NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: H.R. 3458, Rep. Markey's third bill proposing to regulate the Internet and ISPs
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"in many cases because
there is nothing available or affordable but dialup." This gets to my point. There
is actually a lot of capacity available -- wireless and the copper phone lines.
After all, the dialup modem is just one way to set bits over a wire. Why not
make that an adaptive DSL line card that isn’t constrained to reverse
model an SS7 codec. It’s just copper and the reason it’s not
available is due to the funding model. Same for a all that abundant wireless
capacity. We’re trying to solve a
business model problem by adding more fiber (http://frankston.com/?n=TelecomPrison).
This doesn’t solve the basic problem of availability. You can’t
assume availability as long as you have to have each and every one subscribe
and even then you have to do it all over again for wireless and even if you do
that you can’t assume connectivity unless the provider you use covers the
space you are in at the moment. But why wait to spend
billions when we have the physical infrastructure now. As to Korea – they do think
in terms of billable services – http://frankston.com/?n=InternetDynamic.
In that essay I also explain why the only way to get the speeds you want is by
not requiring them. As an aside – the
excitement of getting all the data online is suspect – it’s too
much about telecom. What about compliance and connected devices? What about
preventative medicine rather than just having to communicate in an emergency
(E911). This fixation and broadband diverts our attention to basic issues. -----Original Message----- Hi Bob, > Why is simplistic speed the appropriate measure? It's a measure; certainly not the only one. > Why not availability and opportunity > as I explain in http://rmf.vc/?n=zmc and
http://rmf.vc/?n=ofi? Without usable speeds being available, you don't get much
opportunity. And as you know, faster speeds have historically produced
innovation. Speed may not be sufficient, but it is necessary. > We should have enough experience with choosing the
computable over the > meaningful to get past gapistic reasoning (for those
too young -- one of the > big issues in the 1960 election was a fictional
missile gap). I'm all for ambient connectivity for health care. Last week I heard Rep. Sanford Bishop say that all relevant information for health care would be online. This is good (although it's only a start towards what Bob suggests for ambient health care), but in Bishop's district, GA-02, many people aren't online, in many cases because there is nothing available or affordable but
dialup. My point remains: why can't the U.S. even do reasonable
speeds everywhere, much less ambient connectivity for health
care? Dear George, > First of all, what in the world does this have to do
with whether Markey III > is a good proposal or not? What does it have
to do with the fact that > Markey III would ban differentiated pricing (what
economists call price > discrimination) and that Markey III would try to
kill the private networks > (TV services) that fund next generation broadband
investments? Why is it that Japan and Korea and dozens of other
countries have already managed to do next generation broadband without
funding it with private TV services? Why can't the U.S.
duopoly do it? I think Bob is right: because the duopoly is fixated on
obsolete models (telephony and cable TV). Shipping
containers caused radical changes in physical delivery, and the Internet has
already caused radical changes in information delivery, despite the
duopoly's best efforts to move us back to the past. If the U.S. duopoly is as much in favor of competition as
it says, why doesn't it offer TV services that can compete on a level
playing field? There's nothing in the Markey bill that prohibits that,
nor for charging different prices for the content. For that matter, why doesn't the duopoly offer
competitive ambient health care information services? Let's see some competition! > Also, too bad you have to resort to utterly untrue
comments like "The old > canard about population density doesn't answer
this. In the U.S. we can > hardly get in our densest areas even the slowest
speeds that you can get > everywhere in Japan.)". > The fastest speeds in the US is 100 Mbps, while the
slowest speeds in Japan > is zero (in the more rural areas) or 1.5 for the
cheaper plans. So the > claim that our fastest is slower than their slowest
is simply dumb. Really? Where in Japan is it zero? Apparently you can get at least ISDN pretty much anywhere
in Japan: http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~PF2K-WLKN/inetjfaq.html Even that is faster than U.S. dialup. (Dual ISDN channels even counts as "broadband" by the antiquated U.S. definition.) And how available is 100Mbps in the U.S.? By speedtest's numbers, almost nowhere. Average speeds are much lower than that. http://www.speedmatters.org/ They don't even bother to include a range faster than
"10mbps plus" because so few people have anything faster than 10Mbps. > Verizon does 50 Mbps but they could offer 100 or
even 1000 Mbps service in > their GPON areas if there was a market they need to
address. So Verizon could, but it doesn't. Funny how when in Japan 100Mbps was offered, people found
uses for it, just like people everywhere have always found uses for
faster Internet speeds. I think Bob has even suggested some services that could
make use of it. > They're > already at 10+ million homes passed with FTTH and
it's growing. At the end > of last year, AT&T had 17 million FTTN homes
passed. Comcast will be > hitting 80% of their foot print with 40 million
DOCIS 3.0 homes THIS YEAR. > Within the next 3 years, it's safe to say that the
vast majority homes in > America will have access to one of these three next
generation broadband > technologies. What does "hitting 80% of their foot print"
mean? One house per ZIP code? But if instead it actually means signing up 40 million
homes, apparently the duopoly doesn't need private TV networks
to fund next generation networks. Well, next generation by
U.S. standards; previous generation by the standards of a couple dozen
other countries. Also, in the U.S. such speeds cost about twice as much as
in Japan: http://bit.ly/tADNB http://riskman.typepad.com/peerflow/2009/06/while-the-us-still-hopes-to-get-up-to-10mbps-internet-connection-speeds-by-2012--japan----already-has-such-speeds-for-cabl.html http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/cablevision-goes-for-us-broadband-speed-record/ In most parts of Japan you can get 100Mbps FTTH for about
a third of what Verizon charges for 50Mbps per month. NTT East
offers 1Gbps at about the same price per month as others offer 100Mbps,
which means Verizon is charging about 74 times per Mbps for 50Mbps
what NTT East charges for 1000Mbps (but Verizon charges only less than
6 times what Yahoo BB or Nifty charge per Mbps for 100Mbps). And the other 40% of homes in America, what will they
have? Dialup? 1.5Mbps? Other? Or what did you mean by vast majority? In any case, why should the minority be left out? Universal telephone and electrical services are
considered necessary, and the federal government has taken steps to make them
available; why not universal fast Internet access? Then we might get innovation everywhere, and ambient
connectivity for health care. > Now is this fast enough for my taste?
No, but it's no reason > to make utterly dumb claims. I wonder if you think phrases like "utterly
untrue" and "utterly dumb" help your case. > George Ou -jsq |