Non-Cable Internet Providers Offer Faster Speeds To the Wealthy (arstechnica.com) 170
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When non-cable Internet providers -- outlets like ATT or Verizon -- choose which communities to offer the fastest connections, they don't juice up their networks so everyone in their service area has the option of buying quicker speeds. Instead, they tend to favor the wealthy over the poor, according to an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity. The Center's data analysis found that the largest non-cable Internet providers collectively offer faster speeds to about 40 percent of the population they serve nationwide in wealthy areas compared with just 22 percent of the population in poor areas. That leaves tens of millions of Americans with the choice of either purchasing an expensive connection from the only provider in their area -- typically a cable company -- or just doing the best they can with slower speeds. Middle-income areas don't fare much better, with a bit more than 27 percent of the population having access to a DSL provider's fastest speeds. The Center reached its conclusions by merging the latest Federal Communications Commission (FCC) data with income information from the U.S. Census Bureau. The non-cable Internet providers -- the four largest are ATT Inc, Verizon Communications Inc, CenturyLink Inc, and Frontier Communications Corp -- hook up customers over telephone wires that are Digital Subscriber Lines (DSL), or they use hybrid networks that include some fiber connections near (and sometimes directly to) homes. The Center included all types of connection in its analysis. These companies account for nearly 40 percent of the 92 million Internet connections nationwide. Cable companies, such as Comcast Corp and Charter Communications Inc, operate under a different set of conditions. These providers offer the same fast speeds to almost every community they serve, in part because of franchise agreements with local governments. But a previous Center investigation and other reports have shown that cable firms sometimes avoid lower-income or hard-to-reach areas based on how franchise agreements are written. Poor areas not served by the cable companies are not included in the Centerâ(TM)s analysis, which results in what seems like an equitable distribution of speeds across income levels. "Society said it did not matter if you could pay for electricity; we wanted everyone to have it. Society said we would not limit dial tone to those who could pay the most, we gave it to all," said telecommunications lawyer Gerard Lederer of Best Best and Krieger LCC in Washington, D.C., in an e-mail. "Broadband is quickly becoming that utility, and if applications only work at high speeds, then the universal availability of that speed must be the goal, otherwise you are providing everyone with water, just some of the water is not drinkable."
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be fine (Score:5, Interesting)
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The assholes do spend over $1billion / year each (Score:5, Insightful)
> They built none of the infrastructure they profit from.
> They're rent seeking parasites.
Some of the cable companies are ASSHOLES. No doubt about that. Personally I've had pretty good experiences with them, but I'm Texas, where there's competition. I know that people on the coasts particularly often continue to live with the cable monopolies their government created years ago, and those monopoly providers sometimes suck, particularly, their customer service sucks and Comcast has questionable billing practices.
To be honest, however, those assholes DO each spend over a billion dollars every year upgrading their networks. Here's $300 million / year just in Chicago alone, for example:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/... [chicagotribune.com]
Verizon has spent $15 billion on FIOS. Goldman calculated that for Google to become a national ISP, it would cost them $140 billion.
It is honest and right to criticize their customer service, and to point out Comcast's illegal billing. It is false, and makes one appear rather uninformed, to claim that they don't invest HUGE amounts of money in building and constantly upgrading the infrastructure. When you make a claim like that which is so easily shown to be absolutely false, you appear to be either clueless or disingenuous, at which point people stop listening to you and don't hear your legitimate complaints about customer service or other real issues.
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Verizon has spent $15 billion on FIOS.
Damn, that's enough to pay the administrative costs alone for social security for two years.
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that's enough to pay the administrative costs alone for social security for two years.
Probably not enough now that Obama has done everything he could to expand it [usgovernmentspending.com]. Today about three quarters of social security payments go to people under the age of 65.
Re:The assholes do spend over $1billion / year eac (Score:5, Interesting)
That sounds shocking if not for the fact that everyone eligible for Social Security can start collecting at age 62 and has been able to do so for decades.
Nearly 50% of people eligible for Social Security make the choice to collect benefits at age 62, they receive a smaller check for the earlier payout.
Social Security disability payments virtually ALL go to persons under age 65 because a disability payment converts to a regular Social Security check at retirement age. So that skews the numbers lower.
Let's look at actual numbers (https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/chartbooks/fast_facts/2015/fast_facts15.pdf)
About four-fifths of all OASDI beneficiaries in current-payment status were aged 62 or older,
including 22 percent aged 75–84 and 9 percent aged 85 or older. About 15 percent were
persons aged 18–61 receiving benefits as disabled workers, survivors, or dependents. Another
5 percent were children under age 18.
Anything shock you there?
Not even sure why the age 65 thing bothers you, age 62 is when you become eligible for a reduced Social Security retirement benefit and almost half the people who become eligible elect to take smaller checks at age 62 instead of waiting till full retirement age.
You don't even provide a basis for claiming that Obama has anything to do, much less "has done everything he could to expand", with Social Security spending. As the baby boomer population ages there are more people eligible to start collecting their Social Security retirement check. Look at the chart on p 14 of the link I provided above, the number of NEW retired workers has jumped dramatically since about 2003 Obama didn't make people older and the retirement age hasn't decreased.
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that's nice, by 2006 they (telcos) were paid $200 billion to roll fiber out to everyone
You ran into Bruce Kushnick (Score:2)
$200 billion by 2006? Lol I see you ran into a Bruce Kushnick article. I know you got that from Bruce because he's the only one who has ever come up with a number anywhere near that.
He's off by about two orders of magnitude. His reasoning is slightly less logical than the people who say income tax is illegal because they live in THE UNITED STATES, while the 16th amendment applies to the United States.
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Not an article, it was a book and he was in the correct ballpark with the tax breaks and concessions
Of hundreds of analysts, he's the only only one (Score:2)
Believe what you wish. Do note as soon as you said hundreds of billions I knew you got that from Bruce. So many people have analyzed the numbers, only Bruce claims anything like that. Perhaps he's right and every economist and other analyst is completely wrong. Or maybe he's a kook.
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some analysts agree with Bruce.
I've been following that particular issue for half my life and we hit tens of billions by the end of the 90s
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Microtik and
Why should the politician enforce a monopoly at al (Score:2)
> If an incumbent provider fails to maintain a broadband system, franchise agreements become invalid or non-exclusive, and open the areas up to competing ISPs.
Why should the politicians be enforcing a monopoly for their favored company in the first place? I would say that with phones it's been good to have Sprint competing with AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and and US Cellular. Yes, that means their infrastructure is duplicative, but I'd say it's worked better than monopolies. In most parts of Texas we
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Much of the equipment is coming down in cost to the point where you could have a 100-user ISP with reasonable service prices; maybe that will help evolve gigabit service to the home.
Are four or five wires too many for a pole (Score:3)
Let's see, one set of wires for electric, one for pstn, and three choices of internet is five wires on the pole outside my house. Where you live, are utitlity poles too small to have five wires on them?
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Code says 40" and 12" (Score:2)
> You need 18-24" between providers, plus 3' to low
> voltage (240V+), and another 5' to medium voltage.
That's interesting, where do you work? National Electric Safety Code says half as much between providers. NESC 238A and 239G say 40" working space between electric and communications, or 30" for bonded neutrals. Code is 12" between communications providers.
14' to the lowest communication cable, plus two 12" clearances to two others is 16 feet. Plus 40 inches to electric is 19 feet 4 inches, by code.
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A "right" is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a social context. (Rand).
Please explain how "dictating" relates to "freedom of action."
You're kinda missing the point (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't get rich by investing. The real money is in ownership. There was just an MIT study that compared Bill Gates the Microsoft entrepreneur to Bill Gates the rich retired guy. Gates #2 made way more money for not working. They also compared him to one of the wealthy heiresses who'd never worked a day in her life. She was neck and neck with Bill Gates the idle rich guy and trounced Bill Gates the entrepreneur. This is the reality they don't teach you in high school economics class.
Fun to say, but factually false (Score:2)
> They get the spending right back in the form of tax breaks and subsidies.
That's a fun thing to say, but simply false on the facts. Take a look at the numbers, they've been analyzed quite thoroughly by many people. Only Bruce Kushnick has ever tried to make that claim while citing a single number. Brice also thinks that THE UNITED STATES is a different country from the United States, so ....
How do you think Bill Gates BECAME a retired rich guy? Hint - not by waiting around for Obama to give him a cell
Did you actually read my post? (Score:2)
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Just what is it that you think investing is?
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Meanwhile, government committees are just about done finalizing the request for proposals to bring 2400 baud dial up to rural communities.
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They may find in 10 years that their investment gets stolen (nationalised) because that's the way the wind's blowing.
Nationalised, in the US? LOL.
Thanks.
But no. In the US it stays in private hands, preferably as a monopoly or small cartel where price-fixing can be arranged.
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Really... So those excavators digging up the streets and the Comcast trucks swarming around pulling cables and testing stuff on the street I live on maybe 15 years ago wasn't Comcast? Now, we all get (for a price of course, but water costs money too and it truly is needed for life) effectively 180mbps down (unfortunately, only about 12mpbs up) and could go higher with a business account. Who was pretending to be "Comcast" - was it the FBI, the CIA, the
Re: That would be fine (Score:2, Informative)
Look up the universal service fund.
We were taxed extra to pay for those lines.
Comcast made the order to do it, sure ... But the sure as hell didn't pay for it.
Thanks for being an ignorant tool
Re: That would be fine (Score:4, Insightful)
Look up the universal service fund.
OK
We were taxed extra to pay for those lines.
Not exactly. Here is the right information, straight from the horse's mouth [fcc.gov].
Universal Service Fund
Prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Universal Service Fund (USF) operated as a mechanism by which interstate long distance carriers were assessed to subsidize telephone service to low-income households and high-cost areas. The Communications Act of 1934 stated that all people in the United States shall have access to rapid, efficient, nationwide communications service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 expanded the traditional definition of universal service - affordable, nationwide telephone service to include among other things rural health care providers and eligible schools and libraries. Today, FCC provides universal service support through four mechanisms:
1. High Cost Support Mechanism provides support to certain qualifying telephone companies that serve high cost areas, thereby making phone service affordable for the residents of these regions.
2. Low Income Support Mechanism assists low-income customers by helping to pay for monthly telephone charges as well as connection charges to initiate telephone service.
2. Rural Health Care Support Mechanism allows rural health care providers to pay rates for telecommunications services similar to those of their urban counterparts, making telehealth services affordable.
4. Schools and Libraries Support Mechanism, popularly know as the "E-Rate," provides telecommunication services (e.g., local and long-distance calling, high-speed lines), Internet access, and internal connections (the equipment to deliver these services) to eligible schools and libraries.
I don't claim to be an expert on this, but I can certainly see that the subsidies you are referring to are used to provide service to the exceptional locations, not every customer Comcast serves.
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Nobody was pretending to be Comcast. Comcast constantly gets municipal, state, and federal funding to roll out service. So do the telcos.
Re:That would be fine (Score:5, Insightful)
And if they didn't try to block anyone else (like city councils) from providing it.
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Low wage jobs are not unimportant actually they are often extremely important but good old economics 101 supply and demand comes into play.
These low wage jobs are jobs that nearly anyone can do so there there is a large labor supply so their wages are low. Now just because nearly anyone can do the job it doesn't mean it is unimportant or waste of human life. We need these jobs.
The problem isn't making sure that everyone is pulling their own weight. But to make sure these people doing important jobs are ab
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Lots of things are fine to privatize. The question isn't whether or not its "important" but whether or not its competitive.
Unfortunately we try to apply capitalist ideals to everything, whether its viably competitive or not. Usually that fails miserably. There are just some things in the world that don't lend themselves to competition -- either because they're tied to physical resources that simply can't be divided or because they're so costly to construct that private industry doesn't deem worth the inv
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Both Standard Oil and Alcoa were effectively monopolies for many years, because they ruthlessly reduced prices and increased capacity to practically shut out potential competition before it could arise. Increasing business volume is the best way to increase profits.
In a government "business", the incentives are different. Managers increase their power and income not by providing better or more service, but by increasing the number of subordinates (which tends to make service more expensive.)
Also (Score:5, Informative)
Richer areas often newer areas. Not always, of course, there's plenty of "old money" areas but you also see plenty of cases of new development particularly for middle and upper middle class. They want nice new homes, those homes are built in new developments.
Now why's that matter? Well when you are building a new development, you usually use the most current technology which often means FTTH, or at the very least higher quality category cable and fiber out to the box. That lets them offer higher speed. The big cost is running the lines, not the material used so you do it with better materials. You have to spend the money to lay the lines, or you can't offer service.
However in old development, well that has old shit. It can be replaced, of course, but that is a lot of money. It can cost more than a new run because tearing shit up in a developed area can be pretty costly. So they are reluctant to do it.
This of course goes double if you are talking areas that are poorer. The improved infrastructure would allow them to offer faster speeds, but the reason they want to do that is because they can get more money. People who live in poorer areas are not as likely to want to spend more money and will just elect to keep slower speeds. A good number of them might not even be on the fastest speed available to them already because they wish for something cheap.
Thus it makes sense why it happens like that. The reason cable companies offer faster speeds is it is generally much easier for them particularly with DOCSIS 3. All they really have to do is put more channels on their CMTS. It isn't free, but doesn't cost a ton and doesn't require redoing lots of buried cable. The coax out there is already good to a gigahertz, maybe more.
You even see it in middle class neighborhoods. I live in a decent condo complex, and right next to me is some pretty upscale housing. However, both here and in the houses, 6ish mbit DSL is all you can get. Reason is it is old construction, 1970s. So the telephones are all copper, straight to the CO, and not very high grade cable. The cable company will sell you 300mbit though, no problem. That said the same cable company offers fiber in new developments, many of which cost less than the houses near me.
It is just what we are going to see with for profit companies. If we want an "equal speeds for all, don't worry about the costs" setup then it is going to have to be publicly funded and run.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
It could also be that they discovered a pattern where population density correlates with wealth. It would make sense to target high population density for internet, since pretty much anyone who can afford to own or rent a home can also afford internet.
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TFA is about DSL Speeds FFS. This is always slower than cable. This is not about the best internet service in wealthy areas, this is about better DSL in wealthy areas - 6 Mbps instaed of 1.5 Mbps. Not exactly envy-worthy. Not other nation would even call it "broadband" to begin with.
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Because you tried oh-so-cleverly to hijack the thread in order to indulge your Hillary Hate Boner, maybe?
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I'm not poor and I torrent. Though I also tend to pay for the highest speed internet tiers available. But admittedly, that's a habit I've carried over from when I was poor.
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If only the poor had money to spend on movie tickets, maybe they would torrent less!
Just throw rocks through the windows of the movie/record studios and RI/MPAA offices and the homes of their executive officers along with all the politicians that take their money and pass their laws, then put the poor to work replacing them, thus earning an honest wage with which to legally purchase (temporarily and conditionally license only for specific uses) movies and music.
Problem solved!
Strat
Mandate higher speeds NOW!! (Score:5, Insightful)
It is just unfair, that the rich have a better life than the poor... The government must mandate equal quality of life for all!
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How can that be done in inner city areas? What connection quality exists beyond landline telephone connections?
Coax? Something from the U-verse years? DSL?
"pulp- and paper-insulated feeder cables" (8/15/2014)
http://arstechnica.com/informa... [arstechnica.com]
Build a new network and allow any service to be selected? Offer a US wide service with a new national Bell System to look after it all?
Go with a Universal Service Fund https://en.wikipedia.org/wi [wikipedia.org]
Re:Mandate higher speeds NOW!! (Score:4, Insightful)
It is just unfair, that the rich have a better life than the poor... The government must mandate equal quality of life for all!
I get that you're being sarcastic, but if you believe that the internet is as trans-formative as electricity, roads, or in-door plumbing, then there is a good argument that it should be available to all.
Re: Mandate higher speeds NOW!! (Score:2)
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Here's how I got high speed internet... Finished school, got a job, advanced my skills at my job, got rich, got high speed internet. It isn't that hard.
That's so precious. Update us after you get laid off from your skillful job. Think it won't happen to you? You're next!
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Re: Mandate higher speeds NOW!! (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently your internet access doesn't include spellcheck.. 'douche'.
Service for those who will buy it (Score:2)
It's not surprising to me that providers would choose build the high speed infrastructure in areas with the greatest return on investment. Think about it, why poor tons of money into an area where the user density is low and which might never even pay back the cost of the infrastructure? You want to make your infrastructure investments in areas with the greatest numbers of potential users in order to realize the quickest and most sustainable payback on your investment. Then as technology improves and bec
Re:Service for those who will buy it (Score:4, Insightful)
Problem with that is that only the wealthy areas would get any infrastructure. Had this applied to power, the power company would have New York lit up, but everywhere else would have to bring their own generators. Vital services need to come under the eyes of government, otherwise, it will only be a rich man's toy, and the digital divide will only grow larger.
In a better world, we would have a wireless mesh system by now, spanning entire cities, with LTE used to be able to get people who are further away.
But who cares about decent access to the Internet? Company quarterly profits uber Alles is the motto of these times.
Re: Service for those who will buy it (Score:1)
"Decent"? The issue is "fastest", not "decent".
Company quarterly profits uber Alles is the motto of these times.
OMG! Without profits, there's no tax revenues - would it be better if corporations eschewed profits, operated at a loss, and never paid taxes to fund schools, police, fire departments, social programs in the communities they serve?
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That's not completely accurate, as Verizon paid less than $0 We actually paid them, on average, around 1.1 billion/year with our tax dollars! Do you think that helped those schools, police, fire departments, and social programs for the communities they "serve"?
Yes, at least for the fire and police parts. For fire and police to act in the saving of life, limb, and property they must know about the problem. People having the ability to call for emergency services, with perhaps a telephone, would improve response times.
Also, Verizon as an entity may not have paid taxes but all the employees did. They paid income and sales taxes with their wages. These employees spending money on income taxes means some of that money goes toward funding the schools.
I generally op
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"LOL, you think companies pay their fair share of taxes on profits!"
LOL, you think "fair share" has any meaning whatsoever!
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That's why we've had tight regulation of electricity providers since AD 1000.... Oh, wait, there was no such thing as an electricity provider then, and it wasn't and isn't vital.
Re: Service for those who will buy it (Score:4, Informative)
What? Perhaps the wiring in the building has something to do with an inability to provide 400 Amp service to an APARTMENT?
Wow, any chance updated, AKA 'Industrial grade' wiring in the 'converted warehouse' has something to do with the ability to provision 400 Amp service?
BTW, 400 Amp service is extremely rare in residential electrical service.
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I see 400 Amp service more often than not, in my travails amongst "big, fancy, new" houses.
I agree that it should be extremely rare, but it's amazingly common in those new neighborhoods.
When I owned a big, ancient house, it was full of electronics and space heaters (because bad heat and cold winters) and lived fine on 2x 120A (60x2) entrances: There were no problems. I don't know why anyone would need 400A residentially, especially since those folks tend to be more frugal with electricity than me, but wha
Re: Service for those who will buy it (Score:2)
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That's interesting indeed. But meh.
The difference in cost between 100 and 200 amp service is the feed from the power company's termination to the panel, and the difference between appropriate (where 200A does not cost nearly twice as much). We're talking small hundreds of dollars of difference here on any normal home, maybe a little more if the lines are buried. It shouldn't really be a factor either when building a new home, or refitting an old one: This is a very small budget item, down in "no-brainer
One word: (Score:1)
Duh!
not my experience (Score:1)
the rich customers I've had over the years tend to have the worst internet. the neighborhoods have very low density and are badly served. Higher density low-middle and middle income have the best offerings, especially from cable.
Of course (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, the ability of the residents in wealthier neighborhoods to actually PAY for the faster internet service has nothing to do with it...
Next up on Slashdot, "This just in, Tesla has yet to build a new car showroom in a lower-income neighborhood!"
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Of course, the ability of the residents in wealthier neighborhoods to actually PAY for the faster internet service has nothing to do with it... Next up on Slashdot, "This just in, Tesla has yet to build a new car showroom in a lower-income neighborhood!"
Yeah, that and population density (customers/meters of cable) are the two driving factors. But unless they get an incentive to cover everything they have a tendency to micromanage, in the street I used to live it there was a cable company survey. But since most of us already had satellite since there was no cable, they skipped our street. I bet a lot of poor neighborhoods get that, we're rolling out service in the district/city but not your area/block. It cements a divide because there's nothing stopping an
Darn Those Pesky Cable Internet Providers... (Score:1)
...and their non-drinkable internet access!
KHAAAAAANNNNN!
Back in my day we had 14.4kbps dialup... (Score:2)
...to school and back. Both ways!
Re: Back in my day we had 14.4kbps dialup... (Score:2)
You probably *didn't* use SSL/TLS, though. SSL/TLS is now used for almost everything, and the key exchange requires sending & receiving a huge chunk of data within a short timeframe (or it'll timeout).
Attempting SSL/TLS at 14.4k is an exercise in futility. It might work once in a blue moon, but it won't work consistently or reliably. You'll get lots of timeout errors while attempting to handshake.
I've known this for years (Score:2)
Capitalism? (Score:1)
Businesses deciding to favor those who can give them the best return for their dollars, how incredibly shocking. Capitalism lesson here? Of course if you think the internet is a necessity and fsvor free all you can eat access, this will be shocking to you.
And in other news... (Score:2)
Somewhat disingenuous, more old vs new (Score:3)
This is more an old vs new than rich vs poor. Verizon Fios is my example here. In the "old neighborhood" in NYC I grew up in, they never got Fios. But in the "new" neighborhoods, seems like every house got it. The thing is, this particular old neighborhood was quite wealthy, with mostly row houses anchored by non-section 8 high rises. The demographic was Russian Jews who escaped the Soviet Union, and 2nd generation Carribean island Hispanics who moved up from lesser neighborhoods. Either way the apartments all go for 2k+ now, and the 80 year old row houses easily go for a cool million (even with the restriction that they cannot be knocked down or have their facade significantly altered). Yet no Fios.
Meanwhile, you can get Fios with a $150,000 house (1500 sqft) on a 1 acre lot up here in buttfuck nowhere. But the old neighborhood which includes the governor's mansion does not get Fios.
Ferraris for everyone! (Score:1)
Entitlements? (Score:2)
>"Society said it did not matter if you could pay for electricity; we wanted everyone to have it. Society said we would not limit dial tone to those who could pay the most, we gave it to all,"
Poor comparison.
Most of us agree that "reasonable" internet speeds should be available to everyone. But that doesn't mean everyone must have access to the fastest and best services. Everyone has access to electricity, but not everyone is entitled to have backup generators, 200 amp service, underground lines, and a
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But that just gives us a baseline for figuring out what reasonable internet speed IS.
Would you find it reasonable if you had to turn off your TV to have enough power to turn on your stove, or if you had to schedule when there was enough water to prepare coffee or brush your teeth, or if you more often than not got a busy signal on your landline because someone else in your apartment complex was talking on the phone?
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Amazingly we used to live even on 14.4k modems. ISDN lines seemed like a super-highway.
Internet access is not your stove, water, or anything else. If you can get online at all for things like jobs hunting, basic web browsing, and streaming a show then you are fine.
Don't get me wrong, I love my 150Mbps shit, but I pay a lot for it and I would live just fine with 5Mbps if I had to.
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The internet was different back then. There were a lot fewer images, widgets, features, no video streaming of VoIP ...
The internet has changed because the technology has changed. I dare you to deliberately throttle your connection (or find someone like me with a really slow connection, in my case 448 kbps downstream) and experience the internet of TODAY through that lens.
So from your little list there, no. I CAN'T stream a show. If I go to Youtube, it auto-adjusts to 144p to avoid buffering. Loading my bank
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You don't need water to brush you teeth.
You need better analogies; those are just silly.
Where It Gets Nasty... (Score:2)
For example... I live in an apartment building and have been at the same address for 24 years.When my telco first offered internet connectivity, it was via V90 modems at 56kbps. This cost me £8.99 monthly. [UK based].
Then, over the years, I'
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No, ALL ISPs do this. (Score:2)
Name one ISP that doesn't do this. You can be sure that it's about to go out of business. This is how you make money. This is why we have to have laws which force the major ISPs to deliver access. I can throw a rock and hit a house which can get DSL or Cable, but I can't get either and I have to give a WISP $100/mo to get a crappy connection that goes down several times a day.
a-with-a-hat(TM) (Score:2)
Proofread. Do you do it?
Car Dealerships selling Porsche and Ferrari build (Score:4, Insightful)
Car Dealerships selling Porsche and Ferrari build in higher income neighborhoods. News at 11.
All joking aside. Of course businesses with expensive products target higher income areas. Next we'll be demanding Apple build Apple Stores in the ghettos.
Supply and demand is classist! (Score:2)
Is this satire? Laying infrastructure for fast speeds cost money, and it doesn't scale up and down based on how many at the target location will buy the high speeds. Should companies be shamed into running T1 lines to 5,000 acre farmhouses, too? Rural customers are "discriminated against" far more than urban poor customers!!
What a joke.
We do that too. (Score:2)
What's the issue here? (Score:2)
Most people just live with the lowest tier anyway, which is plenty fast enough to mitigate any internet related sociological barriers. They can't or don't want to pay for the premium ones, so the isps focus those plans on those who can.
Just more of the same (Score:3)
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Intel released the 4004 in 1971. How many different CPU architectures have been developed in the US in the intervening 45 years? I'm responsible for one, and I'll say that in most cases it's not a big deal.
Shocking! (Score:2)
I can't believe a corporation would make a capital investment primarily in areas where people are more likely to be able to afford more profitable levels of service!
Next you'll be telling me that there are more Mercedes dealerships, pool service companies and expensive boutique stores in wealthy towns than poor ones, and that their customers tend to be wealthy people! Like I'd fall for that one...
Free stuff! (Score:2)
"Society said it did not matter if you could pay for electricity; we wanted everyone to have it. Society said we would not limit dial tone to those who could pay the most, we gave it to all," said telecommunications lawyer Gerard Lederer of Best Best and Krieger LCC in Washington, D.C., in an e-mail.
I didn't realize that I could have electricity and phone service even if I don't pay for them. Like an idiot, I've been paying those bills each month. Tell me more.
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Oh, that's where you're wrong:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/do... [wsj.com]
Re: Wealthy people don't miss payments (Score:2)
Seriously? You want to paint 'wealthy' as more (or equally) likely to not pay their bills than a low-income people based on the corporate actions taken by one company over 40 years? Has your employer, in the past 4 decades, ever been late or missed a payment? Ever had a contract dispute with a supplier/contractor? It really is fairly common - just stop by civil court some day and s
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Yes. I just did that.
When a rich guy doesn't pay his bills, it adds up to a lot more money than when a poor family is unable to pay AT&T.
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We're talking about people who catered his lunch. Also, I'm guessing that with Trump's many bankruptcies (personal and business) there were more than a few legitimate businesses and individuals who didn't get paid. Not to mention investors.
So, to bring it back on topic, can you imagine a low-income family refu
Re: Wealthy people don't miss payments (Score:2)
Investors decide to risk their money in an attempt to make more money - sometimes they win, sometime you lose - investments aren't guaranteed. Trump, over his 40+ years of business has had a handful of bankruptcies, far fewer than this administration suffered as part o
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You do understand that it's perfectly okay for you to be challenged on your blanket assumptions, don't you?
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You would get internet packets that aren't even meant for you, and that you can't use. For some reason, this would make me more angry than just having a slower speed.
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