I don't think it is about picking ONE at all. It is about a balance.
So you're saying that some regulation is good. There used to be much more regulation, so what you seem to be saying is that deregulation has gone way too far.
A reasonable level of control, and a reasonable level of freedom for business and people. Am I childish for wanting the best of both worlds?
Wanting the equation tilted toward less regulation when you are the seller (or more generally, when less regulation benefits you), and wanting the equation tilted toward more regulation when you are the customer (or more generally, when more regulation benefits you), is childish. I don't know if that makes you childish because I don't know if you really want it both ways depending on which way is better for you in the moment.
I don't appreciate your inference that I am childish, just because I don't agree with you.
What I wrote didn't mention you. You made it about you. What I wrote was about unreasonable - childish - expectations that many people, unnamed and unspecified, have and hold in our society.
Isn't there a very simple solution to this, one with a precedent in almost every service we use? Pay for what you use.
Absolutely correct. Metered service
is the answer. The aforementioned childish people want service unlimited, unmetered and cheap, and don't want to grant their service providers the right to take reasonable steps to restore the balance between the value the consumer derives from the service the consumer consumes and the price the consumer pays.
What isn't clear to me, are the true costs of running fiber.
As our society is today, cost only matters if you're a municipality managing a utility, or if there is moral justification for depriving the supplier of the right to value-pricing because what they're selling is a necessity of life and therefore should be affordable to all without regard to value. Some folks make the argument that basic cable fits the bill, because it is the "only" way to access essential emergency information, such as in a hurricane or blizzard. That's why in many areas there is a special level of cable service that is very inexpensive, but only carries the local broadcast channels. However, even that is going away, as service providers have fought for the right to discontinue such discounted service if they have effective competition in the municipality. (I'm not sure how effective competition resolves the gap associated with essential need - it seems to me that the standard should have been the presence of affordable access, but of course that's what the original regulation ensured.) Originally, effective competition meant FiOS or U-Verse, but that's been broadened. As a matter of fact, I suspect that if it went in front of a judge today, the existence of more than one broadband Internet provider in a municipality would satisfy the requirements of effective competition (for cable television!), since local broadcast channels broadcast emergency information on their websites now.
Regardless, a case has never successfully been made that broadband Internet itself is an essential of life, so cost isn't going to matter.
If these cable companies want to stop losing market share to people "cutting the cable," they can make cable-cutting less cost-effective by charging a lot more for the traffic from Netflix, Hulu and Amazon video services than for other traffic that doesn't compete with its content offerings (usually cable TV).
But why would they? I cannot think of anything that people are doing that requires the same kind of bandwidth as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon video services that consumers don't value as highly, and/or that ISPs would suffer significant risk of backlash if they were metered just like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon video services. Why would the ISPs risk the bad PR of singling out their competitors (and how that might prompt support for re-regulation) when they can just use a physical trait (bandwidth) to accomplish the same end?
And that is where I am most concerned. Yes, it's fair to charge people more for using 100x as much bandwidth than someone else. What I find chilling is the idea that not only *how much* you use can determine your cost, but also the *source* of the content.
But we really have to ask how will service providers use that flexibility. I bet they're going to use it to support bundling services together as an incentive for the customer to patronize a business partner or another brand in the service provider's portfolio. "With the Gold level service, the customer gets XXX network and YYY network, and can stream from those websites without it being metered like other traffic." It is like going to a theme park during the day, and being able to use the ticket stub for a discount at a nearby nighttime entertainment area. They're not charging extra for going to some other nighttime entertainment area but rather providing a reward for patronizing the theme parks' business partner. Again, I don't see any reason for them to risk the PR backlash of using this flexibility in a blatantly anti-competitive manner, when they can just apply the heavier prices to everything except the few things that they want to favor.
Perhaps I'm being too optimistic but if this scenario began to play out I think the public outrage would force some legislative relief.
Not optimistic: Realistic. And the service providers will be realistic too, and will deftly avoid inciting a "riot".
Some ISPs ( Uverse ) are already blocking some services such smtp on port 25.
That's doing the opposite of what's being discussed here though: It's forcing customers to use the service provider's service, the price for which is already included in what the customer is paying, instead of paying more to use someone else's version of that same service. And the reason they're doing is different as well: It's to combat spam, which practically everyone favors. I can see service providers also blocking services that are determined to host illegal activities. I see that as a good thing as well.
I carry a similar speed internet and price, but stream very little. My only beef has been carriers trying to get me to pay more by offering other people cheaper rates. So I make my yearly call and then pat myself on the back for the savings.
