FCC Sides with Cable Companies on Tiered Pricing--Netflix Objects

AJL wrote on [Tue, 22 May 2012 23:05:54 -0700]:
> On 5/22/2012 9:25 PM, John Higdon wrote:
>
>>Business telephone service has unlimited plans
>> that would put residence plans to shame.
>
> I would hope so. I pay $17/mo for my residence phone. How much is your
> business phone?
>
>> I have Comcast Business Class Internet because the service is taken
>> seriously by the provider
>
> I'll bet you pay seriously business class prices too, as it should be.

It's only a few dollars more than the residential tier

---

› See More: FCC Sides with Cable Companies on Tiered Pricing--Netflix Objects

On 5/23/12 06:42 , Justin wrote:
> AJL wrote on [Tue, 22 May 2012 22:34:03 -0700]:
>> On 5/22/2012 8:44 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>>> At 22 May 2012 16:37:36 -0700 AJL wrote:
>>
>>> I'm paying them [ISP] for use of the pipes, not the water.
>>
>> Well I've never seen an ISP that charged for use of their infrastructure
>> (pipes). They always charge for data (water). Be it (limited) unlimited
>> data or 100MB of data.
>
> I never saw a dialup ISP that charged per byte that wasn't AOL

Prodigy charged per e-mail, though the connection to the website
and the rest of the service was a flat rate.

Per Todd Allcock:
>Personally, I believe in dumb pipes. Separating content owners from the
>distribution chain is far better for consumers.

I always wondered if there shouldn't be a "Keeper Of The Lines".
Something like the regulated electric companies of days past
whose only role is to maintain the physical wires.

Then let power suppliers and internet providers compete as they
lease the wires.

Dunno how that works out technologically.... and I've got to
wonder about the pace of innovation (would we have fiber running
to our house?).... but the concept seems to be more amenable to
higher efficiency of use and true competition.

Or does it?

Maybe somebody who actually knows something (as opposed to Yours
Truly) can comment?
--
Pete Cresswell

On 5/22/2012 1:38 PM, AJL wrote:
> On Tue, 22 May 2012 11:21:47 -0700, John Higdon<[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Business customers can use as much as they like but home users have to
>> be restricted?
>
> Business and residential users generally get different rates. If I
> used my (unlimited) home phone for a business I expect Cox would be
> inviting me to change to a business plan. Why would an ISP be
> different?

That's correct. Businesses pay a much higher rate. For one thing, they
are more likely to be hosting. Comcast really had no choice as the data
hogs are wreaking havoc on their network. Remember, unlike DSL, each
user doesn't have a separate channel, one cable is shared among a great
many subscribers. That cable is also carrying a load of HD TV channels.

On 5/22/2012 11:05 PM, AJL wrote:
> On 5/22/2012 9:25 PM, John Higdon wrote:
>
>> Business telephone service has unlimited plans
>> that would put residence plans to shame.
>
> I would hope so. I pay $17/mo for my residence phone. How much is your
> business phone?

Things must have changed since AT&T and its predecessors used to charge
businesses significantly higher rates for land line service.

Of course it's pretty much moot these days. If you are already paying
for broadband service then for $129 you can buy an Ooma box and have
unlimited phone service for the price of just the fees. Or you can buy
an Obihai box and use it with Google voices and have unlimited phone
service for free. I got the latter for my daughter who's off to college
soon. The university is dropping landline service to the dorms in Fall
2012, and warned that cell phone reception on campus is sketchy due to
the terrain and the forests.

At home we have Sonic Fusion which bundles the landline. I've gotten
Sonic quite a few customers in my area, people that had never heard of
it. Sonic needs to do some marketing!

On 5/22/2012 6:15 PM, Elmo P. Shagnasty wrote:
> In article<[email protected]>,
> AJL<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> The ISPs could offer the 'illusion' of unlimited service as long as most
>> people used an average amount of data. That went along fine until video
>> sites
>
> you mis*****ed "porn"

Avenue Q had it right...
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiFD6EFVsTg>

SMS wrote on [Wed, 23 May 2012 07:21:23 -0700]:
> On 5/22/2012 1:38 PM, AJL wrote:
>> On Tue, 22 May 2012 11:21:47 -0700, John Higdon<[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Business customers can use as much as they like but home users have to
>>> be restricted?
>>
>> Business and residential users generally get different rates. If I
>> used my (unlimited) home phone for a business I expect Cox would be
>> inviting me to change to a business plan. Why would an ISP be
>> different?
>
> That's correct. Businesses pay a much higher rate. For one thing, they

No, businesses only pay about 5-10 more a month. The 2 year contract
is an issue though

> are more likely to be hosting. Comcast really had no choice as the data
> hogs are wreaking havoc on their network. Remember, unlike DSL, each

Or comcast got you to believe there was such a thing as a data hog, their
marketing is comcastic

> user doesn't have a separate channel, one cable is shared among a great
> many subscribers. That cable is also carrying a load of HD TV channels.

That same cable is used for business lines as well, so that logic fails

Todd Allcock wrote on [Wed, 23 May 2012 09:03:43 -0600]:
> At 23 May 2012 07:30:05 -0700 SMS wrote:
>
>> The university is dropping landline service to the dorms in Fall 2012,
>> and warned that cell phone reception on campus is sketchy due to the
>> terrain and the forests...
>
>
> Gee, add "and there's a crazed killer on the loose..." and it sounds like
> the setup for low-budget horror movie!

Hope there's no power outage... these IP phones are great with no power

In article <[email protected]>,
AJL <[email protected]> wrote:

> I would hope so. I pay $17/mo for my residence phone. How much is your
> business phone?

Less than $50/month for what amounts to the equivalent of dozens of
lines, about a dozen phone numbers, and direct trunks to businesses
around the country.

> I'll bet you pay seriously business class prices too, as it should be.

Considering the much higher level of service, it is more reasonably
priced than residential.

> I would imagine a business account being down should have priority over
> a residential account. If mine goes down permanently I think I could
> survive on my smartphone for a day or so. But so far I've never lost
> service for more than a few hours and it has always restored itself
> (knocks on wood).

If you're using it for recreation rather than business, I guess you can
afford to take chances.

> My guess is that if Comcast could charge business rates to regular
> residential customers they wouldn't need caps either.

In other words, the money people pay for Comcast's content subsidizes
its inferior residential service? I suppose. I don't care about the
content, so I'll just pay a few more dollars directly for the superior
service.

--
John Higdon
+1 415 852-3811

On 05/22/2012 12:52 PM, David Kaye wrote:
> "D. Peter Maus"<[email protected]> wrote
>
>> But the data limits as imposed are less intended to prevent freerides on
>> someone else's service, as much as they are protectionist measures in
>> favor of the carriers' own content services [....]
>
> Prior to the Reagan era there used to be anti-trust laws which told
> companies that not only could they not buy up all the competition, but they
> also could not "vertically integrate", that is, control all levels of
> service such as production, distribution, and end-user retailing.
>
> In the 1950s this led to the breakup of the movie studios. No longer could
> they provide content AND run movie theaters. They had to do one or the
> other. This saved the small mom'n'pop movie theaters from extinction
> because they were able to bid on first-run movies on a level playing field.
>
> Since the studios were allowed to get back into the theater business a few
> years ago, movies have been distributed mostly to owned chains and the
> little mom'n'pop theaters are dropping out of business like flies. In SF,
> the Metro, Roxie, and Balboa have gone non-profit, the Castro is dark 1 or 2
> nights a week, and thousands of theaters have closed across America.
>

Add the Park in Lafayette in that list too. But I suspect they all
shared one problem: the old almost flat auditorium. A number of times I
went to the Park someone 6'5" would plop down in front of me making the
viewing experience poor. Some of these older theaters did remodel to
stadium seating eliminating that problem.

Second the growth of home theater. I would just as soon wait to see a
film that I can watch and pause on my home theater system with a large
screen and surround system. And my own healthier snacks not to mention
better popcorn. And some indie films are available before and in
theatrical release. I often see the films that way as I would have to
drive quite a ways to see that film in a remaining art house and
probably still risk having a 6'5" dude plop down in the seat in front of me.

On 05/22/2012 02:29 PM, David Kaye wrote:
> "D. Peter Maus"<[email protected]> wrote
>
>>
>> They already do.
>
> I'm on Comcast and they don't give preference to NBC programming. Discovery
> is on channel 15, which is basic cable. Faux News, CNN, MSNBC, et al are
> all gathered together on basic and look comparable to the customer.
> Likewise, Comcast also offers History, Biography, and similar channels on
> basic.
>
> What I'm saying is that there'll come a time when Comcast offers a "basic
> basic" service very cheaply which will consist largely of their own channels
> and local brodcasters. I'd bet that you won't be seeing Biography, History,
> Discovery, CNN, or Weather on that service.
>
>

When I called to canceled Showtime because the promo period was over
they offered the "second tier" for $10 a month and a free premium
channel for a year. Since I would have signed up for HBO in time for
"True Blood" at a similar promo price I accepted. However the extra
channels in the second tier including IFC and MGM have been less than
impressive.

The thing is a lot working people just pay the bill and don't think
about how much they are paying for entertainment and entertainment they
don't watch. Back in the 1970s at most I saw a film a week and those
were mostly foreign because I lived in Seattle which had a number of
theaters with those (the rain made movie going popular there). And
because I was playing music 6 nights a week I watched almost NONE of the
popular TV shows of the era. Sunday nights off could be droll on TV
because the networks hadn't yet discovered that people were staying home
that night because Monday was a work day.

On 05/22/2012 10:34 PM, AJL wrote:
> On 5/22/2012 8:44 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
> > At 22 May 2012 16:37:36 -0700 AJL wrote:
>
> >The free market tends to sort these things out.
>
> I couldn't agree more.
>

Really? You let the dogs of capitalism run wild and you wind up with
about two monopolies running things. That's not a "free market" by any
means.

On Tue, 22 May 2012 14:03:14 -0500, "D. Peter Maus"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>After
>all, business phone system and line rates have been prorated and
>linked to gross annual revenue of the subscriber since AG Bell. Only
>residential phones were flat rate.

Ummm.,....for the years that I had an office in a commercial office
building, my Pac*Bell business phone rates were never related to my
gross revenue, only a flat rate.
---
Phil Kane
Beaverton, OR

On Wed, 23 May 2012 07:21:23 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On 5/22/2012 1:38 PM, AJL wrote:
>>
>> Business and residential users generally get different rates. If I
>> used my (unlimited) home phone for a business I expect Cox would be
>> inviting me to change to a business plan. Why would an ISP be
>> different?
>
>That's correct. Businesses pay a much higher rate. For one thing, they
>are more likely to be hosting. Comcast really had no choice as the data
>hogs are wreaking havoc on their network.

High data usage impacts individual nodes, not the greater network nor
the network core.

>Remember, unlike DSL, each
>user doesn't have a separate channel, one cable is shared among a great
>many subscribers.

That's a distinction without a real difference. Cable networks and DSL
networks are both shared networks. The difference is where the sharing
begins, but it's not a significant difference.

>That cable is also carrying a load of HD TV channels.

Not sure what your point is. Video and Internet (and phone) are on
different virtual channels. It's not as if they compete for bandwidth,
except in the minds of the design engineers. Nodes that experience
chronic saturation are typically split, for example.

--
Paul Miner

On 5/23/12 14:13 , Bhairitu wrote:
> On 05/22/2012 10:34 PM, AJL wrote:
>> On 5/22/2012 8:44 PM, Todd Allcock wrote:
>> > At 22 May 2012 16:37:36 -0700 AJL wrote:
>>
>> >The free market tends to sort these things out.
>>
>> I couldn't agree more.
>>
>
> Really? You let the dogs of capitalism run wild and you wind up with
> about two monopolies running things. That's not a "free market" by
> any means.
>

Well, first of all, 'two monopolies' is a contradiction in terms.

Secondly, the dogs of capitalism rarely run wild. In today's
market, there are too many regulations to prevent it. But, that
said, one of the companies, for instance, that threatened to become
a monopoly in the computer industry, was Microsoft. After some
pretty hairy game playing, crushing defeats of rivals for market
share, manipulation of vendors and computer manufacturers to
include, preemptively, Internet Explorer, MS came under pressure
from competitors' lawsuits, and improved competitor products, as
well as customer demands. With resultant competitive OS's,
applications, and dozens of browser products entering, and staying
in, the market. MS still has the Lion's share of the market (sorry,
I couldn't resist) but they are not by far a monopoly, and their
further attempts to curtail competition have resulted in new
product, companies, and innovation for the consumer benefit.

And what near monopolies MS still has, is, in part, a result of
gamesmanship with legislators by playing to the most extreme letter
of, rather than the spirit, of laws resulting from governmental
intervention in the market.

It's hard today, to understand that the Darwinist nature of the
free market is little different than the Darwinist nature of
species' survival in nature. And that interference in the process,
ultimately results in less, not more, successful businesses, and
less, not more, broad and diverse customer satisfaction.

The wolves of Yellowstone should serve as an object lesson about
the dangers of intervention in the Darwinian process.

The explosive burgeoning of Google while MS was dealing with
potential regulatory straitjacketing should serve as an object
lesson in the dangers of intervention in the market.