New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill - Ars Technica
New York starts enforcing $15 broadband law that ISPs tried to kill
The funniest (or saddest?) part of all this is that $15 is considered "low". It's still pretty high for something so vital (and tbf I'd much rather see a requirement for like 5-10 Mbps at $5 or so; you don't need much bandwidth for meaningful, very useful service).
I not disagreeing but $15 would still put it at one of the cheapest if not the cheapest vital service. I’m not sure you could get any other utility for much lower than that.
Sure, but the fixed costs are really low (mostly administrative and one-time installation related stuff which you could potentially just charge for separately) and the ongoing costs per customer are close to zero.
Also really depends on where you live; I guess for NY it's a really good deal.
I understand the argument but there is far less issues and costs associated with fibre connections which are virtually limitless in terms of speed - theoretical limits apply butbwe are still seeing new equipment at either ends that allow for multiple tbps speeds.
Lol Internet Essentials is $10 for 50Mbps (if you qualify, that is)
Making the connection slower doesn’t magically make it cheaper.
I mean, kinda? Sure, there are fixed costs per customer, and it ultimately doesn't matter if one guy has access to (and uses) a 1Gbps versus 1Mbps service... But when you have millions of customers that you want to serve those speeds to reliably, there's an insane difference as you need way more expensive equipment and stuff.
And yeah, more bandwidth has gotten cheaper. But again - for such a critical service, it should be very cheap and minimum speed isn't really a factor. So if they could make it 1/3 cheaper by cutting the speed to 1/5, that'd be a win for a lot of people.
It's crazy how many people equate Mbps latency. Broadband companies spread this lie that faster is better.
You can game lag free and have VoIP calls with zero interruption on 5Mbps.
Only thing more Mbps helps with is downloading larger files faster.
Still remember playing WoW on under 5Mbps, updating was painful but otherwise playing was fine
Also helps with streaming and many, many other services
Having said that, though, yeah... 99% of the population doesn't need more than 10Mbit / person
You can game lag free and have VoIP calls with zero interruption on 5Mbps.
Yeah on like... 2-4 devices total lol.
What if I want to play MariokartDS online with 8 of my friends on the same connection?
My WEP router advertises 11 Mbps WiFi, I want to use the whole thing.
^/s
I wish California would implement this law as well.
Low-income plans
Love to means-test fucking everything. You can't just have $15/mo internet. You have to plead poverty for fear of middle class or (god forbid) rich people getting a basic utility at a sensible price.
Nevermind how means testing inevitably creates these legal hurdles for administrators to leap over. The act of means testing is inevitably what businesses target in an effort to avoid compliance. "Oh! It's too hard to tell who qualifies! Undo burden! Undo burden!" It wouldn't be a burden if the ISP was limited to a universal flat rate. It wouldn't be a burden if municipalities owned and operated their own independent flat-rate internet service as a public utility.
The USPS and Canada Post should both be looking into becoming rural ISPs. They're in the business of delivering messages/packets, no one ever said "mail" deliveries couldn't include email and internet service.
damn how will the isps afford the maintenance costs of digging up a cable once every 100 years
Ideally they won't. I'm not a fan of American ISPs and I've never lived in the US, I'd love to see internet be treated as a public utility. It's about time for rural connectivity to follow up rural electrification.
Around my part of the woods I can either pay 50€ for Gigabit over coaxial cable or 35€ for 16 MBit DSL. Less than 2% of the speed for 70% of the price.. wtf?
I wish they would offer a basic, affordable option for singles or people who don't need a high bandwidth connection. Charging over 30€ foe it seems excessive.
The blue states always have the cool stuff!
And red states are welfare states with crabs in a bucket mentality
"We can't afford rent, bread and Internet, what happened, fuck socialism I guess???"
“Oh, yeah? Well at least we passed laws requiring us to identity ourselves if we wanna use porn, lol! You can keep your cheap broadband internet! Ha!” — Red States
Wish I hadn't built my life in the red hellhole
What about me? When I was born Ohio is what we'd now call blue. I say it that way because when I was born, states didn't have colors. In fact in 1980 when reagan won, the map he won was blue. Today that wouldn't make sense, so you get my point.
By the time I was a teenager Ohio had become a swing state.
And now it's red.
Where the fuck is my blue ohio I was brought up in???
I used to live in Alberta and I’m still reeling from that.
Sunk cost fallacy... It might be worth moving in the long run. It's far from perfect, but I know that the difference between living in a solid blue state, vs a purple state, is huge. I can't even imagine coming from a deep red state. Shit would be like entering the Promised Land.
Which is sad, because blue states have their fair share of issues.
Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
Something something freedom something? *
Offer not valid in all 50 states, void where prohibited