Why The Internet Sucks

[Ponzio]

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

None of it is news if you been following US internet policy on Arstechnica and/or Techdirt.
Nothing will change as long as Verizon's ex-top-Lawyer is FCC chairman.

 

[Bucknekked]

None of it is news if you been following US internet policy on Arstechnica and/or Techdirt.
Nothing will change as long as Verizon's ex-top-Lawyer is FCC chairman.

Bored
I am in an urban area that has excellent internet access. Because of that I don't tend to follow the struggles of those places that suck. I watched the video, all of it, and it was not only full of interesting content but the fellow who did the video is pretty entertaining as well. Sort of like John Oliver in style and content.

There are many parallels here in other industries. Health care. Utiilities. Grocery stores. Schools. Lots of areas where poorer folks and rural folks get short changed or completely left out. Just because there are other areas doesn't make this one, the internet, any more palatable. Lousy internet does indeed handicap people when compared to those who have great access.

Here in the Phoenix metro area we are served by 2 major players. Cox Communications and Centurylink. Centurylink is our leftover from when the Bell system broke up in to the baby bells. It changes its name every so often because their reputation is so incredibly bad that's the only way they stay in business. They still think DSL is a good idea. That and the land line monopoly. But, Cox is actually a great provider of internet access. Their service is IMHO excellent. Their customer service still sucks, but, when your competition is Centurylink even Cox looks pretty outstanding.

What bugs me on the topic is that even though I think I have great service, I'm told that even little podunk countries in places around the globe have better. FOMO then takes place.

 

[mtrycrafts]

...
Nothing will change as long as Verizon's ex-top-Lawyer is FCC chairman.

That can be changed soon, but not soon enough.

 

[lovinthehd]

I'm in an area of the US that makes many foreign countries look way more advanced The US ranges from complete suck to some pretty good connection areas.

 

[Bucknekked]

I'm in an area of the US that makes many foreign countries look way more advanced The US ranges from complete suck to some pretty good connection areas.

lovinthehd
You've looked at all your options? I have no idea what part of the country you're in, but, I know in lots of places there aren't options. Just one offerring. Take it or leave it. I'd be interested in what your upload and download speeds are. How bad is bad?

 

[lovinthehd]

lovinthehd
You've looked at all your options? I have no idea what part of the country you're in, but, I know in lots of places there aren't options. Just one offerring. Take it or leave it. I'd be interested in what your upload and download speeds are. How bad is bad?

I'm in the boonies. We have a dsl service thru CenturyLink who basically inherited that in a purchase of other companies, they apparently don't like to do much about it. We have an alternative broadcast type of isp but due trees am not a good candidate. No other choices, we're surrounded by national forest and a very limited population (Oakridge, OR)

 

[Bucknekked]

I'm in the boonies. We have a dsl service thru CenturyLink who basically inherited that in a purchase of other companies, they apparently don't like to do much about it. We have an alternative broadcast type of isp but due trees am not a good candidate. No other choices, we're surrounded by national forest and a very limited population (Oakridge, OR)

You said just about everything I need to know when you said you have Centurylink. I can't tell you how much I dislike that company. As a consultant, I also had them as a customer. I saw their organization from the inside out. It didn't help my perception of them. At least you live in rural Oregon. That all by itself is pretty cool. I was born and raised in Washington. You got a great state to live in for the outdoors. that might offset the internet issues

 

[lovinthehd]

You said just about everything I need to know when you said you have Centurylink. I can't tell you how much I dislike that company. As a consultant, I also had them as a customer. I saw their organization from the inside out. It didn't help my perception of them. At least you live in rural Oregon. That all by itself is pretty cool. I was born and raised in Washington. You got a great state to live in for the outdoors. that might offset the internet issues

Yep beats hell out of a city in the desert that shouldn't be there Century Link indeed sucks. The outdoors is why I live here, not the stupid interwebs

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I'm in the boonies. We have a dsl service thru CenturyLink who basically inherited that in a purchase of other companies, they apparently don't like to do much about it. We have an alternative broadcast type of isp but due trees am not a good candidate. No other choices, we're surrounded by national forest and a very limited population (Oakridge, OR)

Probably the internet would be faster in Oak Ridge, TN

 

[lovinthehd]

Probably the internet would be faster in Oak Ridge, TN

You'd hope so at one of the centers of modern hi tech sh*t

 

[Bucknekked]

Yep beats hell out of a city in the desert that shouldn't be there Century Link indeed sucks. The outdoors is why I live here, not the stupid interwebs

The more you study Phoenix, the more you begin to ask the question "why is this city here?". I've lived here for 40 plus years now. I have seen a lot of nice places around the country, but none nice enough to leave here and move to. I left Washington to come here. I have never regretted that decision. Yet, there is that question "why is this city in the middle of the desert with no visible means of support here ?". I dunno. Its a nice place to live and maybe that's it.

Or, maybe people saw Tucson and said, well. that's close but I think we can do better

 

[NINaudio]

We were so spoiled before we moved out of the NYC metro area. Lots of choices and availability. I had 100 MBPS service from Fios and typically got around 130. We thought we'd be fine where we moved because the town has 99.8% high speed internet coverage. Well, we're in that 0.2% who doesn't. DSL coverage wasn't even available for us. We had Hughesnet for a while, but it is an absolutely terrible option, couldn't stream anything because of the latency. Literally would pause for buffering on youtube ads multiple times. High price, high latency, low data caps, and terrible speeds (virtually unusable) after you hit that cap. We eventually switched to an AT&T cell service based internet provider. We max out at around 22 MBPS, but the latency is much better than hughesnet and once we hit our soft data cap it is still usable. Sad thing is that I can see where the fiber ends two blocks from our house.

 

[sholling]

Here in the semi-boonies (pop 75k and 20 miles from the nearest freeway and 100 miles from LA) we have to make due with 150mb dedicated fiber optic connections or 150mb shared cable (coax) connections or so-so speed microwave broadband wireless for those outside of areas serviced by fiber or cable. Of course now that Verizon has sold its territory to Frontier we'll likely never see 1Gb/1GB but we'll live.

California telecom consumers have been subsidising the rollout of broadband teleco service in one way or another since the early 1960s and we're finally seeing a return (still way-way-way-way-way in the hole) on consumer and taxpayer paid subsidies over all those years. Most of that subsidy money went to expand bottom lines and pay for bonuses for those 40 years before Verizon rolled out their FIOS fiber optic service and don't even ask about AT&T's broadband network. That said, when they finally pulled the trigger Verizon did an awesome job of rolling fiber out. Now that Frontier owns FIOS and Verizon's terrestrial territories west of Mississippi their FIOS (for me) has been excellent and I've had zero (yes zero) complaints although they were a very dirty word in many areas. Their 1080P picture is excellent with no signs at all of compression and their internet service is nearly flawless and is totally slowdown free (I have 150/150Mb service that often exceeds promised speeds).

The reason that internet service is not getting better has little to do with Pai (who, although I don't know him, I despise as a tool). I have a bit of mid-level insider knowledge of the telecom industry (been there) and it's absolutely unique in its business model. Many will say I'm full of crap but the terrestrial telecom industry in the US is unique in that it's mostly a handshake/virtual-handshake (my word is my bond) business. Unwritten and unpublicised binding contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars are not uncommon. Binding because if you break your word you and your company are done in the industry. No second chances - done. That 'my word is my bond' to a business's death I have knowledge of. What I suspect, but have no direct knowledge of is that this tradition extends to an agreement not to compete in each other's terrestrial (wired) residential territories (although I'm told by multiple insiders that it exists). No written agreements need exist, just that it's possible that a conversation that may have taken place a century ago and if so, then any promises made would remain inviolate to this day - my word is my bond is that inviolate in the terrestrial telecom industry. If you think I'm full of crap then research just how many territories give residential consumers a choice between AT&T and Verizon terrestrial services on the same piece of real estate. At my last count there was one, in Texas, the one promised in a decades old merger agreement with the FCC. Occasional exceptions are made for large enough business contracts (been there done that) if the distance involved is short enough but it's not all that common.

With the rollout of FIOS verizon could easily have invested its money into dominating AT&T's territory's by rolling the service out there but they did not. Instead they invested billions into territories that they already dominated and were shocked that they did not increase their customer base. IMHO that century old handshake (assuming that it really exists) will continue to limit residential terrestrial customer poaching for another century or more to come. The game changer is 5G to the home. 5G to homes and businesses really has the potential to be a game change because competition for wireless to the home remains (for now) fair game and territory-free for the big four three.

 

[Ponzio]

Here in the semi-boonies (pop 75k and 20 miles from the nearest freeway and 100 miles from LA) we have to make due with 150mb dedicated fiber optic connections or 150mb shared cable (coax) connections or so-so speed microwave broadband wireless for those outside of areas serviced by fiber or cable. Of course now that Verizon has sold its territory to Frontier we'll likely never see 1Gb/1GB but we'll live.

California telecom consumers have been subsidising the rollout of broadband teleco service in one way or another since the early 1960s and we're finally seeing a return (still way-way-way-way-way in the hole) on consumer and taxpayer paid subsidies over all those years. Most of that subsidy money went to expand bottom lines and pay for bonuses for those 40 years before Verizon rolled out their FIOS fiber optic service and don't even ask about AT&T's broadband network. That said, when they finally pulled the trigger Verizon did an awesome job of rolling fiber out. Now that Frontier owns FIOS and Verizon's terrestrial territories west of Mississippi their FIOS (for me) has been excellent and I've had zero (yes zero) complaints although they were a very dirty word in many areas. Their 1080P picture is excellent with no signs at all of compression and their internet service is nearly flawless and is totally slowdown free (I have 150/150Mb service that often exceeds promised speeds).

The reason that internet service is not getting better has little to do with Pai (who, although I don't know him, I despise as a tool). I have a bit of mid-level insider knowledge of the telecom industry (been there) and it's absolutely unique in its business model. Many will say I'm full of crap but the terrestrial telecom industry in the US is unique in that it's mostly a handshake/virtual-handshake (my word is my bond) business. Unwritten and unpublicised binding contracts for hundreds of millions of dollars are not uncommon. Binding because if you break your word you and your company are done in the industry. No second chances - done. That 'my word is my bond' to a business's death I have knowledge of. What I suspect, but have no direct knowledge of is that this tradition extends to an agreement not to compete in each other's terrestrial (wired) residential territories (although I'm told by multiple insiders that it exists). No written agreements need exist, just that it's possible that a conversation that may have taken place a century ago and if so, then any promises made would remain inviolate to this day - my word is my bond is that inviolate in the terrestrial telecom industry. If you think I'm full of crap then research just how many territories give residential consumers a choice between AT&T and Verizon terrestrial services on the same piece of real estate. At my last count there was one, in Texas, the one promised in a decades old merger agreement with the FCC. Occasional exceptions are made for large enough business contracts (been there done that) if the distance involved is short enough but it's not all that common.

With the rollout of FIOS verizon could easily have invested its money into dominating AT&T's territory's by rolling the service out there but they did not. Instead they invested billions into territories that they already dominated and were shocked that they did not increase their customer base. IMHO that century old handshake (assuming that it really exists) will continue to limit residential terrestrial customer poaching for another century or more to come. The game changer is 5G to the home. 5G to homes and businesses really has the potential to be a game change because competition for wireless to the home remains (for now) fair game and territory-free for the big four three.

An old telecom/network tech here and I can verify the unwritten agreements between providers to not compete with each other in certain areas and the consumers in that area have a single choice for a provider. Hell it’s only been six years here in Philadelphia and the suburbs since we got two choices and four years when DISH rolled out their satellite based internet service.

Yeah, living in a metropolitan area or close by has its advantages.

A friend of mine who moved to High View, WV … beautiful area BTW … has only one choice available, HughesNet, via DSL with a satellite dish, and he’s on a monthly cap on how much he can upload or download, which really ramps up his monthly bill if he exceeds it, and the icing on the cake, it’s slower than molassssssses. And that was only as of ten years ago.

We’re both music hobbyists and whenever I sent a single 10 MB MP3 it took forever and soon the cost became prohibitive because of the cap and he begged me to stop sending them. YouTube is a luxury.

It’s like we’re living in two different decades or centuries for that matter to hear him talk about the internet on the phone.

Preferably a land line, since his cell phone coverage sucks too. He has no signal whatsoever at his house. And at least twice a year, sometimes more, his land line goes down, up to a week or so, in the winter due to bad snow storms or inclement weather, since the phone lines out at the poles are still from the 40’s and haven’t been replaced. They just replace the broken sections between the poles and occasionally the poles themselves but no more.

And here’s the kicker. Nineteen miles away in Winchester, VA, not exactly a booming metropolis, everything is normal like any suburban town in the country.

I understand the economy of scale for large providers, like Verizon/AT&T/Warner/DISH/etc., but this is just ridiculous in this day and age. The internet may have been a luxury at one time but at this point it’s a utility and should be treated as such.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

@sholling and @Ponzio I appretiate your insider info and as you would agree the issue is lack of competition.
Putting in ground new fiber at any reasonable scale has proven to be too expensive even for IT giant which is Google. That should show how really expensive and how slow return on investment one could expect.

Re: FIOS:
Fios rollout stopped mainly due to change in VZ leadership. Where old CEO - Ivan Seidenberg believed that VZ should stick to its core business of telco, newer leadership in McAdam and more recently Mr. Vestberg thought that they could diversify VZ into a content/advertizement company and followed up with series of high profile and extremely disastrous purchases. Go90 was a joke. We all know how big of disaster Tumbler was.
AOL and Yahoo both folded into "Oath" both caused huge billion of dollars writeoffs.
You tell me how well this strategy works out for them.

As you mentioned cable company had created natural monopolies and do not compete over the same customers. As I could see there are only two ways to fix this and both going to hurt big ISPs:
1) Sue them over anti-monopoly laws or 2) Do what the UK did extremely successfully - last-mile unbundling.
Meaning the cable still belongs to whatever company placed it in the ground, but they would be forced to allow others to provide services over it and compete against them. Edit: There is already an existing precedent with electricity supply/delivery, least in NY/NJ. Not 100% if this is at the federal level. and just like electricity, hp,e Internet should be considered as utility and be heavily regulated in lack of real competition. The Republican way of "letting markets" fixed themselves doesn't and shouldn't apply here for the reasons mentioned above.

Will either scenario happen with Pai - not a chance in hell, but as far as I could see - this is the only way to drag US internet back from dark ages (last I checked we are at #17 in the world, behind one of poorest countries in EU like Moldova) to be able to compete globally.

 

[Good4it]

You'd hope so at one of the centers of modern hi tech sh*t

It’s NOT in San Jose, CA,

 

[sholling]

Thanks for your response BSA. The terrestrial telecom business is beyond repair. It's just too powerful when two companies have figurative dump trucks full of cash to sprinkle (like a firehose) on as many politicians as it takes to block competition from municipal broadband or block the rebreakup of post antitrust brake-up and then allowed to reconstitute AT&T. Sprinkle enough cash and your monopoly will be blessed of by politicians of any stripe. The only remaining hopes are 5G and then only if further industry consolidation is blocked ($$fat chance$$) and that municipal utilities are allowed to compete in the terrestrial business - without claiming monopoly status for themselves. Perhaps a muni fiber infrastructure buildout but no government provided content and with video, ISP, and telecom service provided by your choice of a half dozen competing ISPs utilizing that infrastructure. If that's to be the case then there should be a law that bans government control of content.

 

[Ponzio]

As much as I like to dump on Verizon/AT&T/etc. for their monopolistic ways, keep in mind the politicians own greed gets in the way too at times.

Back in the mid-90’s, when optical fiber became the shiny bright future of the telecom industry, is a good example. Verizon realizing the prohibitive cost of installing the infrastructure alone, without any guarantees that they would retain ownership ... keep in mind Ma Bell had just been broken up ... approached the state of Pennsylvania about a joint partnership or a lowering of tariffs for a fixed period (25 years?). In hindsight it was the bargain of the century for both the state & Verizon and the consumer.

Between Verizon’s competitors and their lobbyists crying foul, with Republicans leading the charge, about this pseudo socialist/capitalist venture and the Democrats own parochial greed about losing some of the revenue, that they wouldn’t be able to embezzle or distribute among themselves, it was strangled at birth and that was that.

Like they say, it takes two to tango. We can all scream all we want about the greedy corporations in this country but without the complicit cooperation of the politicians and their own greed, they’re just as guilty too. It cuts both ways.

I will never understand why the government can’t work hand-in-hand or partner with business like they do in most of the world; the UK, Germany and Europe overall come to mind, Canada and yes the Chinese & Russians, to present a united front for the benefit of the nation. Will there be corruption? Of course, when hasn’t there been corruption? That’s why both need to be constantly scrutinized and the culprits disciplined/jailed to the fullest extent of the law, without fear or favor, if caught.

Look at the successful bailout of GM by the government in 2009 as an example. Everybody was howling like it was the end of the world. It was anything but. Both entities came out whole and richer for it and a lot of jobs were saved.

We need to stop insisting on this invincible demarcation of government and business that we’ve tattooed in our minds, especially when national security and national economic interests are involved. I find it hilarious that during wartime or national emergencies it’s fine and dandy for business/government to partner up but not during peacetime. As complex as the world is nowadays and globalization is a fact on the ground, this is a must for our survival as the leader of the free world, to counter our enemies. A house divided can not stand.

The days of the Lone Ranger are over. Hell, even he needed Tonto.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Thanks for your response BSA. The terrestrial telecom business is beyond repair. It's just too powerful when two companies have figurative dump trucks full of cash to sprinkle (like a firehose) on as many politicians as it takes to block competition from municipal broadband or block the rebreakup of post antitrust brake-up and then allowed to reconstitute AT&T. Sprinkle enough cash and your monopoly will be blessed of by politicians of any stripe. The only remaining hopes are 5G and then only if further industry consolidation is blocked ($$fat chance$$) and that municipal utilities are allowed to compete in the terrestrial business - without claiming monopoly status for themselves. Perhaps a muni fiber infrastructure buildout but no government provided content and with video, ISP, and telecom service provided by your choice of a half dozen competing ISPs utilizing that infrastructure. If that's to be the case then there should be a law that bans government control of content.

If I were you, I won't place too much hope in 5G. The more I read about it - the more I realize that it would be (for rural areas) about same as good 4G-LTE. They still need to resolve the whole bunch of issues.
I am actually more hopeful of recent low orbit sat internet companies. And I agree, the amount of power telco lobby has over politicians is insane.