[GRLUG] Local ISP's (was NOT LINUX - net neutrality)

[Matthew Seeley]

Not to sidetrack this fun conversation but,

When we mention 'competition' in ISP's in Grand Rapids -- can anyone provide a list of recommendations for high speed internet providers (where 'high speed' means "reliably pull down 3Mbps or greater"? Is there something that a reasonable, tech-savvy person can do to support the little guy here?

The only ones I know of are Comcast, AT&T, Clearwire. I'd love to know about alternatives, if they're are any.  

Everyone else that I know of either doesn't serve our area, or just resells one of the above (I was told that Iserv's DSL is just AT&T DSL resold, for instance, at about 50% markup. Last time I talked to them, they also wanted to lock residential users into two year agreements as well).

This is just my personal opinion, but I certainly don't feel like theres any competition here.

And I'm not even talking about suburbs, I'm in downtown grand rapids, just blocks away from US Signal's Datacenter, but I can't get home internet faster than 8mb (and then, only through comcast), and I can't get DSL at all. (AT&T keeps sending technicians, apparently the phone lines are in a huge state of disarray…) Even if AT&T fixes the phone lines, the fastest they'll let me have is 6mb.


Is there a 'locally owned' and/or not questionably unethical high speed ISP that people in Grand Rapids can support?

--
Matthew Seeley
Threadlight Systems
PO Box 612, Jenison MI 49429
T: (616) 328-5649


On Friday, September 23, 2011 at 3:57 PM, Michael Mol wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 3:11 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com (mailto:bob.kline at gmail.com)> wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Michael Mol <mikemol at gmail.com (mailto:mikemol at gmail.com)> wrote:
> > > On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com (mailto:bob.kline at gmail.com)> wrote:
> > > > Yes, there's all that. But some
> > > > kind of regulation is often needed.
> > > > AT&T worked well as a regulated
> > > > monopoly for something like three
> > > > generations - it's what made universal
> > > > service come about.
> > >  
> > > Worked well? Why do you think it took so long for network services to get
> > > cheap?
> >  
> > Because one had to shift to a new
> > business model. The regulated monopoly
> > produced universal service - that was the
> > deal, and included a guaranteed rate of
> > return.
>  
> And all of those guarantees force the maintenance of a status-quo,
> defeating innovation, technology improvements and, consequentially,
> price reduction. The regulations themselves held the monopoly in
> place, and made it more difficult for anyone to compete.
>  
> > In the days of slower moving
> > technology, that was a worthy goes - at
> > the end, before the divestiture of AT&T
> > in 1983, 96% of the US population had
> > access to a phone. "Long Lines," the old
> > name for long distance, subsidized local
> > service to the tune of about $11B in 1981.
> > As time went on, there were cheaper
> > ways of doing aspects of things - long
> > distance for example - but a period of
> > cherry picking followed, wherein the
> > most profitable parts of AT&T's businesses
> > were picked off. That couldn't work either.
> > >  
> > > > But I take your point more generally.
> > > > The government's current war on the
> > > > private sector is not doing any of us
> > > > much good...
> > >  
> > > And Net Neutrality is about escalating that.
> >  
> > How so?
>  
> Because, like all regulation, it increases the costs of doing business.
>  
> In this case, it effectively eliminates a network's ability to manage
> traffic flows. Curiously, this actually tilts network advantage away
> from truly disruptive technologies like VOIP and realtime processes
> A/V, and in favor of bulk transfers. And it'd be illegal to provide a
> commercial, general-purpose network for which VOIP actually worked
> reliably and efficiently.
>  
> > A side comment, capitalism is
> > a flawed system as well. Unfettered, it can,
> > and always has, led to monopolies. Who will
> > break them up if the gov't doesn't?
>  
> They go bankrupt when something new obviates the need for their
> product. Unless they're allowed to buy legislation which structures
> regulation to their advantage.
>  
> > Or was
> > M$ just another business?
>  
> Absolutely. Chances are, if Microsoft had been successful at
> monopolizing the desktop market, the mobile market would have exploded
> sooner, and the PC as it was would have been a brief fad. (Perhaps it
> is anyway, but it would have been briefer.) Something would have
> yanked the market out from under them.
>  
> > Standard oil?
>  
> Standard Oil was another example of horizontal integration, but, yes,
> it was just another business. Standard Oil's market was obviously fuel
> oils of various kinds. If those fuels didn't become as cheap as they
> had, we wouldn't have had the Age of the Automobile. We'd probably
> have used trains instead, and the shapes of cities and other
> population centers would be different today, but they'd still exist.
> There were (and are) other sources of energy apart from petroleum, and
> Standard Oil would have their work cut out for them trying to compete.
>  
> > Alas, a missing piece of capitalism is keeping
> > competition going, and competition is the
> > thing that produces quality and lower prices.
>  
> It still comes, but the markets change.
>  
> https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Disruptive_technology
>  
> Video killed the radio star. Cellular phones have killed off landlines
> almost entirely. VOIP, if it's *allowed* to take hold in the face of
> things like net neutrality, will eventually all but kill off the PSTN.
>  
> > Few businesses actually want that if they
> > can gouge people instead, as the railroads
> > did a century and more ago when they were
> > the only real game in town.
>  
> And along came roads and planes--powered by Standard Oil.
>  
> --  
> :wq
>  
> --  
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