Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbie
So what we are really looking at is this regulation of 2015 was a way to stop big companies from doing bad things.
That makes sense.
My question would be though...you and a few others have said you don't have any competition in the way of ISP's to choose from.
I know for a fact that there were tons of them just a few years ago. Even in the small town I lived in in South Carolina ten years ago I had over a dozen choices. (And yes, I know that there is a small percentage of people who live in the mountains and other remote places who have no choice but slow satellite service...but I'm only talking about people who live in civilization lol)
Is it possible that the "Net Neutrality" regulation itself may have helped destroy those smaller companies?
I'm just asking.
If I had all of those choices in a tiny town of 10,000 people in shithole South Carolina...what happened to change that in the last few years for everyone?
SOMETHING must have knocked those small innovative companies out of business.
I'm just trying to see both sides of the issue. The media isn't reporting both sides (well, the business channels do...but they report an entirely different thing than what is being said here).
I am just like everyone else on here...I don't want to lose anything on the web. Nobody wants that. Hell I already pay $150 a month for my 1 gig up and down speed internet service. I certainly don't want to pay any more than that.
Anyway, I was just wondering about all of this. Like you said...it SEEMS like "everyone is against this". But I'm not sure that everyone has even gotten the proper information about it.
I know that I don't have what I feel is adequate info.
Seems like EVERY thing that happens these days is instantly politicized. And that makes it hard to get FACTS for all of us. We all end up reading OPINIONS that are political.
And no, I have no idea why in a sane world this would be a political thing. But in our country now...it is.
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I live in a smallish town about 15 minutes from Portland. I have two choices for internet. I can get it through the cable company (which is what I have) or the phone company. Their prices and speeds are comparable. Last summer I caught my ISP throttling my service during prime time hours. I pay for 50mbs but from 7-10pm I would be lucky to get 5mbs. At first, they didn't believe me so I did a bunch of tests and found that it only slowed down during those hours. After several complaints, it suddenly stopped happening. When I talked to my neighbor about it, he was having the same issue, complained, and suddenly it was fixed for him as well.
As for what happens to those other companies, some of them get bought up. My local phone company was bought by Directlink a few years back and the cable company has changed hands a few times. Big companies are swallowing their smaller competition up. If a company wants to come into my town and offer internet service, they are going to have to go to the expense of laying the cable then they will have to offer better services or prices. It might be hard to find companies willing to do that.