Do you feel the US cable and wireless companies are...

[Failhorse]

The fair market at work?
Something that all sides of politics seem to ignore. This is the giant elephant in the room. Go to 95% of the country, if broadband exists. You may have 1 or 2 choices in your carrier. Verizon/Comacast, and AT&T. Or some variation. I think it's sort of ironic that AT&T built much of the broadband infrastructure in this country and then lost it in the breakup of their company in 1982 and AT&T's restructuring in 2001. Sold it off, and now compete with DSL.

A quick backstory on AT&T for the kids out there. You may not know, but at one time AT&T was the most powerful corporation in existence. They owned the phones. Period. They also owned 100s of companies that developed much of the technology we see today. Up until the 00s they also kept a cradle to grave mentality. No million dollar bonuses for CEOs. If you or your spouse worked for the company, you were taken care of. They even provided handbooks to employees that featured things like "the proper way to walk up and down stairs" and " how to properly wash your hands." In the 80s Reagan forced them to breakup. This created all the Bell companies. Which then bought each other back up and created SBC and Verizon 'powerhouses.' So you know breakup companies due to lack of competition. Then let them get back together and do nothing about it.

The same thing is currently happening with Comcast. Only there's no anti-trust law in the future. Comcast may not own all of cable yet. But they do own most of the cable lines, satellites, and NBC. And they're making it harder for any competition to happen. You even have Comcast teaming up with Verizon, a broadband cable provider in some parts of the country. 2 of 3 choices in broadband working together with pocket deals to not enter each others territory anymore. Verizon will never bring Fios to Chicago. It's a huge market. But Meh, what's the point? They make more money in their markets fixing prices. That's what it comes down too. By law, and unlike telephone lines, there's no law of the land that says broadband lines are technically publicly owned. Even when this infrastructure was built with a shit ton of government money. (Just like most power, gas, water, and yes telephones lines.)

So what does this mean? You will never see a startup running new broadband. It's just too expensive. Unlike what is currently on the poles, new contracts require leasing. So the expense first to run the wire, then the cost of keeping it on the poles would put any new company under. Due to savvy lawmaking, you will never have Comcast/Verizon allow the leasing of space on their wire. They are protected from up high, and any aggregation would create new competition and destroy their profits. And this is a sad state of affairs for a 1st world country. We all know TV, Broadband, and Cell service is cheaper in almost every 1st world country. But this is America and we love the fair fixed market.

Almost all of this applies to cell service at all. The last company to really build a tower network was Cricket. And they were shut down in a corporate aggregation. This is where Walmart comes in. For the most part cell towers, owned by the new AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon would not allow other carriers to use said towers. With the move to GSM and CDMA (or whatever) this changed. Walmart came in wanting to manage contracts destroyed the cheap cell market. And Cricket's plans were basically destroyed. T-Mobile saw this and leased a shit ton of bandwidth on the towers, and worked with Walmart to sell plans. BTW most likely that $40 dollar a month Walmart plan is most likely on T-Mobile's network.

But again lack of any real competition and the American's mentality for dealing with bullshit is sucking at least a $1000 dollar out of your wallet every year. But that's how we like it.

Laws to blame:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommun ... ct_of_1996
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Act

Both brought to you by Bill Clinton.

[GoDM1N]

But then there was Google. I haven't read all your post yet (on my break at work, and I hate reading walls of text on my phone) but I didn't see anything about time warner, which is another company filled with "smart" people. Not long ago they actually came out and said their customer's don't want faster internet, which blew my mind. I also think they're the company that sued Google because "they're not being fair with their offerings" by releasing Google fiber. After saying that they started putting things in place to block Google from coming to my home town, but I guess that's fair in there book.

[Thret]

The current situation in telecommunications in America is bullshit. It's basically a monopoly and they all get together and decide if they like their outrageous prices. As far as developed nations go, don't we have the slowest and most expensive internet service in the world? Which is shit. I should have a choice. I say that I don't have a choice because, at least where I am, there are two companies that provide internet service: CentryLink and Cox. Both provide the exact same service at the exact same price. So there isn't really a choice.

Assuming that Google Fiber doesn't spread to my city or a city I want to go to work when I'm done with college, I'm stuck with going to KC for some quality internet service.

[Repoman]

The current situation in telecommunications in America is bullshit. It's basically a monopoly and they all get together and decide if they like their outrageous prices. As far as developed nations go, don't we have the slowest and most expensive internet service in the world? Which is shit. I should have a choice. I say that I don't have a choice because, at least where I am, there are two companies that provide internet service: CentryLink and Cox. Both provide the exact same service at the exact same price. So there isn't really a choice.

Assuming that Google Fiber doesn't spread to my city or a city I want to go to work when I'm done with college, I'm stuck with going to KC for some quality internet service.

You see this statement is nothing new. In the 1870s to the early 1900s, the monolopy that people were complaining about was the Railroad companies. Monopolies are a result of a free capitalist market where one company is free to reign and literally take over one sector of business. There is really nothing with with monopolies, so as long as the government keeps their hands of it and manipulate a company to take over others.

[Failhorse]

I don't expect Google fiber to ever really expand. Honestly it looks more like a socio-economic experiment from a group of rich sociopaths. At one point Verizon also planned on expanding Fios nationwide. That also fell to the vapors.

I disagree with Repo. At this point the only entity that could fix any of this is the government. Well, a non lobbyied to death government. Comcast is violating the anti-trust laws. But no one will ever do anything about it. Millions of dollars in lobbying fixed that. The courts have fixed the rest. It costs no more to bring electricity to a home than broadband. Most municipalities have set rates and are regulated in the pricing. If electric supply followed the same price increases as cable. You'd be paying near $5 a KWh. That makes an electric bill 4-6x the current average. And they tried. Look up Enron. That guy is still in jail. But people who did far worse to the American public (IE any mortgage exec, military lobbyist, or Congressman) are free.

[Thret]

I don't expect Google fiber to ever really expand. Honestly it looks more like a socio-economic experiment from a group of rich sociopaths. At one point Verizon also planned on expanding Fios nationwide. That also fell to the vapors.

I disagree with Repo. At this point the only entity that could fix any of this is the government. Well, a non lobbyied to death government. Comcast is violating the anti-trust laws. But no one will ever do anything about it. Millions of dollars in lobbying fixed that. The courts have fixed the rest. It costs no more to bring electricity to a home than broadband. Most municipalities have set rates and are regulated in the pricing. If electric supply followed the same price increases as cable. You'd be paying near $5 a KWh. That makes an electric bill 4-6x the current average. And they tried. Look up Enron. That guy is still in jail. But people who did far worse to the American public (IE any mortgage exec, military lobbyist, or Congressman) are free.

Thankfully I have a public power district where I live so the rates have stayed pretty low compared to the rest of the country I've heard.

Failhorse is correct. The only thing that will fix the telecommunications industry is government intervention. Which is something I never thought I'd say in my life. People claim that it's a free market in action and blah blah blah. But none of that matters. If their product is crap, it will not be snuffed out by competitors. You know, since there are none. They are free to set any price they want, have any quality of service they want, and engage in bullshit business practices almost as much as they want with no fear of retaliation.

Either that or a company with the money and lawyers to flip the bird to the current telecom industry comes in with a vastly superior product at a cheaper price to sweep the country off its feet.

[GoDM1N]

I don't expect Google fiber to ever really expand. Honestly it looks more like a socio-economic experiment from a group of rich sociopaths. At one point Verizon also planned on expanding Fios nationwide. That also fell to the vapors.

Unless the other companies start getting into fiber, Google will keep expanding and taking over. I don't really see how you think its a experiment, and they've come out and said it wasn't. They're doing it because they need people to have faster internet so they can keep pushing forward Youtube etc that is being bottled necked by our shitty internet. Them doing this also fixes the problem of no competition, so I not really sure why you're not more in support of it.

[Failhorse]

It doesn't fix the problem of competition unless google goes the way of a power company. Yes we own the lines, but you can lease bandwidth at reduced rates and manage accounts and take a fee.

[GoDM1N]

It doesn't fix the problem of competition unless google goes the way of a power company. Yes we own the lines, but you can lease bandwidth at reduced rates and manage accounts and take a fee.

Wasn't Google leased the fiber in Kansas? Also I don't really think that'll fix the problem. The problem is that the companies stopped innovating and sat on their asses for too long, not because the fiber wasn't being leased. The fiber lines were even given to them and they didn't use them. Theres fiber right outside my house, and I'm stuck on copper, and theres only 1 or 2 ISP's around here. What gives? Google is changing that, capitalism continues. Not sure where this will lead us, but I have heard that other ISP's are starting to get into gigabit connections. Which is a good thing imo. Hopefully Google will continue to push forward ISP's in the US, and they'll do it because it's in their best interest, unlike the ISP's.

[Failhorse]

There's a lot of fiber out there. Both ATT and Comcast put fiber to their boxes here in Chicago. Then run either cable or phone lines to the houses. That's actually one of the few really good jobs through AT&T. If you can get in, you can make $56-$74 an hour laying fiber. Enough of the nifty fun facts. Not sure what Comcast's long term plan is. But I figure at some point AT&T will ditch wires completely and go wireless to the fiber at their boxes or wireless stations. Running direct fiber to houses isn't cost effective and with new generations of wireless every year it should be reliable at some point.

From a sales standpoint having instant internet access anywhere AT&T is would be a good sales pitch. They already offer very inexpensive WiFi only cell plans here too.

But... Their shitty U-verse + TV plan is a whopping $7 dollar cheaper than Comcast.

[Arron Dominion]

Google is expanding to other areas than just Kansas City. Austin, Texas and Provo, Utah have also gotten this ( https://fiber.google.com/about/ ). The Austin, Texas announcement caused Time Warner to make their own announcement to attempt at competing: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-575815 ... tin-wi-fi/

It is a bad situation most everywhere though with only one company running the area, causing awful service and no control over what you are paying due to lack of alternatives. I hope that Google can expand more, but that will take a long time and does not help anyone in the now (especially if they get slapped with some monopoly bit during the process of doing this).

[Vivi Hill]

Apparently a company in Vermont is starting to sell gigabit internet as well now. This is what Google was hoping for by launching Fiber--not that it would be able to expand everywhere, but that it would spur competition to do so.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/26/42717 ... t-internet

[Thret]

I don't think Google could get slapped with monopoly legislature currently. They're not using some brand new patented technology; They're offering internet service. Established telecom companies could also offer gigabit internet, but they don't.

[GoDM1N]

I don't think Google could get slapped with monopoly legislature currently. They're not using some brand new patented technology; They're offering internet service. Established telecom companies could also offer gigabit internet, but they don't.

I think more importantly is not that other companies don't, its that they didn't. This is far from new technology and any of them could of started offering this, but they didn't.