Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Hannibal]

You guys have just named off a huge cornucopia of market options and you are complaining that the free market doesn't offer options.

[Hannibal]

http://www.si.com/more-sports/2014/12/17/future-cable-sports-tv

I predict that when the dust settles in several years we'll be back to paying what we were before we cut the cord in the first place.

This might happen. At some point, a per-GB charge on internet use is probably coming. Up until now, carriers have been trying to manage traffic by throttling specific types of use.

Also, as with college football ticket prices, I think that content providers are finally finding the ceiling where people finally say "fuck this, I can live without it" and walk away. I know that DirecTV is giving them more and more pushback each time that they ask for a higher tariff. I would say that I hope that we see an ala carte system some day from them, but I am probably one of the people who benefits from the subsidies provided by the people who never hardly watch any of their channels. I have shows from about 25 different channels on my DVR right now and my family regularly uses all three of our TVs.

[Jeff Buchanan]

You guys have just named off a huge cornucopia of market options and you are complaining that the free market doesn't offer options.

Not to get deeply into this discussion because they are usually fruitless but .....

European, South Korean and Indian Telecom and TV systems provide customers with massively more advanced capabilities than what US customers have. Free enterprise, in this narrow case, has not produced better technology. Instead it has become a race to the bottom for this industrie's competitors with the winner able to market the cheapest equipment that US consumers will not complain about when it predictably fails to deliver.

I have no idea what foreign models for these systems I mention above look like. I just know, to them, when they visit the US, they laugh. When I travel to Europe or Asia, I'm dumbfounded at how reliable their phone service is. Cabled (copper or fiber but mostly fiber) TV broadcast transmissions have few bandwidth restrictions because companies transmitting these signals aren't trying to compress them or limit data transmission to improve their bottom lines. In Japan and South Korea, CATV transmissions are uniformly 4K and 8K UHDTV. That's 4X and 8X the pixel resolution we have routinely available in our TVs and CATV or OTA broadcasters have the equipment to receive/Transmit.

Internet and Wifi services run at download speed 5X what we are used to in our most basic services. No one that I speak to that lives in these places is getting ripped off for the provision of "high speed" internet that is a fraction of what is provided as basic service for much less money in the countries I mention. Their high speed stuff is in the terabyte range. The average home based user in the US is still looking at 60gigs as the top end of download speeds. Shameful.

So, yeah, I'm a free market advocate to a point. Let's remember, there is a mid-point between free market and regulated economies in some service industries that usually work squite efficiently while protecting the interests of businesses and consumers.

[hack]

They're not competing on services or technology roll-out. The tech is behind most places in the world. I don't see what's free about this market in that sense. But, indeed, there are other countries with less choice and better service. This is a story best understood by what's happening in Washington.

And, in this case, there's no free-market option to provide an unattainable utopia of efficient-market behavior. There can't be open usage of spectrum because no signals would be clear. There's no way around regulation. The question is whether the regulations will be established and applied on behalf of consumers or on behalf of providers.

[Mike]

You guys have just named off a huge cornucopia of market options and you are complaining that the free market doesn't offer options.

I don't know how it is where you live but I've only ever had one option for broadband internet service. I've had all three of the major players, Comcast, Time Warner, and Charter in various locations in the U.S. However, I have never had any choice over which one I would choose. They negotiate with municipalities to create local monopolies. There is no free market for broadband that I am aware of. DirecTV tried to pitch me some ATT Uverse crap that was 8 mbs for the same price I get 60 mbs from Charter so I don't even consider that a realistic option. It would be like a mom and pop cable company offering 50 channels in SD. That would satisfy virtually nobody and can't be counted as actual competition to, say, Comcast. So as long as I have no choice in which carrier I can use, the ISP shouldn't have a choice in which websites they'd like to throttle.

Frankly, there is very little, if any, discernible difference in the quality of each broadband service. Then again, why should there be? It's like electricity to me. I don't care where it comes from as long as the lights come on when I flip the switch.

Hack: The question is whether the regulations will be established and applied on behalf of consumers or on behalf of providers.

Fortunately, the FCC took a huge step in the right direction last week. The Internet was developed by the U.S. military, National Science Foundation, and a slew of public universities, all public institutions using public funds, and is distributed largely on a telecom grid that is classified as a public good. I find it offensive as a consumer when Comcast acts like they invented time travel.

[hack]

Indeed. Surprising and pleasing. Here's another element of it: http://www.newyorker.com/business/cu...net-neutrality.

IMO from a free-market perspective what's going on is a process of creative destruction. That's a part of the game, and those with business models outdated are supposed to fight it. It's now a choice between doing what's best for this small gropu or doing what's best for the economy, businesses that rely on efficient telecommunications for their own operations, and for consumers.

[Prime2]

Google Fiber holds the future IMO. An incredible high-tech cash cow whose very survival depends on cheap/free global connectivity.

Their "basic" package is offered "free" for 7 years provided you pay a $300 installation charge on as a much as you'd like to pay, monthly basis.

$300 bucks / 84 months = $3.57 p/m or amortized daily, works out to .11 cents per day.

Neanderthal Cable Companies don't invest in infrastructure and technology, they merely increase their rates as necessary thanks to their bought and sold cronies in Congress.

I remember as a kid when we first got cable, it was either $12 or $19 bucks per month, I thought wow this great!

[Hannibal]

Not to get deeply into this discussion because they are usually fruitless but .....

European, South Korean and Indian Telecom and TV systems provide customers with massively more advanced capabilities than what US customers have. Free enterprise, in this narrow case, has not produced better technology. Instead it has become a race to the bottom for this industrie's competitors with the winner able to market the cheapest equipment that US consumers will not complain about when it predictably fails to deliver.

A big part of your problem is that you live in Atlanta. Atlanta is a banana republic shithole when it comes to infrastructure. It is abysmal. By far the worst that I have ever experienced. I lived there for 18 miserable months and I was astonished at how nonfunctional basic services like electricity, running water, cable, and telephone were. Far, far worse than New Orleans, a city that is infamous for poor infrastructure, poverty, and corruption. So, I'm not surprised that you are blown away by the telecommuncations performances in other countires. You would be blown away if you came to my house. I have had the opposite experience as you when I went to other countries and used their internet.

I can only speak for myself, but I have absolutely no problems with my phone or broadband where I live (NW Ohio). Absolutely, positively none. I can play on-line games with zero lag (as long as it's not on Playstation's shitty network) and I can download huge (10+GB) games from Steam in an hour or two. Fifteen years ago I had no HD TV, I had no internet on my phone, and I couldn't watch a five minute 240p video without ten minutes of buffering. Now, I can video chat on my phone in my living room, I can watch 1080p movies instantly on Pay-per-view from any TV in my house, and I can surf a few terabytes of porn in a manner of minutes. I can watch a show from one DVR anywhere in my house. If I miss a Michigan football game, I can download it through peer-to-peer technology in a matter of hours. Tech-wise, I'm better off than I was fifteen or even just five years ago, and I'm not living in some fortunate elite infrastructure bubble. It's costing me me more, but I'm getting a lot more. You'll have to forgive me if I don't see this crisis that requires the government to swoop in and save me. But hey man, I'm sure that the same government that completely fucked up the housing market, college tuition prices, Social Security, and medical care is going to do a bangup job on the internet, amirite?

Is the rest of the civilized world better off than us? Convince me and show me some stats with average speeds and availabilities. You tell me they are watching 4K TV in other parts of the world already? I call bullshit. There isn't even content for it yet. If there is a network anywhere in the world that has been built for 4K television, I guarantee you it's not being pushed to capacity. You don't even need that much data anyways. The human eye can barely discern between 1080p and 720p without a huge TV, and sports are all still in 720p. To distinguish between 2160p and 1080p you need a TV the size of your living room wall.

Are you tired of paying so much for TV? Blame the content providers. They are the ones raising the fees. Massive increases in disposable income and leisure time in the United States (and the rest of the world for that matter) have led to hyperinflation in almost all forms of leisure. Sports salaries, sports ticket prices, and budgets for movies and video games have all wildly outpaced inflation. So have the broadcast rights for sports and the cost of a 30 second slot in the Super Bowl. The cost is getting passed along to us, and we pay it because we have more leisure time than we did 50 years ago and we don't have to worry about having enough money to buy food.

[Mike]

I'm happy with the quality of my broadband, too. I run my phone, computers, and TV all off my home network now. The single biggest problem I have with the ISPs is that there is no competition for broadband. If I had multiple options, I would be in your camp, Hannibal. All your points are valid. But I'll be damned if an ISP will choose to load one service faster than another based on whatever alliances they have when I don't have the option to go with a different carrier. That's why I'm glad this "fast lane, slow lane" bullshit was struck down last week. You don't see Consumers Energy pricing their kilowatts based on what brand of appliances you run in your house. Maytag washers get one price but electricity for Whirlpool is cheaper! I'll decide what to do with my bandwidth, thank you very much.

As far as TV goes, there IS competition from satellite and online streaming services so for me this battleground is only over the Internet. Like you mentioned in a previous post, people are reaching a point where they say "fuck it, I can do without". That's where I'm at. There are better things I can be doing with my time and/or money, IMO. My current setup provides everything I want except FSD and it would cost me between $70-$80 to add that to my lineup (by going back to a bundled Charter package). I don't like missing the Red Wings games but maybe it will help to bring about a la carte programming choices. As far as sports goes, the only sacred cow is Michigan football and we should see a big increase in games on local ABC as we become more relevant. The rest I can access through my FreeSPN or go somewhere to watch so I'm not worried about it.

[hack]

I can't speak to TV, but I can talk about voice and data. Many banana republics have it better than us. To an extent the expansive geography of the US makes network buildup more expensive. And a big part of it is that early adapters have older infrastructure now, and later-to-the-party places have fresher. That's true across many categories of infrastructure, in which what the US has is aged and shabby on a global scale. And the average country's size makes it much easier to cover. Is what it is.

But that doesn't explain being five minutes from the metro in DC and not getting service.

[Mike]

This explains it. The U.S. is 27th out of 198 countries in download speed - above average for the developed world. 39th out of 114 for mobile. Looks like Hack is onto something about smaller countries being able to provide the best service simply by taking up less geographic space.

http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/

[WM Wolverine]

American is far more 'spaced' out than the countries above them. Doesn't create a fair comparison.

[Jeff Buchanan]

BS?...... those of you rationalizing the shit telecom and CATV capabilities in the US compared to just about anywhere else with a decent technology base and even a handful of "banana republics" with capabilities more advanced than, yes, even Atlanta, as justification for unrestrained free market economic practices in this narrowly defined industry are nuts.

Admittedly, this is a hugely complex issue not reducible to internet dialogue where participants have varying and broad agendas. Like I said, these discussions are fruitless.

Hanni, you've made your point. It's not likely we are going to agree on much here. Glad your living well from an infrastructure standpoint in Ohio. Recently read flush toilets are now pretty common. Have you been to Japan lately? South Korea? Walking down the street, you'll see 4k UHDTV in lots of shop windows. Pretty impressive on a mere 60 inches. And damn straight. I can tell the difference.

[hack]

American is far more 'spaced' out than the countries above them. Doesn't create a fair comparison.

I dunno. I get the sense that if a majority of Americans understood how much they pay and how little they get for it they might be thinking something different about fairness.

[Hannibal]

Jeff --

1. Move out of Atlanta. When it comes to the basic conveniences of life that city fucking sucks.
2. Get DirecTV

Walking down the street, you'll see 4k UHDTV in lots of shop windows.

If they are in 4K then they are playing tech demos instead of actual broadcasts. Let's revisit this issue when everyone's evening news, movies, sports, and TV shows are all being broadcast in 2160p. I'm still waiting for my sports to get to 1080p. The equipment is out there to watch it on and my iphone can capture videos in 1080p. Why hasn't that happened yet?