Really Bad News

[askrieger]

A propos Google and Verizon, I just ran across this article in the online edition of the New York Times. Tell me again, what was Google's motto?

[Prescience]

Re: Really Bad News

I personally think, that net neutrality is very bad. The telecoms monopolies (or oligopolies) are very bad. They exist because of government regulation and laws that prevent and/or discourage competition. End the government interference and net neutrality will not be necessary in the long run. Adopt net neutrality and the rate of advancement in the Internet will slow because there will be less incentive to improve it because it will be less profitable. If the government keeps interfering, advancement will still be relatively slow because the firms have little incentive to innovate, be competitive, improve service, and lower prices. Having both monstrosities on top of each other would be awful.

[askrieger]

Re: Really Bad News

Telecom monopolies exist (in the areas where one provider has a monopoly) because it is too darned expensive for other communications service providers to string wires out to relatively remote locations for a limited number of subscribers. There are only two reasons that a responsible business person would expend (half) vast quantities of money extending service to isolated hamlets or individual farms: (1) The devil (in the form of a State Public Utilities Commission) made him do it, in order to keep his business in more profitable locations, or (2) He figured he could REALLY sock it to the customers in terms of monopolistic prices. Which would you prefer? In general, the people who have to put up with crummy service prefer reason (1) and stockholders prefer reason (2). Recent court decisions have eliminated reason (1) for the internet.

In some areas, there are several competing broadband internet service providers. I suspect that in these areas prices will stay low. In other locations there are not. Net Neutrality tries to guarantee that even in areas where only a single service provider exists, people will still have access to the level of internet service that will allow their children to learn what it takes to compete in the modern world.

Google has an "effective" monopoly in the area of internet search. Good for them, they provide a service that no one else has been able to equal. Twenty years ago there were a number of search engine providers. The majority of them no longer exist because Google does it better. If someone else comes along they should have the chance to compete. Allowing terms of service that distinguish one type of data from another in setting rates is stifling competition.

[Prescience]

Re: Really Bad News

It's also true that in many areas you have to get permission from elected officials. There are many instances where they've said no. When it comes to cable, and phone lines, in many area's the government has granted firms a monopoly and it's illegal to compete. The only reason you have any competition at all is because of bundling. The phone provider now can sell Internet and TV on the same wire as phone. So can the other two do a similar thing. The entire industry, including the wireless part is extensively regulated, discouraging other firms from entering the market. Your right, in this industry, it would mostly be huge firms, but other huge firms also shy away from extensive regulation. It's illegal in America for foreign telecoms to operate at all. It's hard to get around that. There are a couple rare examples like T-Mobile which is an American company but has a German parent company. Anti-competitive practices what are happening now will need to be stopped, too. Net neutrality is like putting a bandage and on an infection and taking hard core pain medicine for the pain. Doing so will make things better for a awhile, but things will slowly deteriorate get worse. You really need antibiotics if you want to make it better. The process of getting worse is so slow that people often don't even recognize the reason for the market stagnation and lack of new innovations as even being caused by the "band-aid." I know it's bad for some people right now, but if the conditions are made right and kept that way, things will improve naturally over time without the negative unintended consequences of net neutrality.