<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div>Bah. One thread of discourse regarding a rather bothersome issue should be allowed :) <br><br></div>If anyone else here was subscribed to certain other open-source lists, this is actually rather tame compared to what I've seen in years past. <br><br><br></div>As I sit, I can physically only receive DirecTV (via in in-building distribution system) or setup a dish for their competitor, Dish Network, out my window. Otherwise I get antenna TV, as back in 1995, when these apartments were finished out of an old department store (Denver Dry Goods Co.,) TCI at the time refused to foot the cost to install cable to the 65 units. 3 years later, when the condos were finished on the opposite side of the building, it would appear that TCI or perhaps the condo association funded the install; Comcast is now available to the condos today. <br><br></div><div>Instead, the apartments were doomed to an exclusive contract from a third party, 'American Broadband' is their current name, who ran coax in exchange for said exclusivity. They provide DirecTV to the wall-jacks and no Internet over the coax infrastructure at all.<br></div><br>I should also mention I live 2 blocks away from the central Denver Centurylink switching building, and the telecom hotel, Denver Gas and Electric (910 15th St.; you might see it in Comcast ibone traceroutes).<br><br>However, even with terabits of bandwidth being exchanged 2 blocks away, my Internet is only faster than the 12mbit/s of Centurylink's 50+ year old home-run-to-the-CO copper, due to the fact there's 1 very small individual ISP that has an Ubiquiti Rocket M5 Titanium + omnidirectional antenna on the roof of said telecom hotel. <br><br>This is a 100mbit max connection, shared between 5 current users: myself and 4 businesses, 2 of which I referred directly to Aerux(the ISP) as they were also facing 12mbit ADSL2. Presently Aerux is capping each user to 30mbit/s to preserve the network quality/latency, but being wireless (and as such, no asymmetric bandwidth allocation on the physical media) 30mbit is also the upload. Compare that to 0.9 with Centurylink, or even the 5-20mbit of higher tiers of Comcast. <br><br></div><div>So its a bittersweet victory: proper Internet, at the lack of any useful form of television. Good thing I watch so little anyway, recording a few PBS shows here and there. <br></div><div><br></div>So yes, I will agree our current regulatory environment sucks, being smack dab in the middle of inability to even receive services 95+% of Coloradans have the ability to receive (Comcast) or any sort of competitive service from the incumbent telco: their '1 gig' is a pipe dream for the 99% who do not live in brand new apartments and condos being built; their next-best 40mbit service is available only in fiber-passed suburbs and very little if any penetration in the central core.<br><br></div>Only by the stroke of good luck that someone had taken the initiative to start a company, plop an antenna ontop of a building, and enable public advertisement of the SSID which I saw on my phone, sitting in my living room, am I able to pay $55/mo for a _much_ more stable, consistent, and low-latency solution that gives me absolutely 0 netflix or youtube throttling/ or playback issues. <br><br></div>If we had reasonable regulation, Centurylink (or Qwest or USWest before them) would have been mandated to provide the same service everywhere, and likely would have upgraded the central Downtown area to fiber a decade ago. TCI would have been be required to wire every building that might house residential tenants, providing for a better level of competition. But no, there wasn't any of that sort in the late 80s to mid-90s when services were being digitized.<br><br><br></div>In short: This discussion is rather civil compared to some; and, being a forum of techies who have an opinion about recording what large companies hold dear to their profit margins, it is a much better place than many for such a discussion.<br><br></div>Have a great weekend!<br><br></div>Mike<br><br><div><div><div><div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 10:08 AM, Phil Bridges <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gravityhammer@gmail.com" target="_blank">gravityhammer@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5">On Sat, Apr 25, 2015 at 3:15 AM, Stephen P. Villano <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:stephen.p.villano@gmail.com" target="_blank">stephen.p.villano@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div><br>
<br>
On 4/24/15 3:49 PM, Hika van den Hoven wrote:<br>
> Hoi Stephen,<br>
><br>
> Friday, April 24, 2015, 9:30:15 PM, you wrote:<br>
><br>
><br>
><br>
>> On 4/24/15 9:04 AM, Eric Sharkey wrote:<br>
>>> On Fri, Apr 24, 2015 at 1:06 AM, Stephen P. Villano<br>
>>> <<a href="mailto:stephen.p.villano@gmail.com" target="_blank">stephen.p.villano@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
>>>> On 4/23/15 4:37 PM, Doug Lytle wrote:<br>
>>>>> Looks like the merger was killed<br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>> <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/23/comcast_45bn_twc_gobble_declared_dead_in_the_water/" target="_blank">http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/04/23/comcast_45bn_twc_gobble_declared_dead_in_the_water/</a><br>
>>>>><br>
>>>>> Doug<br>
>>>>><br>
>>>> That's good news,<br>
>>> Not entirely, at least for MythTV users. Time Warner is one of the<br>
>>> most MythTV hostile providers out there. Being acquired by Comcast,<br>
>>> which is much friendlier by comparison, could have been a good thing<br>
>>> for many people on this list. Given that TW and Comcast don't<br>
>>> actually compete for customers, the people negatively impacted by this<br>
>>> consolidation would have been content producers, not consumers, as the<br>
>>> combined company would have had more leverage in negotiating<br>
>>> contracts. Conceivably, this could have been passed on to consumers<br>
>>> as savings. (Ok, maybe that last point is going too far...)<br>
>>><br>
>>> Eric<br>
>>> _______________________________________________<br>
>>><br>
>> It's been my repeated experience that when two corporations merge, with<br>
>> one having lousy customer service, the one that had barely acceptable or<br>
>> even excellent customer service tends to end up having lousy customer<br>
>> service.<br>
>> Examples are the Sanyo-Fisher merger and the Sears-Kmart merger.<br>
>> _______________________________________________<br>
> Not by definition. Here in the Netherlands our two biggest cable<br>
> companies (UPC and Ziggo) have merged last year and are now in the<br>
> proces of equalizing. At this moment it means that where before for me<br>
> with Ziggo every channel was encrypted, it looks like all digital SD<br>
> and some HD channels are becoming unencrypted. Like it was with UPC.<br>
> So finally I will be able to move to digital!<br>
><br>
> Tot mails,<br>
> Hika mailto:<a href="mailto:hikavdh@gmail.com" target="_blank">hikavdh@gmail.com</a><br>
><br>
> "Zonder hoop kun je niet leven<br>
> Zonder leven is er geen hoop<br>
> Het eeuwige dilemma<br>
> Zeker als je hoop moet vernietigen om te kunnen overleven!"<br>
><br>
> De lerende Mens<br>
><br>
> _______________________________________________<br>
><br>
</div></div>Good for you! Unfortunately, where you have an extremely robust<br>
regulatory environment, we in the US have a variable and weakening<br>
regulatory environment, forgetting *why* we enacted said regulation in<br>
the first place.<br>
Where much of Europe accepted some ideas from socialism, the US does its<br>
level best to destroy anything it *thinks* is socialism, ignoring<br>
superhighways, parks, essential services, etc.<br>
In short, we're an abject mess, attempting to protect our society and<br>
destroy it at the same time.<br>
What *other* nation has national leaders openly suggest removing<br>
protections from the poor and indigent and permit them to starve to death?<br>
I've heard that with my own two ears.<br>
<div><div><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div></div><div>Somehow I missed getting subscribed to rec.politics. Where's the unsubscribe? </div></div><br></div></div>
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<br></blockquote></div><br></div>