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jmn1207
Premium Member
join:2000-07-19
Sterling, VA

jmn1207

Premium Member

Just Trying to Save the Dodo

This model is successful because it is all just a means to try and control the inevitable death of conventional TV service. If we can get everything we want over the internet, nobody is going to pony-up money for a cable box and join the masses in paying higher rates each year for their TV viewing pleasure. By keeping consumers from being able to obtain convenient programming via their Internet connection unless they subscribe to some TV package, they can keep the cash cow alive and control when and what we can watch more easily.

Same old story, conglomerates in an oligopoly restrict innovation in an effort to maintain control. Another ridiculous, RIAA-like battle is coming on the video content front.
Joe12345678
join:2003-07-22
Des Plaines, IL

Joe12345678

Member

said by jmn1207:

This model is successful because it is all just a means to try and control the inevitable death of conventional TV service. If we can get everything we want over the internet, nobody is going to pony-up money for a cable box and join the masses in paying higher rates each year for their TV viewing pleasure. By keeping consumers from being able to obtain convenient programming via their Internet connection unless they subscribe to some TV package, they can keep the cash cow alive and control when and what we can watch more easily.

Same old story, conglomerates in an oligopoly restrict innovation in an effort to maintain control. Another ridiculous, RIAA-like battle is coming on the video content front.
The last thing we want is any thing like this.

If you want to have some pay for your web site then make it up the user and not the ISP.

I don't want want to go the cable tv way and deal with stuff being forced to buy the disney channel on line to get epsn.

I don't want to be foreced to buy a mtv music pass to get Comedy Central.

cowboyro
Premium Member
join:2000-10-11
CT

cowboyro to jmn1207

Premium Member

to jmn1207
said by jmn1207:

If we can get everything we want over the internet, nobody is going to pony-up money for a cable box and join the masses in paying higher rates each year for their TV viewing pleasure.
Going by this logic nobody is going to buy big screen TV's... because you can see it in poorer quality on a tiny laptop... or you can hook the laptop to the TV and see a big pixelated picture that doesn't even come close to a SD feed... not to mention HD.

toddbs98
join:2000-07-08
North Little Rock, AR

toddbs98

Member

You must have a crappy laptop and TV if the picture is pixelated and isn't SD quality because through the HDMI port on my laptop I get great HD quality picture on my TV.

PGHammer
join:2003-06-09
Accokeek, MD

PGHammer to Joe12345678

Member

to Joe12345678
In short, all you want is a dumb pipe; worse, you want someone else to pay for it.

Cable companies (in fact, all telecom providers) had it right; investors will NOT invest in a dumb-pipe provider because there is no return on that investment. FTTP in the US (VZ FIOS in particular) has value-add as an urban/suburban service - while it is deployable in the exurbs and rural fringe, it offers a return lower than the deployment costs (which is why VZ had to spin off the lower-density states to FairPoint and Frontier, respectively). In these areas, while the demand may be there, the only way the service can be paid for is if that cost is partially or completely offset by government grants-in-aid (either to the consumer directly, or to the provider, as in the old REA grant programs). If you go that route, there WILL be fraud, abuse, and out-and-out wasteage (that has ben the case with every grant program, including Pell grants, which actualy has the LOWEST percentage of FWA of any grant-in-aid program). The anger over FWA in government has only grown, not shrunk. Do you REALLY want to introduce yet more FWA?
88615298 (banned)
join:2004-07-28
West Tenness

1 recommendation

88615298 (banned)

Member

said by PGHammer:

In short, all you want is a dumb pipe; worse, you want someone else to pay for it.

Cable companies (in fact, all telecom providers) had it right; investors will NOT invest in a dumb-pipe provider because there is no return on that investment.
Honestly who givwes a fuck about investors? They don't give a fuck about the customers. They don't invest to make the compnay better they invest to make more money for themselves. Investors nowadays HURT the business. In the old days someone ivested ina company the compnay then use that money to IMPROVE the company. Nowadays companies pocket that money and only care about making more profits for the investors. The days of the CUSTOMER coming first is dead. Investors don't invest for the long term they want money NOW. This is why our economy tanked. IMPATIENCE. This hurts EVERYONE. Companies can't make long term inprovements in the company because if they tell investors it will take 10 years to make money on an investment the investors will say "No you can't do that. We want money NOW". If they taxed captial gains at 50% for under 2 years, 25% for 2-5 years, 15% for 6-9 years, 10% for 10-19 years and 5% for over 20 years, you'd see a lot more long term investing. And America would be better off.

Cox had it right by going back to a private company. No moronic investors with ZERO knowlege of the field telling them what to do.
Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO

Skippy25 to PGHammer

Member

to PGHammer
Regardless of whether they want to be or not, they are dumbpipes. They can continue to fight it and continue to try to change the landscape but that is exactly what they are and what they will be in the future.

If they are unwilling to invest as dumbpipes, then that just substantiate the fact that broadband needs to be done like the national highway system. One entity (or a couple) owns and maintains ALL of the network and if Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon want to be content providers then they should spin off their companies to do just that and turn the network over.

PGHammer
join:2003-06-09
Accokeek, MD

PGHammer

Member

Who are the biggest investors in the telecom companies (including cable and phone companies)? Pension plans (especially union and public-sector employee pension plans).

This is, by and large, the SAME group of folks that invested in the original AT&T. In short, the vast majority of the members of DSLR (and the whiners and complainers most of all), either directly or indirectly, are the ones that want those humungous rates of return on their hard-earned dollars. This is also (like it or not!):

1. The greedy "sons-and-daughters-of-witches" that drove up interest rates for mortgages while on the other hand (via Congress) imposed the Community Reinvestment Act on banks and thrifts. Commercial banks had commercial loans to help them weather the original storm of mortgage walkaways in the 1980s - thrifts (which were largely non-urban) were disproportionately exposed to those walkaways, either failed, got bought for pennies on the dollar, or changed their charter to become commercial banks.

2. The CRA has, in fact, remained in place, and was imposed on the now-vastly-expanded commercial banks. The standards for residential mortgages were, in fact, pushed down due to the CRA requirements (which the banks knew), which is one reason they wanted to push these mortgages as far away as possible. Result - mortgage-backed securities. (We're *still* recovering from THAT debacle.)

3. Look at who is on those financial-services and banking committees (on both sides of the aisle) in both the House and Senate alike.

It's political only in the sense that the guilty instruments have consistently been re-elected, despite their malfeasance, misfeasance, and out-and-out NON-feasance in office. It's still a responsibility issue; however, it's we, the public (not the banks, not the cable companies, and not even Congress) that largely created it with our own hypocrisy!
PGHammer

PGHammer to 88615298

Member

to 88615298
said by 88615298:

said by PGHammer:

In short, all you want is a dumb pipe; worse, you want someone else to pay for it.

Cable companies (in fact, all telecom providers) had it right; investors will NOT invest in a dumb-pipe provider because there is no return on that investment.
Honestly who givwes a fuck about investors? They don't give a fuck about the customers. They don't invest to make the compnay better they invest to make more money for themselves. Investors nowadays HURT the business. In the old days someone ivested ina company the compnay then use that money to IMPROVE the company. Nowadays companies pocket that money and only care about making more profits for the investors. The days of the CUSTOMER coming first is dead. Investors don't invest for the long term they want money NOW. This is why our economy tanked. IMPATIENCE. This hurts EVERYONE. Companies can't make long term inprovements in the company because if they tell investors it will take 10 years to make money on an investment the investors will say "No you can't do that. We want money NOW". If they taxed captial gains at 50% for under 2 years, 25% for 2-5 years, 15% for 6-9 years, 10% for 10-19 years and 5% for over 20 years, you'd see a lot more long term investing. And America would be better off.

Cox had it right by going back to a private company. No moronic investors with ZERO knowlege of the field telling them what to do.
You just made my point for me.

However, since the buyers of telecom stock and debt are the general public (often indirectly, via pension plans), they don't appreciate being told the honest truth.

cowboyro
Premium Member
join:2000-10-11
CT

cowboyro to toddbs98

Premium Member

to toddbs98
said by toddbs98:

You must have a crappy laptop and TV if the picture is pixelated and isn't SD quality because through the HDMI port on my laptop I get great HD quality picture on my TV.
basic rule of signal transmission: crap in->crap out. You can't get HD quality when the transmission is in the best case VHS-quality (bandwidth=$$$)

jmn1207
Premium Member
join:2000-07-19
Sterling, VA

jmn1207

Premium Member

said by cowboyro:

said by toddbs98:

You must have a crappy laptop and TV if the picture is pixelated and isn't SD quality because through the HDMI port on my laptop I get great HD quality picture on my TV.
basic rule of signal transmission: crap in->crap out. You can't get HD quality when the transmission is in the best case VHS-quality (bandwidth=$$$)
Where have you been hiding? There actually is a bunch of high quality stuff available that can be obtained and viewed on very large high definition televisions. You just can't get most of it through legal means at an affordable price and without the media being tied down so tightly that you'd hardly want to invest in it anyway.

Nobody is thinking that Hulu is going to be the end of Comcast as we know it.

The technology exists today and is being utilized by many, in the same way that Napster was being used by many people to get their music before lame options like iTunes and Rhapsody came along that are just good enough to keep honest folks like me just barely content. Most of the online music is still of inferior quality, too restrictive, and costs way too much for what you get. Our TV content is doomed to the same fate, it appears.