Freakin communist!

Nope. It will drive competition. You have what you have now. If they decide to change it then change carriers. The market drives the rates. Just because you can afford a T-1 to your house doesn't mean I should pay less and get the same bandwidth/speed...

The problem with this is well highlighted in the Duvall area, there are really only about 3 choices for an ISP, Wave, where you can get very fast speeds up and down, Frontier, which is DSL and has nowhere near the speed of Wave, and Hughes which is even slower than Frontier (and probably more expensive, although I don't know).

If Wave decides to throttle/block/whatever, but you still want fast speeds and unrestricted access, there's nowhere else to go, you're basically locked into Wave because there's zero competition (in our area) and stuck paying the extra fees for what you want, and no options if they decide to block, say porn, or WaGuns because they don't agree with the content on those sites.

Dude, you aren't making any sense. T-1? Pay less and get the same bandwidth?

What will drive competition? There is no competition in the Internet space. 48% of Americans only have 1 provider of 25mbps internet. 30% have 0 providers of 25mbps internet. That's 78%. Pretty much everybody. Only 22% of Americans have internet competition. https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... er-speeds/

Selador get's 3mbps, and that's all!

I can't just "Change carriers" if my ISP decides to be a douchebag. Comcast is the only internet provider at my place. The alternatives are DSL, for 3mbps, which isn't viable. Or Satellite, which has a 3 second response time, which isn't viable. Or 4g Cell phone, with a 4gb cap, which isn't viable.

I WISH there was competition. I wish I could choose between Fiber, and Cable. I wish I could choose between Comcast, or Cox, or Time Warner, or Charter for cable internet. That would be AWESOME! But the fact is, there is only 1 provider of internet at my place, that's Comcast. I'm stuck with them. These internet providers are actually colluding with each other, to not spread into each others territory, because they LIKE Monopolies.

Right now I just tried to go to the CenturyLink website to check how fast of speeds they offer. All their mailings says 3mbps. But I can't get to their website. I'm not sure why, but without NetNeutrality, Comcast would be perfectly legal to block access to their website.

We have more choices. ATT, Verizon and TMO are all carriers for cellular service which you can purchase PUCKs from. We happen to have a carrier(WAVE) that is decided by the city council. Same with areas in Tacoma, Seattle etc... So, you have carriers decided by the city. My point is we have choices and if one choice limits access to the point that it makes it financially not viable to purchase, then change carriers.

Yeah, that's the ticket - PUCK it up, buttercup.

There is no choice where I live.

Unless you consider dialup, or expensive, throttled cell-based, a choice.

I don't consider dialup to be any kind of choice at all.

Nor do I consider a cell-based connection that costs as much as a car payment, but is throttled both in speed, and gigabytes per month, to be an option.

We take what they give us, and we pay what they demand, or we have nothing...

Point is, without net neutrality, eventually the rest of you will be in the same boat.

As I said in jest earlier, I don't really care. We have been tossed to the wayside, long ago, and no one ever cared to bring any sort of competition to OUR 'market'.

But in seriousness, you guys should care. You do not want to end up like us.

A PUCK costs ~$60 a month and it is not throttled. It is cellular.

Please provide a link to this amazing service.
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2402900,00.asp


Cellular based internet is NOT competition for Cable/DSL/Fiber. If you think it is, then go stream 1tb of Netflix over your cellular connection and tell me how much you like your $10,000 a month bill.

In the end, add the cost of keeping my landline, and my cost will remain about the same. Were I to get a better connection and up/download rates, that would be a pretty good deal!

That is assuming I can just plug it in and use it.

The other problem with anything cell based out here, is actually getting a signal, without spending many thousands of dollars for a tower to get the 'puck' to where it would catch a signal, then to boost that signal back down to the ground. Add the cost of maintenance of all that. Repairs because of our fall and spring storms... Yer getting close to car payment territory again.

For a signal, that, in spite of all the cost, and the supposed non-throttled signal, is still 'iffy', depending on the weather. (Not to mention all the times the signal is gone because the only cell tower close enough to me, to get a signal off of, is remote, and goes down often for lack of power.)

And last, there is so much demand on the tower, that even if the company doesn't throttle it, the end result is the same.

Not really that much of a 'choice' for anyone who does not live in an area with full, overlapping cell phone coverage.

You are completely wrong. Cellular is in direct competition for areas that do not have high speed broadband service. It is way faster than DSL and is a competing price structure from prepaid to a 2 year plan. It is not throttled and you can take it with you.

Thank you!

You are 100% right, there is lots of competition for low-speed internet. DSL, Dialup, Cellular, Satellite.
There is 0% competition for High-speed broadband.

As such, you can't just "switch providers" if you are unhappy with your High-speed broadband provider. Because there aren't any others. That means we can't depend on competition. This is a monopoly we are dealing with. Which is why it requires regulation to ensure they don't fuck us over.

Personally, I'd prefer competition. I'd love to see the cable companies required to allow other cable companies to use the coax. Get fiber to every house. That way I can drop Comcast and get fiber instead.

LTE beats DSL and 5G will be on par with broadband.

For instantaneous speed? Maybe. Broadband includes Google Fiber which is 1gbit/sec. Comcast has a 1TB bandwidth limit, I pay an extra $50 for unlimited data.

I want competition for 100mbit/s down, 5mbit/s up, Unlimited data, no throttlling/blocking, $110 a month.

EDIT: 5g is 100mbit/sec for metro areas, 1gbit/s if you are on the same floor as the radio. That means it's much slower for large areas, far away from the tower.
5g runs at 28ghz, 37ghz, 39ghz.
4g runs at 700mhz, 800mhz, 1.7-2.1ghz, 2.5-2.7ghz.

This means 5g won't go very far. It's meant for very close, in urban areas, dense, fast speeds. Not good for long-range. Not competition for home fast broadband.

The only thing that might work is what Microsoft is pushing, using the TV Whitespace: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... adband-gap

Even then, wired is always better than wireless. So I'm not sure if it can compete with fiber or coax.

The fact is, there is no competition in the home fast broadband market.