It's time to make Internet access a public utility, just like water and electricity. In this day and age, Internet access is as much an essential part of life as both of the above.
Remember that the cables that they use were paid for with public tax money. The private companies are selling back to us the infrastructure that we already paid to build.
This is one issue on which neither progressives (who tend to favor government utilities/services) nor libertarians (who tend to favor the free market) are happy, because we have the worst of both worlds: a government-sanctioned, unregulated monopoly, using infrastructure built with public tax dollars, and re-sold to the original payers (the public) at monopolistic prices.
Unfortunately, recent efforts in this direction have completely failed. A North Carolina town dissatisfied with Time Warner banded together to create a municipal ISP, and Time Warner sued, on the basis that they "couldn't compete[0]" with the superior speeds and lower prices that the municipal ISP provided. In the end, Time Warner won[1].
I, like 80% of people in the US, have no choice as to my broadband provider. I don't have a landline. I don't have cable TV. All I need is Internet access, and for that, my only option is paying Time Warner Cable, at whatever price they decide to charge, for whatever service they decide to give me[2].
[0] read: "didn't want to compete" == "it's cheaper for us to sue you than to lower our prices to market rate"
[2] Pro-tip: If you're stuck with TWC as well, don't pay for the higher speed levels. That's just the maximum possible speed, and they don't guarantee you anything close to that, for any portion of your monthly service. If you live in a congested area, you're likely to get the same speed regardless of which tier you purchase, so just pick the cheapest one.
> Remember that the cables that they use were paid for with public tax money. The private companies are selling back to us the infrastructure that we already paid to build.
Actually unless I was misinformed, they are selling back the unimproved infrastructure that we paid them to improve. The whole situation makes me so furious and there's nothing I can do. Mesh networks, I guess. I need to make some friends along a line from here to a backbone.
I can't find the relevant FCC directive at the moment (It may in fact be a state law for me, I can no longer remember), but it's illegal for them to sell '30mbit' service as "30mbit is the highest theoretical speed". Essentially a floating average of your max speed has to be at +/-5% of the sold bandwidth.
And then they don't even provide internet access. They go out of their way to not peer with anyone, to their ultimate goal where net neutrality is abolished and they can charge you to access Google and Google to serve you.
It would be half reasonable if they just didn't bother to invest in infrastructure, you know like in public transport, but instead they are actively working to make it worse.
I lived in Wilson before that hooplah. It was fantastic. My job moved back into the Raleigh area so I moved with it (cheaper than a 70mile+commute every day, especially at 15mpg). Ended up on TWC where I got 10Mbit/second at $60/month versus the 20Mbit/second at $40/month (I recall paying less, but that's the currently listed price on the Greenlight site).
Remember that the cables that they use were paid for with public tax money. The private companies are selling back to us the infrastructure that we already paid to build.
This is one issue on which neither progressives (who tend to favor government utilities/services) nor libertarians (who tend to favor the free market) are happy, because we have the worst of both worlds: a government-sanctioned, unregulated monopoly, using infrastructure built with public tax dollars, and re-sold to the original payers (the public) at monopolistic prices.
Unfortunately, recent efforts in this direction have completely failed. A North Carolina town dissatisfied with Time Warner banded together to create a municipal ISP, and Time Warner sued, on the basis that they "couldn't compete[0]" with the superior speeds and lower prices that the municipal ISP provided. In the end, Time Warner won[1].
I, like 80% of people in the US, have no choice as to my broadband provider. I don't have a landline. I don't have cable TV. All I need is Internet access, and for that, my only option is paying Time Warner Cable, at whatever price they decide to charge, for whatever service they decide to give me[2].
[0] read: "didn't want to compete" == "it's cheaper for us to sue you than to lower our prices to market rate"
[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/11/the-price-of-muni...
[2] Pro-tip: If you're stuck with TWC as well, don't pay for the higher speed levels. That's just the maximum possible speed, and they don't guarantee you anything close to that, for any portion of your monthly service. If you live in a congested area, you're likely to get the same speed regardless of which tier you purchase, so just pick the cheapest one.