Tag Archives: monopolistic practices

Large Telecoms Strangle Municipal Broadband, But FCC Intervention May Provide Relief

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Greenlight provides Internet-only service ranging from 40 Mbps for $39.95 per month to 1 Gbps for $104.95 per month. There are also package bundles available that add TV and phone service.

And wouldn’t you know it; that finally got the big telecoms to respond. However, the response wasn’t to build out infrastructure in Wilson or compete on price; it was to kill municipal broadband efforts altogether in NC, citing unfair competition. In early 2011, House Bill 129 was introduced, which seriously hampered the ability of cities to create brand new broadband Internet networks, and put in place new restrictions to limit the pricing competitiveness of existing services versus private alternatives.

via Large Telecoms Strangle Municipal Broadband, But FCC Intervention May Provide Relief.

Inside Obama’s ambitious plan to make your Internet suck less

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“The impact of these laws is that a community that moves forward opens itself up to years of litigation as courts will have to figure out what such poorly conceived laws mean,” Mitchell added. “So the danger isn’t so much the cost of additional dollars but the exposure to years of court room wrangling.”

Here is a map showing all the states with anti-municipal broadband laws Obama wants the FCC to go after, along with brief descriptions of the restrictions in place in each state.

via Inside Obama’s ambitious plan to make your Internet suck less.

Hotel group asks FCC for permission to block some outside Wi-Fi

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However, the FCC did act in October, slapping Marriott with the fine after customers complained about the practice. In their complaint, customers alleged that employees of Marriott’s Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville used signal-blocking features of a Wi-Fi monitoring system to prevent customers from connecting to the Internet through their personal Wi-Fi hotspots. The hotel charged customers and exhibitors $250 to $1,000 per device to access Marriott’s Wi-Fi network.

via Hotel group asks FCC for permission to block some outside Wi-Fi | Network World.

Obama: Treat broadband—including mobile—as a utility

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In a plan released today, Obama said, “The time has come for the FCC to recognize that broadband service is of the same importance [as the traditional telephone system] and must carry the same obligations as so many of the other vital services do. To do that, I believe the FCC should reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act—while at the same time forbearing from rate regulation and other provisions less relevant to broadband services. This is a basic acknowledgment of the services ISPs provide to American homes and businesses, and the straightforward obligations necessary to ensure the network works for everyone—not just one or two companies.”

via Obama: Treat broadband—including mobile—as a utility | Ars Technica.

Reclassification of broadband service is almost certain to bring lawsuits from the telecommunications industry.

How Come My ISP Won’t Increase Internet Speed and Lower My Bill, Like They Do in Sweden?

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The American model is powered by private, for-profit organizations. On the next level down, consumers are facing a Balkanized patchwork of cable, fiber, and DSL services with minimal competition and zero infrastructure sharing. Flooding or overriding this system with government support would be politically impossible, so we’re stuck with this framework. That means focusing on profits over service quality, and there is no incentive at all to lower the cost to consumers.

via How Come My ISP Won’t Increase Internet Speed and Lower My Bill, Like They Do in Sweden? (VZ).

The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy

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The cartel’s grip on the lightbulb market lasted only into the 1930s. Its far more enduring legacy was to engineer a shorter life span for the incandescent lightbulb. By early 1925, this became codified at 1,000 hours for a pear-shaped household bulb, a marked reduction from the 1,500 to 2,000 hours that had previously been common. Cartel members rationalized this approach as a trade-off: Their lightbulbs were of a higher quality, more efficient, and brighter burning than other bulbs. They also cost a lot more. Indeed, all evidence points to the cartel’s being motivated by profits and increased sales, not by what was best for the consumer. In carefully crafting a lightbulb with a relatively short life span, the cartel thus hatched the industrial strategy now known as planned obsolescence..

via The Great Lightbulb Conspiracy – IEEE Spectrum.

How to Save the Net: Don’t Give In to Big ISPs

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Consider this: A single fiber-optic strand the diameter of a human hair can carry 101.7 terabits of data per second, enough to support nearly every Netflix subscriber watching content in HD at the same time. And while technology has improved and capacity has increased, costs have continued to decline. A few more shelves of equipment might be needed in the buildings that house interconnection points, but broadband itself is as limitless as its uses.

We’ll never realize broadband’s potential if large ISPs erect a pay-to-play system that charges both the sender and receiver for the same content. That’s why we at Netflix are so vocal about the need for strong net neutrality, which for us means ISPs should enable equal access to content without favoring, impeding, or charging particular content providers. Those practices would stunt innovation and competition and hold back the broader development of the Internet and the economic benefits it brings.

via How to Save the Net: Don’t Give In to Big ISPs | Magazine | WIRED.

This is the reason we have opposed Comcast’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Comcast has already shown the ability to use its market position to require access fees, as evidenced by the Netflix congestion that cleared up as soon as we reached an agreement with them. A combined company that controls over half of US residential Internet connections would have even greater incentive to wield this power.

Former FCC Commissioner: “We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves” For State of Broadband In The U.S.

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He led off by agreeing with the several executive speakers that true competition is the way of the future, and the best way to serve consumers. “But we haven’t given competition the chance it needs,” he continued, before referring to how poorly U.S. broadband compares on the global stage. “We have fallen so far short that we should be ashamed of ourselves. We should be leading, and we’re not. We need to get serious about broadband, we need to get serious about competition, we need to get serious about our country.”

via Former FCC Commissioner: “We Should Be Ashamed Of Ourselves” For State of Broadband In The U.S. – Consumerist.

Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

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Throughout the country, companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, and Verizon have signed agreements with cities that prohibit local governments from becoming internet service providers and prohibit municipalities from selling or leasing their fiber to local startups who would compete with these huge corporations.

via Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused | Motherboard.

Verizon FiOS claimed public utility status to get government perks

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The FCC classifies broadband (such as FiOS) as an information service under Title I of the Communications Act, resulting in less strict rules than the ones applied to common carrier services (such as the traditional phone system) under Title II. But since both services are delivered over the same wire, Verizon FiOS is able to reap the benefits of utility regulation without the downsides.

via Report: Verizon FiOS claimed public utility status to get government perks | Ars Technica.

“The companies’ affiliates have acted together and have taken control of the customer-funded wires and networks, which are Title II, in multiple ways that allow the company to control both the end-user connection—speed, access, and use of the Internet—as well as the competitor side of attaching to the wire and delivering services to the end users,” Kushnick wrote in an e-mail. “We will be asking for the FCC to open the networks to all forms of competition because customers paid for it and they are Title II, and because the affiliate companies have created a bottleneck that controls the wires and blocks competitors.”