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500 Comments
- CVL4317, on 04/14/2009, -14/+537Eric Massa, you're now in my donate list.
- shutaro, on 04/14/2009, -11/+485***** TIME WARNER!!!
- NJank, on 04/14/2009, -3/+326so lets see if I got this right:
- Mass adoption of internet begins with dialup in one form or another. Some people pay rated usage fees ($/Mb or something).
- Popularity spreads, dial-up competition fierce. Switching from ISP to ISP is trivial.
- ISPs keep upgrading (adding lines, upping speeds (28.8-33.6-56k*). Service gets cheaper (settled on ~$20/month *unlimited* dialup, but discounters present.) My cheapest dialup rate was ~$7/month (1 year prepaid to bring it down from $10) in 2005.
- The move to high speed connections begins. Cable, DSL, aDSL, etc.
- ISP's now almost completely limited to utility provider. (DSL exception some places)
- access prices begin to stagnate at industry determined levels (little competition for downward pressure)
- as new sign-ups stagnate, providers look to increase revenue options (Speedboost, anyone?)
- tiered usage comes back into effect with reduced competition. - zinc6471, on 04/14/2009, -8/+269finally a congressman who doesn't suck the lobbyist dicks
- anexanhume, on 04/14/2009, -7/+227No, this is terrible. The government isn't supposed to work. Quick, someone accuse him of a sex scandal!
- AtomicTheory, on 04/14/2009, -3/+187I now have a donate list.
- sultanica, on 04/14/2009, -6/+179Greed at its best. When will TWC learn?
- inactive, on 04/14/2009, -0/+162Moral of the story: competition and competition alone is what keeps companies from screwing you over. Which is totally fine--that's why competition is good--but it's just one in hundreds of examples of why monopolies are a no go. If the government is going to create them, it had sure as hell better regulate them (which is still a far cry worse than simply reintroducing competition).
- inactive, on 04/14/2009, -5/+147Lets see how far it gets, I'm sure TWC has its hand down in the pants of other congressional members.
- sindex, on 04/14/2009, -5/+140***** THE RIAA! or... wait, ***** THE MPAA!! hmm.. ***** THE FED!!!! DAMNIT!!! WHO ARE WE MAD AT TODAY, DIGG??!
But seriously. Eat a horses ass, time warner. You make me pay an extra $9.95 a month to "turbo" my Internet speed to something most industrialized countries would consider sub-standard to standard. Greedy little *****. - sHockz, on 04/14/2009, -8/+93GO ERIC MASSA!!!!
***** YOU TIME WARNER!!!! - TTT1, on 04/14/2009, -4/+88...and Japan has their internet for $20 a month
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/the-cost- ... - cowboy86, on 04/14/2009, -12/+84Poor guy doesn't stand a chance.
- brennanjohnson, on 04/14/2009, -2/+71How about this, TWC: upgrade your networks. Wow, what a concept.
- tgc1, on 04/14/2009, -2/+60God dammit. Every time I read that I have to keep myself from blowing a ***** fuse. I'm on 4Mbps service and it costs me ***** 62 dollars a ***** month. In Japan i'd have 160Mbps. *****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- ShoujoKakumei, on 04/14/2009, -2/+57I want to side with the people who say "This is wrong, let the free market fix it" except that there is no free market for internet access in most of the country. Most of the people I know put up with ***** service from their cable/DSL companies because they don't really have a choice.
- Renian, on 04/14/2009, -5/+53I voted for Massa. Now I'm glad I did.
- jbird32275, on 04/14/2009, -0/+45Sounds like you're getting screwed. We'd like to avoid your fate.
- marm0lade, on 04/14/2009, -4/+46When we have more politicians like this. TWC isn't even trying to be sneaky about it either. I live in buffalo, which is only an hour away, and we haven't heard one rumor about this coming to our area. Why? TWC won't dare try this ***** in any area where FIOS (a far superior product, and Time Warner knows it) is available.
They are blatantly ripping off customers where they have no competition and it's corporate-***** greed at its finest. Companies that employ tactics like this are no better than the wall-street clowns who carelessly gambled away billions of dollars. It all comes back to greed. - rebelcommander, on 04/14/2009, -1/+42The problem is that these ISPs have near monopolistic control over the infrastructure. For instance my options for internet are Comcast, slow wireless service like Clearwire, or dial up. Which pretty much means that Comcast can ***** me as hard as they want and there's not a damn thing I can do about it!
- locaz0r, on 04/14/2009, -9/+50Go massa! Don't let this greedy people get away with this.
- draxenato, on 04/14/2009, -0/+37He wouldn't stand a chance if he didn't try...
- trentrezn0r, on 04/14/2009, -4/+40Again, TWC has a monopoly in broadband in some of these area's. That deserves regulation.
- UselessTrivia, on 04/14/2009, -2/+35Mine too, but I cynically predict that he will be crushed by the lobbyists on this issue. It doesn't have enough public attention to really generate the necessary outrage. Public outrage is really the only thing that gives Congress any inclination to do other than the special interests tell them to do.
- Ranzera, on 04/14/2009, -2/+33You would be right if public dollars hadn't helped pay to put those lines in the ground.
- Renian, on 04/14/2009, -2/+32Want to know why you are getting buried?
Japan. - trentrezn0r, on 04/14/2009, -1/+29We can't. TWC has a monopoly in at least Rochester, NY and possibly these other testbed area's.
Free market my ass! - inactive, on 04/14/2009, -4/+32excellent analysis.
- RonPauls, on 04/14/2009, -2/+29the government regulation creates the monopolies, because it prohibits market entry. Also, the costs of regulation are higher on a percent basis on smaller companies because of economies of scale.
Just legalize competition. That's all you gotta do. - MCA2142, on 04/14/2009, -5/+32Go Hamilton!
but seriously...
I pay for unlimited service, that's what I should get. Period. - inactive, on 04/14/2009, -2/+28The first legitimately encouraging sign that I've seen from an elected official on any level since November. Awesome.
- inactive, on 04/14/2009, -0/+26TWC: "Oh sure, of course we will! After all, we wouldn't want our subscribers lost to the competition. Wait, what competition? Oh yeah. ***** you, then."
- inactive, on 04/14/2009, -1/+24You're one of those people who thinks that the internet is all stored in one place, aren't you?
- m4fia117, on 04/14/2009, -0/+22public outrage? If this happened all over the country by Time Warner, you would find that they will have lots of extra equipment, that they won't need since they won't have any customers. This is what we need: http://www.google.com/tisp/
- inactive, on 04/14/2009, -9/+31you are a retard. this bill is regulation. metered billing is in other countries and this is a private company doing this, you need not subscribe to their services. if you are angry, be angry at your government officials who gave these companies monopolies for building the pipelines and be angry at the government stopping google from providing free wifi throughout the country at the behest of special interest groups (ISPs who donate to dems and repubs)
- keviniskool, on 04/14/2009, -0/+20Well see, he is probably sucking their dicks, but when you get in the way of a man downloading his porn, there isn't enough money in the world to convince him that caps are okay.
- draxenato, on 04/14/2009, -0/+20I sympathise mate, the Oz net users are screwed with caps and censorship :(
- MCA2142, on 04/14/2009, -0/+19Then they shouldn't call it unlimited.
That's the point. They want to keep calling it unlimited, and apply the cap. - Renian, on 04/14/2009, -9/+27Ever heard of something called a "market failure"? That's what this is. Yes, they happen in free markets.
- gbates31, on 04/14/2009, -3/+21"Digg" isn't a single entity that has trouble making up it's mind. "Digg" is a collection of an amount of users, unknown to me, who have individual, distinct opinions. No two Digg users are alike, nor are the sum of their beliefs.
- inactive, on 04/14/2009, -13/+30 this bill is regulation. metered billing is in other countries and this is a private company doing this, you need not subscribe to their services. if you are angry, be angry at your government officials who gave these companies monopolies for building the pipelines and be angry at the government stopping google from providing free wifi throughout the country at the behest of special interest groups (ISPs who donate to dems and repubs)
- Tanelorn, on 04/14/2009, -2/+19They have a monopoly because the government grants them rights to use power lines and such to provide their services. It is a monopoly caused by government.
- drmangrum, on 04/14/2009, -3/+20Legislation is in order, but this is the wrong legislation. The cable companies will just find another way to extort money. The government should have very little say in how a business should be run.
The legislation that really needs to be done is to counteract all the local monopolies. It's the lack of true competition that screwing consumers over. Legislation needs to be put in place to facilitate competing companies to enter a local market. When consumers can freely choose between 3 or 4 providers we'll see some true innovation. Until then, it's just a game of cat and mouse. - chlyon, on 04/14/2009, -5/+22You Americans dont have CAPS ?
I pay $39 Au for 5 gigs amittedly via wireless
but even still most Au providers cap people at 10-20 gig a month for $50-60 . on DSL . - draxenato, on 04/14/2009, -0/+16Only if you're uphill from your ISP
/s - IrvineKinneas50, on 04/14/2009, -3/+19Agreed.
Free markets work efficiently if there is easy entry and exit from the market. If there is not easy entry into the market (as in the case of a cable provider), the market does not operate efficiently. This is a monopoly by barrier of entry. Monopolies do not operate efficiently unless they are legislated to maximize social and economic benefit.
Of course it's easier to just spam "FREE MARKET FREE MARKET" than to actually be educated on economics. - dk75eclipse, on 04/14/2009, -0/+16Ok, I have no clue what I was thinking when I posted this...
- urbanbluest, on 04/14/2009, -0/+15Perhaps, but the difference between Time Warner and any other provider is astounding.
Look at these (oversimplified but accurate) prices:
Time Warner: $6 (six DOLLARS) per GB per month.
* AT&T DSL 9¢.
* Verizon's fiber-optic FiOS system $.11 - 36¢
* Comcast 17¢ .
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/th ... - Chewie67, on 04/14/2009, -0/+14Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, m4fia117.
I live in the NorthEast, where Time Warner is king. There are NO other cable companies that operate in this area. Verizon FIOS is not available either. If you want high speed Internet, you either pay Time Warner, or you don't get it.
Essentially, Time Warner is a monopoly in all of New York State (except NYC).
I generally don't like congress getting involved at this level, but they either need to impose these rules, or force some level of competition amongst the cable companies. - inactive, on 04/14/2009, -1/+15not sure if comfort was being sarcastic or not, but i feel it necesary to explain the difference. Comm companies are already artificially propped up by the federal and state governments. There is no competition for them, so they can do whatever they like. What really needs to happen is to open up the market.
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