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- hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+55Does anyone else get the feeling that there's too many lawsuits for things that should already be a matter of public record?
- mageofdeath, on 10/12/2007, -0/+44the ones the CPI should really be suing are AT&T for their promise to get dsl nation wide on a fast network and up to speeds of 100mbps, they did after all get several billions of tax dollars from the government to do it...
- bmobile, on 10/12/2007, -1/+25Agreed. And I have to say, the United States is behind a lot of our other modern friends in terms of broadband penetration (lol) and price. I've heard you can get like double or triple the speeds in Japan for about 1/2 of what we pay here in the States. It's ludicrous. If Verizon ever brings FiOS here, we're sooo switching from Time Warner's Roadrunner.
- soulpunisher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24I agree we are one of the richest nations on Earth yet we rank 14th for high speed internet provided to the public.
- brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18It's better than our education ranking among developed nations.
- Slovenian6474, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I visited my sister in Tokyo a year ago. She had signed up for the cheapest DSL service available. It was a 30Mbps service for $15 USD a month. Here i am dishing out $40ish a month for Roadrunner's 5Mbps.
- winnch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12And that's exactly why there is a lawsuit. To make it public.
- brstilson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Someone from France well telling me that their ADSL service is at 10 Mbps, and bundled with the phone service runs them about $30 a month.
- fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Ok, how do you account for the ***** connections in large coastal cities?
- evolseven, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12@mrfoos
There is a huge difference between giving away a private citizen's data compared to getting records that should be public record already. Any regulation, any law, anything our government does should be open for its citizens to view/oversee.. anything else is from crazy town in my opinion. If my tax dollars are paying for it then I want to be able to oversee it. I would probably make a few exceptions to military black projects, but I would still like a summary and costs available for each project.
Anyway.. what your talking about is 2 different things.. one is what our government does, the other is what we do.. they should have completely different levels of privacy. - lunchbox12682, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I used to fall for that crap too.
But watching them( cable and telcos) consistantly fail to roll out improvements or even service even in highly populated areas, I am comfortable in saying what a load it is. - tylerman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7deepdoo - I don't think you understand that we "the tax payers of the united states" gave at&t money to roll out this extensive network and we are yet to see our investment become reality. Especially within the time frame they said they would have it.
Note the companies backing the FCC........ - vastrightwing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The FCC is a wolf in sheep's clothing:
It's clear to me that the FCC is a watchdog to the communications industry the way the NRC is to the nuclear industry. The FCC needs them in order to function and expand. If you look at the FCC this way, then all of their rulings makes perfect sense. The public "good" is what the industry offers, not what the FCC demands. Discuss. - Gutzyshark, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6When was the last time you tried playing any kind of game on dial up and ended up winning? Last time I checked, you almost need broadband for anything now a days when it comes to connectivity.
- FieldAnonymouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6And the service provided to some of those areas is a joke because they install so many conenctions, and the trunk for the area can't support it.
- Rory1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5That's a crock.
There is no reason a state like California with the population of almost 40 million can't have just as great broadband infrastructure and speeds of lets say Sweden which has 9 million. And Cali is smaller. The telcos have been lying for years. And the $200 billion dollar broadband scam should be known by everyone.
http://www.newnetworks.com/broadbandscandals.htm - kremvax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4While density is a factor in keeping prices high, you'll notice that these services aren't any cheaper in mega-density areas of the US either. In NYC, 8 million of us live in under 50 sq. miles, yet all dsl modems are installed by a telco monopoly, and cost upwards of $40-$50 / month. (after the pretend 3 month $20 trial period)
It the relative state of monopoly in US telecommunications that keeps prices high and service offerings low. No competition = no growth. - jakatak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4it's going to take Google giving internet away to crack open this topic and finally stop throttling us back on the internet.
- fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Entertainment is essential, it's part of what makes life worth living for some.
- radiofrequency, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I live in a dense high-income area in the middle of the silicon valley. Internet access here is abominable. While I hear of people with 6+ Mbps download speeds and 700+ Kbps upload speeds in the $40 range in the midwest, I pay almost $50/month for 1500down/256up. Even if cost were no object, short of paying for direct fiber to the home, broadband service offerings here are among the worst of civilized societies.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5> Does anyone else get the feeling that there's too many lawsuits for things that should already be a matter of public record?
Yes, but what are you bemoaning, the number of law suits or the local of public disclosure? ...if it's both, then good.
I gave up on the FCC after they appealed the "equal access" ruling, determining that cable companies were an "information service" and not a telecommunications service... what a load of crap. - FieldAnonymouse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@i619
Not any more you can't. The web is evolving to the point where to be online you basically need broadband because the web pages are getting too big, and too complex for dialup to handle properly. - fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I keep repeating this, problems like this are not solved in order, one at a time, we don't have to neglect one one to work on another.
- Slovenian6474, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4hell, by that definition, T.V.'s not essential and neither is a lot of the stuff we do. The computer's not essential either. Just use regular mail instead of email, read the newspaper, drive all around town to pay your bills, etc.
A 56k connection is completely inadequate for this day in age. Try using that to do a research paper. i619 is obviously not a student.
Granted you CAN accomplish most tasks with a 56k connection at the cost of time. How much is your time worth? - ksponge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Why is your email more important than my gaming? Why is it not essential? Do you decide what is essential? You don't NEED access at all. You're just spouting off your values here. My use is equally important as yours, and I don't care what the ***** you are doing.
FantasticFlan is entirely correct. In fact, I would say entertainment is more important than work. But that is personal opinion. I consider my life more important than my company. Do you? - mjenkins, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4My job is technology-based. The better my connection, the more efficiently I can work in my home office, which translates to better reviews and bigger raises. That in turn helps me pay for the rising costs of food, shelter, utilities, and drinking water. It is a vicious circle but to me, broadband isn't just entertainment, it's my livelihood.
- Rickler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4200 billion should have been enough to fiber up all houses. That is like $2,666 per house hold. (my math 200bil/"300mil/4")
- darkdaven, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They shouldn't take government money saying they're going to spread broadband across the US if they're not going to do it. It becomes a right once promises are made.
- ScottMaximus1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Keep in mind, this is a global economy. Especially is such a white collar country(America,) computer skills are a must.
My one question to you is,
How much money do you give to the poor? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3...and even some developing nations are ahead of us, and our life expectancy is pretty bad, I think we are 19th, just after Cuba.
- MacSuxWindozSux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Telco Monopoly?
It's getting worse Bell-1000 is forming its liquid metal pieces back together again. - kuzotz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2lol Cox controls my broadband were I live... DAmmit it sucks ass. IT was sooo damn faster when I was living in Europe!
- xman2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The only government involvement in this should be dividing up fair access to the telephone poles and underground conduits. Other than that any company should be allowed to build any product (in this case, broadband access) they want and charge whatever they want for it. Sure, some big expensive companies would come out with really cool expensive products, but you would also have new companies starting up using the latest communications gear to deliver blazing speed at a fraction of traditional costs (anyone remember those metro area network companies that popped up briefly when the government created a niche for them in the regulations?). The problem with the communications industry is that they have been sucking on the teet of uncle sam for far too long and the large corporations have built entire business models around the regulatory frameworks - I am not surprised at all when they don't want to give it up! Keeping statistics secret is stupid because it cuts both ways... the data will leak out eventually anyways and it holding it secret gives the appearance of impropriety.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4>>>"And I have to say, the United States is behind a lot of our other modern friends in terms of broadband penetration (lol) and price. I've heard you can get like double or triple the speeds in Japan for about 1/2 of what we pay here in the States. It's ludicrous."
It's all about population density. Japan is the 30th most dense country in the world. The US ranks about 172nd. So wiring Japan with high speed doesn't involve nearly as much effort as wiring, say, US suburbs. Mainly, the amount of people you can sell to in Japan is much higher. In the specific case of DSL, everybody is a lot closer to the DSLAMs, meaning speeds can be much better. - crweaks23, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Otto hit the nail on the head. The infrastructure costs are what is killing this country in terms of connections speeds and availability. Verizon is losing a ton of money to wire up residential areas with FiOS, with hopes to recoup the cost over the next decade or so (while also hoping to snag some cable television subscribers with FiOS TV, but that's another story). That's an incredibly high risk to take in areas of low population.
- jsmith39, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It was never/isn't now a right to have high speed internet access. It is however a service that was already paid for by every one of us and it for damn sure should have been rolled out by now. If plans changed, or became impractical the money should have been/still should be returned.
- kryptobs2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't think the issue is so much that our broadband connections aren't fast enough, for the most part at least, but that we are being ripped off for what we are getting. 40$ for 4-5mbp is just ridiculous and that seems about average in alot of areas. I would pay for a 10-20mbps connection if it were available (at a reasonable price), but I think most people don't really need the speed they would just like to pay fair prices for the speed they currently have.
- dlsspy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2You sound like you live near me. I settled for IDSL for years before finally folding to AT&T's service (approximately what you're describing).
The most insulting point of this was that I live a couple blocks from Covad's corporate headquarters. I realize that's irrelevant, but when I can stand on my roof and look at Covad while on the phone with them telling me they can't service my area, it really kind of sucks.
We have all these local networking companies whose products basically can't be used locally. Something seems wrong with that. - gregorypierce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Don't worry, even if you have fiber to the home like I do in Atlanta - the providers (Bellsouth -> AT&T) are too busy trying to wring more concessions out of the government rather than try to actually deliver the speeds that they COULD be providing to consumers. Its funny.... because I actually have fiber instead of copper, Bellsouth won't give me anything faster than 1.5MB/768 DSL when in other countries I'd have at least 10MB bidirectional. Because of this I welcome any lawsuits against the FCC, Bellsouth or anybody else to explain to me why we've given them billions and they haven't given us ***** - literally.
But what can I do. The system can give a crap about what I say, and there just aren't enough people pissed off about it setting Bellsouth trucks and buildings on fire - so we're at the mercy of how ever much the want to bend us over. - kuzotz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah its weird because oklahoma has pretty fast highspeed internet connections..
- kuzotz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1try being a university student doing a research project. Of course we can do it the old fashion way, but I goto OU, and they have a tendacy to know that research is a lot faster using broadband internet. So the deadlines are shorter than usual.. LEAving me only 1 choice to do my research.. The net.
- arbulus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have Charter's basic cable broadband connection at 3mbps, but never have I ever seen anything greater than 1.5mbps. It's a joke. Comcast services my area, but won't service the street that I live on, so I'm stuck with no choice. There's no sense in that.
- DeepDoo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5its because we are more spread out than most nations. Lots of people in the USA live in areas where DSL/Cable technologies won't work because of the distances involved.
- sapped, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ugh, I keep hearing this population density crap every time somebody mentions another country with better broadband.
In theory that rebuttal is ok, but then why don't we have decent broadband at decent prices in the areas of the US that *do* have high population densities. I have lived close to NYC and LA. Currently I live in a fairly rural area. My broadband experience was roughly the same in all three areas - i.e. crap. If this density theory was to hold any water at all then I should have been swamped with decent broadband when I lived close to massive cities. - foamweapons, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This article is depressing. Reading comments is even more depressing.
The question is why can't people like us who depend on internet for our business and livelihood band together to form Fiber networks that we own? The only large promising example in the US is Utopia in Utah:
http://www.utopianet.org
Internet/Communications is a necessity for the future of business and economic growth. Building infrastructure for water, transportation, or any utility should not be in the hands of a corporation. The same is true for communications infrastructure, we should own the infrastructure and government should lease the network to companies who bid on using the infrastructure. That's how utilities (should) work.
After paying $200 billion for broken promises, I think it's obvious that municipality-owned fiber is the only solution. If you disagree, I think you should remember that (Big Media == Big Telecoms)... the same companies that are trying to scare you of big-government projects are the ones who want to be the sole providers of future services that small companies should have the opportunity to compete against. Small companies need access to the infrastructure as much as the telecoms. And if they don't have the access, that's anti-business... citizen-owned infrastructure is not anti-business. - Drakkor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I have a 6Mps Comcast high speed cable download speed,but will never see it, because the infrastructure is not there ,and for what structure they do have it's over-sold, so like sometimes I download at 20k/s . My fastest download ever was 500k/s but that's really rare !!
- BigCalhoun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Inaccurate report = Form 477 filings are for those under the auspice of the FCC. Other 'nontraditional' providers (such as power companies who provide data and/or voice over their own facilities) are not required to file 477s.
- smeger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think it is sad that we have to sue in order to get anything done in this country, and even that does not work
- greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1form 477 filings ARE a matter of public record, by the legal stupilation behind the FCC's very EXISTENCE. the fact that they are trying to hide these filings is shameful at best and criminal at worst. i sincerely hope that the federal judge slaps down the FCC with a very large (and very sharp) order to release the records. it is a government agency, operated on US federal taxes, and so every part of its operation and all of its recordkeeping should be a matter of public record, exactly as it is with their radio station licensing.
- i619, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1i do not give money to the poor because i do not have much disposable income, i am in no way denying that computer skills are of the utmost importance in the u.s. economy, access to the internet is very useful, the speed of the internet connection being used is, in most cases, negligible
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