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

On May 23, 12:24*pm, Phil Kane <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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.

While not proportional to revenue, I remember that business rates were
higher than residential for the same service, because my parents ran a
small business out of our home, and for the occasional business-
related phone call did not want to pay the higher business rate. They
did pay for a business phone at our biggest customer, so that my
mother could get hold of my father if she needed to -- that phone
lacked a dial, to keep expenses down.

---

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

On 5/23/12 14:24 , Phil Kane wrote:
> 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
>



I first learned of this when I worked at AT&T, at 1010 Pine in
St Louis. I hadn't heard of it, either. When I asked, I was told
that since the phone was necessary to conduct business, that AT&T
was a defacto partner, and therefore entitled to a higher rate. So
phone rates were tied to annual business revenue.

I asked how that was measured, and was told it was a line item
on the application form for phone service, which could be taken over
the phone, orally, or in writing, in person, at the center. When I
pointed out that revenue was no one's business but the business
owner and Uncle Sam, I was told, 'that's too bad. You want a phone,
you have to pay.'

Later when I opened my own business, and ordered a phone, one of
the items requested was annual revenue. When I said 'no.' The
Service Rep responded, "oh, that's all right, we'll compute that for
you...What type of business is this?"

Now, this was all prior to divestiture. And it was in St Louis
which was served by Southwestern Bell, at the time.

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

>For one thing, they
>are more likely to be hosting.

Detail: The TOS for Comcast business class requires that businesses
get a static IP address to do hosting:
<http://business.comcast.com/smb/terms-conditions>
- The Service cannot be used to run servers unless you have
selected a Service plan which includes a static or
statically assigned IP address.
- If you have selected a Service plan with a static or
statically assigned IP address, the Service can be used
to host a public website.
Static IP's are about $4 to $15/ea per month depending on the size of
the IP block.

Comcast is really interested in selling business class bundles and
service. I've been getting mailing from them one per week for perhaps
the last 6 years.


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558
# http://802.11junk.com [email protected]
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

On Tue, 22 May 2012 14:01:37 -0700, AJL <[email protected]> wrote:

>The ISP is a business, not a charity. The *sole purpose* is to make
>shareholders happy (if a public company).

The "sole purpose" is to provide a product or service to customers at
a fair and equitable rate which will make everyone happy and most
important, keep the customers coming back. That is the only way to
make the shareholders happy in the long run.
---
Phil Kane
Beaverton, OR

On Tue, 22 May 2012 14:23:23 -0700, John Higdon <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Which is why content providers should not be data carriers and visa
>versa.

The FCC's standard for common carriers was 50%. I don't know whether
they care any more.

On Tue, 22 May 2012 14:29:12 -0700, "David Kaye"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>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.

IIRC that's what one gets with their Digital Transport Adapter, their
name for the gizmo (technical term) that allows continued use of
analog TV receivers connected to their cable network.
---
Phil Kane
Beaverton, OR

On Wed, 23 May 2012 01:07:53 -0700, "David Kaye"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>Yeah, that can happen. Portland (the big one) once did not give monopolies
>to power companies. Thus Portland General Electric ran wires down one side
>of the street and Pacific Power & Light ran wires down the other side.
>After some decades they petitioned the city to allow them monopolies with
>PGE getting the downtown/inner city areas and PPL getting the suburbs. I
>think both are happy now.

PGE has the area west of the Willamette River as well as the
industrial/business area of the east side, and PPL (now known as
Pacific Power) has the residential area on the east side. Both are
happy.
---
Phil Kane
Beaverton, OR

On Wed, 23 May 2012 01:07:53 -0700, "David Kaye"
<[email protected]> wrote:

>I'm a strong believer in government-owned internet and cable. After all, we
>have government owned water and sewer services in many cities, which do much
>better in quality of service than the private companies. And cities that
>provide city-owned power (such as Alameda and Los Angeles) provide their
>customers with better service and lower rates than the profit-making
>companies that operate nearby. Time for Phil Kane to chime in here...

I vote yes on that.

On 5/23/2012 4:27 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
> On Tue, 22 May 2012 14:01:37 -0700, AJL<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> The ISP is a business, not a charity. The *sole purpose* is to make
>> shareholders happy (if a public company).
>
> The "sole purpose" is to provide a product or service to customers at
> a fair and equitable rate which will make everyone happy and most
> important, keep the customers coming back. That is the only way to
> make the shareholders happy in the long run.

Oh please, the goal is to price the product for maximum profitability,
not at a "fair and equitable" rate. In reality the pricing is determine
more by what the competition charges than anything else.

The shareholders don't care about "the long run."

I'm amazed that Sonic is allowed to continue to exist by AT&T and the
cable companies. If Comcast offered $40/month broadband instead of
$63/month, Sonic would be in serious trouble. I'd get an Ooma box for my
phone service, and use Comcast which would be much faster. I hope Sonic
succeeds in its efforts to bring fiber to the home, but they're going to
need a lot of capital to do that in a large area.

On Thu, 24 May 2012 09:56:23 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote:

>> The "sole purpose" is to provide a product or service to customers at
>> a fair and equitable rate which will make everyone happy and most
>> important, keep the customers coming back. That is the only way to
>> make the shareholders happy in the long run.
>
>Oh please, the goal is to price the product for maximum profitability,
>not at a "fair and equitable" rate. In reality the pricing is determine
>more by what the competition charges than anything else.
>
>The shareholders don't care about "the long run."

As you may gather, I am not a fan of unfettered free enterprise.
Ethics and fairness are part of my way of life. The shareholders of
the non-publicly-traded corporation - whose roots go back almost 100
years - of which I am an officer and director are not of the "what
have you done for me this quarter" variety - they surely are in it for
the long run. What we sell is our name and reputation in the
industry.
---
Phil Kane
Beaverton, OR

On Thu, 24 May 2012 09:56:23 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote:

>The shareholders don't care about "the long run."

Shareholders are not homogeneous. Some are mutual funds, retirement
systems, day traders, ect. with quite different goals. In my case I
have held most of my individual stocks (and mutual funds) for over 20
years now. But I keep them for the dividend income, not necessarily
for the capital gains. Although when my kids eventually inherit them
they may enjoy those as well...

On 05/23/2012 04:34 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
> On Tue, 22 May 2012 14:29:12 -0700, "David Kaye"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> IIRC that's what one gets with their Digital Transport Adapter, their
> name for the gizmo (technical term) that allows continued use of
> analog TV receivers connected to their cable network.
> ---
> Phil Kane
> Beaverton, OR
>

One wonders how fast the use of analog TVs is dwindling? HD sets are
getting pretty cheap though I don't understand why 32" (the equivalent
image height of a old 27" set) aren't down to $150 (or far less than
those 27" sets sold). The manufacturers did get in trouble for some
price fixing regarding LCD screens. Today's $225 32" is likely to be
LED rather than the cheaper non-LCD. Those use to carry a premium
price. They probably aren't making the non-LED ones anymore.

On Thu, 24 May 2012 07:15:04 -0700, SMS <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Who needed a dial to make calls in the days of pulse dialing? And
>remember those dial locks that went into one of the finger holes.
>
><http://www.flickr.com/photos/tillmans_collection/3902981587/>

I'm surprised anyone even used these locks since many (most?) knew how
to defeat them. Roy57 put it well in the link's comments section:

"This brings back some good memories for me, my mum put one of those
on our phone in the 70s ithink it was. But we could still use the
phone by taking up the hand set and tapping the number out on the
phone. 0 was ten taps. try it it works."

On 05/23/2012 12:48 PM, D. Peter Maus wrote:
> 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.
>
>

We're talking broadband and telecoms here and my "two monopolies" are
what you find in most of the Bay Area with Comcast on cable and AT&T on
DSL. Not the OS monopoly or windfall that Microsoft has.

On Thu, 24 May 2012 12:41:20 -0700, Bhairitu <[email protected]>
wrote:

>One wonders how fast the use of analog TVs is dwindling?

Surprisingly my cable company (Cox) still supplies 70 analog channels.
It's great because I can supply my lesser watched sets (6) without
needing (read paying for) extra cable boxes. I'm holding my breath as
to how long this will last...