If you don't like what your cable provider is doing vote with your wallet. Tell them to f*** off and switch providers. They will change their policies or they will go out of business. Regulation is only needed for areas where a single company holds a monopoly over the area. The government has no business regulating competitive markets, stay the hell in Washington and focus on better ways to waste my tax dollars.

Time Warner tried to cap Dallas, a city with multiple ISP options, and look what happened? The consumers spoke loud and clear, Time Warner got the message, and they indefinitely curbed their data capping plans. No government "help" needed.

Some People can't switch or if they switch they get even less.

I guess you must have missed this sentence. It was only the fourth sentence on the second line so I can see how you could miss it...

"Regulation is only needed for areas where a single company holds a monopoly over the area."

Problem is there aren't very many options. In Atlanta I have AT&T DSL and Comcast Cable.

I agree to a point... but I'd say that a majority of users simply don't have another viable option. I was lucky that I did when TW talked about pulling that BW cap crap earlier this year... I switched to a local carrier that has fiber to the home. The problem is that out of all the folks with Rochester NY Roadrunner, I'm probably in a fairly small group that could actually switch to another service that would be as fast or faster.

In Las Vegas there isn't much competition, either you get Cox Cable or slow DSL.

What we should be rooting for is the removal of monopoly rights for cable companies in an area. Then you'll be right, we won't need this regulation.

There are MANY areas that only have one ISP. Coverage for each ISP isn't accross the entire US and people with only one ISP in their area get shafted as far as prices go

I will go to a slower krappy connection rather than pay slime warner the BS rates they are tryingf to pull off.
unfortunately i live in portland maine so it would be a change to a real krap connection but when and if that type of billing hits here i dump slime warner and then i do everything i can to get as many folks as possible to do the same.
i will make up posters and stand outside on my lunch break protesting those slimeball rich bastards.

Currently I am very angry at Comcast which cut my speed in half. I use to get 12 mb/s down and 2 mb/s up now I get 6 mb/s down and 1 mb/s up. With no notification and of course the monthly fee remains the same. Do they really expect that no one will notice? When I called them about it they refused to give me a explanation on why and then offered me a costlier plan which I rejected because why the hell should I pay more just in hopes that I get my speeds back? Whats worse is that I am stuck with them as they are a monopoly in my area.

IF,,it was up to me I would just enact a law requiring fiber optic everywhere replacing copper and everything phone,tv,internet,government,the whole 9 yards would be available at speeds that we can only dream of,after all it is the way of the future,what the hell are we waiting for???????????..

We're waiting for our government to catch up to the 21st century. We will be waiting a while longer at this pace. Obama, though I don't agree with some of his strides, would do well to push his techy administration that he had when he was elected into office. I can't believe he gave in when they made him keep the decade-old Windows network in the White House. Cable companies have an incredibly un-American monopolistic system in place. The Comcast smack-down was the first of what I had hoped was the first wave of the internet broadband revolution that we so desperately need.

I see other countries like Japan and Switzerland making huge advances in their technological infrastructure, and what are we doing? We're coasting along on 40 year old technology. Sometimes you have to start over and throw away the old to allow for the new.

The United States of America still has a chance to remain the most powerful nation in the world, but if we don't wake the hell up... we're going to lose that title. Transportation infrastructure and information infrastructure are so important right now, yet we sit on our laurels hoping that we can get by another year without having to do anything. We know that oil is not infinite. We know that corn will cannot supply our entire country with fuel, but here we sit hoping we can put temporary fixes in until we have no other choice but to make something feasible. We need a 5 year plan, not a 30 year or a 40 year plan. Write down a list of options. Figure out the cost. Decide what we have to give up for 5 years. Then make our move. Foreign policy is a huge deal for our President. There are so many international messes that we're trying to resolve that we are not able to focus enough to realize that we have glaring problems of our own. I'm not saying that we should lock ourselves in our room, so to speak, but I am saying that we need to take our heads out of the sand and start working on solutions to problems that will not go away on their own.

I think once one ISP can come up with tiered structure and it becomes expected by consumers that ISPs will follow this structure, then the customer has already lost. You can't vote with your wallet anymore, whatever you chose is a poor decision.

This bill is designed to prevent us from getting to that point. Time Warner is obviously the company that prompted this bill, no doubt about it. But the mere fact they thought of it, and really its only a step further than Comcast, shows that ISPs across the nation want to implement this tiered structure. And the congressman has it right -- its to maintain a viable cable TV structure. If you can stream movies with Netflix, why rent them through VOD services? I doubt cable ISPs are concerned about customers pirating cable TV shows, I don't think a significant enough percent of people do that -- but they are no doubt aware of it and will want tiers to discourage it.

My point? If you vote with your wallet and get rid of all tiered ISPs you're left with a monopoly. And they will gouge and tier you all day. Then you come crying to the government about their unfair practices and claim they have jurisdiction. Why not just support a bill today that can prevent that whole situation? And if you pay attention, it doesn't make tiers illegal. It merely forces justification for the tiers.

As an example:
An ISP currently offers unlimited 10/1Mbps service for $60/mo.

If they tier it like this:
10GB/mo: $60
20GB/mo: $80
50GB/mo: $100
100GB/mo: $150
all extra GB at $0.75/GB.... the FTC would be forced to reject that plan. It has no rational basis.

But if they offered this:
10GB/mo @ 5Mb/512k: $10
20GB/mo @ 5Mb/512k: $15
50GB/mo @ 5Mb/512k: $25
50GB/mo @ 10/1: $35
100GB/mo @ 10/1: $50
unlimited @ 10/1: $60
unlimited @ 20/2: $90
I'm sure the FTC would accept that. It clearly benefits consumers who use less bandwidth. The slower speed tiers allow more customers, and the data caps ensure that they won't be using massive amounts of bandwidth so that they can ensure a fast connection near 100% of the time.

Actually, though I agree in part with you, I'm pretty sure it was the fact that the same congressman as well as others (I believe, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) started to got involved this matter. That's what put pressure on TWC. The "test" markets they were going to deploy the caps on had no other high speed ISP competition (I know, I live in Greensboro). If customer got upset with TWC in those markets, they would be forced to downgrade to DSL (or maybe clearwire). I agree that the customers should fight for more High Speed ISP competition in all markets it would force ISPs to rethink caps.

The only way I would agree to a limitied cap would be if the Cable company agreed to update all their network infastructure to fiber optic with 3 to 4 years. Then promptly remove the caps since their main arguement for caps is that the network "may" not be able to handle demand.




To quote Stewie Griffin..."What the Duece?"

Now why the heck can't they pass a bill like that here?

I have midcontinent cable and I can't complain. Hell they just bumped up everyone's plans for free, though removed unthrottled and made it 25Mb/s. My internet went from 10Mb/s download and 512Kb/s upload to 15Mb/s download and 1Mb/s upload for FREE!

In my opinion this is still a bad thing for us because this means that they will still be aloud to put in place bandwidth caps. I say no caps period... I signed the petition for it though.

I live in Las Vegas and I don't know what your talking about DSL being slow. Right now I have COX but I recently made a call to Embarq and now they offer 10mbs Now for alot cheaper price then cox. SO I switched Services. Now I get 10mbs net speed, Unlimited Phone and Dish network with a DVR for $115 a month. No that's a Deal. My friend also has Embarq 10mbs and we tested and its true so I don't know where you live.

I get 15Mbps on DSL, but we don't have speed caps on DSL in Australia, just bandwidth. Speed is whatever you can get up to a maximum theoretical of 24Mbps.

I wish they would get a bill like this here in Canada ... the monopoly situation is even worse here since all cable in the Greater Toronto Area is all owned by Rogers. Most satellite TV is owned by Bell Canada with the only competitor to that being StarChoice. Bell Canada has a monopoly on all the phonelines in the province of Ontario which DSL needs for it to work. Even smaller ISPs rely on Bell for connection. So we have a nationwide duopoly here. Bell Canada owning all the phone lines and Rogers (east coast) and Shaw (west coast) owns all the residential cable services.

As always when duopolies appear, the consumer gets f**k'd.

Not sure if this question has been asked before, but this is a good context to ask it in. I have friends and family that live in Europe and Asia, and when they see news like this they ask me, why do so many people go up in arms over it. Mainly it's because many people don't have an option to switch to something else. In some places in Europe, you can get a 100mb/100mb, 100mb up and down, for $50 a month. We're all accessing the same network known as "The Internet". Why do these companies get to put such hefty limitations on specific subscribers, and why aren't there any other options. You don't need fiber to run at fast speeds, thick-net (coax) and ethernet are plenty capable of handling speeds of 1000mbps. The true limit of fiber hasn't been established yet so whining about trenching new cable really shouldn't be up for discussion. I am a subscriber to Comcast and I have many, many bones to pick with them. Whether it be downtime with no fair warning or explanation, or lack of support for some of the end-user devices. Now don't get me wrong, I understand that you can't please everyone at the same time, nor can you guarantee up-time, but I would at least appreciate a reason why my internet connection has suddenly disconnected. If you have ever called Comcast when your connection is down, you will most likely receive a recording stating this, "There has been a service interruption in your area and we are aware of the issue. Comcast technicians are working on the problem to determine a solution." Just tell me a squirrel but the line or someone spilled coffee on something to at least give me a laugh. I don't feel like if this bill will be passed that it will be anything groundbreaking or that providers will drastically change their business process, it still doesn't address the fact that these companies pretty much have a monopoly on the market.

I think you are living in new area where Embarq has fiber. If you live in area where only copper is available you can't get this level of service. I have to say that Embarq is doing better job then old local Sprint, but COX sucks big time. They block ports and slowing the torrents.

I live near Blue Diamond and I had Embarq a couple of years before and I was paying for 5 mbps and I was always just getting 1.5 mbps. Although back then they didn't offer 10 mbps.

Doesn't DSL depend heavily on where you live and how close you are to some sort of distribution point?

Absolutely. Increasing distance from the phone exchange rapidly increases line attenuation and drops speeds. Upload is not affected nearly as badly as download. This graph shows how speed (downstream) is affected by distance using the main ADSL standards: http://surispace.files.wordpress.c [...] thumb1.jpg

My bill started at $35 a month, and then went up, and up and up each month and is now at $70 bucks a month for basic high speed internet, and I have no other ISP I can go to.

If ISP's jack prices up to $170 a month (or more), many of us would still pay for it since we are just so dependent on the internet. I think someone should step in.

What strikes me about the bulk of these comments is that they generally represent a lack of understanding of how free markets are supposed to work. If Joe is the sole service provider in an area and he gouges, the market will look real attractive to Jane who will enter the market and compete using lower prices to rapidly gain market share. Of course, this only works where there is a viable market and price gouging makes the economic potential of the market appealing. Thus capital gets allocated only where Jane or someone else with their own money makes a determination that the allocation has potential to generate real economic returns. Bureaucrats have little interest in economic returns where voters are involved. Really stupid economic decisions get made when politicians get involved. While FDR is generally regarded as one of America's greatest presidents, the consensus view among economists is that his economic programs targeted to aid workers the economy had the opposite effect resulting in what we now refer to as the great depression. We can run fiber to every resident in Alaska. It ain't rocket science and it it ain't hard if we all join together to ensure this vital priority gets satisfied. Though, to build a consensus, it will be necessary to ensure that no worker swats a fly during the project and as this is a national project the racial composition of the workforce must mirror national demographics rather than local demographics and some time will be required to build the 98 temporary worker housing sites necessary to house the workforce in fully biodegradable structures. We have the bureaucrats necessary to get this done. Lets unleash them.

Problem is Joe has an agreement with Jane not to go into her territory if she doesn't come into his... Comcast and Charter have that agreement in Atlanta. I'd love to ditch Comcast for Charter but can't...

Like Macky1, I have bones to pick with Comcast also. Service interruptions are frequent enough that I've added a DSL line as "insurance." That said, the vast majority of the time, when Comcast is working, it is blazing fast. I don't like the fact that my bill has gone up a few times, but it seems the speeds I'm getting have been going up as well. I believe they have made, and are making, infrastructure improvements in my area.
Don't rule out the possibility that your own equipment may be involved in any problems you are having. I replaced my 4-yr. old wireless router recently (to get "N") and noticed an improvement in my wired connections as well.

The problem with the US infrastructure is it's size, countries like japan and korea can afford to update their networks because the backbones are shorter. Here we have thousands of miles of cables that run through empty fields, there's little return on investment for updating those lines. Sure i could change them all out with fiber lines but there's no one to pay for those 12 miles of line. Where in japan and korea 100feet of fiber line could server more than 100 people. On average there's fewer people per foot of line in the US than in those countries. This is why America is lagging behind in this type of infrastructure growth.

The ISP's are not the only ones lording over the internet jacks. In my area the apartment complex decides what kind of internet you get most of the time. There are other options that might be better or faster but you can't access them because you can't install the lines, even if the money is coming out of your pocket. Or my last apartment you had to pay the complex $60 a month to activate a phone jack, on top of the DSL service plan fees. You couldn't get cable either because all of the apartments were wired for satelite TV. So you either lived with a terrible wireless internet service from airimba or payed over $100 a month to get DSL.

Net neutrality ends at the jack. Take back the jack!

Here is the solution:
Form a union.

Seriously. Condos, apartment complexes, etc. all form together with their tenets to negotiate a price with the local ISP and cable company for a better price (at least in my area).

Get together with your sub-division, neighborhood, etc. and all demand a lower price. If they don't comply, invest in satellites. Get enough people and economics will do the talking, because congress can't anymore (especially when these cable companies are lining the pockets of our elected officials).

You would think because of how popular the internet and digital tv are now, that some more new companies would emerge and compete with better prices. But the truth is if you want decent service in the US most time you are limited to one option (which in some cases sucks to lol).

agree but there is a solution. i switched from Rogers to Acanac and I'm very happy. the net bandwith is the same but instead of $80/month, it's $18 unlimited.