happyscrappy t1_iuew06h wrote on October 30, 2022 at 8:17 PM

Reply to comment by drawkbox in U.S. tech giants face pressure from Europe’s telcos to pay for building the internet by thinkB4WeSpeak

If customers aren't paying for metered service then the ISPs have a strong incentive to try to tamp down customer usage. It allows them to offer lower prices at the same profit margins (or higher margins at the same price). And customers like lower prices.

Going to fiber isn't going to fix this. They can still oversubscribe their uplinks if it saves them money.

Maybe the fix for residential ISPs is to abandon flat-rate service? Better services costs more, as expected.

E_Snap t1_iueyyds wrote on October 30, 2022 at 8:36 PM

Or you hold them to the agreements that they made when the US government gave them billions on the condition that they run fiber. You do know that not letting corporations run rough-shod over the country is an option, right? Anything involving changing public policy or other large scale changes should involve moving in that direction, not just throwing our hands up and saying “I guess we have to make incentives for capitalists to not be fuckheads!”

happyscrappy t1_iuf30my wrote on October 30, 2022 at 9:04 PM

> Or you hold them to the agreements that they made when the US government gave them billions on the condition that they run fiber.

That's s myth. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was almost completely unfunded. It authorized telecoms companies to add fees to their customer's bills to pay for infrastructure improvements. Those fees amounted to billions. And only some of it was used for fiber. But it didn't come from the US government, it came from customers.

The act was created to pay for "video dial tone", which was the idea you'd use interactive TV and video conferencing. The type of fiber chosen isn't even relevant today. It's not the type used for high speed internet now. It was used at the time in some ways for 45 mbps internet. Which is not what people are looking for today.

> You do know that not letting corporations run rough-shod over the country is an option, right?

I know you're not a child. I would appreciate it if you don't treat me like one as I am not one either.

> Anything involving changing public policy or other large scale changes should involve moving in that direction, not just throwing our hands up and saying “I guess we have to make incentives for capitalists to not be fuckheads!”

Capitalists are going to act in their best financial interest. Incentives work great to make changes as we know that's how capitalists work. When regulating you can do so most effectively by understanding how the groups you are regulating will operate.

What would be wrong with metered service? It's how we manage electricity usage. If you didn't pay for electricity you would use it a lot differerently.