Net Neutrality is Live
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
The thing that kills competition in this situation is the insurance companies. They are the ones that make the deals, Not the patients.
That too, the forced insurance system is the opposite of capitalism as well. Not that I don't support insurance, I'm just saying that the way that it is doesn't support the pretense that there is some choice either.
But these issues are made by us, the users, and them too. I don't see that the system couldn't change to be one of more openness, except for the fact that everyone believes they they are entitled to any and all medical technologies in their time of need. And our current system kinda gives that to them.
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@Dashrender said:
Well sure, but those who are here (in the USA) only hear that Europe has free healthcare and really have no clue what that means.
Actually almost the only thing that I hear here is things like "wait times" and " no services", which does not match up with the WHO's assessment of the reality.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Well sure, but those who are here (in the USA) only hear that Europe has free healthcare and really have no clue what that means.
Actually almost the only thing that I hear here is things like "wait times" and " no services", which does not match up with the WHO's assessment of the reality.
As you noted when your child was sick while you were traveling in France, we're over doctored here in the US. This puts an even larger burden on the healthcare system.
There are fewer and fewer people becoming doctors because the regulation is making it harder for them to make an better than good living doing it. Instead those smart individuals are going into business or some other venture to find their successes.
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@Dashrender said:
In reading some comments on another page I realized another issue of internet based scheduled programming, DVRs. Currently there is no way to DVR content for you to consume on your own schedule. Sure, the content providers could leave copies of all of their programming online for X amount of time and embed fewer commercials for the non-primetime viewing of a show, much like what happens today with shows on demand from a cable and Hulu, but that services doesn't come close to the current abilities that consumers have and love of home DVRs that allow you to fast forward through commercials at your own pace.
I've considered cutting the cord for the past 6 months or so. I've looked into what it would take to get the programming I really want the way I want and keep coming back to the fact that the cost is negligibly better than what I'm doing today yet requires me to jump through a ton of hoops to get it.
With IPTV you can still use a standard DVR you just use a Network to Coax converter that logs into the service and provides the cable to you as normal.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Well sure, but those who are here (in the USA) only hear that Europe has free healthcare and really have no clue what that means.
Actually almost the only thing that I hear here is things like "wait times" and " no services", which does not match up with the WHO's assessment of the reality.
I'll agree that wait times are outrageous, but what do they mean by no services? when I hear that it's mostly around how insurance companies are refusing to pay for the test/meds, etc that a doctor prescribes.
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@Dashrender said:
Yeah, That's the failing in my mind. The last mile should actually be provided by the municipality, like roads and water and power. The municipality charges the vendors enough rent to keep the system up, and do upgrades when needed (yeah I know, the whole upgrade thing becomes a political nightmare).
By having the last mile be municipality owned with laws saying they can't play favorites to vendors, the end user totally wins. The last mile is where there is little to no control for the vendor or the consumer.The government is generally bad at providing any services on time, on budget and doing it well. in fact if it were up to the manicipalities many places would not have anything as around here some collect tax dollars and then provide only emergency services and schools. Roads etc fall to the state if they aren't picked up by the locality.
Middle mile fiber is heavily funded by the gov't we have it all over hear. in fact comes near just about everyone's home (but, not to) so there is no one using this hundreds of miles which was like a 15 million dollar project.
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@Dashrender said:
There are fewer and fewer people becoming doctors because the regulation is making it harder for them to make an better than good living doing it. Instead those smart individuals are going into business or some other venture to find their successes.
It's less about not making enough money... it is easy to make money as a doctor, and less about it being rewarding. We have a pointless, horrible hazing process for people becoming doctors and way too low of an educational standard. We'd be (and regularly are) appalled by IT practitioners at the same education and creativity of most doctors. Shouldn't healthcare be a higher standard, not a really low one?
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@thecreativeone91 said:
The government is generally bad at providing any services on time, on budget and doing it well. in fact if it were up to the manicipalities many places would not have anything as around here some collect tax dollars and then provide only emergency services and schools. Roads etc fall to the state if they aren't picked up by the locality.
Is this really true? What local government providing fiber or electric have you seen not just rock? I don't know any private company doing roads better than governments do. Governments provide services taht are very hard.
I know lots of towns that do their own electric and they are way better than the utility companies. WAY better. Half the cost (actually like 1/10th the cost) and never outages.
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But the problem is, once you allow a monopoly, even a private company turns into a form of government. Where does the line go?
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Agreed, if the government is doing a service, those figures should be open for anyone to view. Yeah I know it's a hassle, but it's the only way to keep things above board.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@Dashrender said:
Yeah, That's the failing in my mind. The last mile should actually be provided by the municipality, like roads and water and power. The municipality charges the vendors enough rent to keep the system up, and do upgrades when needed (yeah I know, the whole upgrade thing becomes a political nightmare).
By having the last mile be municipality owned with laws saying they can't play favorites to vendors, the end user totally wins. The last mile is where there is little to no control for the vendor or the consumer.The government is generally bad at providing any services on time, on budget and doing it well.
I keep hearing this... the only government institutions that this happens regularly with is the military, congress, and the fed. Local and state governments generally do a fairly good job with maintenance and new infrastructure. As I stated earlier in the thread municipal broadband has been able to increase customer service, speeds, and bandwidth, at a decrease of price. I don't see any ISP making the same claim.
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@Dashrender said:
Agreed, if the government is doing a service, those figures should be open for anyone to view. Yeah I know it's a hassle, but it's the only way to keep things above board.
Sure, I agree there. But where is this not the case with municipal services? And if it applies to government, it must apply to any monopoly equally, right?
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@coliver said:
As I stated earlier in the thread municipal broadband has been able to increase customer service, speeds, and bandwidth, at a decrease of price. I don't see any ISP making the same claim.
Do you know the budget and costs in the locality well? if not you can the price is good. as that would only be true if it's an Enterprise fund, a lot of times the projects end up failing and taking money from other income sources to make them work, temporary grants, increased taxes etc. Our local Aquatic center was the same way, especially after VT got involved with it. Enterprise funds, means the project solely funds it's self the income from charging for the service makes more than the costs of providing it and leaves with some surplus.
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@scottalanmiller said:
But the problem is, once you allow a monopoly, even a private company turns into a form of government. Where does the line go?
We don't allow Monoploy's here. Contracts are only signed with electrical services. otherwise you have a choice for ISP/Phone and cable.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
But the problem is, once you allow a monopoly, even a private company turns into a form of government. Where does the line go?
We don't allow Monoploy's here. Contracts are only signed with electrical services. otherwise you have a choice for ISP/Phone and cable.
Um, those are monopolies. There is only one electrical provider, only one cable provider, only one fiber provider. Those are the very definition of monopoly. The attempt to lie to consumers about it not being a monopoly is so strong that they provide obvious "layers" that make no sense on top of the monopoly to make people believe that they have choice. But there is only one provide. We don't just allow monopolies, we go to insane lengths to support them no matter how crazy it is.
There is no choice in phone, cable, electric, etc. That we are faking it out to hide it just shows HOW strong the monopolies are.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@coliver said:
As I stated earlier in the thread municipal broadband has been able to increase customer service, speeds, and bandwidth, at a decrease of price. I don't see any ISP making the same claim.
Do you know the budget and costs in the locality well? if not you can the price is good. as that would only be true if it's an Enterprise fund, a lot of times the projects end up failing and taking money from other income sources to make them work, temporary grants, increased taxes etc. Our local Aquatic center was the same way, especially after VT got involved with it. Enterprise funds, means the project solely funds it's self the income from charging for the service makes more than the costs of providing it and leaves with some surplus.
Where have you seen this fail? Every city I know of to try this has succeeded wildly.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
There is no choice in phone, cable,
You can chose here. everything here runs off a Fiber OAN from the ISPs/Cable/Phone and then goes to whatever the Boxes they have to convert to their copper lines at the head of the side roads. If you want to pay for the fiber build out you can even get fiber directly to your house off of it but, it costs a lot. and right now is symmetrical connections only.
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But can you choose different providers? Can you say have AT&T, Verizon or Google depending on who you decide to pay provide that last mile? I know of no market where that is the case.
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In my area I have two choices for Phone for the last mile: Cox or Qwest. They each have their own wires directly to my house.
But for natural gas, water, sewer - there is no choice. In our case these all come from MUD (Metropolitan Utilities Disctrict).
And power comes from OPPD (Omaha Public Power District).These two are clearly monopolies and operate around here pretty much in the open.
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@scottalanmiller said:
But can you choose different providers? Can you say have AT&T, Verizon or Google depending on who you decide to pay provide that last mile? I know of no market where that is the case.
There's Verizon, AT&T, Lumos, Cox, Comcast, Citizen's, Shentel, Suddenlink and probally some others.
With them sharing the costs of most of the infrastructure the cost of the last mile isn't as big a deal, and the competition has kept cost down. You can get a 40MB asymmetrical connection for $23.00/month. Comcast is a little more though, but they have better uptime it seems.
The idea was started by a bunch of counties/towns east of me, the localities paid for that OAN there, and provided them better pricing. So a private company decided to do it here and see how it works (plus, they go grants to do it.)
