Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

[lektrode]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Missed it by a hair, darn it. I live in the Phx metro valley but not in Phx, Tempe or Scottsdale proper, which are the three cities they're considering here.

Do you guys trust google? Not like I wouldn't like fiber but Google is becoming more and more like the Borg all the time... all your data is belong to us. It feels wrong to willingly submit to the Google/NSA Borg, no matter how pleasant Google might make it. How much data will they be mining from their fiber subscribers, and to what end?

dunno about 'trust' them vs distrust them any more/less than the rest of BIG corporate amerika - but at least theres some competition in the last mile and/or the pipe into the house - eh, ms shiny! ?

altho i think the main pipe/fiber backbone ought to be a public-owned facility, like the interstate hwy system is

but - IMHO - its outfits like facebook (and other dbase aggregators) that cause/provoke far more issues on corporate trustworthyness than the goog ever could (might?)

[BadJuju]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Missed it by a hair, darn it. I live in the Phx metro valley but not in Phx, Tempe or Scottsdale proper, which are the three cities they're considering here.

Do you guys trust google? Not like I wouldn't like fiber but Google is becoming more and more like the Borg all the time... all your data is belong to us. It feels wrong to willingly submit to the Google/NSA Borg, no matter how pleasant Google might make it. How much data will they be mining from their fiber subscribers, and to what end?

Absolutely not, shiny. Ideally, we would see tons of municipal fiber networks spring up. Still, there needs to be something fighting the cable companies because it is getting bad.

[shiny!]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

dunno about 'trust' them vs distrust them any more/less than the rest of BIG corporate amerika - but at least theres some competition in the last mile and/or the pipe into the house - eh, ms shiny! ?

altho i think the main pipe/fiber backbone ought to be a public-owned facility, like the interstate hwy system is

but - IMHO - its outfits like facebook (and other dbase aggregators) that cause/provoke far more issues on corporate trustworthyness than the goog ever could (might?)

Frontline just did a show called "Generation Like" about how corporations are targeting and exploiting teens through social media. It was very disturbing, not only for how corporations are using these kids, but also for how social media is conditioning kids to be dependent on getting validation externally (rather than internally), from strangers who don't give a damn about them. I can only hope this will prove to be a fad that they will outgrow someday.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365181302/

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Absolutely not, shiny. Ideally, we would see tons of municipal fiber networks spring up. Still, there needs to be something fighting the cable companies because it is getting bad.

Coax cable lines and fiber optic lines seem like natural monopolies to me.
It makes no sense to install two or 3 or 4 complete coax cable systems in a city, wires running side-by-side to every building.
Our grandfathers felt the same way about Bell Telephone in the 1920s and 1930s, and set them up as regulated monopoly utility and a common carrier.
It worked pretty well for 50 years or more. It might work again for Comcast.

[BadJuju]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

And look at how well that is going with skyrocketing cable costs and cable carries trying to destroy net neutrality. It isn't going to end well. The oligopoly is going to squeeze customers for everything they have because they are a monopoly and can do whatever they want because there's no viable alternative. Never mind they took $200 billion from the government and ran away with it even though it was supposed to go to improving networks.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Coax cable lines and fiber optic lines seem like natural monopolies to me.
It makes no sense to install two or 3 or 4 complete coax cable systems in a city, wires running side-by-side to every building.
Our grandfathers felt the same way about Bell Telephone in the 1920s and 1930s, and set them up as regulated monopoly utility and a common carrier.
It worked pretty well for 50 years or more. It might work again for Comcast.

From what I understand, the main fiber lines are not as much of a monopoly as they may seem. Private networks are everywhere. Lots of dark fiber lays unused that criss-crossed CSX and Amtrak and highways all over the place back at the 2000 Nasdaq peak. The coax going to every house on the other hand is a bit different. The real money then comes in leasing an easement on the poles. And guess who owns half the poles? Verizon. There's not a hell of a lot of incentive to lease easements out to a new competitor. It's why Verizon could hop in the game. Cable companies have pre-existing agreements that go back aways. The thick 10 gb/s lines used to run about 100k/mi about 5 years ago, but I think they've actually dropped in price quite a bit since then.

But the regulatory hurdles at public utilities commissions and statehouse and city hall wrangling could get intense. RI was going to set up statewide free wimax/wifi back in the early 2000s. They even had federal money and IBM cash to make it happen. It was seen as the future. Soon the lawsuits begin. Then the statehouse wrangling. Finally by 2006 they agreed that they'd roll the system out but only for government, universities, hospitals, certain businesses, etc. and not individuals. Even that got torpedoed.

Then there were FCC plans to turn the old terrestrial TV VHF/UFH channels over to wifi. It was an existing coast to coast network of long-distance signals operating on freed up bandwidth thanks to digital TV conversion. That never happened either. More on that here. Taiwan and Niue already do it from what I understand.

Oh well. Thanks to the courts' new net neutrality ruling and the neutered FCC's unwillingness to fight it, it looks like we'll pay more money for poorer quality throttled service to fewer and fewer monopolistic companies going forward in the US.

[BadJuju]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

And outside of these new Internet meccas, people are going to be utterly screwed. How do you think cable companies are going to fight Google? They will offer competitive service in the markets Google is in, then stiff the rest of the country with much higher fees to make up for it. Great, grand, wonderful!

[jk]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

because they are a monopoly and can do whatever they want because there's no viable alternative. .

books? board games? cards? hanging out with friends? might be the best thing that happened to this country if the cable providers jacked prices way up so most people would disconnect.

[BadJuju]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

books? board games? cards? hanging out with friends? might be the best thing that happened to this country if the cable providers jacked prices way up so most people would disconnect.

Boring and screw that. Not my idea of a good time, sir.

[Woodsman]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

books? board games? cards? hanging out with friends? might be the best thing that happened to this country if the cable providers jacked prices way up so most people would disconnect.

Eh, to each his own. I still have one in the house but damn if it's been 10 years or more since I sat down and watched a show end to end, never mind following one. That said I've probably spent enough time on Youtube with BBC art and ancient history documentaries to earn a B.A.

[BadJuju]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Eh, to each his own. I still have one in the house but damn if it's been 10 years or more since I sat down and watched a show end to end, never mind following one. That said I've probably spent enough time on Youtube with BBC art and ancient history documentaries to earn a B.A.

Yeah and I am learning German thanks to Duolingo!

[shiny!]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Yeah and I am learning German thanks to Duolingo!

Duolingo sounds fascinating! Is it really helping you? How are you finding it compared to traditional language courses?

[BadJuju]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Well, the fact that I actually enjoy it means more than most, I'd say! I cannot really compare it to anything else since I only took French in high school and I didn't pay attention in class at all then. The only memory I have from then is that I started weightlifting around that time. A few months later, my teacher came by and touched my arm as she passed and then looked back at me like 'Daaaaaamn'


But yeah, I'm learning. You should just check it out. It is easy to drop into.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Yeah and I am learning German thanks to Duolingo!

Ich bin nicht sicher, ob Sie mit mir schreiben wollen würde. Aber wenn Sie wollen, könnten wir mit einander schreiben. Ich könnte den übungen benutze.

[BadJuju]

Re: Comcast takeover of Time Warner Looms

Just getting started with it. I can only follow the first sentence, heh.


"I am not sure." I guess.