Wholesale Internet Costs - Ripoffs at Consumer Level

[Beck38]

I know I've pointed this out upon occasion, but with all the rate hikes and bit charges going on around the world these days, a bit (well, more than a bit) of reality has to eventually come into play.

Another good article on just how much internet costs, due to world-wide fiber reach and the increasing of speed on those networks.

http://dslprime.com/dslprime/42-d/4148-costs-and-caps

And a review of that original article:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/2...ndwidth-113131

Folks generally don't know what the wholesale cost is for their 'local' provider to 'hook up', but it's a bare sliver of the total price one pays at the 'consumer' level, and it continues to drop off a cliff while the consumer prices get yanked up to provide the executives more yachts, mansions, you name it.

[nntpjunkie]

This is truly as case where we could use some regulation for consumer protections like over inflated billing where only pure profit margin exists. I am not generally a fan of the government handling anything if they don't have to, but it seems these telecom giants are becoming increasingly less responsible as the years go by. They need to be knocked down a peg or two to lighten our bills and spur expansion and innovation...

[heiska]

That is capitalism at its best. There is nothing wrong with maximixing profits - it's the only reason for any corporation to exist in a capitalist society.

I sure would hate a stupid (EU) government funded, communistic piece of 500 Mbit connection for $20/month, just like they have in Latvia.

Edit: Not that I wouldn't love Adam Smith's Invisible hand.

[nntpjunkie]

That is capitalism at its best. There is nothing wrong with maximixing profits - it's the only reason for any corporation to exist in a capitalist society.

Capitalism at its best I suppose only in the truest since of the word. The corporate America of today is certainly not the corporate America of old - once upon a time corporations were created with an actual vision of a human being behind it, example Henry Ford, Sam Walton - These companies largely behaved and were a reflection of their founders and their personal values this led to the company having a certain level of responsibility and integrity in the corporations over all business practices. Corporations and consumers/ clients benefited from this as the quality of products/ services were actually held to some sort of standard. Today corporations function like psychopaths caring first and only about maintaining the highest profit margins possible while creating a product with the smallest attention given to any kind of quality standards or customer service - this is especially true of AT&T - it is no secret, they piss me off. Case and point - IOS 4.3 just released and for iPhone this enables Hotspot capability right? Afraid not guys and gals! Those bastards make you subscribe to the $45.00 data plan to enable the hotspot feature the phone already supports! While verison customers use the feature for free... and this is just one example. Where the hell are the Henry Ford's and Sam Walton's of our time?

[zot]

When dialup internet reigned, consumers had a choice of hundreds of different providers that popped up to challenge America Online and their lucrative scalp-the-customer business. During the '90s, prices dropped from a high charge-per-byte rate to the point of practically being free for unlimited service at companies such as Juno and Netzero. Today, even a decade after the tech bust and shakeout of dialup carriers, you can still get dialup servce at several companies for under $5/month, as well as several free regional dialup ISPs that don't offer tech support -- an ISP's biggest cost.

Looking back in time, could this competitive dialup ISP market have developed if the US government had not, two decades earlier, stepped in and forced the Bell Telephone monopoly to open up access to it's lines to competing long-distance companies? I seriously doubt it. Had Bell Telephone won that battle, I would speculate that there might very well have been only one dialup internet service available -- theirs.

While the free market (perhaps aided by government spearheaded monopoly-busting) greatly reduced the price of dialup internet, the exact opposite has happened with broadband. The big difference with broadband internet is that in most places it is a monopoly, or at best, a duopoly. As such, there's practically no real price competition, and -- no surprise -- prices have increased rather than decreased.

@nntpjunkie - regarding Henry Ford - he complained extensively about what he saw as the abuses of greedy capitalists. The problem was, he was not shy about pointing out those of non-Christian ethnicity (in fact, making it a central theme)

[sandman_1]

I actually read, I think on Ars Technica a while back, that the cost per GB was actually less than a cent. The markup that these ISP's would like to charge you is on the the level of $5-10/GB, which is absurd. They blame data hogs, whatever that is and means, for congesting their networks for po' lil grandma that only checks her email once a week. I mean po' lil grandma shouldn't have to pay for those greedy lil hogs right? It is well known that these ISP's are making more money than ever on the broadband side. It is also known that costs to keep that network operating have been dropping like a rock. Their fail arguments for data caps and charging per GB is just a greedy attempt to upend their customers and shake every single dime they have out of them.

Simple way to fix this, and no need for Net Neutrality or shit like that, is to mandate that ISP's supply a "dumb" pipe period and open it up for competition.

In regards to corporations of old, they are just as bad if not as worse as today's. Just one of the many reasons, in the USA, we have Antitrust laws and workplace standards and laws. If you give these guys an inch, they will definitely take a mile and then some. Ford invented the assembly line to mass produce but look what that did to skilled workers. It did away with them. Now they could take someone off the street and teach them just one little task, pay them less money, and put them to work in a mind numbing repetitious job for the rest of their lives. The meat packing industry back in the early 20th century had abhorrent working conditions. You were shit out of luck if you had an open cut working for those morons.