We need a better Internet in America

[Bill McGonigle]

On 04/07/2010 08:59 AM, Seth Cohn wrote:
> If we have companies,
> like Comcast, who abuse their providerships, we route around them,
> sooner or later.

The 'sooner' part is very hard because the government:
1) claims ownership of 'rights of way' alongside roads where telephone 
poles are placed.
2) grants monopolies/dualopolies to owners/users of those poles 
(Comcast/Fairpoint).  I don't completely dismiss the ideas of natural 
monopolies, but without potential challenges, they're not proven.  Add 
to that 10-year franchise agreements that guarantee against competition 
and the outlook is dismal.
3) will not allow small business and/or residents access to those poles 
(even though most pole contracts in NH allow the option specifically). 
Disruptive models always start small and those are precluded.  It's like 
they're trying to fight known economics on purpose.

A few have taken local initiative to own the network like the sewers, 
but that's very thinly implemented.  Largely the business model seems to 
not work in practice unless they only own the network and let 
competitors provide services on it (e.g. Burlington Telecom vs. Ashland 
Fiber).

So, imagine the case where somebody like Comcast is a competitive 
Internet provider on a local network.  They start sending TCP resets for 
bittorrent and your data stops flowing, but your neighbor's doesn't. 
This is easy, the free market flows money to those who provide good 
service and the rest whither (you cancel your account and switch 
providers).  As long as there's demand for a service and there aren't 
artificial barriers to entry for those who wish to provide it, people 
will have good options.  Personally I think bittorrent ought to be 
shaped against, e.g. SIP, when traffic is tight, but I should be able to 
chose a provider who agrees with me (and those who want pure best-effort 
can chose their provider).

I agree in general that government telling ISP's how to pass traffic is 
a bad idea, but they need to get completely out of the way so the market 
can function properly.

And, just for completeness, it's 2010, and all that's available on the 
traditional government/monopoly market is 26.4k dial-up at my house, 1.2 
miles from a big fiber drop in a CSA of a quarter-million people.  I was 
getting my shoes muddy this morning planning an expensive fiber run 
through the woods.

-Bill

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Bill McGonigle, Owner
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