Comment by ruph123 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ruph123 | Hacker News Reader

As a German I was shocked to find out that in the US Charter would not let me configure anything in “my” Charter modem. No dynDNS server, no ports forwarding, not inspecting what is wrong, not even blocking internet for certain MAC addresses. And when I asked if I can just buy my own modem, they said that whenever there is a problem and you have your own modem, they will charge you a fee PER DEVICE that is connected (how would they even now if I use my own modem?). Quite overwhelming for me who just ALWAYS just buys and configures Fritz!Boxes anytime I need to setup a new internet connection somewhere.

Here we have the richest country in the world, inventor of the internet with the most innovative tech companies with the absolute worst internet experience among developed countries: Overpriced, bad quality of service and zero flexibility. Customers are treated like absolute dummies, it is a totally different world. And Germany is actually quite bad compared to asian countries.

> Here we have the richest country in the world, inventor of the internet with the most innovative tech companies with the absolute worst internet experience among developed countries

It makes sense when you consider that the US has a much higher resistance to business regulation and consumer protection- less overhead for innovative new businesses but also allowing entrenched interests to consolidate as much as they have.

The thing is, the company they are talking about is probably operating with regulatory monopoly over the lease/permission to run coax to homes.

Here I can get high speed cable or crappy DSL and that's the options that exist for wired service. Both of them are incumbent regulatory monopolies.

The city of Alameda originally had municipal coax network throughout the island - but the city council voted to turn over control of the network to comcast - and they dont allow any municipal networks to be installed...

I wonder who got bribed for that one?

A more plausible alternative explanation is that that way the city doesn't have to continue to pay maintenance for the network.

I consider local ISP monopolies the definition of onerous business regulation.

But that's the long and the short of it. No competition and no incentive to improve.

In the US, if you have local, small ISP(s) serving your address, you really should give them a try.

Here in San Jose, CA, I'm pretty happy with Sail. It actually took me around a year to bring them to me: Initially my address was not served by them, I have to say I "want business internet" on their website to make someone contact me, and eventually bring their residential service to me (they use some short range wireless technology, a dish but not pointing to satellites but their other relay dishes nearby, so the latency is much better than satellites).

Another thing is that I refuse to use any service that doesn't allow me to use my own router directly without any additional NAT. This is why I chose Sail over Sonic, a more popular local ISP in the Bay Area: In my area Sonic's only service is the one they resale from AT&T, which doesn't allow you to use your own router.

The market process turns these tensions between suppliers and consumers into a profit opportunity for extant and would-be competitors. The sad fact is that the market process is actively interfered with by the political process.

The history of the US and Canada is one where well-meaning individuals have been duped into giving powers to politicians who in turn create "reasonable" regulations that have the effect of protecting select firms from the market process. And when the costs of these anti-competitive regulations emerge (higher prices, worse service), those same well-meaning individuals demand those same politicians to "fix" things, but only in ways that further entrench those monopolies rather than removing the source of their monopoly power at the root.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

That's funny considering people in Germany complain about the same problems. But yeah, I really hate this stuff, I'm running my own router connected directly to the fiber cable my ISP laid to my home. No limitations.

What does the ISP lose here? Really, the only reason I can think of for these limits is to charge more for "optional" services and to hide the fact that you're oversubscribing. My ISP does it too, by providing routers that can't even reach advertised speeds. Fortunately, with a decent device, I can get the full speed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com