Hmm... ISP free speed increase from 100Mbps to 200Mbps?
- Thread starter Montoya
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Get a new router. WiFi can go much faster, easily 600 Mbps per device I think.
Thanks, I went and did a little reading off your response - yeah 2.4ghz should be good for at least 480mbps so looks like there is hope, it'll be a limitation on the router.
While the rate is consistent across the power district there are different rates depending on your tier. And government sanctioned monopolies are terrible for reliability, performance and cost. And while @Deroth is correct in theory that Net Neutrality would allow states and local governments to pick winners and losers with the outcome being a lagging internet infrastructure with out healthy competition, the reality is that their is already a monopoly due to limitations on the physical infrastructure.
Google ran into it when they attempted to roll out their fiber service and even with their teams of lawyers were stalled for years. Even things like cell towers, while everyone wants to have full coverage no one wants a cell tower near them and the few towers that do get constructed are jealously protected by their company creating spotty coverage.
Even the utilities underground are leased or deeded to specific utility companies or public own works in an attempt to entice those utilities to invest in rolling out the infrastructure required to hook up services.
And while I would much rather have a free market with multiple supplies available to compete against each other in providing internet services, the reality is that its not currently possible. And while we shouldn't need government bureaucracy involved in the form of Net Neutrality on top of existing legislature as its only going to slow down innovation and enhancements to the infrastructure the reality is the basic customer protection is often far to bogged down in the courts by these corporations lawyers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-false-promise-behind-the-fccs-net-neutrality-repeal-plan/2017/12/12/06471386-dec9-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html?utm_term=.1079a4d3bb05
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2017/09/26/for-internet-gatekeepers-consumer-protection-laws-are-better-than-utility-style-regulation/
The good news is, it's over 10 times that. Look for routers and NIC's with support for the 802.11ad specification. They operate in the 60 GHz range, and support 7000 Mbps (7 Gbit/s) maximum, but there are caveats all over the place that serve to lower your actual throughput.
The problem isn't bandwidth itself, but at 60 GHz this operates at such a high frequency (i.e. short wavelength) that it cannot pass through walls that well. Inside a house this isn't always a big problem because the signals will bounce around inside the house like a ping pong ball, off of floors, ceilings, walls, furniture etc.. But closed doors, or being outside are a problem.
Most equipment can compensate for that by automatically switching to a channel in the 5, or 2.5 GHz frequency band, since the lower frequency has some capacity to travel through doors and walls.
At least they did the math for you "That's double your previous speed". Wouldn't have figured it out otherwise...This shows up in my email this morning...
Suspicious...
I bet I get another email in a few weeks asking if I like the new speeds. If I do, then consider the new plan for $100/m, otherwise keep the current payment, but get downgraded to 50Mbps.
Net Neutrality in principle shifts power away from the FTC to the FCC and allows the government to establish monopolies that are then regulated by the government be it local, state or federal. And while there isn't much competition currently the little that there is has had some positive effects on us the consumers. The downside is any grievances typically require a lawsuit on top of a filed grievance with the FTC and then years in court and millions of dollars in lawyer fees to push for a settlement.
So we are kind of damned if we do, damned if we don't. Go the way of the FTC regulating ISP's in the hope that they will force the carriers to leave the internet open and free as it currently is. And the downside is a marketplace that only changes slowly to implement features that reduce operating costs while pushing the regulator agency to increase subscription costs. You end up with a infrastructure like our power grid that is dilapidated because there is no incentive beyond government grands to do anything about it.
Or we can go back to letting the limited free market dynamics control the ISP's in the hope that their own greed push forward innovation and the demands of share holders to attract new customers to keep things mostly on keel. After all in such a marketplace the only option we really have to express our displeasure in their business practices is to not buy in.
If that was true, then AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Spectrum would all be heavily in favor on net neutrality, which they are not.
But lets assume your premise is true, if you were a major shareholder of AT&T sitting in the annual meeting, and the board of directors gave you these two options, which would you choose:
a) We support net neutrality which allows us to cement our position as a monopoly, we reap billions in profits and our stock will soar!
OR
b) We push to reject net neutrality, encourage competition, forcing us to compete aggressively on pricing, eroding our profits. Also, we will be forced to upgrade our last-mile infrastructure, which will cost billions. Our profits will take a big hit and the stock price will drop -25% over the next year.
So strange that they chose option B :smile:
All these telecoms were strongly in favor of removing net neutrality. Either they are all altruistic and charitable, or somebody is feeding us lies.
Here is the obfuscation of the issue that a lot of people get fooled about.
The internet was open and free under net neutrality!
Free in the sense that all data is treated equally. It was illegal for your ISP to block pornhub, youtube and Netflix.
Now it is within their rights to block sites or traffic to you if they wanted. I cited multiple occurrences of that in the article posted above.
The whole concept of being "free and open" as pushed by telecom industry does not mean what you think. When Verizon says the internet is now free and open, they mean they are free and open from regulations which prevent throttling traffic over their network.
The only limits ISPs had were they they could not throttle or block the traffic on their networks.
Net neutrality was by its very definition, neutral! As in all traffic is treated equally.
Your argument is that you do not like a free and open internet where all traffic is treated equally. You prefer having your ISP decide what websites you can visit. Comcast blocked p2p traffic* and was sued for it before net neutrality. You know what uses p2p? Our Star Citizen downloader.
*COMCAST: In 2005, the nation’s largest ISP, Comcast, began secretly blocking peer-to-peer technologies that its customers were using over its network. Users of services like BitTorrent and Gnutella were unable to connect to these services. 2007 investigations from the Associated Press, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others confirmed that Comcast was indeed blocking or slowing file-sharing applications without disclosing this fact to its customers.
So... If I were a gajillionaire, all i'd have to do is buy AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Spectrum and i'd control all of Americas interwebz?
My first act as King Of The Internet (Koti) would be to ban all cat videos on Mondays. National productivity would go up 3000%.
Morale would go down, but it's Monday morning: it's not supposed to be nice. Get back to work, ya bums!
My first act as King Of The Internet (Koti) would be to ban all cat videos on Mondays. National productivity would go up 3000%.
Morale would go down, but it's Monday morning: it's not supposed to be nice. Get back to work, ya bums!
To control Americas interweb you would want to buy the backbone which is controlled mostly by the following providers. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint & CenturyLink. You can also look at purchasing some of the Tier 1 providers and control huge swaths of the internet (CenturyLink, Telia carrier, NTT, Cogent, Level 3, GTT and Tata Communications).
There is a significant more to it then having a monopoly or not. And while in principle having a monopoly seems like the pinnacle of success the truth is you then fall under heavy government sanctions and regulations that takes significant control away from the board of directors and chiefs if they leave the company intact and do not break it up into smaller entities like they did with AT&T back in the 80's. Most notably is the lack of being able to fix your own price for the consumer and have to petition the regulatory body for price changes.
By rejecting net neutrality they can continue to operate on the cusp of being a monopoly with tentative backdoor agreements that allow for few points of competition while allowing new opportunities for revenue streams. Your example of Comcast is a perfect example of why they would give up choice A. AT&T being able to block FaceTime. Comcast forcing Netflix to pay to end slowdown. Then there is T-Mobile allowing free unlimited streaming of Pandora. Or AT&T allowing free streaming of Direct Now. Some of this came about even while Net Neutrality was not gutted. So the companies operate as a almost monopoly with out being regulated, in fact when the FTC attempts to regulate them they claim they are a common carrier business and outside of the jurisdiction of the FTC and under the FCC control.
https://consumerist.com/2014/03/07/heres-what-lack-of-broadband-competition-looks-like-in-map-form/
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/10/comcast-google-verizon-might-be-able-to-avoid-consumer-protection-rules/
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/347363-unlike-fcc-ftc-cannot-protect-net-neutrality
I never said it wasn't in theory open and free under parts of the Net Neutrality laws and enforced by the FCC. I said that the regulation and government sponsored monopolies would continue to limit a typical driving force for innovation present in the free market. Not only that but any grievances you have with your carrier would then need to be filed with the FCC. While far more responsive to consumer complaints then the FTC it is still a government entity plagued with bureaucracy red tape.
I honestly never made this argument. I said we were damned if we do and damned if we don't. As an internet consumer the best option would be for each of us to have access to multiple ISP's in our area and then let the providers fight each other for our patronage. It would give us the best of both innovation as well as services that met our needs and expectations.
Instead we get to choose between taking the path were ISP's are forced to leave the internet as it mostly is by regulating them as we do with the phone companies, and power companies. Which turns their focus on being customer centric to lobbying the government to raise rates and give grants for infrastructure improvements.
Or we leave their regulation with the FTC in the hopes the courts don't take years for settlements or rule against the common interest of the people. All the while allowing the few ISP's to focus on ways to increase revenue by any means.
Either way we the consumer only get two choices, bend over and take what ever scraps they give us or go with out.
You're wrong. That's like saying you must also control the power companies.
All you need in order to completely and totally control what people can access and what they can't, is the part the consumers actually interface with -- the last mile.
You can control the last mile or you can control the source. Either way is legitimate, I just figured it would be far easier to control the center then to try and buy up all the last mile ISP's.
The bandwidth companies you mentioned get paid for transmitting packets. The more packets, the more they get paid. It's in their interest to promote traffic, regardless of its content.
That's completely the polar opposite business model from the last mile providers, who in most cases make more if you use it less, especially if that means you use the other services they provide, like paid cable subscriptions.
The comparison is simply wrong.
You do realize the point wasn't about making profit but about controlling the content. To that end with a gajillion dollars it would be a far easier task to buy up the backbone then to buy up all of the last mile isp, especially when the backbone providers have no qualms about selling service to new isp's which would compound your situation of having to continue to buy up new isp's. So I ask you how this is wrong?
Even if you bought up all the bandwidth companies, you still couldn't impact whether end users have access to any given content.
The last mile is where all the filtering is done.
You choose to give unfettered access as a bandwidth company (as they all already do and have always done), and yet still the last mile installs a throttle (as they did in the past before net neutrality, and will do again now that it has been overturned).
The last mile is where all the filtering is done.
You choose to give unfettered access as a bandwidth company (as they all already do and have always done), and yet still the last mile installs a throttle (as they did in the past before net neutrality, and will do again now that it has been overturned).
Ok, what is your understanding of the internet and its inter workings?
I've been an expert for more than 25 years. I operate one of the largest private bandwidth providers on the west coast US. You?
Wow man you had a chance to work with NSFNET ?