The Sad State of US Broadband

[Omphfullas Zamboni]

Hi,

I was thinking about a case where federal government intervention might actually be welcome, as mentioned in the article, "The Sad State of US Broadband (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2008/tc20080522_340989.htm)". The article talks about how government intervention in some cases may help proliferate broadband access, (and also about free markets).

Enjoy.

Sincerely,
Omphfullas Zamboni

[Fox McCloud]

NNNNNNnnooooo...uh-uh, never, no way, what in the world?!

By the by, I might add that I'm one that has no access to traditional broadband, as I live out in the middle of nowhere.

Either way, the problem stems to the Ma Bell monopoly 'way back when'...basically there was competing telephone companies, and Ma Bell was losing profits...the solution? Form a cartel; they petitioned the government that telephone service was a "natural monopoly" and best provided by only 1 company...and Congress fell for it.

Then you had the FCC, which shouldn't have existed to begin with (some have pointed out that if the whole matter of spectrum was handled by the courts and only the courts, it would likely have been a nasty, messy 3-6 years, but the end result would have been FAR more competition, less government waste, and more privatization). This continues to this day; the FCC will sometimes block a new cable or telephone company from entering a new region that is already served by either.....to complicate matters are the State and local governments, who will often do the same thing (you can't really fix this, but you could abolish the FCC and de-regulate the crap out of the telecommunications industry).

the problem, once again, is that the government dropped the ball...TWICE...once with Ma Bell and once with the FCC, and the impacts of both can be felt to this very day.

Also you have to factor in supply and demand....a telephone company can't justify spending a couple million on some new equipment (and that's if the lines are capable and in good condition) to serve only 1-5 people in an area that has 50 people.

Let's not forget that the government greatly hindered the speed of the Internet in its earliest days...they would not allow, under any condition, for end users to attach an electrical modem directly to the telephone lines, therefore everyone had to use ultra-slow acoustic modems (you had to set the telephone receiver on a speaker and receiver, and data was sent via analogue noise)...therefore, in their infinite wisdom, the government managed to keep speeds suppressed and the world of the Internet slow.

Also, there's 'what the market wants' too.....when ISDN came out (in the '70s) it was touted as the next best thing (keep in mind that this was Ma Bell, so even though she was a coercive monopoly, she was trying to help, to some degree)...it was 100% digital, and offered much greater voice clarity...not only that, but it was a full 64 kilobits per second (and that was insanely fast during that era....WAN links were often no more than 56 kilobits per second)....and when bonded together, you had the potential for 128 kilobits per second....also, the latency is really low, on par with that of DSL (around 70-80 ms).

The public, sadly, did not bite; they wanted to stick with what they knew and understood.

Looking back on it, as someone else said, "Ma Bell should have just crammed ISDN down their customer's throats anyways"....I agree...if they would have, everyone would at least have 128 kilobit lines (and they'd be well suited for gaming and VOIP as well, with their low latency), and there would be a VAST infrastructure in place when moving to DSL....but like I said, the customer's didn't bite, and well...Ma Bell was probably more than happy not to improve the situation, since it was a government-sponsored monopoly anyway.


once again, the Free Market is the answer....to rely on government to improve the situation (and it'd have to be with socialistic policies, mind you) is only a band-aid on a much, MUCH larger problem.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

That may be a fine solution because cities themselves are creations of the state and the infrastructure is all planned out by the state. This is why we're in this situation in the first place, the unatural cities created by city planners inadvertently causes people to move into small spaces, which leads to densely populated cities. And this is where the companies target when they want to make their technology available to people, not to the millions lightly sprinkled around the countryside.

diagnosis:

cities that are built sustained artificially by city planners

government regulation in these industries

solution:

somehow privatize more and more of the cities; nomore city planning

deregulation

[torchbearer]

I'm willing to pay for my broadband without government price fixing, which this would amount to...

[Omphfullas Zamboni]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for the replies. For those of you in favor of the, "no regulation" approach, what is to be made of the following excerpt:


Little Competition

But challenges of wiring remote communities don't tell the whole story. The OECD also found that U.S. broadband providers charge more than those in many developed nations. Broken down by megabit per second of download speed, U.S. rates ranged from $2.83 to $38.41 in late 2007. Rates in Japan started as low as 13¢ for one megabit per second, while France, Sweden, Korea, Finland, Australia, and others all start off at lower prices than the U.S. Furthermore, residents of European and Asian countries tend to have access to far speedier broadband options than Americans.

Consumer advocacy groups blame what they see as a market with little competition. They say the ability of major telephone and cable operators, such as Verizon Communications (VZ), AT&T (T), Time Warner Cable (TWX), and Comcast (CMCSA), to dominate their markets without sharing their lines with rivals has kept out new competition, enabling the companies to keep prices high and investments in faster technologies low.

Isn't one of the functions of the federal government to safeguard against monopolies? Competition is vital in free markets, correct?

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Omphfullas Zamboni

[clouds]

governments create monopolies, they don't protect against them.

[AutoDas]

That's ironic, considering government is the biggest monopoly in the "free market." Government regulations prevent entry into the market. Deregulating would result in a de facto monopoly where the state was the original monopoly. I hate when governments try to sell nationalized industries that they stole and they have no right to sell. Homesteading would be the best solution.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

That's ironic, considering government is the biggest monopoly in the "free market." Government regulations prevent entry into the market. Deregulating would result in a de facto monopoly where the state was the original monopoly. I hate when governments try to sell nationalized industries that they stole and they have no right to sell. Homesteading would be the best solution.

Government IS a monopoly ;) this is where libertarians go wrong. They campaign on "let's privatize government," or "let's privatize roads." That's why they never go anywhere. But yes, I do agree, government is a monopoly in itself. But we have to deal with it. Do you see liberals talk about nationalizing the oil? Nationalizing the banks? Nationalizing farms? No, because they know they can't elected with positions like that. You have to pander to the voters. Now that gas prices are going up, we see them talking about NATIONALIZING IT, you see? They're really communists.

That's why Ruwart lost everything lastnight. She didn't play politics with Barr, she could've said, "ok, take Kubby as your VP and I'll endorse you." No, she just rejected the offer and now we have two moderate Libertarians and an unhappy purist wing. That's what uncompromising principles with get you. Nowhere