Seriously. I don't understand why there isn't a movement to regulate ISP's like utilities at this point. Why aren't mayors and governors running on this as a major plank?
ISP investments, profits and pricing would all get regulated by the municipality. Performance is monitored and guaranteed.
I've lived in many, many apartments in NYC and each building has only ever had one choice -- Spectrum (was Time Warner) or Optimum. And it's always the same -- it's $24.99-39.99 at first, then after a year it's jacked up to $49.99-54.99, then another year up to $69.99.
It used to be you'd call to threaten to cancel and they'd re-lower it. But they haven't agreed to do that for over 3 years now -- they'll just let you cancel. They know you don't have a choice.
ISP's are so obviously by now a utility like water, gas and electric. Why aren't we treating them that way?
Because very large companies with a lot of money are willing to spend vast fortunes to ensure we don't. If it costs them $200 million in lobbying to ensure that they hang onto $1 billion a year in revenue, that's well worth it to them, while the rest of us are too busy paying our too-high monthly ISP bills to scrape together $200 million to counter their lobbying.
A regular diet of TechDirt[0] on the subject, going back many years, tells quite a story.
> Seriously. I don't understand why there isn't a movement to regulate ISP's like utilities at this point. Why aren't mayors and governors running on this as a major plank?
Who do you think gave them these monopolies in the first place?
IMHO more important question is why ISP market in US is so broken, while it works in other places.
Instead of 'bad' regulation like heavy handed regulations of 'investments, profits and pricing', there should be 'good' regulation to improve competition without direct market intervention.
Running small ISP is extremely simple, i started one (non-profit) while studying a university. Why this does not happen in US?
US Internet system is rigged to benefit the providers. This exactly the reason after every year we switch back the internet connection between me and my spouse, to keep the internet cost low.
For most part US doesn't have functional government to manage these things properly.
>Seriously. I don't understand why there isn't a movement to regulate ISP's like utilities at this point. Why aren't mayors and governors running on this as a major plank?
Nobody on HN can know what "regulate ISP's like utilities" means. The utilities aren't regulated in a uniform way and it isn't obvious what the term means when applied to internet providers.
The devil is really in the detail for that sort of term. Movements are probably held back by the cynical (and realistic) observation that "change the regulation" was the strategy that was tried in healthcare and made the situation worse. Somehow.
One question on the $70 price tag. I get that it is high compared to, say, Europe or Asia, but not by much. Comcast/Xfinity gives 1 or 1.5 TB per month for that money.
Now let us compare to business connection. One would think a business has “options” - they are someone who can’t be toyed with. Even their rates are not cheaper! I am talking about price/mbps or price/TB . I don’t think you can get a business connection for less than $100 - yes, you get static IP. We (at home) expect the same “reliability” as a business.
We can cut it down to $50, may be, if we did muni internet. But it won’t become $20
optimum is now 90 BUCKS A MONTH. for basic internet, no TV, no phone. they are owned by some corporate entity called "Altice" which basically came in and ruined whatever slightly positive features the website had, like an outage map.
No company seems to want to be a utility. They all feel the need to compete on inconsequential, value-added crap and bullshit services when all we want from them is the pipe.
A few municipalities have decided to offer fiber internet through the city, but I don't know how common that is. These projects take several years, though.
Because half the voting base hears the word regulate and starts screaming communism. Just because it would benefit everyone doesn't mean there isn't a huge group of people who would rather cut off their nose to spite their face.
> Seriously. I don't understand why there isn't a movement to regulate ISP's like utilities at this point. Why aren't mayors and governors running on this as a major plank?
Politically untenable in this climate. There's a certain subset of the population who will claim that any type of regulation they disagree with is communism, and those currently in power have no problem boosting those voices to prevent ISPs from being regulated.
Do you want them metered like all other utilities? Why do people assume it will all be fast and unlimited? It may have claims that it will be but suddenly there will be service issues and the only way to be fair is to meter. You get people who will abuse any service and with them you get calls to make it so they cannot.
Why aren't we treating that way? Because they are still so new relative to other utilities and for the most part a large number of people don't find the internet as useful as people in our fields do. You would be damn well surprised how many families there are where only the kids see value in the net.
I was pleased when we lived in Boston where our building and many others was able to put microwave-based services on the roof. It was internet-only but very fast and inexpensive - just what we needed. Now we are in Louisville and back to the only two mediocre and more expensive choices - ATT and Spectrum. And if you go out into the country many homes are stuck with satellite internet service from Hughes which is damn near unusable.
As a transplant to Boston I was thrilled that for the first time in my life I actually had a choice of internet provider; I went with "not Comcast", aka RCN, because they were the one who didn't charge an absurd fee to let me use my own router, and the service has been extremely reliable and inexpensive. Apparently Verizon has just begun fiber service as well to my area, so with a whopping three providers to choose from I am perhaps the luckiest person in America.
(The microwave service you mention, Starry, sadly isn't in my area yet, but HN will be delighted to hear that their microwave relays use Rust internally in embedded context.)
There are alternatives in Louisville, like IgLou (on AT&T's network afaik). I'm happy with AT&T fiber 1gb service, although it's not available everywhere in the city and is expensive.
Yeah, I'm out in the country with Hughesnet, and it works fine provided you haven't hit the data cap. But streaming 720p or higher is going to be pausing rather consistently.
Online games on HughesNet are unplayable. Called and complained that ~500ms RTT is unacceptable but they made up some excuse as to why it couldn't be faster, some mumbo jumbo about the speed of light
This is what frustrated me the most with some of my friends "free market" arguments when net neutrality was in the news. I am also a believer in the invisible hand, but it doesn't work when I can literally only choose from one provider.
It’s really depressing in rural places. I had to teach online all summer with DSL 6mbps down/ 0.3mbps up. Forget uploading any video. My students never saw my face. Thankfully, the videoconferencing software I was using managed to allow me to share my PowerPoint and voice reliably enough. Otherwise, I don’t know what I would have done.
Regulation does't always spur open competition and often has unintended consequences.
Separate the last mile pipe provider/operator (infrastructure) from the service providers. All service providers compete across that pipe. Traditional ISPs, niche providers, etc. I may choose 5 of them as a consumer.
It does necessitate an open, multi-tenant architecture. Let's invest there rather than investing in trying to implement a new regulatory scheme.
Local loop unbundling, as it’s called in the U.K. has definitely driven prices down for DSL, but it means there’s very little in terms of actual consumer choice. It’s basically one ISP (virgin excluded cause that’s docsis and a totally different network) for everyone, with different people you can buy service from. If anything actually goes wrong with the network, open reach fixes it, but there’s no way for a company to differentiate on performance, only price.
Heck, many Americans in metro areas have only one choice for internet providers. I've helped people here in SoCal whose only choice has been 5-10MB DSL service, and they were getting charged like $70/month for it.
In a rural area where the local telco was granted a legal monopoly, their "high speed" comes in a 5/0.5mbps on a good day. The area is now blanketed in T-Mobile 5G coverage, but questions asking T-Mobile about a 5G hotspot with a wired LAN port have gone unanswered. I'd love to use a 5G hotspot as the house's modem, but WiFi-only just won't work. Do any 5G devices with a SIM slot and a wired LAN port exist?
in NYC, I’ve only ever had the option for one cable provider at any given location, either Spectrum / Time Warner or Optimum, maybe RCN. but never more than one to pick from, unless you’re in a fios building then I think that’s an option. and there’s usually DSL but that’s not a real competitor.
Living in NYC, I have one high-speed internet option (Spectrum, formerly Time Warner) and one not high-speed internet option (Verizon DSL with "up to" 3.1 - 7 Mbps). That's it.
Questions for the people from areas that do have: do the different providers have separate infrastructures and facilities (optical fiber cables, switches, etc.)?
I may be in the minority but my Internet has only gotten better, faster, and cheaper over the years, so I am hesitant to advocate for any major change.
But it should be noted that the municipalities are typically who are granting a local monopoly over the existing lines to the ISP and preventing someone else from coming in and laying their own new cables down.
I live in an apartment in Passaic County, NJ. My ISP, Optimum, has a monopoly on this group of apartments.
They take advantage of this to charge $75/month for plain broadband Internet service, which is about 50% more than the average Internet service (including Verizon FIOS) costs in the nearby area.
Thank you for sharing. This is exactly why Ready (YC S20) makes tools that help America's thousands of Local Internet Service Providers compete with the copper cartel. https://ready.net
I have 4, which is unusual. To some the problem, more local competition is needed. The problem is curbing the anti-competitive prentices that prop up local monopolies. States don't seem to care about consumer choice.
[+] [-] crazygringo|5 years ago|reply
ISP investments, profits and pricing would all get regulated by the municipality. Performance is monitored and guaranteed.
I've lived in many, many apartments in NYC and each building has only ever had one choice -- Spectrum (was Time Warner) or Optimum. And it's always the same -- it's $24.99-39.99 at first, then after a year it's jacked up to $49.99-54.99, then another year up to $69.99.
It used to be you'd call to threaten to cancel and they'd re-lower it. But they haven't agreed to do that for over 3 years now -- they'll just let you cancel. They know you don't have a choice.
ISP's are so obviously by now a utility like water, gas and electric. Why aren't we treating them that way?
[+] [-] pwinnski|5 years ago|reply
A regular diet of TechDirt[0] on the subject, going back many years, tells quite a story.
[0] https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=muni+broadband
[+] [-] cameronbrown|5 years ago|reply
Who do you think gave them these monopolies in the first place?
[+] [-] dhosek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zajio1am|5 years ago|reply
Instead of 'bad' regulation like heavy handed regulations of 'investments, profits and pricing', there should be 'good' regulation to improve competition without direct market intervention.
Running small ISP is extremely simple, i started one (non-profit) while studying a university. Why this does not happen in US?
[+] [-] hvaoc|5 years ago|reply
For most part US doesn't have functional government to manage these things properly.
[+] [-] footlose_3815|5 years ago|reply
There was one, it was called Net Neutrality...
How old are users on here?
[+] [-] ghaff|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roenxi|5 years ago|reply
The devil is really in the detail for that sort of term. Movements are probably held back by the cynical (and realistic) observation that "change the regulation" was the strategy that was tried in healthcare and made the situation worse. Somehow.
[+] [-] harikb|5 years ago|reply
Now let us compare to business connection. One would think a business has “options” - they are someone who can’t be toyed with. Even their rates are not cheaper! I am talking about price/mbps or price/TB . I don’t think you can get a business connection for less than $100 - yes, you get static IP. We (at home) expect the same “reliability” as a business.
We can cut it down to $50, may be, if we did muni internet. But it won’t become $20
[+] [-] zzzeek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kanox|5 years ago|reply
Regulation should instead focus on ensuring that consumers have multiple choices, as is the case in other countries.
[+] [-] tomc1985|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BatmanAoD|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] p1necone|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] irontinkerer|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnopgnip|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mandatum|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heavyset_go|5 years ago|reply
Politically untenable in this climate. There's a certain subset of the population who will claim that any type of regulation they disagree with is communism, and those currently in power have no problem boosting those voices to prevent ISPs from being regulated.
[+] [-] mushufasa|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zepto|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zajd|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Shivetya|5 years ago|reply
Why aren't we treating that way? Because they are still so new relative to other utilities and for the most part a large number of people don't find the internet as useful as people in our fields do. You would be damn well surprised how many families there are where only the kids see value in the net.
[+] [-] candyman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kibwen|5 years ago|reply
(The microwave service you mention, Starry, sadly isn't in my area yet, but HN will be delighted to hear that their microwave relays use Rust internally in embedded context.)
[+] [-] yakz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derblitzmann|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dheera|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umvi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djaque|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ExtremisAndy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gz5|5 years ago|reply
Separate the last mile pipe provider/operator (infrastructure) from the service providers. All service providers compete across that pipe. Traditional ISPs, niche providers, etc. I may choose 5 of them as a consumer.
It does necessitate an open, multi-tenant architecture. Let's invest there rather than investing in trying to implement a new regulatory scheme.
[+] [-] noodlesUK|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vondur|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixmastamyk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vinay427|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrsstrm|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jtxx|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frogpelt|5 years ago|reply
$80/mo for Local ISP DSL - 10 Mbps down, <1 up
OR
$100/mo for LTE hot spot for $100+/mo. 25 MBps down, 5Mbps up with data caps and throttling.
The local ISP says they're installing fiber but they're only installing it where the federal government subsidizes or completely funds it.
[+] [-] war1025|5 years ago|reply
Internet is a utility. Most people also don't have a choice in who they get electric, water, gas, etc. from.
It's unfortunate that internet service quality is so varied from location to location, but utilities tend to form natural monopolies.
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fireattack|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lutorm|5 years ago|reply
https://www.starlink.com/
[+] [-] luxuryballs|5 years ago|reply
But it should be noted that the municipalities are typically who are granting a local monopoly over the existing lines to the ISP and preventing someone else from coming in and laying their own new cables down.
[+] [-] sixdimensional|5 years ago|reply
We can get 940Mbps down/35Mbps up w/ 1.25TB cap and mid level cable TV from Cox for.. wait for it $270/month. O_o
Currently I get 150Mbps down/5Mbps up + mid level cable TV... $130/month. It’s fast enough for work, but feels so expensive.
[+] [-] neonate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qetuo|5 years ago|reply
They take advantage of this to charge $75/month for plain broadband Internet service, which is about 50% more than the average Internet service (including Verizon FIOS) costs in the nearby area.
Just sayin'.
[+] [-] connon|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|5 years ago|reply