Fw: Re: We need a better Internet in America

[Seth Cohn]

>> > Please name one instance where the government getting
>> involved has truly
>> > made things faster, cheaper and/or better. (pick 2..
>> they often try do
>> > one at the expense of the other 2)
>> >
>> Libraries, USPS, Medicare, Military ...

Libraries started off as _private_, please review your history of libraries.
Just because some are government funded, that doesn't have to be true.
In fact, witnessing the current debacle of Concord's library funding
problems, perhaps they shouldn't be.

USPS is a disaster too.  When you really want a package delivered
cheap and fast and accurate, you go FedEx or UPS. The only reason they
don't do 'normal' mail is because they aren't to, by law.
Let them, and the USPS wouldn't be in business for long.

And as for Medicare and Military, those are so off topic for this
list, let's not go there.
Suffice to say, I wouldn't point to them as successful.

>> Nice theory, but not actually true in practice. A friend
>> and I were in a chat program, and she directed me to a web
>> page. She was in Ohio, I in NH, the site in California. She
>> got to it fine, and since I could get to her (via chat) it
>> would follow that I should get to the site. But no, there
>> was a break between me and the site and rather than go
>> around, the packets just kept hitting the wall. The routers
>> on the net send you in specific directions based on previous
>> 'good' paths and won't change the route until some specific
>> event triggers a change. And without some impetus to make
>> that change you're stuck. And good luck finding more than
>> one broadband provider in the woods of NH. My choice is
>> Metrocast, or Metrocast.

Having just dealt with a similar problem (A site I host was
unreachable by Comcast users here in NH, and it turns out to be
Comcast's own New England DNS server was broken and not grabbing the
right IP, every other DNS server they had, save one, were correct.
But of course, for a local NH site, this was a disaster.), I
sympathize, but that's the fault of bad server software, not the fault
of intentional blockages which is the point of pro-Net Neutrality
folks.

And the only reason you don't have a choice is that cable franchises
are government controlled monopolies.
I'd love to have Metrocast as an option, but my only choice is
Comcast, and guess what, they refuse to run cable to my road.  So I'm
stuck with Fairpoint DSL until Comcast decides they want to service my
road.

If Metrocast (or other providers) were given equal access (ie remove
the monopoly), Comcast would have better service too, or lose my
business to one of the others.  Monopolies (ie government control) are
the problem, NOT the solution.