[173150] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Net Neutrality...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Thu Jul 17 16:45:51 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <9578293AE169674F9A048B2BC9A081B4B54BFC16@MUNPRDMBXA1.medline.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 13:42:01 -0700
To: "Naslund, Steve" <SNaslund@medline.com>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On Jul 15, 2014, at 08:19 , Naslund, Steve <SNaslund@medline.com> wrote:
> I don't believe either of those points. I will grant you that the =
LECs are near monopolies in some rural areas, but these are few and far =
between. Yes, a LEC may control the last mile but I can usually get =
circuits from a lot of carriers. A company I work for has over 50 =
locations mostly in rural areas and we do not have much problem getting =
Sprint and CenturyLink access circuits to them regardless of location. =
In fact, we have never found a location in the US that I can't get both =
of those carrier to deliver to us. In a lot of areas there is also a =
cable provider available. Residential users have somewhat more limited =
options but you do always have the option of deciding where to live. =
Most of us in this group would consider the broadband options available =
to them before they move.
If you want more than 1Mbps downstream or more than 384k upstream over =
terrestrial facilities in most of San Jose, California (the 3rd largest =
city by population in the largest population state in the US and the =
10th largest city in the US last I looked), then you have exactly one =
choice. If that's not a monopoly, I'm not sure how you define one.
The situation in the vast majority of the bay area (including most of =
silicon valley) is the same.
It's even worse in less densely populated areas in many cases, though =
USF has distorted that to some extent because there are rural areas =
where the monopoly facilities based carrier has taken subsidies to =
provide higher quality access than is currently available to many of us =
living in more urban areas.
> Being a content provider has very little to do with market forces. =
Comcast is, of course, a major content provider and access provider but =
if they limit their customer's access to Netflix (which they have been =
accused of) the customers will still react to that. The content =
providing access provider has to know that no matter how good their =
content is, they are not the only source and their customers will react =
to that. I think the service providers are sophisticated enough to know =
that and they will walk the fine line of keeping their customer happy =
while trying to promote their own content. It is like saying a Ford =
dealer does not want to change the oil on your Chevy, sure they would =
like for you to have bought from them but they will take what they can =
get.
How is a customer supposed to react to that? In a location where their =
choice is $CABLECO for 30Mbps/7Mbps vs. $TELCO for 768k/384k, how, =
exactly, does one react in a meaningful or useful way?
Owen
