Comcast, Charter Dominate US; Telcos 'Abandoned Rural America,' Report Says (arstechnica.com) 154
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Comcast is the only choice for 30 million Americans when it comes to broadband speeds of at least 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream, the report says. Charter Communications is the only choice for 38 million Americans. Combined, Comcast and Charter offer service in the majority of the U.S., with almost no overlap. Yet many Americans are even worse off, living in areas where DSL is the best option. AT&T, Verizon, and other telcos still provide only sub-broadband speeds over copper wires throughout huge parts of their territories. The telcos have mostly avoided upgrading their copper networks to fiber -- except in areas where they face competition from cable companies. These details are in "Profiles of Monopoly: Big Cable and Telecom," a report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR). The full report should be available at this link today. "The broadband market is broken," the report's conclusion states. "Comcast and Charter maintain a monopoly over 68 million people. Some 48 million households (about 122 million people) subscribe to these cable companies, whereas the four largest telecom companies combined have far fewer subscribers -- only 31.6 million households (about 80.3 million people). The large telecom companies have largely abandoned rural America -- their DSL networks overwhelmingly do not support broadband speeds -- despite years of federal subsidies and many state grant programs."
Free market in action (Score:2)
In b4: "No, you don't understand, we don't have real capitalism yet, it's not perfect, we must copy the true scottish model".
Re:Free market in action (Score:5, Informative)
What free market?
The last mile cable monopoly is actually government regulated and sponsored monopoly called "Franchise Agreements". There is little or more likely, no "choice" for consumers.
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it's not a monopoly. has been illegal to do this for years. in rural areas it's all about money and the fact that even if you steal 50% of the customer base, you won't make back your investment in the infrastructure.
here in NYC many apartment buildings and homes have a choice of two ISP's, multiple TV providers when you count in satellite and in some cases like mine i have a choice of 3 ISP's.
Re:Free market in action (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a monopoly. has been illegal to do this for years.
It's been illegal for properties to do this. That is, apartments, condos, and HOAs. City and county governments on the other hand...
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Hell, it hasn't even stopped municipalities form granting new exclusivity! The FCC got the law passed, but it is toothless; it can't enforce it.
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Luckily, where I live in NYC, I have a choice between RCN, Cablevision Optimum Altice, and FiOS. Explains all the low offers (FiOS is offering $40/mo for 100mbit up/down, plus fees of course, others are similar)
Re:Free market in action (Score:5, Insightful)
New York is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, with a population of ~ 8.6 million and that's the best you can do?
That's a totally broken system, and the fact you think a choice of 3 in New York is good is a bit odd.
As far as making their investment back, TFA explains
despite years of federal subsidies and many state grant programs.
They're being paid to supply rural Internet, and they still won't do it.
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The free market seems to be working just fine. The article completely ignores satellite internet. For rural areas where running cable/fiber is cost prohibitive, satellite works very well. I do notice my ping times tend to be about 20-30ms slower than my Verizon phone, but I can live with that.
Re:Free market in action (Score:4, Insightful)
Satellite is not a viable replacement for many high-speed internet needs. You can't use it for any sizeable Netflix/Hulu usage due to bandwidth limits and online gaming... forget it.
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Satellite is not a viable replacement for many high-speed internet needs.
A) Gaming, or anything where lag is an issue.
B) Rain. I was on vacation one night in our hotel (in the middle of nowhere) got caught in a rainstorm. Their satellite TV and internet went straight to hell.
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That is fixable with proper system design.
Rain increases the path loss so you receive less signal. You could get back signal strength by using an antenna with more gain. That higher gain antenna will be larger and will require more careful aiming by the installer, and would thus be more costly.
How serious the problem is depends on where you live. TV satellites are in geostationary orbit above the equator; the farther away from the equator you live, the higher the path loss. The satellites serving the US are
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Satellite comes with HD movie channels and PPV options on DirecTV and Dish for movies... and twitch games haven't advanced beyond first person shooters.
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On top of that, the speeds aren't really any better than DSL. They're also usually either much more expensive, or heavily datacapped.
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Satellite internet is not broadband speeds.
Re:Free market in action (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the root of the 'problem' - local governments negotiate exclusive agreements for various physical plants; cable cos get pole space which they usually actually have to rent from some entity, be it the ILEC, power utility, or the government. Telcos (ILECs usually, though CLECs are not different in this) either owned the pole space and so have the physical plant via incumbency and so offer DSL, or rented from the 'owner' and have virtually perpetual agreements, given that POTS was once critical, and now telephone is just a must-carry issue...
If the local government won't permit competitive cable TV-style franchises, this will not change soon. Wireless solutions are inadequate, even 5G will not really work in urban areas, though 600MHz could revolutionize rural delivery. Ethernet/MPLS-type delivery would work, but pole rentals are the problem, and that is the equivalent of competitive Cable TV-style delivery, with the competitive issue still in play.
New York seems to actually intend to kick out [vice.com] Charter Spectrum, for failing to deliver. This is actually NY invalidating the TWC/Bright House mergers, essentially making Charter unwind these and go away. No good can come of this, but perhaps it goes to appeal, and then NY says the era of exclusive agreements is over, and competitors come in to fight for share.
I truly doubt this is fixable in my lifetime. Geography and population cause problems in the US that just don't exist in Europe and Asia, where density solves the cost equation so much easily. Britain has a very different governmental structure, good and bad, and other nations for better or worse are just not the US. Several wireless technologies were promised, none delivered. But we hope and hope. And pay and pay.
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No good? How about municipal broadband. The reason it doesn't happen more often is that many states have laws prohibiting it and the commercial providers do just well enough to prevent it from happening.
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This is why we need to allow real competition to take route. That means that local gov should also be able to compete .
Re:Free market in action (Score:4, Interesting)
Fiber has become cheap enough that overhead/aerial service can be competitive pretty easily on a local scale with an average distance between passed homes of ~300' and 30% penetration, as long as the utility owning the poles will be cooperative. A 1-mile aerial "spur" is competitive with an $800 installation fee, using existing poles.
About the only people that cannot be competitively served are those that can't pool 100 customers in a 10-mile radius.
When there aren't utility poles that can be used, the density requirement generally doubles, and if you need to go underground (in a rural area), the cost doubles again.
And, wireless has gotten to the point that offering competitive "broadband" speeds works well if you have the terrain to support it.
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And, wireless has gotten to the point that offering competitive "broadband" speeds works well if you have the terrain to support it.
Peak speeds or sustained speeds? With the ongoing monthly caps on cellular tethering, and analogous "fair usage policies" among satellite Internet providers, I don't see how providing even OS updates and SD video to a multi-PC household over wireless can be made affordable.
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Not cellular/satellite, but wireless ISPs. The current generation AC radios can comfortably support a few dozen subscribers at over 50Mb sustained transfer rate each. Terrain and vegetation limit it, but if you have the elevation to work with, it is a good strategy. Also effective as a link to bridge gaps between subscribers.
Re: Free market in action (Score:2)
And here we go...
' as long as the utility owning the poles will be cooperative'.
They may. For a fee. And that was one of my points...
FTTH is still expensive to actually pull and connect. This shows up in your bill. Since the Cable Co already went past your home, they have paid that. Municipalities can perhaps, sometimes, avoid pole fees, but competitive ISPs won't.
And taking the satellite TV business as an analog, in Arizona the LOS issues are virtually nonexistent. In New York, they are a significant imped
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By "AC radios" you mean running a Wi-Fi AP over unlicensed spectrum (such as 2.4 or 5 GHz), correct? Would that interfere with use of Wi-Fi within the subscribers' residences?
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Not really; it is high-gain antennas on the roof typically, and modern ones are well shielded.
On the ISP side, they have things like GPS sync and specialized chips to limit interference and congestion issues. Great solution for rural environments, different if not more challenging for urban locations.
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you might should get out more? no im kidding, i had COX 150/50 when it first came out in vegas about 5 years ago. the cap was 300GB, I wanted to test that theory. so i used 300 up and down, they emailed me, nothing more. i did it again, they emailed me nothing more, did it a 3rd month, they emailed me and nothing more, the 4th month they called and said i was going to have to upgrade to the next tier package, i said "ok sure, but im already at the highest tier package, are you going to just give me gigabit
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We need to remove the monopolies along with allowing ANY local gov to run broadband, but then farm out services.
Re: Free market in action (Score:2, Insightful)
...government regulated by telco captured agencies, AKA regulatory capture. The telcos love and lobby for regulations which prevent competition. And that's free market capitalism in action.
Government in action (Score:5, Insightful)
This is actually a perfect example of government regulation run amok.
Re:Government in action (Score:4, Informative)
There is no free market. These are government-granted monopolies. The local governments select a single cable and single phone company to service their area, and prohibit other companies from offering services.
Not in my state.
In Missouri, it is illegal, by state law, for any municipality, county, township, or other political subdivision to create a monopoly franchise agreement with any user of the public right of way. Missouri Revised Statues 67.1842.5.
On the other hand, Missouri also outlawed municipal broadband. Telco lobbyists were perfectly willing to allow theoretical "competition" that didn't actually exist, but moved very quickly to eliminate the very real possibility of actual competition materializing.
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The "cable monopoly" is created by Comcast/Charter/etc. not willing to move into each other's territory.
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Re:Government in action (Score:5, Insightful)
The combination of a monopoly and high barriers to entry, including the regulatory ones, generally result in expensive and poor quality service for consumers. Not all regulation is good regulation, as you correctly noted. Regulating a monopoly with a public service commission or equivalent entity is generally not the best way to impose regulations. Removal of all regulations generally isn't a good idea, either. Instead, it's probably best in those situations to have strong antitrust laws and enforcement to make the market as competitive as possible. It's also a good idea to lower the barriers to entry as much as possible, including removing unnecessary regulatory barriers. If the barriers to entry are low, it's much harder for a monopolist to abuse their position. When the barriers to entry are high, which they are for utilities, it's much easier to get monopolies that are harmful to consumers.
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regulations aren't the problem. crooked politicians and greedy corporations bulldoze right over the regulations. they're the ones "running amok". there even used to be more regulations, including on rates; but again, similarly crooked politicians and greedy corporations bulldozed them right out of existence.
in order to fix the problem (and many similar ones), more regulations are needed, those regulations must be vigorously enforced, competition must be allowed, crooked politicians need to be shut down and
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And government intrusion is the answer here also.
Rural electrification only happened because the government subsidized it and because electricity is treated as a utility.
The answer to the problem is not 'net neutrality' as it has been presented but real net neutrality. This would mean the government treating internet providers the way they treated the film industry, separating content providers from distributes.
Initially film production companies were allowed to own theaters, which made it impossible for ne
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Agreed! Scottish model it is! quick! Everyone round up Ajit Paid and the Telecom CEOs and give them a good ol' fashion Glasgow Smile!
and it's to bad the comcast cable tv sucks lowest (Score:1)
and it's to bad the Comcast cable tv sucks lowest bit rates and there internet is capped.
Federal Subsidies likley for rural, not used (Score:3)
Cheating bastards. They need their loopholes closed NOW.
The Neverending Story (Score:1)
We've had this story in the news in one form or another for a decade. Why hasn't something been done?
Re:The Neverending Story (Score:4, Informative)
Because people don't oust the legislators that are bribed at the state and federal levels with campaign contributions. The history of utilities has shifted dramatically since the breakup of the Bell Companies.
First the telcos tried to get state authority ceded to federal jurisdiction, then found a way to get an FCC Chair to actually believe that they were exempt from Title II so that net neutrality was another fuzzy issue that could be propaganda-controlled to cede the FCC's authority to provide a truly neutral space. Game won. But not by you, or I.
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because no one is stupid enough to spend more money in investments than what you get back in profit
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The reason nothing has been done is that the big players spend vast sums of money paying off everyone they need to in order to ensure nothing is ever done.
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For once, free market fails (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one of those areas where I advocate for more government involvement. Allow cities/counties to build out their own local infrastructure, and allow regional ISPs to then piggyback on it ( for a maintenance fee ) and provide services.
Internet access ranks up there with utilities anymore, so let's start treating it as such.
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I advocate something similar or even the same (depending on your details)!
These problems are *caused* by the government (Score:1)
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The problem is they grant this monopoly in exchange for the ISP promising to give broadband to rural communities. The ISPs promise, they get their monopoly in the lucrative cities, then drag their heels and do as little as possible to support the rural parts of the state. The state doesn't take them to task for this, and believes their promises of 'some day soon'. Or perhaps they don't believe the ISP, but believe they have no way to break the monopoly.
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Regardless, allowing municipalities to create their own infrastructure would encourage competition and render the "Net Neutrality" debate largely moot; there would be more ISPs to choose from and cities could rule that their infrastructure is only usable by those who follow NN ideals. ...assuming, of course, the idea would be to merely provide the infrastructure and not the internet connectivity, reserving that for companies to come in and provide.
Re: These problems are *caused* by the government (Score:1)
The free market also fail to provide electricity to many rural areas. Rural electrification was a big thing after World War II -- government subsidized wiring up of areas that were not cost effective for private industry to serve. Rural areas got telephone service because there was one big monopoly that could be ordered by the government to do the job and charge all the same rate, but that means they were subsidized by urban areas. Rural areas will only get fast modern internet if there is a subsidy. The r
Re:For once, free market fails (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. If municipalities etc had the 'permission' to build ISPs as utilities, this would change the market immediately. Google Fiber was really just a threat that caused real changes in some markets. It just didn't turn out to be manageable for Google.
Tesla, with it's direct sales model, is making a mess of many states' car sales laws. It is time for this idea, municipal networks, to make a mess of the ISP market.
then we can watch as municipalities consider if they want to carry all content- even pr0n, dissenting political opinion, and such stuff that is distasteful to someone. It shouldn't be a problem, since cable cos carry all sort of stuff many would question, but it's possible...
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I agree. If municipalities etc had the 'permission' to build ISPs as utilities, this would change the market immediately. Google Fiber was really just a threat that caused real changes in some markets. It just didn't turn out to be manageable for Google.
A great example of this is the PUD fiber systems in Chelan and Douglas counties, in WA. The PUDs have rolled out a GPON network that services virtually every residential and commercial address in their respective counties. As a resident of the county, you then have the choice of some 6 ISPs, and a similar number of television providers. If you're a business you can also get peering from Zayo and/or Level 3. In the end, your bill winds up being $10/mo to the PUD, and then whatever deal you have with your ser
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Why build when you can seize by eminent domain? Cities could take over operation and maintenance of the physical distribution network and lease access to any number of ISPs. That would be the fastest way to a competitive market.
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Uh, I don't?
I merely meant that in this rare instance, I don't advocate for a free market solution, but rather more government involvement ( as previously specified ).
Broadband is Broken (Score:3, Insightful)
Broadband is broken, we have known this for YEARS.
The problem is that we have GOVERNMENT regulation preventing competition (Franchise Agreements) and until we figure out a way to get out of them, and allow for more competition over the last mile, we're going to be stuck with ever increasing government rules and regulations trying to fix the problem of government's own making.
My solution, is fairly simple, yet radical. The Local Municipality owns and operates the LAST mile itself (like a road), then the problem will remain. There are ways to bring competition to the marketplace, allowing consumers to choose who their provider, rather than the one size fits all approach government tends to bring.
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It makes sense for fiber from a CO to the building to be a monopoly, but then have the CO allow multiple companies to compete to provide services. This minimizes the REAL monopoly.
However, the GOP in many many states, have passed laws that prohibit just this. Hopefully, CONgress (yeah, right) will require that states roll those laws back.
There are two ways this will play out: (Score:2, Insightful)
Touch-Once-Make-Ready will get put in to place at a national level and we soon find "the big boys" interfering with local competition by "damaging" lines.
Either way we're screwed.
Re: The folks in the rural areas chose to live the (Score:2)
I live 20 miles from the apple headquarters in silicon valley and can not get broadband to my house. I would bet that the majority of people who cant get broadband live less then 20 miles from the nearest available broadband but for one reason or another (topography) can not. Telcos could fix these blind spots but wonâ(TM)t unless forced.
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"If they want better internet they should move to where it exists." - And contribute to further pollution, traffic and overcrowding of large cities? I don't see how that helps at all. Besides, this is classic blaming the victim reasoning. The problem is not that I chose to live in a rural area. The problem is that the broadband monopolies did not live up to their end of the bargain.
I'll give you an example. Where I live every lot is zoned at one acre minimum. Less than 5 miles away some developer is buildin
Hey FCC time to call and ask for a refund (Score:4)
I think taxpayers have plowed something like $4B into rural broadband, it is time for Ajit to call Comcast and Charter and ask for a refund. $2B each.
Or, municipalities could just grow their own, oh wait, they can't, every time they try Comcast and Charter sue them.
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I think taxpayers have plowed something like $4B into rural broadband, it is time for Ajit to call Comcast and Charter and ask for a refund. $2B each.
Need to make that call to the TELCOs who are actually failing to come in with the competition.
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I disagree. No asking for a refund. Take over said infrastructure that tax payers paid for. With interest. e.g. Make laws that require the infrastructure to be open to any ISP that wants to pay the fees, public or private. Allow for actual competition and benefit the consumers rather than the major shareholders.
Like the majority oi Ars' articles these days... (Score:1)
...in the majority of the U.S., with almost no overlap. Yet many Americans are even worse off...
Like most of Ars' articles these days, this shit is so badly written that if I'd have turned this shit in the eighth grade, I'd have been lucky to get a fucking B-.
Sadly, most other sites are even worse.
despite years of ... (Score:3)
despite years of federal subsidies and many state grant programs.
But if you just give us some more money, we'll get Right On That. Oh, did we mention our last contribution to your election campaign?
I was an AT&T customer 2 decades ago. I had ISDN at home (work paid, dial-up was just too slow) and they were rolling out Pronto, their higher-speed system in my area "in 6 months or so." After calling like every 6 months, I gave up after 5 years.
I now (different house) have Comcast Business Internet, 30MBit. It works, no caps, I can call and get an actual tech in 30-60 seconds that can speak bits and DHCP. It's great, but I'm sure I'm paying for it.
Before that I had AT&T DSL at 1.5Mbit with caps. It was funny, they charged me for going over my monthly limit which I did every month -- at a cheaper rate than my normal monthly bill. Instead of being a penalty for me, it was almost a bonus.
Well (Score:4, Insightful)
More abandoned by telco.... (Score:2)
I live in a fairly rural town- 20 square miles, 4,300 people- and Comcast's cable modem service is fine. I'd prefer to pay less, but $93 a month for internet service that's fast enough to stream is adequate. They respond to the occasional service call well enough; I've no complaints.
The only theoretical competition is the telephone company, however, and they're pretty broke. DSL service is terrible- few houses live close enough to the central switch to make it possible- and they just don't have the money to
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the way around that is to just let people in wealthy and local communities build and find their own telco and ISP solutions.
Bring in experts and see what can be done.
A resort town, picturesque parts of the USA can then create their own community broadband.
Tourists get a new roll out of fiber and so will the local community.
Once more of
Arbitrary nonsense (Score:2)
I'm tired of articles and statistics with speeds that make no logical sense.
From the governments own legal mumbo jumbo (47 USC 1302)
"The term âoeadvanced telecommunications capabilityâ is defined, without regard to any transmission media or technology, as high-speed, switched, broadband telecommunications capability that enables users to originate and receive high-quality voice, data, graphics, and video telecommunications using any technology."
Notice in the description there is no preference of a
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Why is 3mbit good enough for upstream but 25mbit required for down?
Because residential service is for consumption. If I want to read a webpage the GET request is tiny, the page bigger. If I want to stream a movie, asking for it doesn't take much while receiving the movie takes a ton. Now I understand that power users and IT professionals need to upload stuff, however we are greatly outnumbered by those who just want to consume the internet.
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Because residential service is for consumption.
Where does the law that defines broadband say that?
If I want to read a webpage the GET request is tiny, the page bigger. If I want to stream a movie, asking for it doesn't take much while receiving the movie takes a ton.
What about video conferencing, telemedicine, telework, running a business?
What is the difference between streaming a movie and teleconference with family and colleagues? If anything I would expect teleconferencing to require MORE bandwidth than Netflix for same quality due to computational limitations of real-time encoding and delay intolerance.
I don't recall any FCC hearing in which the purpose of the Internet and public funding to promote universal acces
Unfair to say they've abandoned rural America (Score:4, Insightful)
Incentive? (Score:3)
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We already have that on our bills. It's called Universal Service Fee.
Where Are The US Lead in Mobile BB Shills? (Score:3)
In the recent past, whenever a story would come up here about how poor the broadband service is in America, there would be posters here proclaiming "Fiber? Feh! Luddites stuck in the 20th Century! America is far ahead in wireless broadband which totally superior in every way!". But thus far (with 70 posts) there is not one of these wireless corporate shills around.
Perhaps it is because TFA is not pointing the superior service and pricing in many other countries. That is what often seemed to trigger the trollish claims of US wireless being "more advanced" and superior to fiber.
You forgot something (Score:2)
DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite services) provide rural America with HDTV and High-Speed slow-ping Internet services... this is vital to farms and large yard houses out in the midwest where cable doesn't reach well.
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You've obviously never had the misfortune of using satellite internet. Max out your cap in one evening. God forbid you need to SSH to something, yay latency. MOSH is a lot more pleasant at least if you have to do an interactive shell over it, local echo and all. I will say this, satellite internet is never going to be anyone's first option, it's pretty much their last option(or dialup I guess).
The problem - Not a free market (Score:1)
The problem is the restrictions on installing wires/cables in the ground. High-quality service would be available everywhere If anyone who wanted to could install in-ground wires/fiber/cable along public right-of-ways.
The requirements/limitations should be as few as possible.
Something along the lines of:
* To trench, if equipment is 50HP, must carry $100,000 liability insurance at the time. If over 50HP, $1 mill liability insurance is required.
* $150 fee to the state or town to register a Cable Installer N
this is why net neutrality does not matter (Score:2)
These companies have absolutely NO reason to upgrade. They have monopolies that allow them massive profits. Comcast is small compared to Disney. Disney is in massive number of different businesses all over the world. Comcast only services about 1/10 of America. Thats it. And yet, Comcast competes against disney t
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But when Starlink starts in 2 years, it will be $50/ month for gigabit connection. And with Google backing that, net neutrality will be their norm.
This is why the smart person does not focus on a worthless issue like forcing Net neutrality on Comcast. They are already mostly unregulate
It is simple. (Score:1)
Is this really a problem? (Score:2)
I'm asking this as a serious question.
We have similar problems here in Germany where "outlandish"areas have less connectivity (albeit at a laughable scale compared to the US). Upping infrastructure isn't that easy here for the simple reason that many areas are developed already which means tearing up existing infrastructure to upgrade the old. Very annoying and expensive.
Anyway, what I'm actually asking is this: do we all have to be able to stream game of thrones at 4hd at the same time or could it be that
Rural areas worldwide suffer the same problem. (Score:2)
The problem is the same for rural areas worldwide, not just in the US.
And there's also a lack of redundancy so that whenever there's a natural disturbance it can cause a lot of headache. A small wildfire taking out one site can cause a number of links to go down and effectively kill a much larger area than what the wildfire actually impacts.
DSL Speed? (Score:1)
I seem to remember when my (small) city got cable back in 2001 or so. I'd been reading about DSL and cable a few years before that and desperately wanted either one. My impression back then was always that DSL was only slightly slower than cable, but dependent on your distance from the phone company.
And thankfully now we can get way faster internet and I'm no longer a 15 year old thinking about online gaming and ...videos.
It's a Utility (Score:1)
Internet access is no longer a luxury item that the few can tinker with in their free time. It's how we work, do business, shop, research, and perform a million different tasks.
It's usage more mirrors an electric, gas, or water supplier, rather than an ISP of the olden days. Competition is dead in many areas and dying in more. With M&A occurring at high rates, we can expect to see fewer and fewer alternatives in the future.
We're best off treating it as a utility, and remove the profiteering from the
Affects my parents (Score:2)
This affects my parents' house. Their only wired internet option is 3 Mbps AT&T DSL (AT&T claims it's only 1.5 Mbps but it provisions at 3). No cable lines. Luckily I managed to get them an unmetered, unthrottled LTE "hotspot" plan, so I have an LTE modem connected to their router. They get 15-30 Mbps through it despite a very poor signal (5x5 carrier, theoretical max of 37.5 Mbps), because literally no one else is on their sector of the tower.
The wireless industry has the potential to disrupt this,
Affects ME (Score:1)
I live 5 miles from the telco central office (Verizon), and they were charging $88 for the cheapest land line. Finally we got off that and use a $5 a month VoIP, but pay Spectrum for internet. We have never in the 44 years we've been here, had cable TV so we can't cut that cord - it runs our internet! Our other (sucky) option is satellite. That's it. DSL is "too far".
Here in NY they gave Spectrum 60 days to get the hell out and pass their customers on to someone else. Gonna get interesting.
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Without AC posting, plenty of us would be too afraid of losing our jobs to say what we really think.
Yeah, morons use it too. But if you only hear from those who, under whatever system is in place, are not afraid to speak, then you will only hear what is *safe* to be said.
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Mais monsieur (Score:2)
Le vin et les aliments sont magnifique
Let's get our priorities right!!