Router keeps disconnecting
- Thread starter Necronic
- Start date
It's called an "Oligopoly."
(warning, language is NSFW but video is too awesome not to post again)
And as far as Google riding in on their horse to save us, don't count on it. Their TOS forbids non-business customers from attaching any kind of server to their network. Unless and until they alter this language, this means you could violate their TOS with Slingbox, Minecraft, DNS, VPN, or even by just enabling remote login. No word on whether seeding counts as a server.
--Patrick
Necronic
Staff member
I'm not really counting on google.
The only thing that will fix this is a 60s era politics where people recognize that certain items aren't luxuries but are in fact utilities, and need to be managed at some level by the national government. As a resident of Texas it really bothers me to hear all these conservatives talk about how there are free-market solutions to everything, while conveniently ignoring the fact that a LARGE part of their voting demographic comes from rural areas that were brought utility services by evil socialism.
I think Obama's chance to have a real legacy was lost the moment he decided to not use the stimulus package to drop a fiber optic network across the entire nation (which could be self-sustaining after the up-front cost by selling bandwidth to a competitive market of cable companies.)
edit: Apparently there was about 7 bil in the stimulus package for this. I'm really curious how it worked out. My guess is that a bunch of cable companies got free lines laid and were able to maintain their monopolies in the area.
The only thing that will fix this is a 60s era politics where people recognize that certain items aren't luxuries but are in fact utilities, and need to be managed at some level by the national government. As a resident of Texas it really bothers me to hear all these conservatives talk about how there are free-market solutions to everything, while conveniently ignoring the fact that a LARGE part of their voting demographic comes from rural areas that were brought utility services by evil socialism.
I think Obama's chance to have a real legacy was lost the moment he decided to not use the stimulus package to drop a fiber optic network across the entire nation (which could be self-sustaining after the up-front cost by selling bandwidth to a competitive market of cable companies.)
edit: Apparently there was about 7 bil in the stimulus package for this. I'm really curious how it worked out. My guess is that a bunch of cable companies got free lines laid and were able to maintain their monopolies in the area.
Necronic
Staff member
When it comes to utilities I am absolutely a communist (at least in the sense that you have to have competition on the lines, I'm ok with some level of privatisation ala Houston power grid.) I'm actually pretty conservative in a lot of other areas. I just came to the surprisingly rare conclusions some years ago that hard line "one size fits all" ideologies are for idiots.
GasBandit
Staff member
There's a good argument for claiming internet access is infrastructure like highways and railroads. The problem is that a lot of the existing ISP stuff was laid privately, and nationalizing it would have serious implications. I guess the only real way to implement it would make it so that there would have to be a new agency that basically is a nationwide ISP business. Kind of like the post office, I suppose. It would be a heck of an expenditure to get it going, but that sounds like a jobs program even a Libertarian like me could get behind.
That's exactly what happened. Where I live we have one telephone company, and it's a government enforced monopoly. I will finally be getting high speed internet at my house because of it. They got 7 mil from the government to lay new fiber out to rural areas. Government get's nothing back, and the telco will get to gouge us on the price of it. I still think it would have been better for the government to keep ownership of the lines themselves and lease them out to whoever wants to offer service.
Other companies can offer internet if they want, but they cannot offer phone service. Charter started offering internet in the city, but couldn't offer their phone service. Even cell phone companies have to use an exchange that is long distance to the area.
Necronic
Staff member
Wow, see this is a place where I am more conservative than you. I actually would prefer that the ISP side of things be managed by a private company, but I would want the lines themselves to be that weird sort of public/private blend that forces competition on them and keeps them regulated, but maintains a degree of autonomy. The idea of a government controlled ISP is actually quite frightening to me.
Gasbandit wants the government reading your emails.
Mother of god. Who in their right mind thought that was ok.
I believe that's the way a lot of European countries do it. The big ISP/telephone providers have to lease their lines to other companies that want to provide competing service. We tried that for a bit, but the Ilecs pissed and moaned until it got removed.
It's funny how the phone company maintains the monopoly. Apparently it only apples to small phone companies in rural areas, so they keep all the small local companies they've bought operating as the original company, even though the service is offered to customers under the parent companies name. If it was all absorbed into the parent company, they would lose their monopoly.
GasBandit
Staff member
I didn't say I wanted the government being the ONLY ISP, just that they would have a service.
In other news, all railway lines in all of the US were government-laid and never, ever privately owned. *cough*
Anyway, yeah, like sewers, gas and electricity lines, highways and railroads, in Belgium and most of Europe, the infrastructure is maintained by a public or semi-public company. Unless you want 3 competing railways to put rails down next to one another, it's pretty much the only way to avoid monopolies. Unfortunately, the government-backed infrastructure providers manage to ask monopoly prices for government efficiency and quality. Y'know, the worst of both worlds.
In Europe, there's (still) a very strong push to further liberate all kinds of markets, even those where it's been shown to be a pretty bad idea. Of course, in some cases, the only solution would be to fire anyone and everyone who ever worked in a sector and start all over, but that's not really possible.