Freedom of speech is under attack in the USA

[draggar]

http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...-update6-.html

In a nutshell, the FCC took Comcast to court over Comcrap's plans to "block" sites that they deem "illegal" (just illegal?).

The FCC was fighting for net neutrality (uncensored) yet Comcast won the ruling - Comcrap is now allowed to do what the US complains that China, Iran, and other countries do with the internet, block web sites at their sole discretion.

IMO this is a major violation of our freedom of speech and puts Comcrap in line with the above mentioned countries' governments. So now they have the right to block sites that do not agree with their political and commercial motives, they can block sites that they think the public shouldn't see and even have the right to hold traffic for ransom (pay us or we'll block your site).

Where are we going and why are we in this hand basket?

While I'm not one who always cries out "class action lawsuit" I think it is time for this. The PEOPLE have the right to the full internet - Comcrap doesn't have the right to spoon feed us what they want to feed us.

[Boozy]

Does Comcast hold a monopoly on internet services in some areas? Or is it easy to find another provider?

[IDrinkaRum]

It's basically a monopoly in a lot of places.

Where I live it's Comcast and just recently we got Verizon. I don't know of anyone who has Verizon, so I can't ask them how they like it.

It's hard for any new cable/internet provider to gt a foot in edgewise where Comcast is.

[crashhelmet]

The thing here is they're not listing what sites and/or servers they've banned. We don't know if they're more than just file sharing sites or not.

I work for an internet provider. "Normal" file sharing isn't much of a strain on our network. It's the customers that have several systems connecting all transferring multiple large torrents at a time, 24 hours a day that can cripple parts of our network or cause performance issues for other customers.

The availability of bandwidth has become an issue for many ISPs. AT&T won't sell the iPhone in New York because of it and is prepared to start charging their customers for bandwidth usage because of what the iPhone is doing to their network. Time Warner started charging for bandwidth usage in Beaumont, TX and has plans to grow to their other markets as well.

Until the FCC makes more bandwidth available and at cheaper prices, things like this will continue to grow. Otherwise we'll be back to limited usage plans for everyone.

CH

[smileyeagle1021]

Does Comcast hold a monopoly on internet services in some areas? Or is it easy to find another provider?

Salt Lake has a dual monopoly... we can get service through either Comcast or Qwest... the however to that, in quite a few areas you can get service with one and not the other. If I want internet service I can get Qwest or I can get Qwest. Comcast WILL NOT provide service in the apartment complex I'm in because we are too expensive for them. For Comcast to be able to provide reliable service they would have to rebuild the entire neighborhood's cable system (well, they may have fixed it with their digital conversion). In the past Comcast was able to get away with everytime someone signed up just splitting the line and now they've had to split it too many times and almost no one can get reliable signal.
If Qwest were to have problems and I had to change services I'd either have to go to dial up or go with Comcast with the agreement that I pay for my own service calls, which I can't afford to pay for the weekly calls that would be necessary (yes, I had to have weekly service calls because every week a tech had to adjust the frequency on my line to keep ahead of the signal deterioration in the area).

[Nyoibo]

At least it's just an ISP doing it and not the government.

[protege]

Where I live it's Comcast and just recently we got Verizon. I don't know of anyone who has Verizon, so I can't ask them how they like it.

My parents had Verizon (not FIOS...since that wasn't available until recently)...and had nothing but trouble with it. That service was constantly dropping connections, and the company simply wouldn't deal with it.

Lately though, Crapcast's TV service has started to suck. They've been moving more and more channels over to their (more expensive) HD lineup, and putting either static or yet another shopping channel (seriously, do we really need *6* of them now?) in its place. Oh, and when the basketball tournament was on...it was on every channel. Seriously?

[Dreamstalker]

Comcrap is all we have here...unless one moves a few blocks closer to Boston. I agree that the plethora of shopping and music channels suck--how many QVC knockoffs and music channels does a household need? (in our case, zero)

I can still access bittorrent, but it's slow at times. A number of sites that we used to have no problem with are coming up intermittently as "server unavailable"; recently I was able to run Wireshark on our connection and discovered a lot of resets being sent with no good reason.

[lordlundar]

To start of with, the results of the case have been at best misinterpreted by the media. The result of the case is that the FCC cannot enforce authority that has not been granted to them by congress.

Second, As for the monopoly issue, not only to major carriers have monopolies in a number of areas (or at best one competitor that they agree to price a certain amount with), they have laid claim to the copper/fiber optic lines that have been already laid (at taxpayer's expense no less) and will file lawsuits against any company that they do not want there. So if a company comes into an area and tries to use the lines, they get sued for theft. And if they try to lay their own lines, they get sued for potential damage caused to existing lines. The only way they can avoid being sued into bankruptcy is to either be bought out by the existing company or agree to their terms of price collusion.

[draggar]

Does Comcast hold a monopoly on internet services in some areas? Or is it easy to find another provider?

Well, accoridng to the government Comcast does not have a monopoly. In areas where there are other cable carriers they have agreements not to go into each other territories (they "buy" towns - oddly I never got a check). As for DSL - there's no comparison. Here it's either Comcast 6MbpS for about $45 a month, AT&T 1.5MbpS speeds for about $60 a month or some ma&pa high speed, $80 a month plus a $300 startup cost.

At least it's just an ISP doing it and not the government.

True, but the ruling claims that ALL ISPs can do this. The US complains that countries like Iran and China block the internet but the US government is allowing providers to do this (not solely from the ruling but nothing has been done yet by the government over this).

While everyone is pointing the finger at Comcast at this time, they were the only ones being caught and were accused of it.

To start of with, the results of the case have been at best misinterpreted by the media. The result of the case is that the FCC cannot enforce authority that has not been granted to them by congress.

I agree and I think it is time for the general populace to stand up and tell our "representatives" (and I use the term loosely) that something needs to be done. ISPs can't block sites that suit their own needs or push their own agenda. If there is the issue if a site's content is questionable or illegal (like child pornography) then it should be up to the government to have the ISPs block the sites or for the government to set up regulations.

[smileyeagle1021]

Well, accoridng to the government Comcast does not have a monopoly. In areas where there are other cable carriers they have agreements not to go into each other territories (they "buy" towns - oddly I never got a check). As for DSL - there's no comparison. Here it's either Comcast 6MbpS for about $45 a month, AT&T 1.5MbpS speeds for about $60 a month or some ma&pa high speed, $80 a month plus a $300 startup cost.

At least with Qwest, I get roughly the same bandwidth for roughly the same cost. It's about $10 a month more but it's also an extra meg of bandwidth (advertised... reality is it's nearly twice as fast and since I don't need weekly service calls also it is worth EVERY penny of that $10).

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

The court ruled the FCC did not have the legal authority to do what they were trying to do, so the logical next step is for the FCC to get congress to pass legislation that will LEGALLY give them the power they seek (that is to protect net neutrality).

[Fire_on_High]

While everyone is pointing the finger at Comcast at this time, they were the only ones being caught and were accused of it.

Windstream's been monkeying with Google lately. Yes, you heard me right, a shitty little regional ISP has had the gumption to redirect attempts to use Google and make actually using Google something you have to opt out for.

Kinda hoping they get slapped down very hard.

[HYHYBT]

Really? I'm on Windstream and have never had trouble accessing Google. (nor, for that matter, would I call them "shitty"; unlike some companies I've seen complained about here (or possibly it was CS), if you call them and say you've got noise on the phone line and the DSL is out, they fix it!)

[jackfaire]

Wow never thought I would actually like the FCC.