Re:Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam
by lawnchair_larry on Sunday February 23, 2014 @05:32PM
(#7287947)
This is true if you have some antiquated definition of broadband that includes a competitor offering "up to" 896kbps while Comcast offers everything from 1 to 20+ mbps, but false for everybody else.
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Re:Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam
by res0nat0r on Sunday February 23, 2014 @08:49PM
(#7288672)
Question: If Comcast is such a monopoly that everyone here keeps repeating ad nauseam, why hasn't it been broken up ATT style yet?
Re:Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam
by nknighthb on Sunday February 23, 2014 @09:22PM
(#7288765)
AT&T was broken up into a bunch of smaller regional monopolies that did not compete with one another. (Almost a century after its founding, by the way, and decades of on-and-off litigation.)
The cable industry has evolved into a bunch of regional monopolies that do not compete with one another.
The effect of breaking Comcast up AT&T-style would be... a bunch of regional monopolies that do not compete with one another. And then, as with AT&T, proceed to consolidate via M&A into larger regional monopolies... that do not compete with one another. Same as now.
Welcome to the American telecommunications industry.
Re:Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam
by res0nat0r on Monday February 24, 2014 @03:13PM
(#7293138)
That doesn't discount the fact that laying cable costs lots of money is a natural monopoly.
Re:Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam
by fancyketchup on Monday February 24, 2014 @08:12PM
(#7294532)
Wait, so in one post, you challenge HN's readership to prove that Comcast is a monopoly, and then two posts later you assert that cable is a natural monopoly. I'm confused what point you're trying to make.
Re:Netflix Agrees to Pay Comcast to End Web Traffic Jam
by res0nat0r on Monday February 24, 2014 @09:30PM
(#7294923)
Comcast is a natural monopoly, and there isn't anything wrong with that. Competitors are free right now to lay cabling to areas where Comcast already serves, they just choose not to because it isn't a smart financial decision.