Comcast voted Worst Company in America. You want them to have the power.....

[PlanoLifter]

Hey dumb****, the government will have nothing to do with how the internet works. It will only prevent ISP's from ****ing you with no lube.

For the love of **** why can people not get this through their thick heads. Net Neutrality DOES NOT GIVE THE GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF THE INTERNET YOU IGNORANT RETARDS.

Because some people are like:

I am a robot ... I'm programmed to think government is always bad ...
I am a robot ... I'm programmed to think government is always bad ...
I am a robot ... I'm programmed to think government is always bad ...
I am a robot ... I'm programmed to think government is always bad ...
I am a robot ... I'm programmed to think government is always bad ...
I am a robot ... I'm programmed to think government is always bad ...

[Renegade83]

Hey dumb****, the government is worse than Comcast.

Another idiot who doesn't understand the issue. Mind telling me why the government is worse then Comcast in this situation?

I'll wait.

[tiestosucks]

Seaworld in the final 4?

wtf?

Gotta be the lib brain trust at work here.

They deserve to be in the final 4. F*ck them.

Hey dumb****, the government is worse than Comcast.

Net neutrality has nothing to do with the government, other than the government telling ISPs they must maintain net neutrality

BRB - We need more Big Government regulations to keep us free! To hell with personal choice, Big Mommy Government gotta make all my decisions for me, then I'm really free!

Your age is really showing here.

[Sakeoe]

Company A limits service and pisses off their customers
Company B does not

Guess who's business grows?

Company A limits service and company B does too, because they fixed that together with each other.

Wut do?

[Stizzel]

Company A limits service and company B does too, because they fixed that together with each other.

Wut do?

Company C

[Sakeoe]

Company C

But company C has to lease infrastructure from companies A & B and as such are not capable of providing real competition as companies A & B get to set the price and still limit their data transfer.

[Stizzel]

But company C has to lease infrastructure from companies A & B and as such are not capable of providing real competition as companies A & B get to set the price and still limit their data transfer.

Sounds like company C needs investors to generate capital for its own infrastructure. Companies A & B better keep their prices low enough to discourage that kind of competition. Otherwise they have to bring company C into the fold, and then company D.

[ausluke]

Every company, in every field, already has the ability to provide crappy service and piss off their customers. And when they do? Someone else comes in, does a better job, and gets their business.

Infrastructure isnt a free market though. It's not that simple

[GDPONE]

Looks like another liberal proving free markets dont work by citing governmemt failure. Taters gon' tate

Refer to:

Actually im not a liberal, Im not a conservative, and Im not a Libertarian. Im not so stupid as to limit myself to one view point or party, much unlike yourself and many others.

[USAPump]

Company C

My sides.


If it only it were so easy.

Do you by any chance know of the mind boggling clusterfu�ck in making a new ISP? Not to mention the fight the other big boys put up so you don't become 100% self-dependent with your own infrastructure and such.

[GDPONE]

Why do you guys keep trying to reframe the issue? This isn't about dislike for a company, which you have complete freedom to use or not use. This is about an overly intrusive Federal government trying to control yet another business and direct what you as a consumer can choose from.

I like how you keep avoiding this:

I dont know why I am even going to waste my 'breath' here but ... My first thought it is how do you not understand 'libs' are as afraid of the intentions of big corp, as repubs are of govt. Even MORE so given how mega corps now control Govt for all intents and purposes.

Second are you really asking why a company would want to make MORE money??? But oh wait in your fantasy land THERE SO MANY OTHER COMPETITORS CAUSE MUH FREE MARKETS! Right ... the 'competition' you speak of is dial up or maybe dsl. For the vast majority in the US that means speeds of like 5down and .5 up. Oh but wait muh free markets will correct itself and all sorts of new businesses will pop up to compete with the big dummy corps who raise prices right? Yeah ok .... remember all those lobbyists who work for these mega ISPs ... you know the ones who give politicians all that money to make sure there is ALREADY little to no competition. Yeah them.

Small business owner: I would like to apply for digging permits and all other paperwork to start my own ISP please ....

Govt: Yeah sorry no more room. Cant let you use the phone lines, theyre full. Cant give you a digging permit to lay your own fiber and infrastructure cause, ahem ...*well I cant say TWC paid me to tell this guy no* thats full too.

Small business owner: Well guess im ****ed. Let me just bend over.

[Jryt]

Sounds like company C needs investors to generate capital for its own infrastructure. Companies A & B better keep their prices low enough to discourage that kind of competition. Otherwise they have to bring company C into the fold, and then company D.

The start up costs for an ISP is insane, and in this case I actually don't understand how you propose the competition will arise.

When you try to access a website, you connect to a server and see the content. The vast majority of the time this content is hosted by one of the big ISPs, or by a backbone system like ICANN runs. If your ISP is X and you are trying to access a site that is hosted on X then you just connect and it's all fine. However if your ISP is Y and you are trying to access a site on X then you can only go about this in two ways, either you run through a backbone server (which is extremely slow due to the amount of traffic these things are dealing with) which are run by governments generally, or via peering, where X allows Y to use its network. So you can only access content hosted by X or which has its connections via X if X says so, or extremely slowly.

It doesn't even matter whether or not you privately host your servers, unless you literally run a cable through the ground to every single client, you have to go through the ISP that owns the cables to whichever client is trying to access your site. It doesn't matter if you're with X Y or any other ISP. One ISP owning a relatively small portion of a nations infrastructure could have huge knockon effects if they slow down specific traffic.

It's inefficient to have more than one cable going to each house, just like it would be inefficient to build two roads (assuming there wasn't congestion on the first) from two cities to each other. What you're saying is that when a company builds a cable to someone's house, that company should be able to limit whatever traffic goes through it. This is fine, but the corollary of this is that if that person then wants to switch ISP they might have to get an entirely new internet connection built to their house. So then they have two cables connecting them to two different ISPs networks. There are not, presently, sufficient incentives for ISPs to do this, as peering provides them with speed benefits for their clients. However a company like Netflix has no choice but to pay extra if a company demands it, they do not have the resources to create an infrastructure to compete. Google is setting up a competitive brand through Google Fiber, but their scope is severely limited as well, they cannot create the infrastructure to compete, I'll admit partially due to regulations that have been placed on the provision of internet, but largely due to economies of scale.

The fixed costs of networking infrastructure are obscenely high.

I understand your position to be that the government should never have provided infrastructure subsidies to companies when they were first making it, fine, whatever, I disagree with that but it's not really the point. The point is we're in a situation where a small amount of companies have a huge control over the internet infrastructure, and the internet has become integral with almost every business' and individual's functioning. Certainly almost all new businesses rely heavily on the internet.

ISPs are already able to charge their customers based on their download usage, and they control the market. There are so many sites hosted on their servers, and they control the information that goes between the other servers. If a new ISP wants to set up they have to enter into a peering agreement with the current big boys, or have an absolutely horrendous connection. Why would the current companies agree to peering with a startup ISP who doesn't have anything they want? I seriously don't see how the competition arises in the short to medium to long term. In the very long term, when we get a technological breakthrough I'm talking, I can see a complete freedom of ISPs MAYBE working, but that will only be when the startup costs aren't preventing newcomers from entering the market.

I get the ideological opposition, but this doesn't seem to be a case where competition is a viable solution. I guess we could forcibly dismantle the big ISPs and sell them off, so they HAVE to peer with each other, but that probably wouldn't be ok either.

[USAPump]

The start up costs for an ISP is insane, and in this case I actually don't understand how you propose the competition will arise.

When you try to access a website, you connect to a server and see the content. The vast majority of the time this content is hosted by one of the big ISPs, or by a backbone system like ICANN runs. If your ISP is X and you are trying to access a site that is hosted on X then you just connect and it's all fine. However if your ISP is Y and you are trying to access a site on X then you can only go about this in two ways, either you run through a backbone server (which is extremely slow due to the amount of traffic these things are dealing with) which are run by governments generally, or via peering, where X allows Y to use its network. So you can only access content hosted by X or which has its connections via X if X says so, or extremely slowly.

It doesn't even matter whether or not you privately host your servers, unless you literally run a cable through the ground to every single client, you have to go through the ISP that owns the cables to whichever client is trying to access your site. It doesn't matter if you're with X Y or any other ISP. One ISP owning a relatively small portion of a nations infrastructure could have huge knockon effects if they slow down specific traffic.

It's inefficient to have more than one cable going to each house, just like it would be inefficient to build two roads (assuming there wasn't congestion on the first) from two cities to each other. What you're saying is that when a company builds a cable to someone's house, that company should be able to limit whatever traffic goes through it. This is fine, but the corollary of this is that if that person then wants to switch ISP they might have to get an entirely new internet connection built to their house. So then they have two cables connecting them to two different ISPs networks. There are not, presently, sufficient incentives for ISPs to do this, as peering provides them with speed benefits for their clients. However a company like Netflix has no choice but to pay extra if a company demands it, they do not have the resources to create an infrastructure to compete. Google is setting up a competitive brand through Google Fiber, but their scope is severely limited as well, they cannot create the infrastructure to compete, I'll admit partially due to regulations that have been placed on the provision of internet, but largely due to economies of scale.

The fixed costs of networking infrastructure are obscenely high.

I understand your position to be that the government should never have provided infrastructure subsidies to companies when they were first making it, fine, whatever, I disagree with that but it's not really the point. The point is we're in a situation where a small amount of companies have a huge control over the internet infrastructure, and the internet has become integral with almost every business' and individual's functioning. Certainly almost all new businesses rely heavily on the internet.

ISPs are already able to charge their customers based on their download usage, and they control the market. There are so many sites hosted on their servers, and they control the information that goes between the other servers. If a new ISP wants to set up they have to enter into a peering agreement with the current big boys, or have an absolutely horrendous connection. Why would the current companies agree to peering with a startup ISP who doesn't have anything they want? I seriously don't see how the competition arises in the short to medium to long term. In the very long term, when we get a technological breakthrough I'm talking, I can see a complete freedom of ISPs MAYBE working, but that will only be when the startup costs aren't preventing newcomers from entering the market.

I get the ideological opposition, but this doesn't seem to be a case where competition is a viable solution. I guess we could forcibly dismantle the big ISPs and sell them off, so they HAVE to peer with each other, but that probably wouldn't be ok either.

You're just a stupid deluded liberal!!!!


Fu�ck the government for trying to impose Obamacare on the internet!!!!








not srs. Repped.

[tk217]

Sounds like company C needs investors to generate capital for its own infrastructure. Companies A & B better keep their prices low enough to discourage that kind of competition. Otherwise they have to bring company C into the fold, and then company D.

Well, to bad big government is in bed with A&B (Time Warner/Comcast and Verizon) and company C/D/E/F can't come in even with money.

[GDPONE]

Crickets, crickets errywhere.

[Aesthetical]

Cant believe how dumb some people are here, blows my mind that you can be so feeble minded.

[x-trainer ben]

Every company, in every field, already has the ability to provide crappy service and piss off their customers. And when they do? Someone else comes in, does a better job, and gets their business.

Not if the game is rigged... ie the contracts are predetermined on the golf course or behind closed doors.

[magog704]

i kind of like dis. (a) possible answer to a local utility becoming a "monopoly" is the instating of franchise bidding wherein the gov essentially oversees the transfer of ownership of a utility to someone who can do it better.

this is from cato so nutsy is not allowed to argue with it.

http://www.cato.org/publications/com...infrastructure

[GDPONE]

i kind of like dis. (a) possible answer to a local utility becoming a "monopoly" is the instating of franchise bidding wherein the gov essentially oversees the transfer of ownership of a utility to someone who can do it better.

this is from cato so nutsy is not allowed to argue with it.

http://www.cato.org/publications/com...infrastructure

That dude is a retard, he will argue with anything even if his stance or points make no sense in the real world.

[magog704]

That dude is a retard, he will argue with anything even if his stance or points make no sense in the real world.

nutsy or the econ professor from johns hopkins?

[GDPONE]

nutsy or the econ professor from johns hopkins?

nutsy.

[JoshSP1985]

nutsy or the econ professor from johns hopkins?

this made me laugh

that's all

[magog704]

nutsy.

when you get ideological about a thing i think you can become close minded about solutions to problems.

[GDPONE]

when you get ideological about a thing i think you can become close minded about solutions to problems.

Yeah thats called becoming a nutsy. Bro your being nutsy, stop it and think.

[nickhalaaa]

Yes, just how I like the power company to tell me which lights to turn on in my house.

Destroying Net Neutrality will do exactly that. Comcast will be able to decide what web sites you get to access, so that's a valid comparison.

[GDPONE]

Its sad how few people understand how the internet works. Then again its like cars, retarded people are given a license to use them. At least I cant die from stupid people on the internet.

[metroins]

The start up costs for an ISP is insane, and in this case I actually don't understand how you propose the competition will arise.

When you try to access a website, you connect to a server and see the content. The vast majority of the time this content is hosted by one of the big ISPs, or by a backbone system like ICANN runs. If your ISP is X and you are trying to access a site that is hosted on X then you just connect and it's all fine. However if your ISP is Y and you are trying to access a site on X then you can only go about this in two ways, either you run through a backbone server (which is extremely slow due to the amount of traffic these things are dealing with) which are run by governments generally, or via peering, where X allows Y to use its network. So you can only access content hosted by X or which has its connections via X if X says so, or extremely slowly.

It doesn't even matter whether or not you privately host your servers, unless you literally run a cable through the ground to every single client, you have to go through the ISP that owns the cables to whichever client is trying to access your site. It doesn't matter if you're with X Y or any other ISP. One ISP owning a relatively small portion of a nations infrastructure could have huge knockon effects if they slow down specific traffic.

It's inefficient to have more than one cable going to each house, just like it would be inefficient to build two roads (assuming there wasn't congestion on the first) from two cities to each other. What you're saying is that when a company builds a cable to someone's house, that company should be able to limit whatever traffic goes through it. This is fine, but the corollary of this is that if that person then wants to switch ISP they might have to get an entirely new internet connection built to their house. So then they have two cables connecting them to two different ISPs networks. There are not, presently, sufficient incentives for ISPs to do this, as peering provides them with speed benefits for their clients. However a company like Netflix has no choice but to pay extra if a company demands it, they do not have the resources to create an infrastructure to compete. Google is setting up a competitive brand through Google Fiber, but their scope is severely limited as well, they cannot create the infrastructure to compete, I'll admit partially due to regulations that have been placed on the provision of internet, but largely due to economies of scale.

The fixed costs of networking infrastructure are obscenely high.

I understand your position to be that the government should never have provided infrastructure subsidies to companies when they were first making it, fine, whatever, I disagree with that but it's not really the point. The point is we're in a situation where a small amount of companies have a huge control over the internet infrastructure, and the internet has become integral with almost every business' and individual's functioning. Certainly almost all new businesses rely heavily on the internet.

ISPs are already able to charge their customers based on their download usage, and they control the market. There are so many sites hosted on their servers, and they control the information that goes between the other servers. If a new ISP wants to set up they have to enter into a peering agreement with the current big boys, or have an absolutely horrendous connection. Why would the current companies agree to peering with a startup ISP who doesn't have anything they want? I seriously don't see how the competition arises in the short to medium to long term. In the very long term, when we get a technological breakthrough I'm talking, I can see a complete freedom of ISPs MAYBE working, but that will only be when the startup costs aren't preventing newcomers from entering the market.

I get the ideological opposition, but this doesn't seem to be a case where competition is a viable solution. I guess we could forcibly dismantle the big ISPs and sell them off, so they HAVE to peer with each other, but that probably wouldn't be ok either.

One of the best posts so far.

[Powers]

Every company, in every field, already has the ability to provide crappy service and piss off their customers. And when they do? Someone else comes in, does a better job, and gets their business.

Not sure what businesses you are referring to. My cable provider had terrific service until Time Warner Cable came in and bought them out. My regional bank was also doing a fair job and Bank of America came in and bought them out. I was able to switch banks but Bank of America also bought them out in 2011. I'm still stuck with Time Warner Cable but looking for other options.

[Powers]

That dude is a retard, he will argue with anything even if his stance or points make no sense in the real world.

He's a smart guy but he does not understand the reality of competition in some markets and just takes a blanket approach to this issue.

This lemonade stand is selling lemonade to expensive? Well someone will come in and undercut his price and provide cheaper lemonade and competition bringing down prices.

In the real world some industries have enormous barriers of entry. ISPs may be the best example of an industry where competition will not arise.

[jimmyjabbar]

ITT, people would rather have internet companies regulate the information available to them rather than have the big bad guvement tell them they can't.