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Ajit Pai promised faster broadband expansion:
2019 was the second straight year that Comcast lowered its overall cable capital expenditures (though Comcast's spending on line extensions and scalable infrastructure rose in 2018).
This wasn't supposed to happen, according to claims that ISPs and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai made in order to push through the repeal of net neutrality rules and other deregulatory measures. Pai, who just today released an 11-page list of his accomplishments as FCC chair, repeatedly argued that net neutrality rules caused broadband providers to reduce capital expenditures. After his net neutrality repeal took effect in June 2018, he claimed that the repeal and other FCC deregulation caused investment to rise.
But Comcast isn't the only major ISP cutting investment, as AT&T projects that it will reduce capital spending from $23 billion in 2019 to $20 billion in 2020. Charter Communications said in October that its capital expenditures excluding mobile services would total $7 billion in 2019, down from $8.9 billion in 2018. Verizon reported a small increase in capital expenditures in the first nine months of 2019.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @06:08PM (5 children)
Your idiocy aside, as pointed out by the other AC, they use the boiling frog method to keep the herds passive. They creep up the costs and fractured service plans nice and slow, otherwise people might flock to their competitor.
OR WORSE! They might push the politicians to actually re-regulate!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @06:46PM (4 children)
So why didn't they just boil this frog sometime between the mid 1990s and 2015, when net neutrality didn't exist? Why didn't the internet turn into a bastion of freedom from 2015 until now? And why is it that we've spent years entertaining the idea of the internet turning into the television industry when the exact opposite is actually taking place?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @07:47PM (2 children)
Because the internet wasn't that big of a deal back then, and yes they have been boiling the frog the whole time! Telecom prices and service have always been pretty shit in the US, and they stole billions in government funding that did not go into the infrastructure.
If you don't notice the compartmentalization of the internet the last few years then you're blind as fuck. They already started with their different promo campaigns / tiered services, but go ahead and keep boiling, you're probably warm and comfy right about now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 03 2020, @11:25PM (1 child)
Tiered services? Bro, the internet has had tiered service levels since before Trump's fourth bankruptcy, long before he was president. Do you mind pointing out which part of "net neutrality" was supposed to put a stop to that, and why it never happened in the years that it was a law?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 04 2020, @03:59PM
You are right, I was referencing the further split like allowing full bandwidth for their partner services like HBO, Netflix, whatever.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday February 04 2020, @06:54AM
https://www.freepress.net/our-response/expert-analysis/explainers/net-neutrality-violations-brief-history [freepress.net]