Is The Internet Capacity Limit A Scam?
Virtually every part of our daily lives are impacted in some direct or indirect way by the Internet, whether we know it or not. For example the sheer volume of B2B transactions that rely on the web alone could cause major financial stress to companies who rely on just on time delivery of products. That would potentially include companies from giants like Walmart to medical facilities, travel & hospitality, you name it. Most any business would probably be directly impacted by the loss of the internet.
Of course the rumor isn't necessarily that the Internet is going to be gone in 2 years, but rather that the routing would be overloaded to the point where the results would be unpredictable, but most assuredly negative.
So, how accurate are these claims? There appears to be some disagreement on that point:
“The study, published by the "independent analysis firm" Nemertes Research Group claimed that up to $137 billion in new investment will be needed to keep Internet data flowing fast, but that the backbone service providers plan to invest less than half that amount. Among other things, it recommended that the US Congress provide tax credits to the broadband providers and eliminate the tax surcharge on telecom services for rural telephone access.
The Daily Kos bogger writes, "When big figures like $137 billion start getting tossed around, it is always worth looking at the vital question... 'Who would benefit?' Sure enough, the article includes part of the answer."
"The study confirms long-time concerns of the Internet Innovation Alliance (IIA)... with members including AT&T, Level 3 Communications, Corning, Americans for Tax Reform...."
The bog entry properly identifies AT&T and Level 3 Communications as Internet backbone providers, and Corning as a major US manufacturer of fibre-optic cables, not surprisingly. But it also looks behind another member of the IIA, that is, the Americans for Tax Reform.
Americans for Tax Reform is the creature of one Grover Norquist, the arch-conservative activist who wants to reduce the size of the US federal government until he can "drown it in the bathtub." The bog diary cites the Wikipedia entry about Americans for Tax Reform:”
It is certainly interesting to see those that would benefit, and raises the question, if you were a major ISP and owned a significant portion of the Internet's backbone, would you:
- Risk raising prices to generate the money needed to effect upgrades and risk customers fleeing to another provider – this would be a case where the last to raise prices would seem to be the big winner.
- Do nothing and hope that the government would bail you out before customers started filing class action law suits over services not up to contractual specifications.
- Insert your own suggestion in the comments field.
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what bothers me is that, our broadband companies are lagging they are charging way to much for a service that is not doing that well. e.g Comcast i'm paying around $42 dollars every month for 3.0mbps, with all the respect to all of you but wtf is that? i mean even have my own modem and they still doing that. others countries are charging around $10 for 1mbps. But oh well lobbying would be my next job :p |
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3. Pay off a 3rd party research firm to scare the government into giving them tax breaks. |
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i used to get 3/1mb up/down in my old small town of less than 2000, and honestly it went faster and smoother than comcasts advertised 8mb with "powerboost" ever has, no traffic shaping, limit of 20gb a month which was easy to follow, and never had any downtime or speed fluxuations more than 100kbps, they need to upgrade their stuff, simple as that. |
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3. Actually use the obscene profits of bending American customers over and sodomizing them to reinvest into the network rather than leaving it the way it has been for the past 7 years. Seriously, it is just retarded. People in Sweden pay the equiv of $10 for a pipe that puts our best to shame. |
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Kinda weird to see this hit so close to my comment the other week. |
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Hi All, Here in NY on Long Island I get 30+ Mbps Downstream & 4.5 Mbps Upstream through Cablevision. In addition, Cablevision is my Phone & Cable TV provider as well. I have to say that I'm pretty satisfied with my service, however that service comes at a pretty steep price. I don't have the top tier Cable TV service, but through their Optimum 3 Play I'm able to get all 3 products for $150.00 per month.My Fiance has been giving me grief about it since She saw the bill. |
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