Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That article doesn't mention the issue of most of our nation's broadband providers also being in the TV program delivery business. The faster broadband gets, the easier it is for consumers to get their TV delivered over the Internet and cancel their subscriptions to their ISP's cable/Uverse/etc. There is more money to be made selling programming than there is for the owner of the "dumb pipes" that move programming from other companies, so there is currently a DISINCENTIVE in the marketplace for companies selling programming to provide faster broadband. Thus, the government needs to prod them to offer faster speeds.
Why wouldn't they offer faster speeds if people are asking for them and willing to pay for them? Is it really necessary to bash people over the head with the threat of force to get a faster internet connection?
Why wouldn't they offer faster speeds if people are asking for them and willing to pay for them? Is it really necessary to bash people over the head with the threat of force to get a faster internet connection?
Let me turn this around a little.
Let's say you run a company that sells two products that people pay for by the month. Customers figure out that they don't need your Product A if they buy your best version of Product B. They're paying $100/month for A+B, but only $75/month for the best version of B. Why would you want to reduce your gross revenue by $25/month per customer?
Let's say you run a company that sells two products that people pay for by the month. Customers figure out that they don't need your Product A if they buy your best version of Product B. They're paying $100/month for A+B, but only $75/month for the best version of B. Why would you want to reduce your gross revenue by $25/month per customer?
Why wouldn't I adjust my pricing schedule to close the loophole? If it is costing me money, *and* I don't want additional regulation on my business, that would make sense.
Granted, I've seen corporate decisions that don't make sense quite often, but usually when faced with regulation that are going to force unexpected expenditures, that tends to move things along.
That is, unless the regulation, while costing the business money, also destroys or hampers competition more than it hurts me. Taking the hit may mean greater profit and control further down the road.
Why wouldn't I adjust my pricing schedule to close the loophole? If it is costing me money, *and* I don't want additional regulation on my business, that would make sense.
Charge $100 for B and make A free? A has a lot of costs associated with it imposed by the companies that make its parts.
Charge $100 for B and make A free? A has a lot of costs associated with it imposed by the companies that make its parts.
Or fully separate the two. $50 for programming. If you want bandwidth beyond what is necessary to supply the programming $20 for Tier 1, $30 Tier 2, etc, etc.
There must be more going on behind the scenes than just this. The only reason to get the law involved would be somehow screw someone over, other cable companies, consumers, alternative bandwidth providers. If it was *just* this pricing problem, the market would fix it easily enough. Remember back when AOL was paid for by the hour? Their competition kept offering more and more time and bandwidth at a cheaper rate until it finally got to unlimited time and unlimited bandwidth? Consumer and business needs built that infrastructure, and if it needs to be upgraded to support the new demand, it will be. But that doesn't have to be legislated unless someone is vying for an unfair advantage. The question is who, and what advantage, and what will the actual consequences be, and do we little guys actually want more centralized political control of our primary information source?
so there is currently a DISINCENTIVE in the marketplace for companies selling programming to provide faster broadband. Thus, the government needs to prod them to offer faster speeds.
I think the issue goes beyond that and it's two-fold. Firstly delivery of true HD content is the only thing that would require such a high bandwidth. If you're surfing city data you're going to see little to no difference between a slower DSL connection or 50mbps. The second issue is very few sites on the internet are on servers that can serve content that fast and it's expensive if you want to do it. Just for example a quick look at the costs for dedicated server is about $100 for 2000GB per month, you'd suck that up in a few days with one person viewing true HD video.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
