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**Munger** · December 10, 2011, 12:14 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

Originally posted by lektrode View Post

this dude wouldnt by chance have some axe to grind in this obama-supporter puff piece, would he?
nah...

writing as one who has been playing/working on the net since '94 - perhaps longer than dude here has been an adult?
who managed to actually generate a signficant chunk of his self-empl revenues offering various wwweb services
(not that thats saying all that much... and most of even that income has evaporated over past 10years...)
and whos paying over 250bux/mo for 'communications' services, incl verizons g3 'broadband'...

first off, the idea theres 'no competition' in the internet-access space = absurd.
not when the big wireless telcos are slugging it out daily, practically giving away smartfones and have dramatically increased the bandwidth, while cutting the price of it substantially?
never mind that the cable tv companies are slugging it out vs the landline telcos...
and never mind the satellite services...

and not when the vast majority of both the population as well as populated landmass is served by several options of various levels of broadband service, while keeping in mind we've come a long way baybee, from the days of 2400baud dial-up, a phenomenal market penetration in such a short time - seen in what other sector, in US history?

the real 'lack of competition' is in the delivery of a/v content, with most of the 'products' so jammed up with commercials its got to the point of being unwatchable, even with a GD DVR...

and have got fed up to the point that i finally brokedown and bought me a 'streaming media' box and intend on chopping my cable service back to the min/base level of sevice, if not elimination of that entirely (assuming i can get 3or4 of the majors, plus PBS via the airwaves), but keep the roadrunner, of course

bleep bleep!

but my point being (finally - chrikie, do i get 'windy' sometimes.. ;)

that this sounds like more lobbying for crony-capitalism and corp welfare subsidy-mongoring,
by the lamestream media...

**lektrode** · December 10, 2011, 03:10 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

ok, mr munger - eye get yer point - but i will have to get back on this one later, as i always enjoy Mr K's items and want to discuss this one some more - have a sudden wx window to take advantage of today and.. well... there is more to life (sometimes) than swimming here in the shark tank...
;)

**lektrode** · December 10, 2011, 03:13 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

Originally posted by Thailandnotes View Post

I'd say Verizon was charging 10 times the cost of the device.

that seems almost unfathomable to me, that such incredible technolgical development, in such a small package, could be had for that cheap (by verizon anyway, never mind to us on ebay) - but i'll have to accept your observation on that, since i dont really know how much they cost the telcos.. always figgerd it was about 1/3 the listed price?

mr c1ue following this one?

**Thailandnotes** · December 10, 2011, 08:00 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

"Across the country, hundreds of local governments, public power utilities, non-profits, and cooperatives have built successful and sometimes pioneering telecommunication networks that put community needs first.

"These communities are following in the footsteps of the publicly owned power networks put in place a century before. We watch history repeating itself as these new networks are built for the same reasons: Incumbents refusing to provide service or charging high rates for poor service.

"Cities like Lafayette, Louisiana, and Monticello, Minnesota, offer the fastest speeds at the lowest rates in the entire country. Kutztown’s network in Pennsylvania has saved the community millions of dollars. Oklahoma City’s massive wireless mesh has helped modernize its municipal agencies. Cities in Utah have created a true broadband market with many independent service providers competing for subscribers. From DC to Santa Monica, communities have connected schools and municipal facilities, radically increasing broadband capacity without increasing telecom budgets.

"These pioneering cities have had to struggle against many obstacles, often created by incumbents seeking to prevent the only real threat of competition they face. Eighteen states have passed laws that discourage publicly owned networks. When lawsuits by entrenched incumbents don’t thwart a publicly owned system, they cross-subsidize from non-competitive markets to temporarily reduce rates in an attempt to starve the infant public network of subscribers.

"Despite these obstacles, more and more cities are building these networks and learning how to operate in the challenging new era in which all media is online and a high speed tele-communications network is as much a part of the essential infrastructure of a modern economy as electricity was 100 years ago."

http://www.muninetworks.org/reports/...dband-monopoly

The notion that government should not be competing with the private sector is thoroughly debunked in comments after the article.

Lektrode, the device retails for 22 dollars in shops here everywhere. Fancy ones cost more, but mine in the states is a basic device.

**Thailandnotes** · December 10, 2011, 09:38 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

Fighting Comcast

http://barbershoppunk.com/

**c1ue** · December 10, 2011, 10:13 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

If you do any significant amount of traveling - it is quite clear just how poor service is in the United States.

The only other place with comparably expensive cellular service is Japan - which is a notoriously protected oligopoly.

In the UK, Australia, Europe, Russia, South America, and Asia outside of Japan, you can walk into a corner store and buy a sim card plus $40 credit and have internet access and cellular service for at least 2 weeks.

Just try and buy a similar capability here in the US.

The last time I went to Russia, I paid 400 rubles (about $13) for a brand new micro-sim card with 250 rubles ($8) credit. I was able to use this credit for nearly 2 weeks - running out 2 days before I left because I started viewing Youtube videos (15 or 20 music videos suck up quite some bandwidth).

I do understand why the US has what it has: much of the problem is that internet bandwidth for home use is not metered. Given this, there really isn't much incentive for a cable company, DSL provider, or dialup provider to maximum bandwidth.

The second problem is the Cisco monopoly. Much of the Asian low cost experience is due to burgeoning competition from Huawei.

So my comments are: would you be willing to give up unlimited home internet access for a fixed price in order to catch up to a top 10 world internet ranking? Many people aren't.

So part of the problem is people in the US live so much further apart. Part of the problem is unlimited home internet as opposed to metered. Part of the problem is Cisco.

I should also add that while Ma Bell was broken up, the only actual difference was a collection of smaller regional monopolies as opposed to a trans-national monopoly.

Monopoly still existed.

BK · December 11, 2011, 09:42 AM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

Regarding the Cisco problem....
The Market is slowly eating away at this problem just take a look at CISCO struggle to meet their financials - every quarter they lower guidance. Meanwhile Juniper has captured more and more of the market share. There are a number of lower cost startups that could pop-up , but the people who select networking gear are usually very uncreative technical types that have followed the mantra of keep your job "buy Cisco"

The original founder of Cisco - Len Bosack - has struggled to get customers for his startup that lowers the cost of building metro fiber networks - see www.xkl.com. Since the mid-to lat 1990s it was very difficult to sell a Network Manager anything but Cisco - even if you could cut costs and deliver better functionality. Juniper is the best example of a company that is beating Cisco consistently at the core of networks and perhaps XKL and others will eat their lunch at the edge of the network and drive down prices.

**lektrode** · December 11, 2011, 10:09 AM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

mr k - havent seen much from you lately = nice to see you, thanks for the comeback...

Originally posted by Milton Kuo View Post

I hope I didn't misunderstand the meaning of your post, lektrode, but it's my understanding that you feel that internet access in the U.S. is competitively or reasonably priced.

no sir, you didnt - and generally speaking, yes - altho frankly i had no idea it was so expensive compared to other countries, but relative pricing is a somewhat diff topic? as the primary reason for that - i presume - would be the higher costs of doing biz in The US, due to legal/regulatory/labor issues, the sheer size of the continent and the number of millions served? (aside from the valid issue of oligopoly)

but keep in mind that my base of reference is somewhat limited, why i appreciate getting the feedback from itulipers who know more than i do about this stuff (or most anything else, it seems sometimes - but thats not a problem, as i'm here to learn and dont mind stickin my neck out for the chance to interact with people smarter than me)

The presence of multiple "competitors" in a field does not mean that there is any real competition. It is my opinion that in the internet access, cable television, and mobile phone services, what you have is an oligopoly that colludes to keep prices higher than they really need to be.

and i wont argue with that - but again, isnt this somewhat necessary? - to have big/oligopolistic and limited number of competitors due to the barriers to entry inherent in the telecom industry today? and necessary economics of scale/size to be able to offer as competitively priced services, as they, to some degree, are anyway - to the huge subscriber base and geographical area that exists here in The US? (i'm asking questions here, not so much making statements)

As an example: at least in Houston, the pricing for internet access, cable television, and mobile phone service is essentially the same no matter which vendor you choose.

hmmm... dont you guys have t-mobil, mobi et al? they seem to offer a pretty good deal on flatrate monthly/annl contract out this way and there's always walmart, who has some pretty good options - tho personally, i wouldnt give up my verizon acct (1000mins-peak/mo for 55bux+taxes, with 4000nite/wknd mins, unlimited mobil-mobil, with night rates starting at 8pm) fer nuthin (had tried sprint as a 2nd line while i was contemplating setting up shop in fla, but that was an 'unforgetable' experience and i'll stop there...)

As another example, I recently tried to get some pricing information for internet access. It took me quite a while to figure out the actual monthly cost of internet access from AT&T. Their web site was remarkably difficult to use when all I wanted to know was the non-introductory, unbundled price for internet access. This obfuscation is a trick cartels or oligopolies use to hide actual pricing. In markets where there is real competition, pricing is highly transparent (see the various companies engaged in on-line retail such as Amazon).

eye hear that - my first observation is that the larger the corp, the more dysfunctional their websites seem to be - its like they approach design from the POV of the ego of the designer (lets see how many useless visual elements we can jam onto a page), while they stuff as many backroom/dbase bells-n-whistle script functions into the code as they possibly can, to collect as much data on the viewer as they can, NONE of which does a GD thing for the viewer's 'experience' on the site, when one is merely trying to answer a couple simple questions, as you note = INFURIATING (but i digress)

yes - altho i'll agree with you on the issue of pricing transparency - again i'll offer something in debate along the lines of: isnt telecom service these daze, at least the mobil side, with all the service and equipment options, somewhat complicated enuf to almost require this kind of 'obfuscation' ? (not that i'm defending em on this one mind you)

The telephones are the handles and the monthly service fees are the razor blades. I would gladly pay full retail price for a smart phone if I could get a reasonable price on the monthly fees. A smart phone plan would cost me $90/month plus all the various special taxes levied on mobile phone services, which would bring the price to over $100/month. $100/month is $1,200 per year and a person would have to gross roughly $1,800 to pay for a year's smart phone service.

hey - i like that example/comparison!
and eye do hear you on the pricing issue - i'm paying about 125/mo for the voice service noted above, incl a 2nd line for the data side (g3 pc card for my laptop, with an old 'unlimited' data plan - if i want to send an email or look at pix/web, would prefer not to have to peck away with my thumbs and squint into a teeny lil screen - but maybe someday i'll breakdown and buy an ipad, when i have the luxury of be able to stay seated in a comfy chair to work.. ;) and yeah, i'm with ya on the need to bill about 50% more than the price to be able to afford to pay it - i take it you're self-employed too? (it just aint all glamour these daze..)

Despite the high prices compared to other developed countries, mobile phone service in the U.S. is among the worst in the world. [I've heard that our fine friends in Canada may actually have it worse.]

so i'm finding out... was frankly flabbergasted to discover that yer basic mobil handset is only about 20bux over there in tn's neighborhood... and there i was thinking i was scoring BIG buyin em used on ebay (and ignoring verizons comeons for 'freebies' to get me to sign another 2yr contract = fat chance in this economy and only then when they make it worth my enslavement for 2 years would i consider doing it again - as satisfied as i am with my service, i dont see the need or benefit to me for 2yr contracts)

The sound quality absolutely pales in comparison to a land line,

isnt that a function of the particular handset?
my LG6100 is close enuf in sound quality to a landline for me, with the added benee of it being wireLESS..
something i get more appreciative of every day, never mind in comparison to the ole motorola brick i lugged around for several years - 'member them?

a la carte SMS messaging is $0.10 or more per message received or sent--that includes paying for unsolicited advertisements--and the plans are outrageously expensive compared to land lines fees. This despite the fact that land line infrastructure is far more expensive to roll out and maintain than mobile phone infrastructure.

dont get me goin on the SMS/text thing - finally had to demand they shutdown that crap on my service as i got sick of being distracted by the unsolicited spam BS and people who think that its somehow more 'convenient' to send me a text, vs just using a telephone for what it was intended for VOICE CALLS, not trying to use my thumbs to peck away on a teeny lil keyboard, needing to codec my way thru converting numeric to alpha, just to reply to em?! and the typical: "didnt you get my text, i told you i wouldnt be able to make it today for our appointment.." AFTER I SPEND AN HOUR IN TRAFFIC to get there and they aint there - NO, i _dont_ text - if ya wanna say something, CALL ME, as i only view/return email from my laptop at the end of the day or next day! (and hows my 'kranky ole f__k' persona coming along? .. ;)

It's my understanding that, for all intents and purposes, the pricing of cable television is the same regardless of whether you have a choice in providers or not. Furthermore, the lack of a true a la carte way of purchasing cable television reeks of monopoly behavior.

and you'll get no argument from me on that one, whatsoever!
its simply OUTRAGEOUS how we get screwed by this - having to pay for hundreds of mostly useless channels, when most people would be happy with 5 or 10, plus access to movies on demand that didnt cost 8bux a pop, when they cost the cableco's next to zilch to deliver (and they wonder why netflix stock got to be so big so fast (well... for a little while anyway) - and let me tellya something, soon as i can get my streaming media box figgerd out, I'LL BE DUMPING THE LOT OF EM, esp if i can get even 2 of the majors and PBS over the airwaves - cant get me out of the cable movie channels (amc, fx, bravo, syfy yada yada yada) fast enuf! they have basically RUINED the experience by jamming in so many commercials - even the networks are better on this now

Technology is supposed to become more affordable as time passes and widespread internet access is very much an issue of faster, more reliable, and less expensive technology. 2400 baud modems were prevalent in 1988 or thereabouts when top-end computers were about $3,000-$4,000 in 1988 dollars. For $1,800 today, you can buy a computer with capabilities that most users in 1988 couldn't imagine having.

1988 for 2400? hmmm.. i had 2400 on my first packard-hell in 94 - remember it being a reeealy beeeg deal goin to 14.4

and then...
WHEEEEEEEE!!! 28.8 = smokin baybee!
tho DSN(? - the 2channel POTs thing) was an 'anti-climactic' experience, the roadrunner did make things a lot better, didnt it?

never mind my first laptop, toshiba 10" screen, win3.0, 4+4more megs with a 250mb drive - for 'only 3800 bux' ?
and i kept the 8mb simm that i paid 400bux for the packard-hell and hey, remember the first of the 1gig drives - what, 5or600, werent they?

oh yeah, eye hear ya - this 'early adapter' stuff has got old for me too.... (even if i was somewhat late to the party, i did know what compuserve was, back in the mid80's - my nextdoor neighbor in the northend of BOS was one of their big sales wheels back in them daze, at that time i was just getting pretty good on the DEC pdp1144 i was dropped in front of one day: look i'm just a maintenance guy - "we know you can do this, the IT guy down the hall will help you..." yeah right.

but my present HP, a 2007 well equiped 15incher, was only 700 - so hey.

uh huh.... and oh yeah, i'm right with you here on these complaints, really i am.

Cable television, when it first came out, was for-pay television because you paid to not have to put up with commercials. Now, not only are there commercials, there are roughly 20 minutes of commercials in every hour versus 10 minutes of commercials every hour in the 1980s. Despite all the extra money from advertising, cable television prices are consistently high from provider to provider. In my opinion, it seems like monopolistic behavior.

yeah, how in hell did they sneak that in on us, anyway?!

i just cant take it anymore, 10 mins of show, 5 mins of ads... 10 mins of show, 5 mins of ads... 10 mins of show, 5 mins of ads... 10 mins of show, 5 mins of ads...same GD ads every other commerch break, ALL NIGHT LONG
to quote the movie line:

"...I'M MAD AS HELL AND I WONT TAKE IT ANYMORE..."
and even time-shifting with the DVR aint gittin it anymore.
so i'm all done with cable tv, just as soon as i can get the streaming box hooked up.

**ltullos** · December 11, 2011, 12:27 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

Most people don't realize the role that Cisco plays in driving (and funding) the development of technology to create reliable systems much in the way that IBM did in in the 70s and 80s. Ultimately, the companies pushing the leading edge develop new standards for their suppliers that their competitors benefit from. While competitors can usually match the performance at lower costs, they often don't understand the myriad of factors and interactions that drive the reliability. An example of this that some people here probably experienced first hand was with Nvidia graphics chip failures used in many computers in 2007-08. (Why Nvidias chips are defective) In this case, the technology driver (Intel) who invested in the research to thoroughly characterize, understand, and model the complex thermo-mechanical effects avoided this problem, while Nvidia didn't which cost them and their customers several hundred million dollars.

**Jam** · December 11, 2011, 02:51 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

Originally posted by Thailandnotes View Post

ATT was spending 37 billion to buy Tmobile [...] instead of 5 or 6 billion to update and improve service, [...].

Isn't it because it is easier to finance the acquisition of existing assets as opposed to building new?

**c1ue** · December 11, 2011, 04:52 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

Originally posted by BK

Regarding the Cisco problem....
The Market is slowly eating away at this problem just take a look at CISCO struggle to meet their financials - every quarter they lower guidance. Meanwhile Juniper has captured more and more of the market share. There are a number of lower cost startups that could pop-up , but the people who select networking gear are usually very uncreative technical types that have followed the mantra of keep your job "buy Cisco"

The original founder of Cisco - Len Bosack - has struggled to get customers for his startup that lowers the cost of building metro fiber networks - see www.xkl.com. Since the mid-to lat 1990s it was very difficult to sell a Network Manager anything but Cisco - even if you could cut costs and deliver better functionality. Juniper is the best example of a company that is beating Cisco consistently at the core of networks and perhaps XKL and others will eat their lunch at the edge of the network and drive down prices.

Juniper is beating Cisco on the high end - but the high end represents the 1st world.

All of the growth is on the low end - developing and BRIC nations.

Cisco is caught in the middle.

**lektrode** · December 11, 2011, 06:02 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

mr c1ue.. howzit... thanks for weighing in on this one (figgerd you couldnt resist ;)

Originally posted by c1ue View Post

If you do any significant amount of traveling - it is quite clear just how poor service is in the United States.

well altho i do travel a significant amount, fly twice a week or more (well.. until recently anyway), its more puddle jumpin/island hopping than the int'l jetset stuff you do... well... getting past travel tween here and 'america' anyway, the only real int'l traveling i've ever done (not counting a number of roadtrips into/thru canada ;) was a job i did a few years back, down to fiji - and if anybody thinks net access is somehow slow or expensive in The US?? - they've never been to suva.... and _then_ there's what ya gotta do just to _find_ net access, that doesnt involve being robbed by a hotel for a simple POTs landline connection to an ISP that isnt billing by the minute. (but maybe its got better since '06..)

The only other place with comparably expensive cellular service is Japan - which is a notoriously protected oligopoly.

oh we know all about that out here = why they all come foaming into the gold-plate shopping district in waikiki to snatch up the gucci/hermes/coach handbags at 1500/up a pop - would assume everything else gets to be that way too over there...
(tho moonscents has indicated some stuff is cheap, so i dont like to generalize/stereotype..)

In the UK, Australia, Europe, Russia, South America, and Asia outside of Japan, you can walk into a corner store and buy a sim card plus $40 credit and have internet access and cellular service for at least 2 weeks.

Just try and buy a similar capability here in the US.

The last time I went to Russia, I paid 400 rubles (about $13) for a brand new micro-sim card with 250 rubles ($8) credit. I was able to use this credit for nearly 2 weeks - running out 2 days before I left because I started viewing Youtube videos (15 or 20 music videos suck up quite some bandwidth).

does it have anything to do with gov owned telco systems, while the service and eqpt providers are 'privatized' ? (meaning the public pays for the infrastructure in those countries, while the 'privateers' walk away with all the profits)

I do understand why the US has what it has: much of the problem is that internet bandwidth for home use is not metered. Given this, there really isn't much incentive for a cable company, DSL provider, or dialup provider to maximum bandwidth.

i also wonder if it isnt because The US has paid the price to be the 'early adapter' as i tried to allude to with my comments to Mr K, above - considering we invented the telephone, the computer, the 'network', fiber optics, the celtel and and the internet itself... well... even if al gore grabbed the credit for that one - you know what i'm getting it, eh? that perhaps the other countries have cheaper net access and better performance, isnt it because The US has blazed the trail, as it were and they just get to ride for free, essentially, on all the technology that we've paid hundreds of billions to develop? (i'm asking a question here, just checking to see if my assumption is correct?)

The second problem is the Cisco monopoly. Much of the Asian low cost experience is due to burgeoning competition from Huawei.

who likely swiped it from cisco, after they paid the price to engineer/develop it...

So my comments are: would you be willing to give up unlimited home internet access for a fixed price in order to catch up to a top 10 world internet ranking? Many people aren't.

count me as one of em - but isnt this argument (by the huffpo piece above) all about the 'net neutrality' issue? and wouldnt it be outfits like huffpo that will benefit from maintaining the status quo in pricing, which i gather might end up costing them more to deliver their content, if the pricing plans the telcos want to put into place, far as charging more for certain feeds and routing etc (hopefully i'm understanding the issue correctly)

So part of the problem is people in the US live so much further apart. Part of the problem is unlimited home internet as opposed to metered. Part of the problem is Cisco.

I should also add that while Ma Bell was broken up, the only actual difference was a collection of smaller regional monopolies as opposed to a trans-national monopoly.

Monopoly still existed.

and its pretty clear that the baby bells are all growed up (and gobbling up the competition once again...)

i dont disagree with the points of the net neutrality crowd either, but it seems that somebody has got to pay for all this stuff and i'm a bit hesitant to say the public should, while the privateers make all the money....

but i'm going to do some reading of the stuff that tn put up, but gotta go now, the S/O is glaring at me and we're heading off to see the nutcracker... (that is if the roads havent turned into rivers by now, its a bit... shall we say.. 'moist' here again today, tho it doesnt look like you guys will get much/any of this stuff:
http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/...st_loop-12.gif as per last year - must be the la nina doing its trick - snowfall totals are way off too, so far...

**wayiwalk** · December 11, 2011, 10:14 PM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?

Originally posted by lektrode View Post

i just cant take it anymore, 10 mins of show, 5 mins of ads... 10 mins of show, 5 mins of ads... 10 mins of show, 5 mins of ads... 10 mins of show, 5 mins of ads...same GD ads every other commerch break, ALL NIGHT LONG
to quote the movie line:

"...I'M MAD AS HELL AND I WONT TAKE IT ANYMORE..."
and even time-shifting with the DVR aint gittin it anymore.
so i'm all done with cable tv, just as soon as i can get the streaming box hooked up.

I couldn't care about all the commercials, as I'm a born surfer....it is that in my area, cablevision has taken to synchronizing the commercials breaks so that most of the shows they offer all provide commercials at the same time! That, and the adds that pop up at the bottom of the screen. ADs Ads ADSSSS!

I'm sure in a convoluted way, it all goes back to peak cheap oil!

**c1ue** · December 12, 2011, 11:04 AM

Re: How Bad is the Internet?