Monday, June 07, 2021
BROADBAND UPDATE
Limited Competition Means US Broadband Prices Can Vary Drastically On The Same Block
from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
But live in any of the countless US markets that major broadband providers have neglected (despite decades of major subsidies, tax breaks, and the near-mystical promises surrounding mindless deregulation), and you're often facing the choice of either an apathetic telco with sluggish, neglected DSL, or, more likely, a regional cable monopoly (Charter or Comcast) that charges significantly more money thanks to regional monopolization.
Over at Stop the Cap!, Phil Dampier recently showcased how the presence or absence of competition can even result in customers having to pay up to $40 more per month for the same or sometimes slower service. Not only that, users in more competitive markets enjoy longer promotion rates (often two years rather than just one). Even the fees charged by the regional monopoly (one major way they hit consumers with dramatically higher prices than advertised) are significantly higher at homes that lack any real competition:
"Spectrum charges a hefty $199.99 compulsory installation fee for gigabit service in non-competitive neighborhoods. Where fiber competition exists, sometimes just a street away, that installation fee plummets to just $49.99."
When asked to explain itself, Charter engaged in some tap dancing:
When contacted by Ars, Charter said that "Spectrum Internet retail prices, speeds, and features are consistent in each market—regardless of the competitive environment." But "retail prices" are the standard rates customers pay after promotional rates expire. Stop the Cap showed that Charter's promotional rates vary between competitive and noncompetitive areas.
Charter told Ars that its promotional offers are affected by several factors, including "location."
Filed Under: broadband, competition, fcc, prices
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“We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest," said Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs.
“If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded,” added Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Trump described the ruling as "abuse"
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On Trump, Facebook Kicks the Can—Again
It’s Facebook’s house, so we shouldn’t complain too much about what it does—within the law—inside its doors. But there’s something about its new judgment and sentence of Donald Trump, banning him from the site for two years and promising to review his return based on the “risk to public safety,” that screams arbitrary and capricious as opposed to just and consistent. It’s almost as if Facebook deliberately set out to render a verdict in the Trump case that nobody would applaud. It doesn’t overtly offend anybody in the MAGA crowd or the resistance; it appeals to the soft middle that doesn’t really care about Trump, or Facebook, or Facebook’s weaseling jurisprudence.
Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs and former member of Parliament, took great pride in staking that low ground in his post about the decision. “There are many people who believe it was not appropriate for a private company like Facebook to suspend an outgoing President from its platform, and many others who believe Mr. Trump should have immediately been banned for life,” he wrote. The best you can say for Clegg and the company’s decision is that it was Solomonic but only in the sense that Facebook followed through on its threat to slice the baby in half by doing just that—and doing it as a Friday news dump.
In slamming Facebook for inconsistency, we must also take care to also point out that the social media company is consistent about its inconsistencies.
> Thanks to founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s governance, it practiced inconsistent enforcement of its “hate speech” guidelines and then apologized for those inconsistencies.
> It banned political ads after the November election, then reinstated them in March.
> It banned posts that contradicted Centers for Disease Control and Prevention directions and then lifted the ban.
> Don’t take my word for it: The co-chairman of Facebook’s so-called Oversight Board, appointed to review and judge Facebook’s content policy and actions, called its content-banning policies a “shambles” last month.
“Their rules are a shambles,” Michael McConnell said. “They are not transparent. They are unclear. They are internally inconsistent.”
Facebook thought it had purchased a pass from criticism when it established the Oversight Board in 2020. All the tough questions about running the site could be punted by Zuckerberg to the oversighters, leaving him little to do but trap and spend its $86 billion in annual revenues. . .
Their rules, apparently, are “kick the can two years further down the road.”
A normal company and a normal CEO would be ashamed to run its affairs in such a slipshod fashion. But Facebook and Zuckerberg are not normal. He’s the guy who habitually screws up but always apologizes dramatically when found out.
> Fast Company and other outlets have collected and cataloged his apology storms over the years.
> The privacy-invading “Beacon” feature. Zuck was sorry about that.
> Sharing unique user IDs with advertisers? So sorry.
> Calling Facebook users “dumb fucks”?
> Rejecting the argument that Facebook helped Trump win?
> The Cambridge Analytica scandal?
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
There should be a law of limitations that rations public apologies and puts those who exceed the limit into a penalty box for six months.
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