i live in the middle of the boondocks, with a mom and pop telephone company, and i STILL have fiber to my house...I was grumbling about this very thing the other day: My cable connection, which used to seem so fast, reminds me more and more of a dial-up connection. It's as slow as molasses. And for that connection, television, telephone and a couple of OnDemand movies a month, we're paying upwards of $225/mo! Big government sucks. Thank you, democraps.
We could have the fastest Internet in the world but when the major ISPs put in bandwidth caps to prevent competition from streaming video services all it means is that we hit the limit faster.
I see Time Warner and FiOS advertising their service for $40 a month or so for broadband around here.
If people choose a slower service, that is nothing for the government to worry about.
To expand a bit on the logic:
There’s a reason why everyone everywhere is paying more for everything and sometimes paying for things they don’t even need or want.
One simple word: government.
A simple solution to this?
Google, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Facebook, and any other interested players can pool together their billions and create a new ISP that can offer services and speeds at the level that most people want at a fair price. No Caps, no speed bumps.
The other crap ISPs will either step up or go under.
Yeah, but this article maintains that the government didn't do enough. You're not really saying you want more government involvement in the Internet . . . are you?
There is much more to talk about too. Getting internet service into remote low-population areas is quite expensive, but under pre-breakup law, at&t had to service all areas, no matter what the cost of cable or fiber was to get to these areas.
After the breakup of at&t, and the multiple reorganizations of the pieces of that company, huge areas of the US were 'left in the cold' - meaning the old cables going to all but the largest cities wound up in the hands of hundreds of new telco companies that were literally 'here today and gone tomorrow.'
My old home town has had four different phone companies over the last 10 years - none of which improved access to high-speed internet. However, it was from at&t that I was able to get help. They ran a microwave system across the desert and provided what we needed at an amazingly low, low price.
I've been quite intimately involved in both the politics and the 'rubber on the road' of internet connections ever since the breakup... including working with what was once called the NGI (new generation internet) - i.e., speeds up to 4 terabits per second for all. But, that died when government dictated that at&t had to service any and all competitors - which ate up that dream virtually overnight.
So yeah - people got what they wanted - competition. But, that very competition has screwed most people out of having what England supposedly has - and yes, because of the vastness of this nation, and the cost of stringing fiber to every-city USA... simply because of government meddling that goes on, and changes, almost every day.
the absolute LAST thing the DC RinoCrat oligarchy wants is for We the People to have fast reliable access to information and data.
The fiber laid in by the local cable company makes entry through a setup that allows me to hook up several TVs throughout the house.
The fiber laid by the phone company makes entry only through a box that allows a single TV, but you can hook in a wifi for your internet connectivity.
The other three were laid down by Global Crossing under three different corporate names. They are now owned by three different companies who only offer top end commercial connectivity ~ even though this is a residential neighborhood.
The local phone company has yet to answer my decades long question to them about "Hey, how can i get better service".
United kingdom density per square mile= 650
United States density per square mile= 84
A missionary to a Baltic country that my church supports visited recently, and commented a number of times that the internet connexion over here was super slow compared to back on the field.
Oh crap, my +2 year running soapbox.
I’m just 30 miles west of Ann Arbor, MI...and I don’t have broadband access. I was with Wildblue for two years (satellite is NOT. Repeat, NOT broadband) before jumping on an Alltel true unlimited aircard account. Alltel was a fantastic company — consistently over 2.2-2.5Mb down, great customer service — and then Verizon Wireless took over. Now I’m lucky to get 40KB down and it’s been that way for over a year. Their idea of a solution is “you’re stuck with it, but we may let you out of your contract.” Geez.
I’ve been using every back door, phone number, email address and loudspeaker available, trying to get something here. The township did a survey and the overwhelming majority (+75%) want better broadband options. We’re stuck in the same boat as a lot of not-really-last mile Americans who are getting ignored by the major ISPs or getting screwed by satellite providers. For all of you with cable internet...how happy would YOU be paying +$70 a month for less than 2Mb down, latency that cripples Flash and SSD sites, and a limit of 7.5 gig a month? Most of us who have used satellite and have teens in the house really really HATE the service. Monitoring the *(@&#$^ cap everyday is a stupid, thankless and hair-pulling job.
There is a silver lining — a local guy is bringing wimax through and promises no cap. It’s a little expensive but my sanity is at an end. Frontier is also pulling DSL up here and expects to deploy by September. The problem with Frontier is it sounds like I won’t be able to have dry loop DSL and I’m always leery of a cap.
The ISPs keep pushing faster and faster plans in the major metro areas for bragging rights, but they’re ignoring millions of customers who are resorting to crazy tactics. Get with it, guys, you’re neglect is really pi$$ing a lot of us off.
(PS: I have a Nortel USB760 aircard plugged into a Cradlepoint router, plugged into my desktop ethernet card, plugged into a brand new Cisco router. The install is necessarily screwy because of Windows 7/64 issues and the fact it’s a USB router).
The U.S. once boasted the best telephone service in the world. Now a lot of that copper is over 100 years old, and that’s what most of att UVerse runs over.
i live in the middle of the boondocks, with a mom and pop telephone company, and i STILL have fiber to my house...