Protest in front of the FCC
goldenfrog.com
goldenfrog.com
"The mayor [of New York] recognizes this as an economic justice issue, and economic justice issues tend to be fought in the courts," said Andrew Rasiej, chairman of the NY Tech Meetup. "It's natural that [the mayor's] counsel would be engaged in that fight."
When you turn fiber deployment into an "economic justice issue" you can't be surprised that nobody wants to compete in your community.
I would imagine it's most likely something about coverage. That they aren't going to let VZ get a franchise that allows them to only offer service to only the most profitable few.
Which seems in the public interest.
How much would "jpl" be complaining if the actual deployment meant his street wasn't worth covering even though the high-rise apartments down the block were?
But I still don't see how competition is going to fix it. It's obvious why a newcomer would want to enter a market where its incumbent competitors have build out requirements and it doesn't -- it would have a cost advantage with which to bludgeon the incumbents. But that would destroy the incumbents. How could they compete in the long run on such unequal terms?
You're also only solving the problem for a minority of people. Competition could be effective in the highest density areas, but what about all the areas that are only profitable enough to justify a fiber roll out for a provider with more than 50% of the customers? No one is going to be the second to enter a market in which the existence of a competitor would destroy profitability for both providers.
I'll give you that eliminating the build out requirements is worth doing. I'm just not convinced that it's enough on its own.
Some people think that they did: to the tune of $200 billion. See [1]: the $200 BILLION Broadband Scandal
The government can't build fiber with money it never had. Read the referenced PDF. Its Glen Beck-worthy, "connect the dots" bullshit.
Net neutrality needs to be protected & it's great many are getting involved and angry about this & not just because their netflix is going up $1 and they're already paying Verizon or Comcast or someone else a small fortune every year. I predicted abuses like Verizon 5+ years ago and strongly advocated to only allow what I call "Net Prejudice" or prejudicial networks (what Verizon/Cisco euphemistically call QoS) if there is no additional payment involved, otherwise such networks would strongly tend to be extortionist. Sadly only Wikipedia & the Economist of more mainstream publications picked up on it & cited the warning.
(Great coverage from Golden Frog & I love their VyprVPN though Hulu seems to have them and everyone figured out ;-)
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-tom-wheeler...
I can understand believing that net neutrality is, on the balance, the most beneficial regulatory solution. But dismissing the opposition as "disgusting" shows nothing more than small-mindedness.
Cable companies are not legally monopolies almost anywhere. Any franchise renegotiated since 1992 must be non-exclusive under federal law. And if you dig into it, it's cities that kill competition deals, not cable companies. Houses have FIOS in the shadow of Comcast Center in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, San Francisco blocked U-Verse expansion because AT&T's cabinets were ugly. Who exactly is at fault of perpetuating the lack of competition?
> The Internet should be treated as a utility.
That's how we got in this mess in the first place, monopolies and all. Cable companies were treated as public utility monopolies. Capital investment stagnated, because public utilities have little financial incentive to do anything other than simply keep infrastructure (barely) functional. The 1992 reform to deregulate cable and make exclusive franchises illegal wasn't a total success, but look at what happened to cable technology and investment since then relative to DSL (which remained relatively more regulated).
I don't love the internet because of Hulu or Netflix or iTunes or whatever else, I love it because of Wikipedia and edX, and countless other stuff that's put there by everyday people. That's what's in danger.
> They don't use much bandwidth, wouldn't pay much before just shutting down, and are very sympathetic.
Wikipedia consumes a lot of bandwidth. Okay, not as much as Netflix, but what about the Wikipedia of tomorrow - which houses lots of high-quality media? It feels like there might not be one if net neutrality is beaten. Or the future of education that's video lectures for the masses. Etc.
Looking at the blockchain for answers.
Don't underestimate the power of an outraged public.
It worked for SOPA.
Needless to say, I was disappointed.
Now I suspect that they are actively harmful. The moment you do that, you invite easy comparisons between yourself/your cause and several heavily maligned causes/groups which use similar tactics, such as anti-abortion protesters, tea party groups, and worse of all: "Occupy [location]" groups.
If the objective is to increase public awareness, then there are more media-savvy ways of going about that. If the objective is to influence the opinions of the people who are in the immediate geographic neighborhood of your protest, then it might work but not in the way that you intended... You will likely inspire disdain where there was once apathy.
Physical, on-site protests using signs to convey disdain is not a tactic limited to any one group, it is the universal protest technique throughout the globe and has been so for longer than I can probably imagine.
When you give a third party (the media, in this case) the ability to MITM your message (through selective editing, and 'editorial' segments in which the talking heads openly insult and belittle the protesters), "any publicity is good publicity" is no longer true.
The way to avoid this is to not rely on the media to broadcast your message, but to do it yourself. That way concerned or interested members of the public can access your unadulterated message, not just a version of it that was hashed up by cable news.