The lack of a free market is a combination of both real physical issues and legal issues. The reality is that none of the actual legal issues are caused by the FCC. Many of the legal issues are caused at the state and local levels.
The physical issues relate to the same physical realities of only having a single power-line provider in a given area. Or only 1 water provider in a given area. AKA the physical plant is very capital cost intensive, very right of way intensive, and there is little benefit to multiple providers as long as the sole provider is not acting in a monopolistic manner. For power lines we generally impose a reasonable separation between power supply and delivery. Pretty much anywhere you go in the world, your power bill has a line item for the physical plant and another separate line item for the actual power being delivered. The Power lines themselves are generally with owned by a municipal company or a highly regulated public company. The power supply is generally available from numerous different suppliers.
As an example, where I live, the powerlines are provided by PGE, and I pay a regulated fee for the powerline use. In addition, I can either get power supplied directly by PGE or numerous other third party suppliers. This is an example of local loop unbundling. This is done because it wouldn't make much logical or financial sense to have 4-5+ different sets of power lines running into each building.
Local Loop Unbundling is one option to get to a free market in content (internet, TV, phones, etc are all content) delivery. So far the majority in control of the digital pipes have been pretty against Local Loop Unbundling but where it has been deployed it has worked great. You may remember back to a time where you had numerous options for DSL service. This was because of Local Loop Unbundling of the POTS telephone lines.
Part of the bargain struck as part of the move several years ago for Internet service to change from Title II to Title I was that the POTS owners would no longer be bound by local loop unbundling but in return they would significantly upgrade the physical plant. I'm sure we can both agree that that has failed to happen and largely no plans to do so were ever made by the various ILECs (ATT/Verizon/et al).
The legal aspects largely relate to the incumbent ISPs doing anything they possibly can to prevent new entrants and the tacit agreements between the incumbent ISPs that they will not compete against each other. The certainly starts with the various franchise agreements employed by the various providers but certainly doesn't stop there. It includes things like buying enough state legislators to pass laws restricting entry by new players. It includes using monopoly power to target upgrades and lower prices where competition starts or tries to enter an area. It includes things like making it so that a new player cannot turn on any service until the whole entire network is up and running preventing phased rollouts for new providers, while phase rollouts are both perfectly logical and financially necessary for a new provider.
So the problem with arguing that we should let the free market handle it is that we currently aren't in a free market and worse we are in a fully entrenched monopoly market. And the current monopoly players are fully against new entrants and will do everything they can to prevent new entrants. Not only that, they are using their monopoly power to further entrench their monopoly power by buying out other parts of the ecosystem (for example Comcast buying out NBC).
Offtopic New conceptions of Russian small weapon Sayga - new design http://cs625525.vk.me/v625525494/14c02/QfndxI_60L8.jpg http://cs622731.vk.me/v622731494/d461/UFLgD7GImXQ.jpg New design concepts from Kalashnikov http://topwar.ru/uploads/posts/2015-02/thumbs/1425040524_screenshot_1.jpg http://topwar.ru/uploads/posts/2015-02/thumbs/1425040566_1.jpg
Offtopic Iranian drilling "the Great prophet 9" http://i.imgur.com/vIxbnWJ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/WUswO8Y.jpg http://i.imgur.com/lmUee2n.jpg http://i.imgur.com/igOZeUU.jpg http://i.imgur.com/gARUEU5.jpg http://i.imgur.com/0grx33f.jpg http://i.imgur.com/JCDGixS.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8SUiDtA4zY http://i.imgur.com/gJDrLep.jpg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TI3V-eOVQ8 taken here http://imp-navigator.livejournal.com/321398.html
Sorry Solomon, but you have no idea what your talking about, or more likely you are choosing not to get it. I understand fully well how your blog works, how you get paid and how Gogle treats you and everyone else. In the end I am your commodity and everyone else getting on here, because we also get to see an ad for Alpha Wars or a vacation to Croatia.
But like several times before you talk about things not related to Net Neutrality at all!
Google's search results are not governed by Net Neutrality.. they were not last year when you already were at the top of the line and we HAD NET NEUTRALITY! . Your ad incomes are not governed or influenced by net neutrality.. and they were not when we had it last year , the year before and...
Net neutrality does one thing, and nothing more: it guarantees every bit of data gets treated equally by ISP's and governments. ( before you nitpick: there are some exceptions based on criminal law like child pornography) . Net Neutrality just got broken and in that short time ISP's have already managed to make several big players pay for a trafficjam free highway, It is only a matter of time, if they continue to get away with it, before they get to the smaller players and 'ask' for some of your add income.
If you decide to not pay, being high on google's list does not matter, because all these nice pictures will only get to us at a snails pace and we will lose interest.
You make it seem as if government regulation will make the baby Jesus get stomach cramps, as if especially this one bit of regulation: Net Neutrality will do horrendous things to the internet, to you and to me.
In the end it comes down to me asking you to be honest with yourself and with us: has Net Neutrality hurt you , or me, or the internet one bit when it was there up until I believe June of last year? When you swallow your pride and admit to the inevitable and only answer possible, I have one more question: how will reinstating this one rule make life worst in the future?
Now don't get distracted by Obamacare, all these bad things governments actually do and focus on the one thing this is about: NET NEUTRALITY, the anti-discrimination statute of the internet.
For me it is simple: every bit of data gets paid for 2 times to an ISP. The uploaded pays his or her fee and I, the consumer pay mine.
What the ISP's want to do and already do since June/Juli last year is they make us pay a third time for the same darn product.
Of course I understand they have to do it, because ISP's are soo poor they can barely afford to buy half of Hollywood.. we can't have that kinda hardship, can we?
Of course I simplified things, but then I can not compete with Aaron Spink in providing a detailed and clear explanation using economical and judicial terms I do not even know and have to look up.
Yes but just because there are a bunch of countries with bmps out there doesn't necessarily mean they all should convert them into this. Maybe just figuring out fine new promising design could be better for everyone.
You've got it backwards, Sol. Net Neutrality is the current standard we have now and have had for 20 years. This is just saying it should be kept the standard rather than allow the free-marketeers to step in and stomp all over it and consumers in a rush to charge extra for certain content.
After trying to keep the yoke of government of my shoulders, I'm not about to replace it with one owned by a multi-national media corporation that is less answerable to its supposed constituents. The free-market isn't "free" either.
When compared to the cost of a new PUMA or CV90, it is. Even if they don't do a 1-for-1 conversion for their inventory, a country like Czech Republic or Poland could still modernize and update a basic vehicle and get more service out of it. Poland operates 800 BWP (their version of the BMP-1). If they converted 400 of them to this standard, it would free up funds for other programs.
And industrially, it provides a template for our Eastern European NATO members who operate BMPs to update their inventory AND use their local manufacturing bases to do it.
Also, it would change the silhouette of the vehicle so it doesn't look so 'Soviet'
I think their monopoly is already slipping away. Like "cord cutters" for tv I am encountering more people who have cut the cord even for Internet and have gone completely wireless with cellular phones and tablets. I'm thinking of doing the same myself.
The cost for R&D and production of a whole new IFV, especially a larger IFV, would be a lot for most countries, very few countries have the American luxury of being able to spend millions or billions on defense programs left and right. (Although, it would be better if we picked more sensible programs.)
This is especially a problem for countries with large, aging Soviet fleets that they wish to modernize. For example, Poland is not just worrying about their BMP's, they also have to worry about their large stock of T-72's, not to mention their air-forces. Additionally, given current events, having more capable, modern tanks is probably higher on their list of priorities than starting domestic production of a whole new IFV design.
Don't go knocking things so easily. Just because it isn't a whole new vehicle, that doesn't mean they they didn't or were not able to perform reliability, power, performance, survivability, protection, and electronics upgrades to these vehicles that would make them much better than the BMP's that most countries with Soviet fleets field.
*I also think that the new profile looks a lot better than that of any other BMP.
Wireless is simply not cost competitive for internet connectivity if you use the service at all. If you actually use the internet on a daily basis, you'll quite easily blow through any wireless datacaps you have quite quick here in the US.
Then there is the congestion issues. In order for cellular service to be a viable competitor with wired service requires an immense amount of cellular APs. In order to deliver current wired broadband levels of server would require a cellular AP per roughly every 10-20 people. Completely ignoring the fact that there isn't enough spectrum for that, the cost to the wireless providers would be prohibitive to install that many APs.
What I am still concerned about is whether the cost for the conversion is going to exceed the overall cost required for adopting new vehicles, considering all the other factors , and how much elements can really be improved from this. No one can judge it until the actual receipt reveals.
The only possible way that updating BMP fleets would cost more than buying new would be if they adopted literally the worst commercial-off-the-shelf vehicle out there. Design costs are simply too high, especially concerning the design of a vehicle that would correct deficiencies found in other vehicles.
Value for dollar (or whatever currency) is a very different thing. Indeed, designing a new vehicle would give you more "bang for your buck" because you get to set requirements and design to correct flaws or deficiencies in your current vehicle fleet. But like I said, there is a lot of cost involved (its just that you get more for your costs). When companies are unsure of foreign sales for domestically designed vehicles and governments have to worry about modernizing entire fleets, it is simply a better option to upgrade or re-design as opposed to designing and building anew.
Wireless is simply not viable for broadband distribution. There are very real physics reasons for this. Top end LTE cannot give more than ~400ish mbps to a given area TOTAL. And that is already using multiple bonded channels. And there are practical limits on how small a cell area can be.
And it is very hard for a new entrant to enter the market. Comcast et al have numerous methods to prevent it, beyond the initial capital costs. And even if you do have the capital, Comcast et al can make it unprofitable by redirecting costs and investments wrt to the area you are deploying. It isn't exactly a coincidence that the Comcast areas with the fastest service and the lowest prices are all areas where they have actual competition. When my parents switched from Comast to EPB Fiber, Comcast was making all kinds of offers that were basically pennies on the dollar vs their original Comcast service.
In addition, Comcast can rollout new wiring infrastructure cheaper than any new competitor because they already have all of the right of ways. Any new competitor not only has to have the capital for the installation, they also have to have the capital to negotiate the right of ways that Comcast et al already have.
The lack of a free market is a combination of both real physical issues and legal issues. The reality is that none of the actual legal issues are caused by the FCC. Many of the legal issues are caused at the state and local levels.
ReplyDeleteThe physical issues relate to the same physical realities of only having a single power-line provider in a given area. Or only 1 water provider in a given area. AKA the physical plant is very capital cost intensive, very right of way intensive, and there is little benefit to multiple providers as long as the sole provider is not acting in a monopolistic manner. For power lines we generally impose a reasonable separation between power supply and delivery. Pretty much anywhere you go in the world, your power bill has a line item for the physical plant and another separate line item for the actual power being delivered. The Power lines themselves are generally with owned by a municipal company or a highly regulated public company. The power supply is generally available from numerous different suppliers.
As an example, where I live, the powerlines are provided by PGE, and I pay a regulated fee for the powerline use. In addition, I can either get power supplied directly by PGE or numerous other third party suppliers. This is an example of local loop unbundling. This is done because it wouldn't make much logical or financial sense to have 4-5+ different sets of power lines running into each building.
Local Loop Unbundling is one option to get to a free market in content (internet, TV, phones, etc are all content) delivery. So far the majority in control of the digital pipes have been pretty against Local Loop Unbundling but where it has been deployed it has worked great. You may remember back to a time where you had numerous options for DSL service. This was because of Local Loop Unbundling of the POTS telephone lines.
Part of the bargain struck as part of the move several years ago for Internet service to change from Title II to Title I was that the POTS owners would no longer be bound by local loop unbundling but in return they would significantly upgrade the physical plant. I'm sure we can both agree that that has failed to happen and largely no plans to do so were ever made by the various ILECs (ATT/Verizon/et al).
The legal aspects largely relate to the incumbent ISPs doing anything they possibly can to prevent new entrants and the tacit agreements between the incumbent ISPs that they will not compete against each other. The certainly starts with the various franchise agreements employed by the various providers but certainly doesn't stop there. It includes things like buying enough state legislators to pass laws restricting entry by new players. It includes using monopoly power to target upgrades and lower prices where competition starts or tries to enter an area. It includes things like making it so that a new player cannot turn on any service until the whole entire network is up and running preventing phased rollouts for new providers, while phase rollouts are both perfectly logical and financially necessary for a new provider.
So the problem with arguing that we should let the free market handle it is that we currently aren't in a free market and worse we are in a fully entrenched monopoly market. And the current monopoly players are fully against new entrants and will do everything they can to prevent new entrants. Not only that, they are using their monopoly power to further entrench their monopoly power by buying out other parts of the ecosystem (for example Comcast buying out NBC).
Second life of BMP-1... wonder how much it cost to give them old BMP and receive this.
ReplyDeleteSo now they're refurbishing bmps? Seems like a foolish minded idea to me, given the fact that it lacks of the number of troops carrying.
ReplyDeleteIt is a genius idea, huge number of BMP-1 worldwide and it's cheaper to modernize them then buy whole new vehicle.
ReplyDeleteHave you known the exact cost for the program? It doesn't look much like a wise way of spending.
ReplyDeleteNope, but it's still look a lot cheaper then buying let's say a Bradley. Especially for nations that have a lot's of BMP-1.
ReplyDeleteOfftopic and fun
ReplyDeletea tactical kilt! The best comfort for balls!
http://cs622728.vk.me/v622728519/15baf/fBIXXP0KXio.jpg
Offtopic
ReplyDeleteNew conceptions of Russian small weapon
Sayga - new design
http://cs625525.vk.me/v625525494/14c02/QfndxI_60L8.jpg
http://cs622731.vk.me/v622731494/d461/UFLgD7GImXQ.jpg
New design concepts from Kalashnikov
http://topwar.ru/uploads/posts/2015-02/thumbs/1425040524_screenshot_1.jpg
http://topwar.ru/uploads/posts/2015-02/thumbs/1425040566_1.jpg
Offtopic
ReplyDeleteIranian drilling "the Great prophet 9"
http://i.imgur.com/vIxbnWJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/WUswO8Y.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/lmUee2n.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/igOZeUU.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/gARUEU5.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0grx33f.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/JCDGixS.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8SUiDtA4zY
http://i.imgur.com/gJDrLep.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TI3V-eOVQ8
taken here
http://imp-navigator.livejournal.com/321398.html
Sorry Solomon, but you have no idea what your talking about, or more likely you are choosing not to get it.
ReplyDeleteI understand fully well how your blog works, how you get paid and how Gogle treats you and everyone else.
In the end I am your commodity and everyone else getting on here, because we also get to see an ad for Alpha Wars or a vacation to Croatia.
But like several times before you talk about things not related to Net Neutrality at all!
Google's search results are not governed by Net Neutrality.. they were not last year when you already were at the top of the line and we HAD NET NEUTRALITY! . Your ad incomes are not governed or influenced by net neutrality.. and they were not when we had it last year , the year before and...
Net neutrality does one thing, and nothing more: it guarantees every bit of data gets treated equally by ISP's and governments. ( before you nitpick: there are some exceptions based on criminal law like child pornography) .
Net Neutrality just got broken and in that short time ISP's have already managed to make several big players pay for a trafficjam free highway, It is only a matter of time, if they continue to get away with it, before they get to the smaller players and 'ask' for some of your add income.
If you decide to not pay, being high on google's list does not matter, because all these nice pictures will only get to us at a snails pace and we will lose interest.
You make it seem as if government regulation will make the baby Jesus get stomach cramps, as if especially this one bit of regulation: Net Neutrality will do horrendous things to the internet, to you and to me.
In the end it comes down to me asking you to be honest with yourself and with us: has Net Neutrality hurt you , or me, or the internet one bit when it was there up until I believe June of last year?
When you swallow your pride and admit to the inevitable and only answer possible, I have one more question: how will reinstating this one rule make life worst in the future?
Now don't get distracted by Obamacare, all these bad things governments actually do and focus on the one thing this is about: NET NEUTRALITY, the anti-discrimination statute of the internet.
For me it is simple: every bit of data gets paid for 2 times to an ISP. The uploaded pays his or her fee and I, the consumer pay mine.
ReplyDeleteWhat
the ISP's want to do and already do since June/Juli last year is
they make us pay a third time for the same darn product.
Of
course I understand they have to do it, because ISP's are soo poor they
can barely afford to buy half of Hollywood.. we can't have that kinda
hardship, can we?
Of course I simplified things, but then I can not compete with Aaron Spink in providing a detailed and clear explanation using economical and judicial terms I do not even know and have to look up.
Yes but just because there are a bunch of countries with bmps out there doesn't necessarily mean they all should convert them into this. Maybe just figuring out fine new promising design could be better for everyone.
ReplyDeleteTell them to "move on" with assault rifles...
ReplyDeleteYou've got it backwards, Sol. Net Neutrality is the current standard we have now and have had for 20 years. This is just saying it should be kept the standard rather than allow the free-marketeers to step in and stomp all over it and consumers in a rush to charge extra for certain content.
ReplyDeleteAfter trying to keep the yoke of government of my shoulders, I'm not about to replace it with one owned by a multi-national media corporation that is less answerable to its supposed constituents. The free-market isn't "free" either.
When compared to the cost of a new PUMA or CV90, it is. Even if they don't do a 1-for-1 conversion for their inventory, a country like Czech Republic or Poland could still modernize and update a basic vehicle and get more service out of it. Poland operates 800 BWP (their version of the BMP-1). If they converted 400 of them to this standard, it would free up funds for other programs.
ReplyDeleteAnd industrially, it provides a template for our Eastern European NATO members who operate BMPs to update their inventory AND use their local manufacturing bases to do it.
Also, it would change the silhouette of the vehicle so it doesn't look so 'Soviet'
I think their monopoly is already slipping away. Like "cord cutters" for tv I am encountering more people who have cut the cord even for Internet and have gone completely wireless with cellular phones and tablets. I'm thinking of doing the same myself.
ReplyDeleteThe cost for R&D and production of a whole new IFV, especially a larger IFV, would be a lot for most countries, very few countries have the American luxury of being able to spend millions or billions on defense programs left and right. (Although, it would be better if we picked more sensible programs.)
ReplyDeleteThis is especially a problem for countries with large, aging Soviet fleets that they wish to modernize. For example, Poland is not just worrying about their BMP's, they also have to worry about their large stock of T-72's, not to mention their air-forces.
Additionally, given current events, having more capable, modern tanks is probably higher on their list of priorities than starting domestic production of a whole new IFV design.
Don't go knocking things so easily. Just because it isn't a whole new vehicle, that doesn't mean they they didn't or were not able to perform reliability, power, performance, survivability, protection, and electronics upgrades to these vehicles that would make them much better than the BMP's that most countries with Soviet fleets field.
*I also think that the new profile looks a lot better than that of any other BMP.
Why not. Breath new life into the BMP-1 and market it to countries who want an IFV on the cheap
ReplyDelete@ Info-infanterie
ReplyDeleteJust another AK-incarnation does not solve it, i wonder why didn't they go for the
AEK-971instead of AK-12
And it can swim.
ReplyDeletegreat for when you've gotta drop a deuce (aka Obama doll) in a hurry too....
ReplyDeleteWireless is simply not cost competitive for internet connectivity if you use the service at all. If you actually use the internet on a daily basis, you'll quite easily blow through any wireless datacaps you have quite quick here in the US.
ReplyDeleteThen there is the congestion issues. In order for cellular service to be a viable competitor with wired service requires an immense amount of cellular APs. In order to deliver current wired broadband levels of server would require a cellular AP per roughly every 10-20 people. Completely ignoring the fact that there isn't enough spectrum for that, the cost to the wireless providers would be prohibitive to install that many APs.
What I am still concerned about is whether the cost for the conversion is going to exceed the overall cost required for adopting new vehicles, considering all the other factors , and how much elements can really be improved from this. No one can judge it until the actual receipt reveals.
ReplyDeleteThe only possible way that updating BMP fleets would cost more than buying new would be if they adopted literally the worst commercial-off-the-shelf vehicle out there. Design costs are simply too high, especially concerning the design of a vehicle that would correct deficiencies found in other vehicles.
ReplyDeleteValue for dollar (or whatever currency) is a very different thing. Indeed, designing a new vehicle would give you more "bang for your buck" because you get to set requirements and design to correct flaws or deficiencies in your current vehicle fleet.
But like I said, there is a lot of cost involved (its just that you get more for your costs). When companies are unsure of foreign sales for domestically designed vehicles and governments have to worry about modernizing entire fleets, it is simply a better option to upgrade or re-design as opposed to designing and building anew.
Wireless is simply not viable for broadband distribution. There are very real physics reasons for this. Top end LTE cannot give more than ~400ish mbps to a given area TOTAL. And that is already using multiple bonded channels. And there are practical limits on how small a cell area can be.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is very hard for a new entrant to enter the market. Comcast et al have numerous methods to prevent it, beyond the initial capital costs. And even if you do have the capital, Comcast et al can make it unprofitable by redirecting costs and investments wrt to the area you are deploying. It isn't exactly a coincidence that the Comcast areas with the fastest service and the lowest prices are all areas where they have actual competition. When my parents switched from Comast to EPB Fiber, Comcast was making all kinds of offers that were basically pennies on the dollar vs their original Comcast service.
In addition, Comcast can rollout new wiring infrastructure cheaper than any new competitor because they already have all of the right of ways. Any new competitor not only has to have the capital for the installation, they also have to have the capital to negotiate the right of ways that Comcast et al already have.