Posts by Amplex

Our vulture listened to four hours of obtuse net neutrality legal blah-blah so you don't have to: Here's what's happening

Ultimately Congress is going to need to act

A decent article - thank you. Ultimately this is going to have to come down to a rewrite of the Communications Act by Congress. The current set of law is so grossly inadequate in describing the Internet that it leads to a great deal of job security for lawyers while confusing everyone. Of course one has to be careful what they wish for when it comes to Congress rewriting law. The one thing all the large players will no doubt agree on is squashing as much competition as possible.

Poor people should get slower internet speeds, American ISPs tell FCC

Re: It isn't about being cheaper for themselves

Donn,

While I appreciate the reply there are some errors in your assumptions in your comment. Very few WISP's have ever received ANY subsidy money. Fixed wireless technology is very capable of delivering broadband speeds in much of the country. The problem with the FCC changing the definition of broadband is not that WISP's can't keep up - it's that it rewards the same large phone companies that have already been paid multiple times to deliver broadband and have not done it. Imagine you invested a million dollars of your own money to build a WISP and the FCC comes along and says 'well, today we changed our mind and your company isn't doing a good enough job, so we are going to give your failed competitor more free money to compete with you'. That's exactly what is happening here. The subsidy whores are pushing to receive more money by creating a 'crisis' - which they can do by simply changing the definition of what Broadband is. The FCC gave away $11,000,000,000 in grant money to the iLEC's in 2014 and gave them 10 years to get to 10/1. And now they are back for more. First they need to get the pesky WISP's out of the way that are actually offering broadband though.

Kieren,

You continue your campaign of uniformed attempts to smear all broadband providers with the same brush as the large providers. You should attend some of the WISPA events where you would meet many of the small providers and individuals bringing broadband to rural areas and competing in urban and suburban areas. The next event is March 19-21'st in Cincinnati, Ohio. Show up and you will find plenty of people delivering broadband that have just as much contempt for the Cable and Phone companies as you do.

The WISPA meeting was about keeping the FCC from throwing even more subsidy money at the same ILEC's and RBOC's that have utterly failed to deliver broadband. The FCC subsidy money is WHY we don't have good rural broadband from the ILEC's and RBOC's - it's throwing good money after bad. That WISPA wants to protect the small companies that are investing their own money from the FCC throwing more cash at the failed LEC's should not be a surprise and it's something you and The Register should be supporting, not trashing.

OK, who had 'Montana' in the net neutrality state pool? Congratulations

Better cancel all those state contracts with AT&T. Zero rating is absolutely the same as paid prioritization. So much for that FirstNet contract.

Telco forgot to renew its web domain, broke deaf folks' video calls – now gets a $3m paddlin'

The real crock of shit - 2.7M for 3 days of service? How bloody much does that cost per minute? Oh yeah, it's a government contract with automatic taxing authority. The more inefficient we can make it the more we can charge.

Hey America! Your internet is going to be so much better this January

I don't think the authors reasoning is accurate. It is not in the interest of either the FCC or many of the providers to artificially inflate the speeds available to consumers. If anything the incentives are exactly the opposite - to continually increase the definition of broadband. Why is this? Because the FCC is required to report annually on whether advanced telecommunications capability “is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion,” and to take “immediate action” if it is not. This is a open ended grant for the FCC to justify anything it wants simply by increasing the broadband speed definition. Along with this is the rural broadband crisis and the continual demands from the charity cases by the name of Centurylink, Frontier and others that they need subsidies to in order to deliver broadband. By increasing the definition of broadband the FCC can once again justify giving away even more money to 'solve' the crisis. Never mind that that just last year the FCC was patting itself on the back over giving away 11 Billion dollars over the next 6 years with a requirement to deliver 10Mb/1Mb at the end of the 6 year period. Bottom line is there is no incentive for the FCC to find that Americans are being served with advanced telecommunications capability any time soon. No government agency EVER decides it's done it's job and it's time to go away.

You can thank Brit funnyman John Oliver for fixing US broadband policy, beams Netflix

So why do the content providers like ESPN get to discriminate against networks?

Content providers like Netflix, Google, Facebook, etc. are all big fans of Network Neutrality and want the FCC to make sure that their traffic is treated equally as it crosses my network. I'm fine with that. What I want to know is as a last mile network operator why Disney ESPN gets to discriminate against my network and my customers. Unless the network operator agrees to pay Disney ESPN a fee for every customer on the system (not just the ones who want ESPN), the end users can not see ESPN or even purchase a subscription. This is blatant discrimination against a network, and a thinly veiled attempt to recreate the 'cable TV' model on the Internet.

FCC boss Wheeler: Lack of broadband choice is screwing Americans

Re: The best thing the FCC could do to promote broadband would be to quit funding broadband

There is enough money and profit in broadband to build into rural areas. The FCC's own studies for CAF-II and the cost model show many areas can be built for relatively low amounts. There are currently hundreds of WISP's providing broadband service in rural areas, and many are starting to deploy fiber networks with their own money. Over the last 10 years I have done exactly that - built a large wireless network providing broadband where the cable and LEC's didn't want to go. By reinvesting in the network we can now afford to build fiber in much of the network. The conversation with the bank today regarding loans - "so is there anything that the government might do that would ruin the investment"? Yup - give Centurylink and Frontier even more money to build fiber networks over ours. And the banks and private investors walk away.

CAF-II is shaping up to be one of the biggest boondongles ever for the feds. In a series of decisions going back over 4 years they have decided that funding will be made available anywhere a SINGLE provider doesn't offer both voice and broadband data. Never mind that if you have broadband you have your choice of dozens of phone carriers - the FCC decided it only works if it's one company. Next the Wireline Competition Bureau decided on their own to redefine 'served' to mean that a census block (which are very small) is only served if a former or existing customer in the block has service. This means that even if 4 wireless, 2 fiber companies, and 5 cable companies have facilities attached to the house the area is still unserved and Centurylink, Frontier, Windstream, etc. get handed YOUR tax money to build to that block.

Broadband demand is very real, and there is money in delivering it. Keep buying into the big telco BS about how expensive it is and how it can only be done with subsidies and your going to get exactly what you have now - single providers, limited investment, and giant welfare babies like Centurylink.

Want to know what Centurylink did in regard to areas they dispute are already served? They paid their lawyers to file 10,500 pages of documentation challenging whether various census blocks are served. They could have built a considerable amount of infrastructure with the millions they spent on lawyers and lobbyists, but it's cheaper for them to lobby with the money and wait for the handouts.

CAF-II is nothing more than a giant handout to the same people who, for the last 15 years have promised to build broadband and haven't done it.

Go ahead - just keep giving them more money. I'm sure you will get a different result this time.

The best thing the FCC could do to promote broadband would be to quit funding broadband

The FCC has for many years subsidized, or promised to subsidize rural broadband. This has done nothing but harm broadband deployment in America. No private company is interested in deploying fiber or other advanced technology when the investment can be ruined by a government funded competitor like Centurylink or Frontier. Centurylink and Frontier are not stupid - they have no reason to spend their own money when they can get the FCC to hand them billions in subsidies. This has been going on for years and it continues even today. CAF-II is the biggest handout yet. This isn't good enough for the corporate welfare crowd at Centurylink and Frontier, who are both lobbying to get the definition of broadband changed so that much larger areas of America are suddenly 'unserved' and eligible for even more government money. Watching the way the FCC has been handing out ruling after ruling favoring the iLEC's it's really really starting to look like somebody is getting paid off big time.