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0 pointsjfasi12y ago0 comments

I disagree in terms of regulation: there is plenty of regulation on broadband internet, except it tends to discourage competition against broadband providers.

This isn't a problem that is going to be solved by placing regulations on the industry. Your example of past subsidies provides an excellent argument for this: given the political clout these entities hold and have in the past used to stilt legislation in their favor, what leads us to believe we're going to do any better with new regulations?

At the end of the day, the market is demanding better internet service. While telecommunications providers are certain to wage war against the injection against honest competition into their sector, things are actually looking pretty good in my mind. The FCC sees market demand and is working to tear down anti-competitive legislative barriers [1]. Smaller efforts such as Google Fiber are doing the hard work of convincing the public that better service is within reach.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/02/20/fcc_s_pla...

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abvdasker12y ago

It's highly unlikely that the FCC will accomplish much in the way of enforcing net nutrality given that the agency has basically been captured by special interest.

Tom Wheeler, the new FCC Chairman, was a lobbyist and head of the NCTA for 5 years[1]. The idea that he will do anything to hurt the cable companies his old organization represents is ludicrous.

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/business/tom-wheeler-telec...

klenwell12y ago

What leads me to believe we'll do better with new regulations? The belief, as chimeracoder suggests, that regulation can done right.

One point that caught my attention in an NPR report[1] on this dispute last week:

IHS's Broughton says there was a similar dispute in South Korea a few years ago, and it was ultimately arbitrated by the government.

I don't know the details of the South Korean dispute but I understand South Korea has pretty fast internet speeds.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/02/20/280255...

alexeisadeski312y ago

South Korea also has highly invasive internet censorship.

Would you like that as well?

Oh of course not. We want the great parts but to leave the bad parts. Sometimes it's a package deal. I'll take what we've got, thank you very much.

brenschluss12y ago

South Korea's internet censorship has very little to do with their internet speeds. Saying "Well, if you want fast internet, it'll have to be censored" (as if our internet isn't fully monitored) is a false equivalence of the highest order.

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reversi_online12y ago

Some things never change. I remember a article on South Korean broadband in Businessweek 15 years ago that ranted on about Seoul's paucity of elevators.

I'm guessing that package deal means we'll also be having to eat pickled cabbage and end our sentences with verbs if we want decent Internet speeds? I just hope we won't have to drink bubble tea, that stuff is gross.

barrkel12y ago

You need to qualify your statements with "in the US", because regulation has been effective elsewhere.

chimeracoder12y ago

> I disagree in terms of regulation: there is plenty of regulation on broadband internet, except it tends to discourage competition against broadband providers.

Well, yes - when I use the word "regulation", I'm implying the sort of regulation that we see with respect to Con Edison. They can't so much as change the way they itemize fees on my bill (!) without regulatory approval.

That certainly creates problems of another sort, but on the other hand, the actual service provided[0] and the pricing is pretty much a solved problem (as much as one can expect)[1].

I'm sure ConEd would like the sort of legislative protectionism that cable companies receive, with no requirements surrounding price or quality, but thankfully, they don't have that (and altering the status quo is always tough in general - in this case, inertia is on consumers' side).

Obviously regulation could be established to make things worse, but I think it's clear what kind of regulation we're looking for for the purposes of this discussion. And I'm intentionally deferring the question of how any of these policies would be enacted - I'm just comparing two alternatives states to the status quo.

[0] excluding customer service, which is going to be mediocre at best no matter what.

[1] Interestingly, pricing is partly "solved" due to the introduction of ESCOs, which are a way to privatize the supply chain (at the consumer's choice). "Free market" and "regulation" are not mutually exclusive - we could easily establish a regulated monopoly on last-mile copper wire while allowing multiple competing upstream providers.[2]

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