Net Neutrality...

Tue Jul 15 15:03:09 UTC 2014

Sorry to be cold about this but as high speed connectivity becomes more necessity than luxury, the market will still react.  For example,  I could move to the top of a mountain with no electric however most of us would not.  If I was buying a home and I could not get decent high speed Internet, I would not live there because that is my business and I need it.  If rural areas cannot get the kind of services they need from the carriers they have, they will have to react and break the monopoly.  The economic model still works but is not as fast and efficient.

There is always satellite which will all know if painful but it is an option so there is almost always not a real monopoly.  Granted, if all I have to do is beat satellite, my bar is lower.  You are right about becoming your own ISP.  If you want to lose a lot of money in a hurry I would advise you to go to Las Vegas or become a facilities based small ISP.

Steven Naslund
Chicago IL

>>>There's the problem.  In my neck of the woods, there is one and only one provider.  They have a guaranteed monopoly for the next few decades.  They got a huge grant to put in FTTH from the government and they still have pricing from the last decade.

>>>An 8/1 connection is $120/mo and require you to get dialtone (they say it's FCC mandated) to the tune of an additional $20/mo (that's with no long distance and every possible feature stripped).  (Side-note: when the power fails during the winter, they turn off all internet access after 5 >>>minutes so they can save battery power for the phones--which travel the exact same fiber path as the interntet).

>>>I'm not a huge fan of Comcast's recent actions, but if they rolled into the area with the same offer they have "in town" (100/25 for ~$75/mo), I would switch faster than you could spell monopoly.

>>>There's plenty of fiber lying within 1/4 mile from my house (runs between Seattle and Portland), but none of the companies are interested in being a local ISP, or leasing to a non-business, and I couldn't afford to start my own, let alone trenching my own fiber to other residents who are >>>also fed up.

>>>It doesn't matter to me what "the big players" do because as a consumer, I still don't have a choice.  So while I find my local provider's practices utterly despicable, I can't exactly speak with my wallet unless I quit being an IT guy, cancel my internet, and start raising goats or something.

>>>-A