Ajit Pai Promised Cheaper Internet -- Real Prices Rose 19% Instead (arstechnica.com) 132
The average US home-Internet bill increased 19 percent during the first three years of the Trump administration, disproving former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's claim that deregulation lowered prices, according to a new report by advocacy group Free Press. From a report: For tens of millions of families that aren't wealthy, "these increases are felt deeply, forcing difficult decisions about which services to forgo so they can maintain critical Internet access services," Free Press wrote. The 19 percent Trump-era increase is adjusted for inflation to match the value of 2020 dollars, with the monthly cost rising from $39.35 in 2016 to $47.01 in 2019. Without the inflation adjustment, the average household Internet price rose from $36.48 in 2016 to $46.38 in 2019, an increase of 27 percent.
Where is Ajit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Where is Ajit? (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer is yes, he can be that bad without breaking the law. Nothing he is known to have done was enough to cross that line.
As for where he is now, he is now a Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute working on "issues pertaining to technology and innovation, telecommunications regulation, and market-based incentives for investment in broadband deployment." He also recently joined Searchlight Capital Partners, a company that owns several ISPs including Ziply Fiber and Consolidated Communications, "as a partner and a prospective board member of a number of Searchlight's existing investments."
Basically, the industry that he oversaw is now filling his bank account with a lot of money.
Like no one saw that coming !!! (Score:2)
They filled his pockets before and after. A perfect example of why running govt is NOT the same as running a company. Something rethuglicans just can't seem to wrap their tiny pointed heads around.
Re: Where is Ajit? (Score:5, Informative)
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Why has he not been charged yet? Defrauding taxpayers? Misusing his position? I dunno, something? Can you really be that shitty without breaking the law?
You need to remember that the "law" was written by people like him. It's no surprise that he left himself out of it.
We all know Pai had an agenda to help businesses.. (Score:2)
But that said? All these claims about "deregulation" ring false to me, in the sense that things always seem to remain quite regulated. The people who get to do it are just different and/or it's done in some kind of fishbowl. (EG. Here in this fishbowl, anything goes! But ... the water still needs changing weekly and we can't do that ourselves from inside it here. So, uh, we have to cave in to a lot of demands from those who change our water.)
I think I'd support total deregulation of something like Interne
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I'm talking about legislation saying if you sell someone a broadband connection, they're allowed to share or resell or sub-lease it any way they wish.
I will say that I disagree with this, as written. Upfront, I work as support for an ISP. My concerns aren't about the bandwidth usage, though I'm sure there are concerns there, as they can be overcome by having a bigger pipe. My concern is how it pertains to support. If someone is buying a regular internet connection, and splitting it up to many people, t
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Genuinely curious, are the support issues you deal with pertaining to the actual internet connection or is it the stuff like "how do i setup my wifi" and the like that it outside of the realm of just the pipe? I suppose that is covered by the rental fee on the equipment but i can definitely see your point on it getting out of hand with people.
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As for the type of calls... Literally anything remotely related to internet, and we get the call. People call us because their TV doesn't turn on. Not streaming trouble o
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Thanks, it's an interesting conundrum as many people need general "tech support" but A) are not accustomed to paying for it and B) have trouble with the chain of products and how they interact.
And I totally feel the frustration with having to "prove" where the issues are, some people probably don't want to consider they configured something wrong.
Something maybe your company does but my ISP (Spectrum) does not or fails to do is any real proactive notification of outages. When I can clearly see my modem not
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In theory, maybe. In practice, no. In practice, it increases the workload of the ISP. Even if the person splitting the connection provides front line support for the customers underneath, there will still be an increase in calls to the ISP. It's not 1:1, but it definitely will increase.
That's true. On the flip side, the increased workload is already highly nonuniform from customer to customer, and I don't think the current cost model fully takes that into account. :-)
I'd love to see a discount plan for people who don't need support. Basically, instead of tech support, you provide us with:
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There should be a discount for that level of non-nuisance.
I don't necessarily disagree, but sadly there are fringe cases at both ends. It's easier to just ignore them than to track everybody, tally it, and bill for it. I've dealt with enough customers that have a hard enough time accepting that we're only responsible for the lines up to the house. Inside wiring is their responsibility, as far as cost to repair is concerned. If you started breaking down calls to support, I'm sure they'd start pushing back about that as well.
re: support issue (Score:2)
That's a valid concern, but yeah - I think it would be pretty easy to restrict the providing of support to the original party paying the bill. If you share the connection with 20 people and those 20 want support, they have to get it through you -- not the ISP.
Seems to me that's how the commercial resellers do things already with telecom products? If "Blah Blah Communications, LLC" sells my business a few T1's and the circuit drops, I'm supposed to go through them for assistance, even if I know the circuit
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That's a valid concern, but yeah - I think it would be pretty easy to restrict the providing of support to the original party paying the bill. If you share the connection with 20 people and those 20 want support, they have to get it through you -- not the ISP.
The issue is that there will still be an increase of calls back to the origin point. That is part of why business service costs more than residential. The volume of calls, and expedience in resolving them.
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That's a valid concern, but yeah - I think it would be pretty easy to restrict the providing of support to the original party paying the bill. If you share the connection with 20 people and those 20 want support, they have to get it through you -- not the ISP.
The issue is that there will still be an increase of calls back to the origin point. That is part of why business service costs more than residential. The volume of calls, and expedience in resolving them.
Odd. I'd expect business-class service to have way fewer calls, because the only people who buy it at home are people who know what they're doing (e.g. people who need static IPs), and most businesses have IT people who know what they are doing, which means approximately all calls should be about real problems. Yes, when service goes down, for that subset of business contracts that contain an SLA, there are stricter demands, but that's nowhere near all business-class service.
The main reason business class
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Why are we paying attention to Ajit Pai? (Score:1)
He's an x-chairman, isn't he? Let's work on the guy that's in office
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Just stop reelecting people that would appoint him.
comparable? (Score:4, Informative)
And how does this increase compare to previous year over year increase? I'm guessing its buried in there somewhere....oh there it is at the end. "In the last three Obama years, the inflation-adjusted average monthly Internet expenditures rose from $32.25 in 2013 to $39.35 in 2016, a 22 percent rise. Nominal prices rose from $28.86 to $36.48 in those three years, a 26 percent increase."
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Capital investment by Internet providers has dropped, "with substantial declines at large companies like AT&T (where 2020 investment was 52 percent below the 2016 total for the company on an inflation-adjusted basis) and Comcast (where 2020 cable segment investment was 22 percent below 2016's level on an inflation-adjusted basis)," the report said.
Re: comparable? (Score:3)
So thats almost 10% of cost adjustment right there. I will never understand some people on here. They want static prices, they hate it when customer bases grow, and complain when wages stagnate. There is only a couple ways to increase wages:
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If my internet speeds doubled but the cost only increases 20% is that necessarily bad?
It is bad, if your ISP forces these changes on you, and no longer offers your original plan's speed or any alternative at its (former) price.
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Whataboutism (Score:2)
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Re: comparable? (Score:5, Informative)
That's the entire point of the article, they went up comparably. Not down. It's right there in the first sentence.
"... disproving former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's claim that deregulation lowered prices"
Also from TFA:
"Prices go up as costs for ISPs go down"
"Long-term trend of rising prices"
"Prices rose by a similar amount during the last three years of the Obama administration. Pai claimed that his deregulation of the broadband industry and repeal of net neutrality rules would reverse the trend of rising prices, bringing "cheaper Internet access to all Americans." Instead, the prices kept rising"
"Many factors affect price, but it always goes up" ..."
"Biden something
Deregulation is the dumbest term (Score:4, Insightful)
It means absolutely nothing. There's either regulations with good outcomes or regulations with bad outcomes. Eliminate the ones that have bad outcomes, implement good ones. Change as outcomes become more apparent over time.
Re:Deregulation is the dumbest term (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the thing. The deregulation crowd wants to delete all the regulations without regard for measured effectiveness. In practice, they often actually mean delete all regulations that cost the incumbent corporations money but not the ones that cost consumers money or that block new competition, but that's just the usual political lies.
What you're talking about would be better described as sensible regulation.
Re:Deregulation is the dumbest term (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly, de-regulation is a moral argument for them, it has nothing to do with the outcomes. It's literal feelings over facts.
Re: Deregulation is the dumbest term (Score:2)
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Absolutely "defund the police" is a terrible phrase but I suppose "reform the police" is not as catchy and "reutilize overly high police budgets for more community resources and treat the material conditions that lead to high crime rates" doesn't fit on a shirt.
Re: Deregulation is the dumbest term (Score:5, Insightful)
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See now that's one everyone I think can get behind.
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Defund/Deregulate-comparing Apples to blowjobs (Score:2)
Like defund the police? I mean is anyone actually proposing to zero out the payroll for cops and go to an all voluntary police force? This De- thing happens a lot.
There are apples to oranges comparisons, but those comparisons are so far off it's not even like comparing a fruit to another...more like apples to I don't know...a toaster?...a tire?...a blowjob? Nice straw man there, dude.
Defunding the police has nothing to do with deregulation. Defunding the police is a fringe position echoed by the idiot wing of the Democratic party. Deregulation is a mainstream position in the Republican Party and has been so since I was born. Scream "defund the police" at a Bide
Re: Defund/Deregulate-comparing Apples to blowjobs (Score:2)
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There are people who want a more measured approach, but they usually speak of rationalizing the regulations. There are also people exactly as I described and some of them have been elected to office.
If you're worried about the difficulties of getting a business licence you're a good 5-6 orders of magnitude smaller than the companies that buy representatives.
Re: Deregulation is the dumbest term (Score:2)
Re: Deregulation is the dumbest term (Score:2)
Total cost versus price per megabit (Score:5, Interesting)
While claiming "prices went up," they managed to gloss over the fact that prices for the same tiers generally went down, and that the "increase" was from people buying much faster access, or adding more types of access (and yes, it's mentioned in the article, but downplayed).
So while you could get 10 mbps internet for less money, the writer made a really strong effort at hiding the fact that people bought higher and higher tiers of internet service at a lower price per megabit.
An example: AT&T 940 megabit service is about $80 per month ($60 + equipment and taxes). Four years ago, "fast" 100 megabit was over $100, but basic 10 megabit internet was well under $50 in a lot of places (and often under $30). So yeah, paying $80 is "paying more," and a lot of people are going with that, but they're comparing an apple with a bag of apples.
Re:Total cost versus price per megabit (Score:5, Interesting)
You obviously don't understand that higher speed inevitably becomes the new normal, and people at the lower tiers increasingly get left behind...unless they somehow scrape together the money to pay for higher bandwidth, and allow their kids to cope with the on-line necessities of modern education.
You can get low-end DSL service for cheap...after all, it's yesterday's "high speed".
Re: Total cost versus price per megabit (Score:3)
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Thank you for providing a more competent response to smoot than I would have.
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You obviously don't understand that higher speed inevitably becomes the new normal, and people at the lower tiers increasingly get left behind...
I keep hearing this and I'm never quite sure what you mean. "Left behind" in what sense? That implies there's some important thing they can't do that's really important.
I keep upgrading my network but that's because I can. What I had ten years ago largely would be good enough if need be. Streaming Netflix doesn't take that much bandwidth, nor does Zoom. I could file taxes, browse Facebook, read email, all the important stuff. Is it nicer having higher speeds? Yeah, sure, but it's the same as having a used C
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What do they need to be able to do that they can't because they don't have fast enough internet?
First post.
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You obviously don't understand that higher speed inevitably becomes the new normal, and people at the lower tiers increasingly get left behind...unless they somehow scrape together the money to pay for higher bandwidth, and allow their kids to cope with the on-line necessities of modern education.
You can get low-end DSL service for cheap...after all, it's yesterday's "high speed".
Ya-ha,
Then why in the UK and many other nations where the market is both well regulated and competitive has high speed internet never been cheaper. Even excluding inflation, a 50 Mbps fibre deal is under £27 pcm. How fast that actually gets is dependent on the kind of connection you have. You don't need to be on xDSL to get cheap internet (that being said, vDSL in the UK easily exceeds 20 Mbps for the average user).
Is it possible that maybe, just maybe the FCC has been incompetent and your government
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and that the "increase" was from people buying much faster access
In other words the providers are failing or refusing to keep pace with improvements in technology and increases demands on network connections by instead of upgrading their networks in a satisfactory manner, They nickle-and-dime to milk outdated infrastructure while barely updating it by imposing low-Megabits limits by default, and sometimes usage caps, etc .
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In other words the providers are failing or refusing to keep pace with improvements in technology and increases demands on network connections by instead of upgrading their networks in a satisfactory manner,
Ah. You seem to be under the impression that "cost" and "price" have something to do with each other. They do not, other than price has to be above cost over the long term to be a viable product.
AT&T and Verizon might be busily upgrading their networks and not passing the savings on to you. Since some of the evidence indicates the price of a fixed service tier went down, it appears they did. But it also appears people's demand for better service was bigger then their demand for lower prices.
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Yup same here. I went from AT&T 25Mb to 1Gb with no data cap for about the same $80/month. My price didn't go down but bandwidth and reliability went way up. With the extra bandwidth I've dropped my landline and cable TV so my net is a substantial savings.
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They don't measure the alternative. The cost of the alternative isn't ZERO. Zero change is assumed. That is the problem here, if Clinton had won instead of Trump, who is to say that the change would have been more or less than the 19% being claimed?
Complaining about price increases absent any(every) other factor is functionally irrelevant.
Can I complain about Gas/Oil Prices since Biden took office? Up substantially (approx 12%) since he took office (no other factors considered).
I'm just saying single factor
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I won't blame Biden for the gas price, but before he took office I was paying close to $3 a gallon. Now I'm paying $4 a gallon and it's only been 5 months. Luckily I drive a hybrid so it's not that painful but ouch, hard times are coming for a lot of people when gas hits $5 in the summer. That alone can drag the economy down when you literally cannot afford the gas for a day trip.
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My broadband went up $10/mo. just as the lockdown was starting.
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Sounds similar to how my stuff is tiered. I'm on a 100mb connection for $84 but a 1gb connection is only $120. I have no need for a 1gb as it's just my wife and I and we don't own 4k equipment so there is next to zero reason to spend the extra money. I would love to drop down a tier but it's like 10 or 20mb which is of course no practical unless you only check email and news sites.
We get the game. We know it's rigged.
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You can't get those tiers (Score:2)
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This shit, right here! That's exactly what they do. I had a period of time where it felt like every six months they would raise my Internet bill since I dropped their cable plan a couple years back. Phone calls that took way to long. Not sure anyone has ever had a good experience with a major teleco, ever.
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My plan has been fixed for years and Comcast has been jacking my rates up $20 a year, I'd love to pay the national average.
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While claiming "prices went up," they managed to gloss over the fact that prices for the same tiers generally went down, ...
Exactly my experience. A few years ago, I was at something like 20/3. Today I'm at 1000/1000. I'm also paying about twice as much.
This is a fascinating issue though. I'd also be curious how much this was driven by people dropping TV services and putting the money in internet and streaming. It would be really interesting to track how people's spend on telecommunications and services changes over time. I'm including landline telephone service, wireless, internet, cable and satellite TV, satellite radio, strea
Re: Total cost versus price per megabit (Score:2)
If we should be paying according to bandwith, and none of the efficiency is to be passed to the customer, my broadnand bill should be some $10k now. The country is crisscrossed with millions if not billions of miles with unused fiber. The price per gb transmitted is a far cry from linear. The first byte across cost millions, after that,
not so much.
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An example: AT&T 940 megabit service is about $80 per month ($60 + equipment and taxes).
In my area, ATT offers nothing to consumers more than 5 Mbps ADSL. Yes, 5. And it costs about the same as that.
Burn the witch! (Score:1)
He made the chickens stop laying too!
Trump Appointee lies? (Score:1, Troll)
Where is the story there?
I'm shocked! (Score:3)
In his position he could either do what the job mandated, or listen to his boss, since he was being told to not do his job. He chose to be a lap dog. He had no integrity whatsoever. Screw the people, sabotage the agency he's supposed to be running.
Too bad that's not illegal. Seeing him standing there with that wide grin as he hogtied the FCC, he absolutely wins my "most punchable face" award. Then kick him in the nads for good measure. Maybe twice. Who knows, maybe that'll wipe the sick smile off his face.
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Honestly not sure why this is marked troll. Did people not watch any video with him and that stupid smile talking with smug surety about how he was going to fuck the internet next?
This guy is just a shitstain.
Units (Score:2)
Can I get that quoted in lumber, food, gas, electric, or rent-adjusted dollars?
No agenda from the timbre of the article, though...
And now ... (Score:2)
Ajit has a no-show job!
since so many necessities are online (Score:2)
It's not about deregulation (Score:3, Insightful)
Cable companies from Comcast on down generally don't compete against each other to begin with, but mergers eliminate the slim possibility that they could compete in the future. Charter CEO Tom Rutledge recently said that Charter avoids competing against other cable companies because that would make it hard to buy the companies later. If two cable companies compete, the FCC is unlikely to approve a merger between them, he said.
You need at least three companies to have good competition. However, few areas in the country have this option. Most have one and a select few have two [ilsr.org].
Until people have a real choice in providers, prices will continue to rise in double digits.
Re: It's not about deregulation (Score:2)
The lack of choices in a given municipality are a result of regulations put in place by state or local officials, it's not something the federal government can 'fix'.
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Bullshit.
If they can use the interstate commerce clause to make a marijuana plant I grow on my own property and consume on my own property a federal crime, they can absolutely use the same legal argument to micro-manage telecommunications. There it actually makes some sense, because none of us are constraining our internetting to in-state websites.
price vs. expenditures (Score:4, Interesting)
from the /. summary:
"The average US home-Internet bill increased...disproving former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's claim that deregulation lowered prices"
That statement confuses expenditures with prices.
The price if internet service is correctly measured in performance/dollar. Not the size of the bills.
Median broadband performance in the U.S. more than tripled [fairinternetreport.com], from about 10mbs to about 30mbs in about the three years after Pai killed net neutrality. That is about a 300% increase in performance in return for about a 30% increase in payments.
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> "That is about a 300% increase in performance"
actually, the increase is 200% of the initial value.
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Confused (Score:2)
According to this excerpt from the article:
Without the inflation adjustment, the average household Internet price rose from $36.48 in 2016 to $46.38 in 2019, an increase of 27 percent.
If the average household internet price was $46.38 at the end of 2020, why did the last administration sign into law a $50/month subsidy to help offset the high-cost of Internet service for low-income families or anyone that 'suffered economic hardship as a result of Covid-19 shutdowns?
Where????? (Score:2)
One possible solution FttNH (Score:2)
or Fiber to the Neighbors House.
I'd pay $20-30 a month to "share" my Neighbors 200Mb-1Gb bandwidth without involving an ISP.
You probably want to use fiber over ethernet because of possible grounding issues between buildings.
The only downside is you may end up sharing with Josh Duggar...
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When your internet goes down, who's job is it to trouble-shoot it? If your neighbor isn't home, can you call the ISP and get a fix?
It's one of those "solutions" that only works when it works, and falls apart any time there's a problem.
Would have happened to anyone. (Score:2)
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Only 19%? (Score:2)
Deregulating a *for-profit* industry... (Score:2)
... has led to more profit.
News at 11.
Prices do not go down (Score:2)
Unless there is real competition, and customers are sensitive to price. We have plenty of regional monopolies that charge whatever they think they can get away with. And the providers use a combination of bundling, teaser offers, confusing contract terms, long term contracts, and exorbitant termination fees to keep prices up. Price competition only can happen when there is regulation that enable such competition. Standardized contract terms, price control for monopolies, ability to get out of contracts for
Why "instead"? (Score:2)
That no-honor POS "promises" one thing, you can be sure he knows (and may have a par in) the opposite happening.
Of course they did, but would have been more ... (Score:2)
... without him at the helm. Why? He successfully countered pressures from inflation, additional services, pressure from stockholders.
Doubt that? Then the article should have addressed it shouldn't it?
My internet went up 15%, but speed tripled (Score:2)
Was paying $65 2 years ago. Now I pay $75, and it went from an iffy 70mbps to a very consistent 250mbps. Still not fiber, but great for cable.
Overall I'm happy considering how useful the internet is. The article mentions how broadband providers point this out as the reason for the increase, yet it dismisses it as if it doesn't matter. So, what is it? Do people generally want lower speeds, or do they want to pay more to upgrade infrastructure? Nobody is going to gift this stuff - somebody has to pay for it.
Rip offs (Score:2)
We rip off the other guy and pass the savings on to you.
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Ajit Pai is not a politician.
Sure he is; he's just wasn't an elected official. Lobbyists may be up front about who they take their money from but they still make political arguments that influence political decisions, and when they start from a dogmatic, ideological starting point their goal is to achieve political ends. Ajit Pai is definitely a politician even if he's only ever been appointed to office.
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Ajit Pai is not a politician.
No but he's a puppet of politicians.
The stock market went up while he was there and the rich got richer. That's all that counts!
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Re: Obama increased my healthcare prices (Score:2)
Briefly, it's a classic strategy - declare everything he says is a lie, then, when you can prove he said something that wasn't true, pretend you believed him and attack him for being wrong!
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We'd need to know what the costs for Spectrum were, to provide that.
Because really, the question is how the profit changed.