The Telecom Industry Is Very Mad Because The FCC MIGHT Examine High Broadband Prices

www.techdirt.com The Telecom Industry Is Very Mad Because The FCC MIGHT Examine High Broadband Prices

We’ve long noted how the FCC (regardless of party) largely ignores how muted competition and monopolization drives up prices for consumers. The agency often talks a good (if ambiguous) game a…

The Telecom Industry Is Very Mad Because The FCC MIGHT Examine High Broadband Prices::We've long noted how the FCC (regardless of party) largely ignores how muted competition and monopolization drives up prices for consumers. The agency often talks a good (if ambiguous) game about "bridging the digital divide," but they don't collect and share pricing data proving market failure, nor are they capable of admitting monopolies exist and…

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11 mo. ago

Telecom Industry Is Mad Because the FCC Might Examine High Broadband Prices

www.techdirt.com /2023/12/12/the-telecom-industry-is-very-mad-because-the-fcc-might-examine-high-broadband-prices/

30 comments

God I would love to see the government sacrifice Comcast to please us peons.

Just put their balls in a vice grip already. Fuck.
Would it just not be better to manage all unavoidable charges to be included in the sticker price?

For everything, not just broadband.
- What?!? But then how are companies going to manipulate their pricing to attract new customers away from their competitors without actually cutting any revenue? They neeeed this to keep their numbers up so they look more attractive to investors and get more money. Are you not thinking of the shareholders? Why won't anyone think of the shareholders!
  
  /s ... if that was not obvious
  
  Sorry, no, not obvious, this is likely exactly what they're thinking, no sarcasm needed.
What we truly need is local loop unbundling (remember with landlines, you could switch your phone provider or use different ISPs for DSL, this was possible due to that) to make smaller ISPs enter the market and be able to lease existing last mile and bring back strong antitrust laws to prevent mergers.
- Nope, nationalize it. Texas has a million energy providers and still hasn't had prices as low as when it was a public utility. The same applies to every other utility such as water or internet.
Kinda curious. Americans of lemmy: How much do you pay for internet?

I'm up a bit north Eh. Paying cad$135 (usd~$99.50) monthly before tax for Gigabit with no data cap.
- I’m super lucky. Apartment has integrated dirt cheap symmetrical 1gb for ~$30/mo
  
  Damn, that's a good deal.
  
  Is rent a bitch to compensate? Or is that decent too.
- I pay $39.99 USD for 300 megabit symmetrical fiber.
  
  Same
- $80/mo symmetrical gig, no cap, fiber. ATT is shit but they've been very reliable with this service, first time I've been a happy customer of theirs.
- ~$70 for a 500/30 plan on Spectrum over on the east coast for me.
  
  Also no data cap, thankfully...
  
  80 for 300/10 but the 300 usually maxes out around 210-250 depending on time of day. Also spectrum, also eastern timezone.
- I have symmetrical gigabit for $75/month. It was $65 but Centurylink decided to raise it randomly a few months ago with no warning. The notification that my bill would be going up came after the date they said it would be going up and after I received the increased bill. No data cap though and no extra bullshit fees.
  
  The alternative is through Wave that would not be symmetrical and would come with a cap.
- You're going to get numbers all over the place lol.
  
  I'm $70 for a gig up and down. My parents are $150 for 150mb down and either 15mb or 25mb up. They also have a 1 gig soft cap before getting throttled.
- Just went up, but not too bad: $84/mon gigabit symmetrical, and I don’t know of any data cap.
  
  Meanwhile my ex lives in an island of darkness where her HOA has an exclusive contract with Comcast. I believe “the new xFinity 10g network!!!” Is limited to 200/20, plus has horrendous latency, and I think she pays more than me for the abuse
- $137/mo USD total.
  
  Microwave service: $100 for 100/100mbps, 1TB of data. $7.00 for fucking DHCP to be enabled on their router. $30 for an additional 1TB of data.
- 75Mbit down / 10 Mbit up with a 1.2TByte monthly cap.: $30 a month.
- $56 for 500, no caps
- oof getting robbed, Rogers has gigabit for around 80CAD if you negotiate with them. Assuming you're in a city with them
  
  Only provider available at my address (Telus, ugh).
- ~75$ for 1gb - Fiber. Otherwise looking at 100$+ for the same with a cap.
  
  ~130$ for 100 to 200mb - Starlink. From a relative who lives rural south of me and only has HughesNet as an alternative because the only cable provider doesn't want to service an additional mile for a few houses.
- $80usd for like 200 mbit down, 10 up. Cable monopoly in my area. FiOS isn't super far away but it isn't getting closer...
- $120 USD for 700/20
- My friend in the country pays $135 US/month for 400mbps down, 20mbps up (realistic speeds are closer to 50x5), and that's after he negotiated. Originally, they wanted to charge him $150 US. I told him to go elsewhere. He said he has Spectrum or ATT ($65 US/month for 25x5). Pity.
- $75 USD for me. Gigabit up and down. In practice I generally see just north of 60 MB/s each way. Might go as high as 500 MB/s if I run a speed test when all of my neighbors are asleep. The latency is quite good though.
- USA, $25 for 300Mbits down. It's Verizon 5G Home, normally $50 but I'm bundled with my phone plan so it's $25
The sacrosanct right to fuck people sideways for profit must never be scrutinized. Otherwise god's wrath will come upon us.

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