Comcast claims the FCC lacks any authority and should back off

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: RandomFool

Originally posted by: spidey07
We are in a extremely competitive free market.

Customers can get dish, directTV, over the air or telco or any number of other providers. Most broadband customers have a choice, so it's nowhere near a monopoly.

Negative. I have on choice, Cox, and that's it. Verizon has been expending service but hasn't made it to my area.

*edit*
for broadband that is

Stop using what is in your area. The majority of broadband customers have a choice. Not all, but the majority. People continually use just their neighborhood and forget to look at the whole market.

There is no monopoly, but in the small minority of areas there may only be one choice (not really true either because there's satellite).

It is EXACTLY because of free market that the prices are so low.

One side of the argument claims that most people in America have a choice, the other side of the argument claims that most people in America do NOT have a choice (the priviledged few have a choice).

Can someone at least back up their claims? Everywhere I've lived there has been only ONE choice for broadband, and those were in big cities (> 500,000 people and > 1,000,000 people) where you'd expect several broadband carriers. Has there actually been a study that breaks down how many people have more than one broadband choice?

Also, broadband prices in America are quite a bit higher for the same service that you get in most Western nations (ie most of Europe), so I don't know if those free market forces are working quite as well as you claim.

 

[Nitemare]

cable monopoly > government

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: RandomFool

Originally posted by: spidey07
We are in a extremely competitive free market.

Customers can get dish, directTV, over the air or telco or any number of other providers. Most broadband customers have a choice, so it's nowhere near a monopoly.

Negative. I have on choice, Cox, and that's it. Verizon has been expending service but hasn't made it to my area.

*edit*
for broadband that is

Stop using what is in your area. The majority of broadband customers have a choice. Not all, but the majority. People continually use just their neighborhood and forget to look at the whole market.

There is no monopoly, but in the small minority of areas there may only be one choice (not really true either because there's satellite).

It is EXACTLY because of free market that the prices are so low.

One side of the argument claims that most people in America have a choice, the other side of the argument claims that most people in America do NOT have a choice (the priviledged few have a choice).

Can someone at least back up their claims? Everywhere I've lived there has been only ONE choice for broadband, and those were in big cities (> 500,000 people and > 1,000,000 people) where you'd expect several broadband carriers. Has there actually been a study that breaks down how many people have more than one broadband choice?

Also, broadband prices in America are quite a bit higher for the same service that you get in most Western nations (ie most of Europe), so I don't know if those free market forces are working quite as well as you claim.

I saw one bogus study that basically operated under the assumption that if one person in a zip code had broadband from a provider then all people within that zip code had access to it. This of course led to somewhat impressive (but sadly, still not really impressive) numbers for broadband ability, provided you lived in magic bullshit land.

 

[MotF Bane]

Comcast = newbie in the jail
FCC = Bubba