U.S. Internet Users Pay More for Slower Service

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-27/u-s-internet-users-pay-more-for-slower-service.html



Terry Huval is a large, friendly man with a lilting Southern accent who plays Cajun fiddle tunes in his spare time. He is also the director of utilities in Lafayette, Louisiana. “Our job is making sure we listen to our citizens,” he says.

In recent years, the citizens of Lafayette have been asking for speedier Internet access.

In 2004, the Lafayette utilities system decided to provide a fiber-to-the-home service. The new network, called LUS Fiber, would give everyone in Lafayette a very fast Internet connection, enabling them to lower their electricity costs by monitoring and adjusting their usage.

Push-back from the local telephone company, BellSouth Corp., and the local cable company, Cox Communications Inc., was immediate. They tried to get laws passed to stop the network, sued the city, even forced the town to hold a referendum on the project -- in which the people voted 62 percent in favor. Finally, in February 2007, after five civil lawsuits, the Louisiana Supreme Court voted, 7-0, to allow the network.

[aquart]

1. Why do we have to be the suckers of the western world?

[Sherman A1]

2. That is the question

and one to which we need an answer.

[Fumesucker]

3. You can thank the Invisible Hand for that

[RKP5637]

4. Because many Americans are willfully stupid. I've asked myself that same question over

the years now and as unpalatable as it may be, most Americans are willfully stupid, do not understand the issues other than the rhetoric fed to them, and allow assholes to seize and control most of what they do. Take products in stores, for example, Americans accept absolute junk in many cases and say thank you. It's a country of gullible naive marks.

It's collective willful stupidity. And most will deny it when discussed ... and will have a deer in the headlight look. In fact, just looking at some of the damn fools they vote for local/state is a good example of willful stupidity. Around here they think if they can just get more right wing, more stupid, and more religious everything will be perfect.

[MatthewStLouis]

7. Yep.

They wallow in their ignorance. Is curiosity is dead? People are so mindless. Always going for the cheapest option, heedless of the consequences. Never thinking twice about the fact that nearly everything they buy is made in China. Never asking why their fathers and grandfathers had better paying jobs than they do. Sometimes I wonder if this is the beginning of some sort of descent into a new dark age.

[datasuspect]

11. willfully stupid and PROUD to be so

we deserve EVERYTHING we get.

[reACTIONary]

15. The article asserts that...

..."the current 4 Mbps Internet access goal is unquestionably shortsighted". However, it provides absolutely no rational for that assertion other than to point to a few other countries that have decided that more is better.

Maybe more is better, maybe not. I would like to see a comprehensive rational for why this should be a national goal before launching a large public works program. We have other concerns also, such as equitable and efficient health care, so it might be better to let high speed internet service take care of itself.

[dembotoz]

16. would tend to agreee with the 4 mbps min---perhaps 6 would be better

but the overlooks part is the upload speeds which in this country is pure crap.

att dsl can be what 6 down but only 1/2 uip??????



that is crap upload

as we end up doing more work at home
as we try to turn our homes into wifi hot spots so that our data plans for our phones(separate rant) does not bankrupt us.

we may not strive to be the absolute best but we should strive not to be amoung the absolute worst.

[reACTIONary]

17. I may not understand the issue completely, but...

...if someone needs greater upload capability, they can pay more and get it, correct? Large server oriented businesses (you tube, netflix, banks, etc.) seem to get the bandwidth they need to service their customers.

Or is there some sort of limit regardless of how much you are willing to spend?

[dembotoz]

21. money does factor mightily

big pipes are dropping in cost but my experience has been that most folks are being underserved not overserved.
Not trying to mimic upload speeds of say a netflix but as business large and small and common folks like us develop a taste
for more internet sucking tools and toys bandwidth is an issue.

[madrchsod]

5. there`s a brand new fiber optic cable across the street from my house

no one can use it but the schools and government agencies. so far it`s been a financial failure in other cities around my area. maybe if the opened it up to the public it would be profitable.

[dembotoz]

6. article speaks the truith

i sell bandwidth
what i sold a couple years back is garbage today


situation today is akin to after ww2 and roads
back then we had the balls to develop the interstate system

don't see that focus today

[woo me with science]

8. Of course we do.

We are fucking bought and sold.

[nuxvomica]

9. When I first clicked on the link...

My internet connection went down. Ironic, right?

It is very frustrating when you read what the government could provide cheaply but the moneyed interests lobby and litigate against, just so they can gouge or exclude people to the detriment of the overall economy. Our rigged economy can't continue because it's ultimately counterproductive to commerce but how much damage will be done -- how much farther behind do we get compared to other countries --before people wake up. I still hear people say how wasteful government is compare to private industry. There is probably no bigger or more insidious myth.

[Old Codger]

10. Very true

I pay $70 a month for what is supposed to 1.3 megs it is slow it is over priced it is all I can get other than sat. service it is also over subscribed to the extent that I get those speeds about 25% of the time.. It is a ripoff for sure.
Some times I have to reload 4 or 5 times to get a page to load and then a good part of the time I just have to give it up.
They send someone out and fiddle with it and go away and it stays the same.


Frontier Net


Edited to add: across the back of my pasture lies the main fiber cable for almost all of comcast phone and internet but I cannot access it.

[shanti]

18. comcast

it sucks, but that's what i have and it is also...$70 a month. the service used to go down continually, but hasn't lately. i still feel that i'm being gouged by comcast. the only way it will go down is if i bundle it with other services, but i refuse to do that.

[mwooldri]

12. Worse in NC - the Telco and Cableco legislated the competition away.

With help from certain NC state legislators, TWC and AT&T and others managed to get laws passed that local government (city, county, etc) cannot really get involved in launching and running a community Internet service, effectively making it illegal for them to do so.

I'm glad Lafayette was able to get done what local governments in NC wasn't able to achieve.

[freethought]

20. The Governor didn't help the situation either

It's not really illegal per se, but the legislative roadblocks makes it so difficult that it may as well be. That particular piece of legislation had ALEC's fingerprints all over it. Governor Bev Purdue displayed incredible cowardice when that legislation came across her desk, she neither vetoed it or signed it, which made it law by default.

[Egalitarian Thug]

23. This scenario has been repeated all over the nation. I've seen it in LA and Portland. n/t

[Panasonic]

13. My DSL line just got upgraded.

And costs FAR less than what I should be paying for a 40/20 line. I pay $85 to Comcast for 30/5 (and most of the time I get is 20), and Centurylink is offering a 12 month contract for $55/month. Centurylink wouldn't even upgrade until I left them early Feb. Guess they dug around and slapped in a VDSL line.

I gotta pay for the equipment, and the earliest I can probably order is Jan 3rd, and the minute I get dsl up and running (and verified) bye Comcast and their overpriced service and hello Centurylink (for at least a year)

[In_The_Wind]

14. My service is slower than ever.

I do see a hugh difference depending on the time I'm online.

[dickthegrouch]

19. The conspiracy theorist in me says

Part of the reason for that is the NSA's data collection program can't keep up with the explosion of data transferring all over the world. "They" are shit scared that they won't be able to monitor and pacify us us if the speeds or amounts of data increase too rapidly.

Well, guess what? The more we increase the amount of data the more difficult it will be for the supposed authorities to track us. Bring it on, download a movie or 10 today.

BTW, IMHO if spam was a real problem a few years back, the NSA would have shut it down in very short order. In fact it was training grounds for NSA and others to perfect their tracking mechanisms and was barely a speck in overall bandwidth capability. Now with smart phones and You Tube and Facebook and Instagram and others, the amount of data is certainly exploding. The US is falling behind on many measures. All the banksters will have left soon is excuses and wads of useless cash.

[Egalitarian Thug]

22. We paid for national broadband back in the 90s. The Clinton administration paid

the big telecoms billions upon billions of dollars. The telecoms put in cheap crap and used the rest to buy up their competition, and the government did nothing. Investigations were blocked, prosecutions were ordered stopped, and when a few municipalities tried to provide their own, telecoms had the means to keep them bottled up in court until it became too expensive to keep fighting.