Basically the answer to this is yes. If Comcast spends all of this money to upgrade their network and the cost to the end user goes up for the better service, then there are really no problems here. That's basically how a market should work. That plan would actually encourage them to upgrade their networks over time and install things like fiber to meet the new demands of customers, instead of providing poor service like they do now.
Exactly, customers in the market can then make cost/value choices for products that directly relate to how that individual ISP is managing costs.
With fast lane proposals, additional cost gets pushed back to successful websites. So for example, when Netflix pays a toll to Comcast, that additional cost is distributed among all the users of Netflix even if they're not doing business with Comcast. How does this work to support a market where consumer choice rewards efficient ISPs? It basically makes the market for network connections look more like the healthcare market where a fundamental problem in it's efficiency is how endpoint costs are highly disconnected from how efficient individual players in the market are operating.
The part that makes this different from healthcare options, is that there are usually no or few options. I know where I live I have the choice of timewarner or fios. That's it. If they decide they are slowing down the sites I use, I'm SOL.
I see a future where we are given a list of "premium" supported sites before making ISP decisions. I wonder if well end up with another dimension of price tier where one dimension is speed of service and the other is what major sites support it.
It's actually not so expensive relative to the profit that these companies have been making. But they have a monopoly - so there's almost no incentive for them to upgrade their networks.
The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly. Why should someone who doesn't consume Netflix pay for this? Why should Comcast be afraid to sell you a 100MBit "bursty" connection (essentially the same kind of service they actually advertise now) because they'd be 'forced' to potentially have the capacity to serve 100MBit to every subscriber when Netflix goes to 8K-h.269 or what-have-you?
The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly
Then maybe they should advertise a different bandwidth?
No doubt. A local company in town recommends customers sign up with some absurd number like 5mpbs per every device connected on a local network. In reality the majority of customers can use the lowest possible plan (in this case 5mpbs) and have trouble free browsing and streaming.
The reality is these ISPs make money by overselling services to customers and not having to deliver on it. And now they're tacking on fees on the backend as well? Absurd.
You're not going to have a good time trying to run multiple concurrent Netflix streams on a 5Mbps connection. That's only enough for a single HD stream, assuming you even get all the bandwidth you're promised.
I'm not sure that the real problem is advertisement consistency. If your only choice is Comcast, and they deliver poor speeds (due to a combination of favoritism and not upgrading) then it's little consolation that you get the advertised low speed.
This is sort of like car advertisements, that always touts "350hp V8" or whatever, even though in the vast majority of real-life usage you can use that power for at most a second or two at some freeway onramp or in a passing lane.
Saying that the connection is technically capable of 20Mbit/s is different from guaranteeing 20Mbit/s in any possible usage situation. The problem with my analogy is that people generally have an idea that you can't go faster than maybe 80mph regardless of what car you have, but there is no way to know if the "up to 20Mbit/s" connection means actual usage will show 15, 5, or 1... So yeah, they should somehow be required to tell you, at least at signup, what the typical throughput on your connection will be.
So you're ok with buying a 350hp v8 that can only really ever do 50hp? Except on toll roads you have to pay for again that you may use 'up to' 350hp, but you're still not guaranteed that.
The FCC isn't talking about speed that's a red herring. It's about access. What if the FCC say "Fine consumers must have a minimum of 1gbps" you're like "Huzar" and the FCC say "And anyone who pays a huge amount of money get a minimum of 100gps." ..hold the phone
But this is just a problem with awareness. With the rise of Tesla cars, there has been an increase of public awareness of low speed torque. As more people have become aware of solar, more people have become aware of base-load generation. If ISPs started advertising "guaranteed bandwidth" customers would definitely pay attention, especially with the crappy product they've been getting thus far.
What difference does it make what they advertise? The existing advertising doesn't guarantee streaming 20Mbit from any host on the internet 24/7. If their advertising were scrupulously accurate, but they delivered the same service, why should you be happier?
twoodin:
>The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer (so they always can get the "advertised" bandwidth) would be absurdly expensive, and rates would have to go up accordingly.
dec0dedab0de:
>Then maybe they should advertise a different bandwidth?
twoodin:
>What difference does it make what they advertise?
If Comcast is having a hard time delivering on what they advertise, as dec0dedab0de said, they should perhaps advertise differently. Offering different plans other then trying to sell a bandwidth that they can not deliver on with it being, as you say, "absurdly expensive."
There was a reason I put "advertised" in scare quotes: Comcast has always advertised that rate as a "peak rate", not something you can get continuously to every host on the internet. Peak rate matters to a lot of people who are using it for things (for example, browsing a multi-MB rich web page) other than streaming, where a consistent rate is more important.
> Why should Comcast be afraid to sell you a 100MBit "bursty" connection (essentially the same kind of service they actually advertise now) because they'd be 'forced' to potentially have the capacity to serve 100MBit to every subscriber when Netflix goes to 8K-h.269 or what-have-you?
Who would be "forcing" them to do this? In a sane world they'd already be selling these two types of services as two types of service--you either choose the "bursty" option or you choose the (more expensive) "streaming" option. Then they would know how to provision for each type of user, and they could price each option based on the capabilities of their infrastructure.
Of course, what would happen then, if you are correct, is that the absurdly high price of the "streaming" option would drive their customers to alternative providers wherever possible--or they would be forced to actually spend that extra money on infrastructure. So basically they are trying to obfuscate the issue because actually serving their customers' needs is way too much like work.
> The problem is that a network that can stream 20Mbit continuously to every customer would be absurdly expensive
Will it really? Because every time someone talks about ISP costs, they remark that what's expensive is the last mile. That's the entire reason ISPs claim to be so much more expensive than enterprize providers, so they need higher prices.
Now they claim that the backbone is the expensive part?
So, charge consumers for what they use. Why does this seem to rarely come up?
The problem with the networks comcast and others currently maintain is they are saturated. And I'm not getting what I pay for as a result. They need a new pricing structure that properly values their product (bandwidth) and charges me for it.
Can anyone explain why the ISPs don't go down this road?
Because they can make more money selling pretty lies than ugly truths.
Of course, that's true for a lot of products, but the US ISP market in particular is problematic because there's little or no competition. And the big ISPs like Comcast spend a lot of money buying political support, so there's little effective regulation.
You're asking why Comcast should be responsible for meeting the expectations they're creating? When your advertising solely conveys "always fast Internet" and "up to 100Mb/s speeds", what exactly do you think people will take away from it.
If Comcast doesn't want to or can't provide these speeds for general use, they shouldn't advertise these speeds for general use. Can you explain the problem with that logic?
