, which ended up not being cheap.
As a consequence, smaller companies just don't have a fighting chance at competing with the conglomerates. This goes back to the merger frenzy which has taken place over the past 10 - 15 years; with deregulation companies were allowed to merge and buy-out competitors, while capturing the best markets, thereby reducing competition.
So, you have the large Pipelines with deep pockets for lobbying that can influence legislation.
With all that said, the solution probably lies in creating and nuturing competition while creating access for all in broadband. But, with the agenda being blanket access for the immediate future, a workable Stimulus Package needs to be constructed to get the job done.
Delete the Stimulus Package. Other than Charter and Qwest, who is NOT making lots of money here - Comcast is, Cox is, Verizon is, AT&T is - see a pattern?
Just get RID of the Broadband Stimulus and force (for cable) DOCSIS 3.0 available to all cable customers in say 5 years. For Telcos force either 5 band VDSL2 or FTTH available in the same timeframe. Now THAT would drive job creation and broadband deployment.
I think competition ideology is part of the problem. The issue is that an ROI needs to be secured for capital to invest. And the existing oligarchs probably should be excluded from leveraging yesterday's monopolies into tomorrows lest we buy bicycles from slick Sam
Folks 150 years ago figured this out yet somehow we haven't learned the lesson despite that.
"Such a process happened in the water industry in nineteenth century Britain. Up until the mid-nineteenth century, Parliament discouraged municipal involvement in water supply; in 1851, private companies had 60% of the market. Competition amongst the companies in larger industrial towns lowered profit margins, as companies were less able to charge a sufficient price for installation of networks in new areas. In areas with direct competition (with two sets of mains), usually at the edge of companies' territories, profit margins were lowest of all. Such situations resulted in higher costs and lower efficiency, as two networks, neither used to capacity, were used. With a limited number of households that could afford their services, expansion of networks slowed, and many companies were barely profitable. With a lack of water and sanitation claiming thousands of lives in periodic epidemics, municipalisation proceeded rapidly after 1860, and it was municipalities which were able to raise the finance for investment which private companies in many cases could not. A few well-run private companies which worked together with their local towns and cities (gaining legal monopolies and thereby the financial security to invest as required) did survive."
The phone companies aren't "losing" landlines but transfering them to mobile which has already been consolidated. They really don't need to invest much in wireline other than replacements to hold their monopoly position. If competition were to materialize in infrastructures it would be expected to serve the business markets first. The "consumer competition" is feigned and used as a ploy for regulatory capture and has been going on for decades or more.
What one would expect is innovation at the application level. This really can't happen with purpose built networks. The current models really only work for purpose built networks. So don't expect much in innovation beyond Facebook and twitter, which are near useless.
Real progress kinda requires a society to wake up from belief and start seeing reality. Belief is powerful and comforting, so most stick with it despite when observations reveal it's obviously invalid. For example, humans stuck with a geocentric model of the solar system for a long time before accepting the heliocentric model. The current oligarchs just pander to belief because it's the best way to maintain the status quo and it's a lot easier than actually going outside and performing some physical labor.
rjcmahon, there is good logical in your comments and analogy.
The problem with competition in the Cable TV business model remains the huge cost in building and maintaining infrastructure. In my experience, if two companies build expensive infrastructure and split the existing customer base, profit margins decline significantly; while innovation, new products and services begin to suffer.
There lies the problem of why you do not see two cable companies in most areas. It is just not profitable. However, with the Verizon's and AT&T's already having existing infrastructures and phone customers in most of Cable markets, the ability to compete is more attractive, therefore FTTH, and U-Verse. With declining revenues from the loss of the land-line business, Telco's have been forced to search for new revenue streams, in broadband, Digtal TV/HD, and IP Telephony.
For consumers to continue receiving innovation and new products/services, these companies need lots of capital, and a sufficient customer base with profits to produce that capital.
I like this post too. But big difference between a mid 19th century municipalty and the current US federal government level of remote controlling though. Municipalities may still have some inkling of what thier constituency is needing. The Feds? Today? No way! That's why I agree w/Seven and say kill it.
Yes, the Telco's have moved into mobile while continuing to protect their land-line investments with broadband competition. Just remember, as Jack Welch said, "if you don't have a competitive advantage, then don't compete."
Take a look at where mobile has evolved from: talking to each other thruogh mobile phones, to serious applications of texting, content, and e-mail. The IPhone and Blackberry were market revolutionary successes.
The Cable Industry has evolved from re-broadcasting the big three networks into distant markets to: terrestrial delivery of content, to the internet that is content driven, to fiber deployment which gave increased bandwidth, clarity, and all the content seen today.
So innovation is apparent, but it takes a "true capitalist economy" to bring it about. Is it perfect, no?; is it universal, no? It is "profit driven" with shareholders that demand increases in those profits regularly. But, without Wall Street and shareholders, the capital for innovation and new services would not be available.
Seven, thanks for the comment!
These are interesting ideas; universal service, mandatory speeds for every customer, and bandwidth caps if providers can provide a bandwidth maximum not to exceed without additional charges.
The Universal Service, (I don't know); enhanced speeds for preferred customers, (yes); published cap limits on bandwidth, (yes);I beleive the Pipelines are going to move in this direction, they are just not there yet with the needed upgrades to infrastructure. Docsis 3 should be helping with conjestion problems, but it probably depends on where you are located.
thanks again!