[ale] Ale Digest, Vol 86, Issue 8
Jim Kinney
jkinney at jimkinney.us
Mon Mar 9 18:17:31 EDT 2015
Excellent example and explanation!
Here's hoping the non-abuse of customers gets promoted and the abuse of customers get strongly slapped down.
I would actual buy cable tv again if I could get the 5 or 6 channels we ever watched for closer to $25/mo instead $100/mo.
On March 9, 2015 6:10:32 PM EDT, Allan Richardson <jallan32 at att.net> wrote:
>Let's go back to the 19th century for a minute. You own a railroad
>(call it Railroad A); there is a steel mill in city X, and a coal mine
>in city Y. You make money hauling coal from Y to X at a market
>determined rate (the steel mill gets its iron ore from somewhere else
>on
>another railroad), and hauling steel from X to many places, and the
>coal
>mine, steel mill and iron ore mine make money. Everybody's happy.
>
>Then you see a chance to buy a bankrupt coal mine in city Z, which is a
>
>bit farther from X than Y is from X, so your freight hauling rates for
>coal from /your/// mine in Z to the steel mill in X are higher than
>what
>you have been charging from Y to X, so the steel mill continues to buy
>from Y rather than Z. But since your railroad and your coal mine are
>parts of the same company, you can instead haul freight from /your/
>coal
>mine at Z to the steel mill at X at a /loss/, and make up the
>difference
>by stealing business from Y, who does /not/ have the advantage of his
>own railroad going to X. For reasons like this, the Congress back in
>the 1880s created the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission) and
>designated the railroads as /common carriers/, meaning that they must
>publish a price for hauling commodity C from X to Y or from Y to X,
>known as a /tariff/, and charge /all/ customers, including subsidiaries
>
>of the railroads, according to the same tariffs. Or better yet,
>railroads should not /own/ other business which are customers of the
>railroad.
>
>This same philosophy was extended in the 20th century to trucks,
>airlines, bus lines and telephone/telegraph lines (not sure about river
>
>barges): if your business is carrying it, you have to treat the cargo
>(or passengers or messages) of your own subsidiaries (if you have any)
>the same as any other customers' cargo (or passengers or messages).
>With some exceptions and modifications, this has worked well in those
>businesses, and /informally/ the internet carriers have followed the
>same practice until the last few years. The new regulations do not
>involve government telling internet relaying organizations or last-mile
>
>ISP carriers how to do their business, only how /not/ to do it: namely,
>
>putting a web based business owned by someone else at a disadvantage,
>or
>out of business, in favor of a competing web based business owned by
>the
>internet carrier.
>
>If a Comcast owned video rental download business had to compete fairly
>
>with Netflix, or with a company which might become the next Netflix,
>rather than loading the outside customer with extra charges to avoid
>fatally slow delivery of its products, this would encourage innovation
>rather than stifle it. /Allowing/ ISP manipulation of the speed and
>time
>delay of its service on the basis of /who/ the customer is, would
>effectively stifle /anyone other than/ Comcast, AT&T, etc. from being
>able to create innovative products.
>
>Almon Strowger's funeral home business suffered when his competitor's
>wife became the town telephone operator and switched funeral customers
>to her husband's business. He invented the rotary dial and stepper
>switch to fix that problem. Let's continue to honor his memory.
>
>Allan Richardson
>
>On 3/9/2015 12:00 PM, ale-request at ale.org wrote:
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>> Today's Topics:
>>
>> 1. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Damon L. Chesser)
>> 2. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (DJ-Pfulio)
>> 3. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Paul Cartwright)
>> 4. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (DJ-Pfulio)
>> 5. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Jim Kinney)
>> 6. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Solomon Peachy)
>> 7. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Robert Reese)
>> 8. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Robert Reese)
>> 9. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Robert Reese)
>> 10. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Paul Cartwright)
>> 11. Re: Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out net
>> neutrality | Ars Technica (Brian Mathis)
>> 12. Re: Linux-like gui text editor for MacOS? (Chad Huneycutt)
>>
>>
>>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sun, 08 Mar 2015 12:16:51 -0400
>> From: "Damon L. Chesser" <damon at damtek.com>
>> To: ale at ale.org
>> Subject: Re: [ale] Republicans? ?Internet Freedom Act? would wipe out
>> net neutrality | Ars Technica
>> Message-ID: <54FC75F3.7030200 at damtek.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"; Format="flowed"
>>
>> Like the other poster, I don't see a monopoly. I jump from comcast
>to
>> AT at T as it suites me. I could go dish if I want. You can go digital
>TV
>> over the air with a very minimal investment for 100% free delivery.
>Of
>> course, I don't subscribe to ANYBODIES tv content, only Internet
>> service. But seeing as how you can watch so much junk on the
>Internet,
>> via smart TVs, via providers like Crackle, HBO, Hulu, etc, where is
>the
>> monopoly?
>>
>> Does not Comcast have a right to say who will use their circuit and
>for
>> how much? And your contract with Hulu has nothing to do with Hulo's
>> contract with Comcast. Don't like them? Dump them. Here is a news
>> flash: Cable TV is a dying bread as more and more people cut the
>wire.
>>
>> As more and more people cut the wire, the costs keep getting added to
>> the less and less and the profits are actually rising with a
>decreasing
>> subscriber base. It's crazy. smaller and smaller groups say they
>> "NEED" the tv cable and there is no way around it. News flash:
>stop
>> watching cable TV and the need for paying for less goes away. NO
>> federal law required. No dualopoly, or "open market" required.
>People
>> just are not using cable any more and the market is going away.
>>
>>
>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-03-19/u-s-pay-tv-subscriptions-fall-for-first-time-as-streaming-gains
>>
>> and I totally fail to see how separating out "content providers" from
>> "creators" would do anything other than make it more expensive to
>> "create content".
>>
>> If you don't like them, don't pay for them. That is what I do and it
>is
>> working quite well, for me. I only pay for Internet service and I
>jump
>> ship at the tiniest provocation on to the next provider.
>>
>>
>> On 03/08/2015 10:57 AM, Pete Hardie wrote:
>>> Comcast being ISP and content creator is part of the problem. They
>>> will prioritize their content over someone else's ,and since they
>have
>>> a monopoly on delivery, it is de facto unfair
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 8, 2015 at 10:47 AM, Byron Jeff
>>> <byronjeff at mail.clayton.edu <mailto:byronjeff at mail.clayton.edu>>
>wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 08, 2015 at 07:41:27AM -0400, DJ-Pfulio wrote:
>>> > I lived in Houston before moving here - not in a baby-bell
>area.
>>> My phone was
>>> > $11/month. Moved to Smyrna - BellSouth - $26/month.
>>> >
>>> > 'nuff said.
>>> >
>>>
>>> Standard land line. How quaint!
>>>
>>> VOIP and Google Voice has deregulated this market already. I
>have a
>>> Callcentric DID with E911 service for $4.50 a month. Incoming
>>> calls routed
>>> in via GV. By virtualizing my home number, I never have to
>worry
>>> about that
>>> number being tied to a particular provider ever again. If I
>ever
>>> give up my
>>> AT&T cell service, I'll do exactly the same with my cell
>number.
>>>
>>> > Don't get me started about power issues where I lived in
>Houston.
>>> >
>>> > Comcast needs to be broken up, but not in the same way that
>AT*T
>>> was. More like
>>> > how natural gas has been deregulated in Georgia.
>>>
>>> There isn't a direct correlation between the two. The primary
>>> difference is
>>> the fact that natural gas is exactly the same no matter who's
>>> marketing it.
>>> However with digital content, each provider offers different
>>> content that
>>> has to be delivered. Comcast has comcast only content that
>neither
>>> Charter,
>>> AT&T, or Dish offers. So instead of GNG, which can centralize
>all gas
>>> delivery operations for every marketer using the same
>>> infrastructure, in
>>> your proposed scenario each provider would have to have a
>>> connection to the
>>> head end of the delivery provider and the delivery provider
>would
>>> have to
>>> carry enough bandwidth to deliver every content providers
>content
>>> at the
>>> same time.
>>>
>>> Don't you think there will be a cost attached to that? One of
>the
>>> reasons I
>>> finally turned off my natural gas service was the fact that GNG
>was
>>> charging me nearly $40/month simply for the priviledge of
>>> providing gas to
>>> my meter. No matter if it's 1 therm or 100, the base delivery
>and
>>> tax was a
>>> $40+ base. Can you imagine how much a centralized content
>delivery
>>> provider
>>> would charge simply for access?
>>>
>>> How exactly is the market closed? Right now I can get Comcast
>(which I
>>> would never do, long story), AT&T UVerse, Dish, and DirectTV.
>In
>>> fact in
>>> the last 5 years I've had service with each of the above and
>>> except for
>>> Dish I've kicked each and every one of them to the curb at one
>>> point in
>>> time or another. There's nothing to preclude Verizon or Google
>from
>>> entering the fray.
>>>
>>> Comparing digital content delivery to natural gas deregulation
>is
>>> an apples
>>> to gorillas argument, seems to me.
>>>
>>> BAJ
>>>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On 03/07/2015 04:24 PM, Jim Lynch wrote:
>>> > > The Judge made my life harder. Before his ruling, I picked
>up
>>> the phone and
>>> > > called AT&T when the network wasn't working. It got fixed.
>>> Afterwards, I
>>> > > called AT&T and after a bit, they told me it wasn't their
>>> problem, so I called
>>> > > Racal Milgo and guess what? It wasn't their problem
>either.
>>> It took 2x 3x
>>> > > maybe 4x the amount of time to get the network back.
>>> > >
>>> > > Progress...
>>> > > On 03/07/2015 04:14 PM, James Taylor wrote:
>>> > >> Now you're making us all feel old....
>>> > >> -jt
>>> > >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > Ale mailing list
>>> > Ale at ale.org <mailto:Ale at ale.org>
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>>>
>>> --
>>> Byron A. Jeff
>>> Chair: Department of Computer Science and Information
>Technology
>>> College of Information and Mathematical Sciences
>>> Clayton State University
>>> http://faculty.clayton.edu/bjeff
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Ale mailing list
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>>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
>>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Pete Hardie
>>> --------
>>> Better Living Through Bitmaps
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>
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