SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
[...] As broadband connectivity becomes more and more integral to daily work and schooling habits, few ISPs are meeting our expectations. If we start to see increased competition, that might change.
Your industry may have a perception problem when it gets lower customer satisfaction ratings than the US Postal Service or even gas stations. But that's where internet service providers are now, with the recent release of the American Customer Satisfaction Index's Telecommunications Study for 2021-2022.
Among more than 45 different industries surveyed (including such wide-ranging trades as food manufacturing, life insurance, airlines, hotels, hospitals and social media), ISPs came in dead last for customer satisfaction, with a 64 rating on a zero to 100 scale. That's two points behind the next lowest industry (subscription TV services at 66) and a 1.5% loss over the previous year's performance.
Internet service providers bring up the rear in the latest ACSI list of customer satisfaction by industry.
[...] One other standout from the report is newcomer T-Mobile Home Internet, which hit the market in 2021 and debuted at second on the list with a score of 71. That bodes well for the fixed wireless option, which uses its 5G and 4G LTE networks to connect homes to the internet and aims to be a disruptor to traditional broadband providers (the tagline on its site is "Free yourself from internet BS"). If these scores are any indication, it and other newcomers might have a shot at success.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Opportunist on Friday June 17 2022, @12:11PM (15 children)
I don't think that in this particular case the government would be very good at running things.
There are a couple of fields where I think the government would be good at running them, because their interests overlap with the interests of the population. Healthcare for example. What does the government want? A health population that can work and pay taxes and doesn't need disability services. That intersects pretty well with my interest (ok, not the paying tax part, but sure the being healthy part). Public transport works too, because what the government wants is a population that gets around town with little congestation, so pushing as many people into public transport as possible is a goal, which in turn means that it needs to be attractive, i.e. reliable, fast and cheap. Again, something that intersects well with the interests of the population, whether they want to use public transport or just want to have fewer traffic jams.
Where's the government's interest in faster internet connection?
What I could see when it comes to breaking up the monopolies, is to forcefully split apart the companies in one part that own the cables and another one that transport data through them. That's what happened in many European countries where the former state-run telephone companies "inherited" the tax-built cables and instead of allowing them to squelch any competition by becoming the only financially viable ISP, they were forced to rent out their cables to anyone. Didn't go without a hitch and there was a lot of stalling, but eventually it meant that even tiny countries have like 5 or more competing ISPs even in rural areas, leading to competition and prices that most other countries dream of and service hotline wait times in the single digit minutes (and even that only during the times when everyone's calling).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday June 17 2022, @12:29PM (1 child)
1. The "circuses" half of "bread and circuses".
2. All the businesses that rely on it lobbying for it, from streaming services to banking to cloud providers.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday June 17 2022, @08:04PM
1. I don't know about yours, my government has better circuses at its disposal.
2. Again, I can't see my government having ANY interest in streaming providers' benefits, especially considering that they run their very own TV network. If anything, their interest is that nobody can stream or watch foreign TV shows (which they can't really avoid) and everyone has to watch their crap.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @01:53PM
The government used to regulate DSL where the telephone company provided the wire, but you could buy your Internet service from one of many providers. Somehow that got taken away and it killed competition. Prices went up, services went down. Now you have very limited choices for Internet, or almost no choices when you live in a rural area.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 17 2022, @03:04PM (9 children)
Did you forget that government provides the roads? Inefficient in both speed and price of construction, and still one of the best bargains ever for the populace and economy.
I _feel_ that if the U.S. government established top-tier globally competitive targets for broadband quality of service and price, delivery would follow - much like the (overpriced, but) high quality phone service we had under AT&T and air transport when it was regulated.
We don't need innovative or creative services, feature/content bundling and tiered pricing in our internet service; we need big low lag pipes that can deliver more data than we can utilize at a reasonable cost. If the internet infrastructure were subsidized by the amount that it reduces highway traffic, it probably could be 100% funded from that existing budget.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 17 2022, @05:43PM
That exactly. In fact, I don't WANT any of the "innovative or creative services, feature/content bundling and tiered pricing". There's not a bundle in this country that I'm the least bit interested in. I just want that huge honking pipe, so that the entire family can watch videos, at the same time I'm doing whatever, and I can't tell that anyone is on the same connection. If I can do that with 100 meg, I'll be happy. If it requiers 200, I'll upgrade to that. Just turn the firehose on, is all I ask.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @05:43PM (7 children)
The roads as provided by the government in the US are nothing but a massive handout to the automotive industry. They are a massive burden on the population.
Hear me out. The idea that you HAVE to own,maintain and operate a personal vehicle to live is a massive burden. AAA estimates costs of car ownership at $6k/year
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_costs [wikipedia.org]
With lifetime costs hovering between half a million to a million dollars. The best part is, you don't have a choice because it's the only infrastructure available as there is almost no investment in public transportation, or even bike lanes for that matter.
They also cost lives and create pollution, among other things. There are other ways to organize society.
Back to ISP's. The government created the internet, then gave it away. The telcos proved incompetent at running it. Time to try something new. If the telcos are so great they can compete with municipal broadband.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 17 2022, @08:04PM (6 children)
>There are other ways to organize society.
Yes, but for movement of goods and people for the past 80+ years, roads have been the top-tier solution globally.
Rails work in some areas, water transport in others, and air transport has its place, but the fact that roads have taken over for so much rail and water transport is more than a handout to the auto industry, it's a testament to the fact that roads work.
Do they also create suburbs, commuter's hell, etc.? Absolutely. We can do better, but the public subsidy of roads - and particularly the interstate highway system - was and still is a huge step forward over the patchwork of dirt paths that came before.
Interestingly, the roads to fiber transition of worker bees daily contribution to society may bring about a rural utopia, where we all have enough space to scream "FUCK OFF" out the window and have nobody hear us, but also can bring up video conference with friends and family several times a day as desired, and once in a rare while use those roads to visit them in meatspace, while automated delivery vehicles become the majority users of the legacy road systems for delivery of grocery and goods to our Frank Lloyd Wright Broadacre-esque homes.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday June 17 2022, @08:17PM (1 child)
As someone living in a country with a really good public transport system in most cities and a completely fucked up one pretty much anywhere else, I can tell you that this is actually a sensible solution: If you have to get from the countryside to the city, get with your car to a place on the outskirts where you can leave it, then take the public transport across town. They did that here and it works pretty well. Yes, it's HEAVILY subsidized, to the point where the annual ticket is in the lower 3 digits, including a guaranteed and guarded parking space, seriously, driving into town, with the cost of parking and everything, is more espensive (and much slower in most cases) than leaving your car at the "park and ride [wikipedia.org]" stations and switching to public transport across town.
This of course requires a very dense and reliable public transport system so people accept it. If you have to wait for your bus for half an hour and then still walk for another 20 minutes, nobody is going to do that.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday June 17 2022, @08:44PM
Key: This of course requires a very dense and reliable public transport system so people accept it.
In Miami, I spent a summer commuting in from ~30 miles south of downtown to an office just over a small bridge from the downtown peoplemover. 15+ miles of that commute actually drove parallel to the MetroRail, but... to take the rail I would have to park in a big lot, walk 5+ minutes exposed to the weather, which was a torrential downpour about 10% of afternoons, ride the rail, transfer to the peoplemover, then walk another 5 minutes exposed across the bridge to work. The cost (1998) was $2.50 per day for the train, parking at my office was free - that was rare, but right there: $12.50 per week to park, walk, ride and walk, or just drive? The rainstorms pretty much clenched that decision.
But then, let's compare commute times in the two options: to drive and arrive at 8am, I would have to leave around 7:10, but... if I left home at 7:00 I would arrive around 7:40, leaving at 6:45, I would arrive around 7:15, and these shorter drive times were also considerably more enjoyable than the crush of traffic. To (reliably) make it to work at 8am using the train, I would have to leave home around 6:45, and be exposed to "the public" at close range all the way in and out from the station. Laying abed at 6:30am, thinking about options for the morning: get up now and take the train for $2.50 - possibly get soaking wet - and get to work just in time, or: lay abed another 20 minutes and drive in? Yeah, train lost that decision just about every single time.
Of course, the population of Miami continues to explode, and a quick google maps check of that commute today at 4:45pm tells me it will take 1hr 6min or more to travel the 30 miles. Trains look better and better, the worse the roads get.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @10:13PM (3 children)
Roads being the primary solution for past 80ish years is essentially the point. It's a new invention with many serious problems. People are slowly awakening. It's certainly not the best way to organize society. It's obvious that paved roads are better than dirt roads, for moving goods and people. That is besides the point. Rail, bike paths, walking are better still. Car centrist infrastructure is the CHEAPEST solution that's a massive hand out to the auto industry, and a massive burden on the population. Are there instances where it's the best solution? Sure. But just like electric cars, building roads out to the middle of nowhere is a handout to those who need it least.
As you pointed out with your anecdote living in Miami, Road infrastructure centered around also cars does not scale well (due to induced demand).
The government can do things well, or they can do them poorly (just like corporations). Roads were done poorly. USA spent $500 Billion (todays money) on the highway system, only to spend $20 to $40 TRILLION bombing third world countries to secure oil for cars. We certainly have the best and the brightest running things.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday June 18 2022, @12:26AM (1 child)
Gulf War II was the biggest embarrassment of my life (having been born too late to remember Vietnam).
Roads weren't the motivation for GW2, it was money pure and simple. Roads have focused the money in oil, but if the money were focused elsewhere I don't doubt that some aw shucksey fratboy President would have found another lame pretext for 10+ years of military adventure enriching his backers.
Maybe 20 more years of internet will provide enough transparency to abort the next generation's embarrassing war for enrichment of the select few... We can hope, but so far we still can't get away from monopoly for profit last mile service providers, and that has been a known structural defect of infrastructure providers for well over a century.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 23 2022, @03:28PM
Y'know I've been wondering if the US just bombed those countries with trillions of dollars of cash and goodies would the results have actually been worse?
e.g. instead spending trillions to bomb weddings and kill people you send those bombers to actually drop cash and goodies (e.g. smartphones loaded up with US propaganda and maybe some actual useful stuff - agriculture, hygiene etc).
Would this really make terrorists more likely to attack the USA?
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Sunday June 19 2022, @02:58AM
You're telling me that Robert Moses was a tool of the auto industry. It is to laugh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 17 2022, @06:22PM (1 child)
Yes, this doesn't overlap with my interests. See I don't need healthcare when I am healthy. I need it when I am not. The government wants you dead by 60.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday June 17 2022, @08:06PM
What? No way! Senior citizens have money and they tend to spend domestic and local rather than traveling abroad and buying from online services. They don't work anymore, allright, but they have a ton of money they need to spend before they croak!