FCC is on the March Again
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@ITcrackerjack said:
FTA:
"Wheeler's proposal is part of a larger "net neutrality" plan that forbids Internet service providers from outright blocking Web sites. And he promised a series of measures to ensure the new paid prioritization practices are done fairly and don't harm consumers."Well, that makes me feel better.~ I trust that the government can do a good job of making sure things are fair and don't harm consumer.~ Don't you?
That statement is why I KNEW that this measure would pass when he was printed earlier this week.
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@Dashrender said:
I find myself in a bad situation on this particular situation.
On one hand I'm a true Free Market lover - i.e. if there is demand for something better, another company will come along and provide it. The bad part of this is that the current providers of internet access have lobby power that makes it nearly impossible (i.e. not really a free market) for a new guy to come along and bring real competition to the market.
There really should be no need for the FCC to even be involved in this discussion because a real free market would deliver what the people want at a price the people are willing to pay - but since most of us do not have a real choice for ISPs (at the consumer side), therefore there is no competition and we the consumers lose.
There is no free market in pure monopolies. Utilities can never, by definition, participate in a free market. Nothing is less free than a fake free market that is actually a pure monopoly. Power, water, sewer.... Anything that "owns" a market and cannot lose it because they literally own the access to the market can never be free. But nothing is less free than pretending to be so. The attempt to make utilities act as capitalistic entities is the most socialistic thing possible because it relies in duping the populace so that they don't even know that is going on. It's all a sham.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@Dashrender Part of that is due to the way the industry is regulated currently. It's setup to only allow a few.
That's a physical limitation if access. It is not an industry or regulation thing. Someone has to own the poles and trenches.
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It is because I am passionate about open markets and capitalism that I believe all utilities should be owned by the public - anything else is building a guaranteed monopoly to pretend to be it is something that it is not to mislead the people.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@Dashrender Part of that is due to the way the industry is regulated currently. It's setup to only allow a few.
That's a physical limitation if access. It is not an industry or regulation thing. Someone has to own the poles and trenches.
Right, but I couldn't go out Friday, announce I'm starting a new telco and have unlimited sources of venture capital, and start acquiring right of way to dig my own fiber trenches.
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Internet access doesn't need to be a monopoly though.
For example, the inner part of my city consumers do have a choice. Cox Communications has it's own fiber and so does Century Link. They both have last mile access directly to the consumers home. No monopoly. But of course I don't live there, so I only have one choice.
The same is said (so I've heard) about where Google has installed fiber - they have become a full out second connection.
The poles should be owned by the city, county or state as needed, and rented to the venders, who would then be allowed to install their own fiber/cables onto those poles to provide access to the consumers. Yes I realize it costs millions/billions to install a new fiber/cable system into a city, but that's the cost of doing business, and ultimately what allows the consumer (and the business) to win!
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@Dashrender Part of that is due to the way the industry is regulated currently. It's setup to only allow a few.
That's a physical limitation if access. It is not an industry or regulation thing. Someone has to own the poles and trenches.
Right, but I couldn't go out Friday, announce I'm starting a new telco and have unlimited sources of venture capital, and start acquiring right of way to dig my own fiber trenches.
Why not? Hell for sake of arguement - let's say you're warren buffet and decided you wanted to make your own new ISP... you have cash to do it.. now you just have to get the right of way to dig..
and this is where the other companies lobby the city (pay them off) to not let you do it.. or they charge you more than the other companies are willing to pay (under the table of course)...Hence the fake free market. -
@Dashrender Right, provide the right of way, much like we did with railroads, canals, etc.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@Dashrender Part of that is due to the way the industry is regulated currently. It's setup to only allow a few.
That's a physical limitation if access. It is not an industry or regulation thing. Someone has to own the poles and trenches.
Right, but I couldn't go out Friday, announce I'm starting a new telco and have unlimited sources of venture capital, and start acquiring right of way to dig my own fiber trenches.
Not really. Those are all already owned. You have to get access from the incumbent carriers everywhere in the US.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@Dashrender Part of that is due to the way the industry is regulated currently. It's setup to only allow a few.
That's a physical limitation if access. It is not an industry or regulation thing. Someone has to own the poles and trenches.
Right, but I couldn't go out Friday, announce I'm starting a new telco and have unlimited sources of venture capital, and start acquiring right of way to dig my own fiber trenches.
Not really. Those are all already owned. You have to get access from the incumbent carriers everywhere in the US.
I just realized that was an incomplete thought I had there. You said exactly what I was about to say.
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@Dashrender said:
Internet access doesn't need to be a monopoly though.
For example, the inner part of my city consumers do have a choice. Cox Communications has it's own fiber and so does Century Link. They both have last mile access directly to the consumers home. No monopoly. But of course I don't live there, so I only have one choice.
The same is said (so I've heard) about where Google has installed fiber - they have become a full out second connection.
The poles should be owned by the city, county or state as needed, and rented to the venders, who would then be allowed to install their own fiber/cables onto those poles to provide access to the consumers. Yes I realize it costs millions/billions to install a new fiber/cable system into a city, but that's the cost of doing business, and ultimately what allows the consumer (and the business) to win!
Poles and trenches should be but generally are not. The government sold our souls to AT&T a hundred years ago so that AT&T would pay for the infrastructure instead of raising taxes to do it. We've been paying for that ever since.
In reality the government should own the last mike too and provide equal access to it.
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@Dashrender said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Bill-Kindle said:
@Dashrender Part of that is due to the way the industry is regulated currently. It's setup to only allow a few.
That's a physical limitation if access. It is not an industry or regulation thing. Someone has to own the poles and trenches.
Right, but I couldn't go out Friday, announce I'm starting a new telco and have unlimited sources of venture capital, and start acquiring right of way to dig my own fiber trenches.
Why not? Hell for sake of arguement - let's say you're warren buffet and decided you wanted to make your own new ISP... you have cash to do it.. now you just have to get the right of way to dig..
and this is where the other companies lobby the city (pay them off) to not let you do it.. or they charge you more than the other companies are willing to pay (under the table of course)...Hence the fake free market.Exactly. Or they have contracts already that ban you. Or they own the right if ways.
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@Bill-Kindle said:
@Dashrender Right, provide the right of way, much like we did with railroads, canals, etc.
Yup. We paid big time for all if those. Like roads and water, it needs to be owned by the public.
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Some towns own their own power and it costs like 10% what fake free market power costs. A village in rural Washington put in fiber to the doorstep at Gb/s a decade ago that was free to everyone. Stuff can be done, but most places sold their rights to do so long ago.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Some towns own their own power and it costs like 10% what fake free market power costs. A village in rural Washington put in fiber to the doorstep at Gb/s a decade ago that was free to everyone. Stuff can be done, but most places sold their rights to do so long ago.
Yep. In the city where I work (not where I live), they own the power company (generate most of it themselves as well). It costs about 40% of what PG&E does (which is what I'm on).
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@ITcrackerjack said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Some towns own their own power and it costs like 10% what fake free market power costs. A village in rural Washington put in fiber to the doorstep at Gb/s a decade ago that was free to everyone. Stuff can be done, but most places sold their rights to do so long ago.
Yep. In the city where I work (not where I live), they own the power company (generate most of it themselves as well). It costs about 40% of what PG&E does (which is what I'm on).
All the free market nutjobs go on about how the market is more efficient, but they don't factor in that they're also going to take a cut that is way bigger than any potential savings. Actually they aren't nutjobs, they know what they are doing, and the rhetoric is just to fool the masses.
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@Nic said:
All the free market nutjobs go on about how the market is more efficient, but they don't factor in that they're also going to take a cut that is way bigger than any potential savings. Actually they aren't nutjobs, they know what they are doing, and the rhetoric is just to fool the masses.
Thing is, it isn't the real free market people that promote that, it's the opposite. Actual free market people, AFAIAC, want government takeover of anything that isn't truly a free market. I'm seriously passionate about free market, I think that it is really important, but I believe that to do that we need all infrastructure (power, water, sewer, Internet, roads, railroads, healthcare (except potentially elective stuff, maybe not dental or optical), telecommunications, waterways, ports, etc.) to be owned and operated by the public who own the common, shared services. And that any use of shared resources (water, soil, air, oil) be completely regulated by the public - because none of these are potentials for free markets. A free market means certain things, and taking from the public to sell in private is not part of a free market.
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@Nic said:
@ITcrackerjack said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Some towns own their own power and it costs like 10% what fake free market power costs. A village in rural Washington put in fiber to the doorstep at Gb/s a decade ago that was free to everyone. Stuff can be done, but most places sold their rights to do so long ago.
Yep. In the city where I work (not where I live), they own the power company (generate most of it themselves as well). It costs about 40% of what PG&E does (which is what I'm on).
All the free market nutjobs go on about how the market is more efficient, but they don't factor in that they're also going to take a cut that is way bigger than any potential savings. Actually they aren't nutjobs, they know what they are doing, and the rhetoric is just to fool the masses.
Scott's right, I'm trying to think of something that's truly free market today and can't think of a single thing. Cars - nope highly regulated, internet access, nope again most of them highly regulated, food, again no highly regulated to keep new comers out.
True free market allows the buying patterns to dictate price. For example, let's talk about action figures. Company A starts selling action figures at $10/ea, the cost is $1/ea making a $9 profit.
Company B sees company A making a ton of money.. so they decide to make action figures too. Assuming none of the licensing crap, etc, etc... Company B decides to undercut company A and sell the figures for $9 each... now customers stop buying from A and move to B... Now A has to lower it's price to get the customers back.. and the teeters back and forth until one company cries uncle and won't go any lower. But nothing stops company C from coming in now and still pushing the price lower (while still making money) than companies A and B.
In this type of setup all non monopoly markets will balance out at a workable bottom, a balance between the lowest performance a company can provide that the customer is willing to pay for.
Unfortunately with things like infrastructure (power, water, sewer, etc) where it's only really feasible to install one in a city, these things can never have real Free Markets.
I'm not sure I agree with healthcare... but I understand Scott's thoughts on that manner. -
Healthcare can go either way, but the important healthcare, emergency healthcare, there is no free market. When you are unconscious, on the brink of death and being rushed to a hospital you have no ability to haggle on price, ensure that you are getting the same offerings as others, compare doctors, look up quality, choose a facility, etc. Even if conscious no medical facility will give you a price up front. They act as both a regional monopoly (which they are) combined with legalized price and service fixing combined with a federalized labor union program. There is a semi-free market in well care, but for many of us, there is no such thing as well care.
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The question is.. do you believe it can be fixed? If the gov't got out of it all together, stopped paying medicare/medicaid and required people to simply pay their own way... would it be possible?
