Verizon Wireless Settles For Blocking Tethering Apps > 4 year lag?

reply to JasonOD

Re: 4 year lag?

Because "demand" is increasing for a luxury service in spite of the alleged unfairness (*) of the current offerings. The bolded words are key. I love my smartphone but I can't claim with a straight face that it's anything but a luxury. It would be one of the first things to go if money became tight.

(*) I say "alleged unfairness" because I've been around long enough to remember when "mobile data" meant a 9600 baud dial up connection that used your limited pool of minutes while precluding incoming calls. Nowadays people are bellyaching because mobile data isn't cheap enough to use as a replacement for wireline data services.

How does classifying something as a discretionary service vs. a necessity change how law is enforced? Are you suggesting that businesses delivering discretionary products and services can thumb their nose at the FTC?

If you have proof of anti-trust why aren't you contacting the US Attorney?

Wireless is a GROWTH market at this time. They don't need to compete on price when people are lining up to get smartphones. That will change when the market matures in a few years.

Don't pull us off topic. It doesn't matter what I think. We are discussing what you think. So luxury is out and growth is in as the reason laws don't apply to wireless?

How deep can you go? Be careful, Curly is behind you and he's putting his dirt in your hole.

You keep trying to ask me how I think and that's taking us away from what we're discussing. You made the statements regarding luxury and growth. Support your position as to why either or some combination of both eliminate the need for government.

Perhaps I can help. Why did the government establish a maximum rate that can be charged on credit cards? There are tons of credit card providers, lots of competition, some free, some not free. Some with lower interest, some with higher interest. Some designed for people with bad credit. Some with cash back awards. Some with frequent flier miles. Some offer insurance policies on products and vacations. Some even go so far as to cover rental car damages if you are in an accident. Everyone wants a credit card. Everyone who gets a card uses it. Some people even take terms that will end up putting them in debt from which they will never recover. Credit cards are not a necessity because debit cards allow the same access to goods and services. Why did the government need to involve itself in this market?

reply to Crookshanks
The basic landline telephone was a luxury at one time and so was good old rabbit eared television. But look what just those two luxuries meant to the world. Just think what those two things did for the advancement of the human race. Sure you can make jokes about couch potatoes and such but seriously. The internet and everything that utilizes it is going to be just as important.

reply to Crookshanks
The entire thread of conversation was in response to this:

tmc8080: Maybe in another X years they'll see that charging $100 for 4gb of data is also a bad thing and no-compete and raised prices for wireline services is also bad... Who's going to give a crap if you take care of these problems 4 years later?!?!?

JasonOD: Supply and demand baby.

me: How does supply and demand dictate policies of an oligopoly?

At this point, you replied to me and classified the "demand" as being for a luxury service -- presumably to argue against government involvement because high demand, luxury services will take care o themselves when the value exceeds what people can afford. I assumed this because I was still in the context of the OP which was a response to the article regarding how long it took the FTC to act regarding Comcast's violation.

I'm lost if the context is not rooted in the OP's comments which I interpret to be slamming the FTC for not acting four years ago and not acting to the present market situation which, in my opinion, is an oligopoly where it is unlikely that normal market forces are acting to govern capitalism.

Don't think I'm a liberal who likes big government. I consider myself a moderate conservative that loves this country and I absolutely believe in the free market when run by ethical leaders who care about their employees, their customers, the environment and the profit of their owners. If such a market exists, there wouldn't be much of a need for government oversight. However, I'm not naive enough to agree with congressmen who waive a jobs flag and want to get rid of regulation when most of today's leaders repeatedly demonstrate they will eat their own young to inch the needle one unit higher than their competitors.

Do we need any better example than banking? After the great depression we tightened regulations on banks by creating the Glass-Steagall act. It forbid institutions that accepted deposits from speculating in markets. Because international banks were not bound by these ideals, the finance industry cried and said they could not compete on a world market. I remember the arguments because in 1999, Clinton repealed that law with the Gramm-Leach-Bliley financial modernization act. (Sounds better when they give it a catchy name, eh?) Suddenly insurance companies and investment banks were able to purchase regular banks and commercial banks and look what happened 8 years later.

I was watching a 60-minutes episode last night on CNBC about dust explosions. Yeah -- dust explosions. Apparently industries that process raw materials that create large amounts of dust have a tendency to explode because when the air-dust ratio is just right, a small spark can lead to a violent explosion. People die and OSHA is supposed to be protecting workers. They played a few excerpts of Congress cleaning the floor with the OSHA leader because they haven't acted. OSHA admitted that there are probably 30,000 high risk plants and they inspect 300 per year. (Yay...plants are inspected once every 100 years!). When queried why they didn't act to force these companies to do a better job mitigating the dust, OSHA replied that there are "clean workplace" rules that if followed would eliminate the problem.

While I don't know whether or not there need to be new regulations, it seems pretty difficult to fathom a factory run by a quality leader with ethics who cares about their employees, the environment and their owners would willfully run a dirty place that one day explodes and completely destroys the entire operation. That scrimping on something as simple as installing air filters and other containment devices to keep the air reasonably clean, would be so cost prohibitive and uncompetitive that they just cannot afford it.

In closing, I sincerely hope that the wireless carriers are run by quality leaders with ethics who will not eat their own young. Hope and trust are not the same. As Ronald Reagan said regarding the USSR, "Trust but verify".

I'd like to correct the statement regarding former President Clinton. He did not repeal the law. He agreed with and signed a bill from Congress that repealed the law. It's not all his fault. I believe a majority republican congress created the bill and he signed it.