[1] I think this is where tech companies pay a price for having to awkwardly straddle the ideological divide. You come in calling for more regulation to increase competition and entrepreneurship, and people have no idea what to make of you.
[1] I think this is where tech companies pay a price for having to awkwardly straddle the ideological divide. You come in calling for more regulation to increase competition and entrepreneurship, and people have no idea what to make of you.
Additionally, it's got an incredibly harmful effect on free speech. As the Internet becomes the main means of all communication and discourse, if ISPs are allowed to regulate how content reaches their subscribers, what's to stop them from restricting access to particular news sources? Or even filtering political campaign website that haven't paid up?
Without net neutrality, the Internet will become just a network of toll roads patrolled by highwaymen trying to shake down travelers for what they can get. For us to get the full potential of the Internet, the tools and the highwaymen need to go.
"We've determined more Fords drive on this particular than any other brand of car, pay up or Ford vehicles will be intentionally limited or cut off from using this road" — Users (or in this example motorists) have already paid the appropriate entities; car registration, licence fees and insurance, now the road authority wants a cut from every car manufacturer because they're responsible for the roads being used.
When you put it all into perspective with those metaphors, it really highlights how damaging and ridiculous anti-net neutrality laws could be for the Internet.
Not a bet I'd want to make. Would you like being the ISP who only had limited access to all Google's websites because you wouldn't pay?
No. They are using public right-of-way, which is worth a lot (far more than the typical monopoly franchise fees paid to local governments). This isn't hard to calculate. Figure out how much right of way is found in a building lot, then multiply by the number of dwellings and the mean cost of leasing bare land in that city.
If they want a free market with "privatization" and "deregulation", let them actually compete in one.
You would see very, very different pricing and service models if (e.g.) cities put in underground conduits and let anyone with the money to pay a lease fee pull their cable.
And the cost of renting space on utility polls or underground doesn't come near the cost of the surface property rights. And cable companies pay billions a year in franchise fees. Though I'd be interested to see a calculation...
Cable franchise fees appear to be ~5% max (federal law), but ~3% seems to be more common (don't take that as solid -- it's based on a couple of minutes of Googling).
Figure a cable bill of ~$100/month. The city will get $3.00 of that.
It seems unlikely that property owners in general would let you run cables across their land for a measly $3.00/month. I wouldn't. And remember, that $3.00 only comes from the ones that are cable subscribers. The actual amount paid to the city is going to be somewhat less (it will vary depending on how many subscribers there are).
So, yeah, it looks like the cities are undervaluing the right-of-way access considerably.
Wouldn't cable companies just run trunk cables down all the city streets, and only run cables on your property (from your house to the trunk on the street) if you sign up for service?
I'm required by law to pay about 80 cents per foot, per year, for underground conduit in a right-of-way within the city's eminent domain. That's roughly $4,200 per mile, per year, per fraction of conduit. (That price doesn't even get you a whole conduit, just a fraction of an inch within one).
If each house is on a 80 foot wide lot down a residential road, it costs me a minimum $5.50 a month per house. And that assumes that every single house pays for that service. If I only have 10% saturation in an area (a 'best case' scenario) it's closer $55/month per house.
That also totally ignores state taxes (they take a few cents too, for every mile used, every single year, even though they have nothing to do with the process).
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I'd also love to know where this "5% max" you mention comes from. The rates I pay are fixed, regardless of the cost of service. (I could give internet connections away for free, I still owe at a minimum $4,200 per mile for right of way).
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Comcast may have some special deal that I don't get, but even if they have a guaranteed 100% monopoly, I have to imagine that they pay more than $3/month per home for right of way.
Note that this is for cable television. If you're just running an ISP, it doesn't apply.
Then again, we can make the same argument about utility providers. If a private electricity provider asks for a share of the payment of the video being served using the electricity that they supply, where should this stop?
I'm beginning to think that we'll eventually end ip with a middle ground where some usages of communication infrastructure are regulated (such as emergency response) and some others are in the market.
While folks are arguing about whether such a breakage of net neutrality will be bad for consumers, are there at least any reasonable market simulations that point out good/bad out omes for each party involved, includin consumers?