FCC Broadband Proposal: too little, too late, too timid

Its the same reason most people run Windows :-)

There is a very simple reason for that: where are they going to go? AT&T? To many, that's no improvement. There is no point in wondering if the air is any good when that's all there is to breathe.

You've actually nailed why broadband in this country sucks: no competition. Oh, there are plenty of providers, but they all operate in exclusive territories, which they can rape and pillage at will.

There is another reason, of course: most Internet providers are also in the content and service business. They have a vested interest in keeping the Internet (at least as consumers see it) crippled. Make it like other countries enjoy, and they would have customers getting their entertainment from other providers.

I recently had someone ask why Vonage was crap over Comcast, but Comcast's own (VOIP) phone service worked just fine. That is when I explained the principles of traffic management. "They can do that and get away with it?" Duh!

We'll never have robust Internet service in the US until providers are forced to divest themselves of their content enterprises, and until we get a lot more providers serving common areas.

Vonage works fine over Comcast, FYI. I'm in my 5th year without issues.

That's interesting to find out. Generic VOIP (not tied to a "product") seems to work very badly on consumer Comcast (not so bad on business Comcast), mainly due to jitter.

" I've been using Vonage over Comcast since late 2005, and I know of " quite a few others who are using 3rd party VoIP services over " Comcast without any issues. What were you doing that you found it " nearly impossible to get VoIP to work? Feel free to drop into the " .comcast newsgroup if you need help.

I tested VOIP on Comcast and Sonic DSL. 100% unusable on Comcast; almost perfect on Sonic DSL. Specific network diagnosis tests revealed Comcast was introducing communications faults that specifically hurt VOIP more than any other communication method. I posted my results here; I forget what they were. Who knows why, and who knows why they didn't fix it? Perhaps because they're being anti-competitive.

I don't know why your setup is fine, nor those of your friends.

In article , John Richards wrote: " "alexd" wrote in message news:ho0cho$1la$ snipped-for-privacy@speranza.aioe.org... " > Nuenen in the Netherlands has a pop den of 1742/sq mile and " > they've all [90%] got fibre: " > " >

" > " > Eindhoven is next. I'm sure you God-fearing capitalists will abhor " > the idea of a co-operative building a broadband network, but hey, " > your loss! " " Government interference through various subsidies hides the true " cost of providing such service. It boils down to a willingness by " everyone to pay higher taxes in order to get more cradle-to-grave " services. Most Americans are unwilling to pay higher taxes.

Regarding the government-subsidized infrastructure model, you have an important point. I add to it that I'd like to separate the good tax expenditure from the bad, but that doing so isn't readily possible with our current political officeholders, appointees, and departments, though I think the system could withstand a complete replacement of all the current political officeholders, appointees and departments and still serve us fine if those replacements were good. Once we get that far, the theory of whether government OUGHT to becomes more relevant, once it is actually ABLE to: ought the government mold and/or fund certain types of infrastructure? The pros are many, as well as the cons, and I'd like to see at least some consideration of it, even if it turns out it's a bad idea to actually DO it (I'm not saying either way; I used to be pretty anti-government when it came to investing in and/or molding the structure of communications, but now I'm just sort of anti-government about it).

But my point is that as it is now, putting good money to bed would be hard; most countries end up spending too much money to achieve such goals. We try to chart a good course somehow among the options.