As the price of video delivery drops in one area, I can guarantee that the cost of delivering it over cable or air will increase tremendously...
Obama Calls On FCC To Reclassify Internet And Implement Tough Net Neutrality Rules
- Thread starter dfergie
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The problem with this theory is that it ignores the power of the NCTA and the NAB to supress such alternatives. It wasn't that long ago that we were talking about Aereo and how it was going to shake the foundations of television delivery.
For their part, the NCTA would be more than happy to tax the hell out of their broadband products if they thought it would stop streaming.
Two words, Interstate Commerce. Internet Data crosses over state lines and travels along the fiber optic system of a number of companies. In general, most of the travel happens along lines not owned by the company trying to hijack our data. Comcast, Time Warner own the end of the line and want, in essence, to establish a toll of sorts.
That's the thing. It is multiple companies (and the local ISPs own the least of it). Telephone lines are owned by the telecoms, transmission lines are owned by the electric companies, but they are both utilities.
Look at it this way, when 14.4k to DSL was running (is running), it does so over the telephone or cable lines. How in the world does that exempt it from the level of utility as the telephone and cable companies?
Many companies own the lines in between. Some places you have lines laid together owned by multiple companies, but the local isps are just the gatekeepers at the end of the line
huh Electric company has nothing to do with internet..Comcast, Timewarner, Verizon,ATT all own a big chunk of the backbone
It does in the sense that the electric company owns the infrastructure to transmit the electricity.
Verizon, yes. And I suppose ATT as well.
But you also have Worldcom, Level III, Qwest Communications, etc...
yes but the internet is just a series of routers some small (in your house), some big (isp) and some huge (Backbone) . These routers form a network and talk to each other. It doesn't really matter who owns the fibers just who controls the information flowing thru them
The key question the FCC is addressing is if the internet is the same as electricity when it comes to the lives of Americans.
20 years ago, you could probably argue that the internet was not really that important to the ordinary American.
Now, however, the internet has become extremely important to the ordinary American, right up there with electricity. Companies delivering the internet deserve to make a profit, the question is of course how much of a profit given the importance of internet to the average American. Companies delivering the internet of course use the public right of ways - there is no other way that they can deliver the internet. This gives regulators the leverage needed to decide on profit verses the public good.
Pole contacts do NOT constitute ownership. A lot of the fiber isn't hanging anyway.
