Posted on 09/24/2012 10:19:28 AM PDT by RightCenter
The U.S. has fallen behind much of the Western world when it comes to phone, cable and Internet service. Americans actually pay much more for inferior service compared to their global counterparts. In his new book, The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use 'Plain English' to Rob You Blind, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston highlights these astounding facts: Americans pay four times as much as the French for an Internet triple-play package—phone, cable TV and Internet—at an average of $160 per month versus $38 per month. The French get global free calling and worldwide live television. Their Internet is also 10 times faster at downloading information and 20 times faster uploading it. America has gone from #1 in Internet speed (when we invented it) to 29th in the world and falling. Bulgaria is among the countries with faster Internet service. Americans pay 38 times as much as the Japanese for Internet data.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
If only.... Unfortunately, government at ALL levels is corrupt to it's core and is the main reason it can happen as you say.
One of governments main purposes today is to destroy true capitalism -- actively so.
If we have true capitalism what you say would already be happening across the Republic and aggressively push down prices.
However, government is against Liberty.
Government at the local level, starting with sadistic councils, have humans who want to feel important and assert power by always being negative to new businesses in general (that would impact country wide areas)
Existing companies use their political power to influence state and local government entities to throw up regulatory and licensing roadblocks (this is part of the crony capitalism Sarah railed against).
At the Federal level we have the highest corporate taxes in the world and an insulting amount of fees tacked on to services.
We are very, very far removed from anything resembling true free enterprise in this Republic. The evil parasite class at all levels of government are filled with sadistic bureaucrats who view us as enemies.
You are probably right!
True enough, but non-TV services like internet and phones are still too expensive for what we get in return (relative to other countries)
True enough, but non-TV services like internet and phones are still too expensive for what we get in return (relative to other countries)
this isn’t just about faster internet, though, but also better phone coverage and cheaper cable TV. and faster internet could help the growth of tech startups in places outside of silicon valley
I see this repeated over and over again. When it does get to be enough that the cable company or telco notice, then they will take steps to “shape traffic” and make services and other site unusable. Already done today for bit-torrent, which is not always used for piracy. Distributed computing and distributed observations used bit-torrent to broadcast data. And lets not forget data caps...
Without a true net neutrality regulation, you will be held hostage, since most consumers have one true choice in broadband. Some have 2, where Fios and Cable searve the same markets, but that is a small portion. Where I live, its Comcast and Verizon DSL, which is limited to 1.5 Mbps down, 128kbps up due to distance from the CO.
Does she read the news in French or English?
...not that it matters.....
This is a bogus site. They are “testing” using other providers than my own.
Ever heard of Franchise?
Oh no you've got it all wrong. Big Gub'ment, Big Telcom and Big Media are out to make things wonderful for you.
Why now they've went and streamlined things so we save money. See if you are accused of illegal downloading this alliance of the Big 3 have eliminated a whole step. Now we don't need courts and the law we can go straight to punishment and you get your internet connection either "squelched" (slowed way down to where it is impossible to watch or download video on your connection) or your account closed and disconnected.
Granted if you are hacked and your account is used for illegal downloading (Any Jr. Highschooler with a couple of hackwares that are free on the internet can hack your wireless router in under 40 minutes and you would never know) its not really your fault BUT look at all the money these guys are saving by eliminating the legal step.
And Obama made this deal happen! Amesome shit eh?
Well, to them the goose is the golden campaign contribution from the big telcos, and they are just killing the fleas that are bothering it. :)
ROFL
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