View Single Post
Old 01-08-2015, 10:56 AM   #115
ISiddiqui
Hall Of Famer
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Decatur, GA
Quote:
Originally Posted by flere-imsaho View Post
But that's parsing the argument too closely. Regardless of who they are, the industry receives plenty of support, from tax breaks to subsidies for infrastructure development to using an infrastructure originally built with taxpayer dollars. Barring an actual, demonstrable saturation problem, I don't think there's a defensible argument for data caps outside of "hey, we'd like to make more money".

If the argument is "our networks can't handle the demand" then the proper rejoinder is "well, what happened to the $billions we gave you to increase capacity? and "most other industries with healthy profits react to increased demand by increasing supply, why aren't you?"

But, again, we have given this industry, from the backbone to the last mile, plenty of support as taxpayers. And we continue to do so. If we're going to allow these companies to meter and filter internet traffic, then by all means let it be a free market, cut off the flow of taxpayer money, and let them invest their healthy profits in supporting their enterprise. But if they want this money, it's simply not right to take the money, and then soak the taxpayer on the other end. While the average Joe may never see it this way, if that's the direction we're going, we might as well get a better bang for our buck by turning it into a public utility (administered via bid by private companies would be my preference, but there you go).

I keep hearing this, but whenever I've asked for some proof of how much cable companies have been given by taxpayer, I get absolutely nothing, just "we've given them money". So pardon me for being a bit wary of what I see are just bald assertions.

It appears we may turn broadband into a public utility at some point, but in seeing what occurs with my utilities (in Atlanta, for one, the water bill just randomly shot up for no reason two years ago and then randomly dropped last year), I'm not sure that's the way to go. In addition, the vast majority of utilities I've seen meter out their usage (water, sewage, gas, electricity) .

I'm amused that the answer to being scared of cable broadband putting data caps is to turn them into a utility, when every utility bill I've ever gotten has charged me based on my specific usage. Furthermore, I've never had a choice of my utility company. So if I were to treat Comcast as a utility for internet, based on how other utilities work, it'd seem to be that I'd only have one choice for broadband (Comcast) and they'd charge me like $25 for every 100GB of usage or something... isn't that how utilities work in your neck of the woods?
__________________
"A prayer for the wild at heart, kept in cages"
-Tennessee Williams

Last edited by ISiddiqui : 01-08-2015 at 11:01 AM.
ISiddiqui is offline   Reply With Quote