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#Gaming

6/29/2013 1:04:00 PM
21

Susan Crawford on Why U.S. Internet Access is Slow, Costly, and Unfair

Thought I'd share this since some people are upset that Microsoft reversed their Xbox One DRM policy and this video talks about a pretty big reason the original policy sucked. Here's a couple of interesting bits. [quote]What's happened is that these enormous telecommunications companies, Comcast and Time Warner on the wired side, Verizon and AT&T on the wireless side, have divided up markets, put themselves in the position where they're subject to no competition and no oversight from any regulatory authority. And they're charging us a lot for internet access and giving us second class access.[/quote] [quote]It's fair to say that the U.S. at the best is in the middle of the pack when it comes to both the speed and cost of high speed internet access connections. So in Hong Kong right now you can get a 500 megabit symmetric connection that's unimaginably fast from our standpoint for about 25 bucks a month. In Seoul, for $30 you get three choices of different providers of fiber in your apartment. And they come in and install in a day because competition's so fierce. In New York City there's only one choice, and it's 200 bucks a month for a similar service. And you can't get that kind of fiber connection outside of New York City in many parts of the country. Verizon's only serving about 10 percent of Americans. So let's talk about the wireless side for a moment, you know, the separate marketplace that people use for mobility. In Europe you can get unlimited texting and voice calls and data for about $30 a month, similar service from Verizon costs $90 a month. That's a huge difference.[/quote]

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  • but you didn't need a fast internet connection for the old policy...you could literally use a potato for your internet and you would have been fine.

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    • In the UK we have 1 good company for Internet: Virgin Media. Everyone else states that you're buying "upto XMbit/sec" which you will never get. Even still, all of our prices appear to be going up, not down, over time.

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    • Freedom leads to prosperity and is the fasted way to progress. When will we learn from history and experience?

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    • Having the regional equivalent of a monopoly harms consumers and benefits the monopoly? No way. It's amazing how the dynamic of the conversation has shifted from what trying to find the right balance between socialist and free market principles to how much crony capitalism are we going to tolerate. I guess the people that actually lived through the Gilded Age that was rife with robber barons really just had no clue what they were talking about when the pushed for and enacted antitrust laws. Not to worry though, our corporate masters will surely invest in expanding infrastructure just as soon as we allow them to completely privatize profit and socialize losses.

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    • *America* *Automatically complains about "no rights" when they have fast internet access* *Reminds people about Google Fibre* *Reminds idiots that this is how buisness works* *Reminds idiots that in America, any amount of money is deemed too much to pay because every businessman/woman/bending robot is automatically bad*

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    • Thid article is stupid... I like how the most expensive conpany prices are listed. Of course the phone bill is gonna be expensive, its verizon.. my phone bill is $35 unlimited everything. And $200 for internet? Where? Mines $50 and my internet is fast and I really wouldn't need it any faster. That's like me saying waters too expensive and only naming the most expensive waters like vos..

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      • Don't worry, some places are getting google fiber in the U.S. Although it is only a few big city right now, Kansas City and Austin are two I know of. In case you don't know what google fiber is [url]http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Fiber[/url] And truthfully, the reason the U.S. has crappy Internet is because we are a giant country. That's really the only reason, same reason our texting and everything cost more. If we were smaller we would have faster Internet. Plain and simple.

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        • US needs to up it's game in terms of internet infrastructure. It's sad and pathetic that we as a nation pay x2/x3 for second class access. Sort of makes me want to move to Hong Kong or Korea.

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          • I live in England and have awesome internet service at 150 mbps

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          • What we really need is for google to speed up google fiber. All it needs to do is be competition and the other companies will step up their game. There is hope people. IN GOOGLE WE TRUST

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            • Edited by NaLo: 6/30/2013 11:49:15 AM
              [url=http://youtu.be/tCjqa5GCBT4?t=13m15s]13:15[/url] in the video. [quote][url=http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/27/4036128/time-warner-cable-no-consumer-demand-for-fiber-gigabit-internet]Time Warner Cable says there's no consumer demand for gigabit internet.[/url][/quote] [b]US ISPs are tetarded! [/b]

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              • I support this 100%

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              • US has slow internet? That means Australia and New Zealand are still using stoneage internet.

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                • Basically stating it is an uncompetitive environment. Makes sense, such an environment wouldn't foster the best service.

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                • It's good that Google Fiber will eventually spread to more cities in the US. What's funny is that the service costs $70/month for 1 Gbps down and 1 Gbps up and even when it hasn't taken off yet in that many cities, there are areas in the world with faster internet. An example would be So-net entertainment, a Sony-backed Japan ISP which offers 2 Gbps down and 1 Gbps up for $50/month.

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                • I live in somewhat of a rural area but I think I get 30mb 5up for 40$

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                  • woo suddenlink 22 bucks a month

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                    • That idiot Obama should have nominated her chairman of the FCC.

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                    • With the exception of the cities that will be getting Google Fiber.

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                      • Edited by Mereel N7: 6/29/2013 4:09:53 PM
                        Honestly my School has better internet then the Comcast stuff i get here. Then again its a school, and no one uses the wired there except me.

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                      • I agree with everything she said. I have AT&T DSL out here in the more or less rural area of Kentucky, and I went up to Time Warner Cable to see if my house would ever get their service and the woman looked at me and said it would be highly unlikely, and its probably because AT&T has some kind of monopoly over this area I live in. Literally all of my neighbors have AT&T as well. We all pay around $30 for internet speeds of around, 5 mbps down and maybe on a good day 0.5mbps up. Internet in the U.S. is a disaster compared to some other countries.

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