FCC to propose the future of US communications.

Status
Not open for further replies.
David G. Smith

David G. Smith

Steak Knife Member
The FCC is set to send to Congress it's proposal for the future of communications in the United States. From the New York Times, "The Federal Communications Commissionis proposing an ambitious 10-year plan that will reimagine the nation’s media and technology priorities by establishing high-speed Internet as the country’s dominant communication network." Of course it is going to be a fight, but I would dig a 100 mbs broadband network, that would be kick ass.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/business/media/13fcc.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1268486085-Jt93CAOuKUSJEQR/ZmVkzg
 
+1. The Feds have done their part re: the internet, now it's time for them to bugger off before they screw it up.
 
The internet's already starting to change through media consolidation.

When Comcast buys NBC/Universal, they will own everything from content production, to it's distribution and the entire pipeline.
And Time Warner's throttling and tiered internet service, charging more for watching content produced by others.

And people thought the Hollywood studio system was monopolistic?

I'm not worried about the FCC, I'm worried about the pipeline providers!

And the bandwidth's supposedly there, it's just the last what, 1/4 mile, hundred yards or whatever?
 
I just switched to Verizon's FIOs and I have to say, it is overall, very impressive. The phone quality on both lines in the house improved immensely in the switch from Copper to Fiber Optic, the Internet is screamingly fast, much better than it was on Time Warner and even though we have SD Televisions, (the only HD set is in my edit bay at work) the picture quality is much improved over Direct TV, it seems as if Verizon's head-end doesn't require nearly as high compression rates as coming through the air from the DirecTV satellite feed.

The best part was in consolidating all three services to one provider, the bill went from $245.00 per month (2 land lines, Internet and TV) to about $150.00. And yes, that last few hundred feet was a PITA, they had crews out here for about six months, tearing up the streets and this was on top of the Fiber that they had already laid into each neightborhood locally about three years ago. It took them years to wrangle all of the permits and politics in our city. As far as I am concerned though, it was worth the wait. Not a single web, phone or TV outage in 6 months. Tiem Warner used to go down almost weekly, sometimes for days. Good riddance and burn in hell Time Warner and DirecTV, both were horrible in comparison.

Dan
 
groveChuck said:
The internet's already starting to change through media consolidation.

When Comcast buys NBC/Universal, they will own everything from content production, to it's distribution and the entire pipeline.
And Time Warner's throttling and tiered internet service, charging more for watching content produced by others.

And people thought the Hollywood studio system was monopolistic?

I'm not worried about the FCC, I'm worried about the pipeline providers!

And the bandwidth's supposedly there, it's just the last what, 1/4 mile, hundred yards or whatever?
Click to expand...

The latest figures I've seen (for 2008) broadband penetration had reached 57% of US household, and was in use by 88% of active internet users. So there are still a lot of places left to get broadband. Shoot there are a lot of rural Americans that would not have phone lines without substantial federal subsidies. So, I think that the FCC plan is very ambitious.

I'm with Grovechuck, I am very much afraid of the consequences of media consolidation, which the FCC for the past several decades has done very little to discourage. Having our access to 80% or more of the available media controlled by just a hand full of corporations scares the sh*t out of me.

Now if we can get some common sense control of consolidation and net neutrality rules with some teeth, and build a monster 100mbs nation wide network... then now we're talking.... I just ain't gonn hold my breath waiting for it.
 
David G. Smith said:
I'm with Grovechuck, I am very much afraid of the consequences of media consolidation, which the FCC for the past several decades has done very little to discourage.
Click to expand...

That's the nut of it, to me. I don't foresee the FCC doing very much of anything that won't be to the advantage of the corporations and at the expense of their work force and customers.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top