Help a petition to get Susan Crawford appointed FCC Chairman
Good high-speed internet access is essential for a community like VideoSift. @lurgee alerted me to this fantastic Moyers interview with Susan Crawford. There is a White House petition underway for the Obama administration to appoint Ms. Crawford as FCC chairman, over the usual cronies and revolving door lobbyists. Watch this amazing, infuriating video and then sign the petition.
25 Comments
lurgeethis has been one of my biggest peeves.
siftbotPromoting this Sift Talk post - promote requested by lurgee.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Hmmm, video is not working for some reason. I will frontpage this if we can get it fixed.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Lucky fixed the embed. This is a nice weekend *frontpage
siftbotPrinting this post atop the VideoSift homepage - frontpage requested by dag.
antIt's a Vimeo video, but my SeaMonkey v2.15.2 web browser says I need a plugin. Weird embedding.
Quote hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Hmmm, video is not working for some reason. I will frontpage this if we can get it fixed.
kymbosI'm getting the same message with Firefox.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Darn it. Don't we all use Chrome? ;-)
lurgeeembed is good in chrome now.
jonnyditto with Camino 2.1.2 (yes... it's old)
It's a Vimeo video, but my SeaMonkey v2.15.2 web browser says I need a plugin. Weird embedding.
jonnyDo you not like Genachowski?
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Not particularly. He's deeply embedded within the TV industry and part of that revolving door system that Crawford talks about. Oh and when he was in the private sector - responsible for creating Fox Broadcasting. How about that? ;-) I'm sure Roger Ailes is on his speed dial.
Do you not like Genachowski?
charliem says...Similar issue in Australia, only the single entity that owned every copper cable in the country (was post master general, then renamed to telecom, then sold off privately as Telstra), owns all of the major TV rights for cable shows (discovery, nat geo etc...), still owns all of the copper lines, and the telephone exchanges, and the pits/ducts....
They have a wholesale side of the company where they are forced by law to allow other service providers access to the infrastructure to sell services on via unbundled local loop (ULL) or line sharing services (LSS).
LSS services are basically telstra renting out everything to the service provider at cost, and a small premium. So they take all the profits, and make it neigh impossible for anyone else to compete with other providers.
ULL services are telstra giving access to just the copper pairs, service providers come in with their own equipment in the headend. The other providers still must pay rent, and line rental fees to telstra.
Imagine then, how these other companies can compete at a retail service level, against the company that owns all the lines?
They can set their prices as high as the competition regulator will allow them (which in a vast majority of the access undertaking costs, is FAR above what it actually costs telstra themselves), and then sell those same services to its retail arm for less than they charge their competition....they can price match and reap way more profits, or undercut them and drive the competition out of the market!!
Competition came in the 90's in the form of an HFC rollout by Optus, but every street Optus went down with HFC, Telstra followed them, the very next week, making their rollout far less lucrative (ie. not commercially viable).
The practice was ruled anti-competitve and telstra got fined heavily for it. Doesnt matter, it stopped anyone else from wanting to roll out an HFC network ever since.
Recently it has come to a head, Telstra have been forced to vertically seperate their wholesale and retail arms, the prices they set have been capped lower on the wholesale side, they cant over-quote competitors for access over what they provide their own retail arm....but thats not enough.
Noone can run out fibre, cause telstra own all the pits and pipes.
So...the government has stepped in, in the past 4 years or so, created a government owned company called NBNco (National Broadband Network Company), to buy up all the copper lines, rip them out, and roll out fibre to 93% of homes using GPON FTTH technology.
The opposition (who will likely win the coming election) wants to tear this apart. The very same people who set up the rules and regulations and sold off telstra into private hands, and made this mess in the first place, wants to go back on relying on private industry to upgrade this - a critical service infrastructure - which has already shown to be a COMPLETE failure in the past.
I hope that whoever wins, this NBN stays....wholesale competition has never ever worked for national infrastructure. Never, in any country.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
I'm with you. I can't believe the Libs are still talking about WiMax as a suitable alternative to the NBN. I'm a little more hopeful about Tony Abbot torpedoing things before the actual election - even if polls currently have them ahead.
Similar issue in Australia, only the single entity that owned every copper cable in the country (was post master general, then renamed to telecom, then sold off privately as Telstra), owns all of the major TV rights for cable shows (discovery, nat geo etc...), still owns all of the copper lines, and the telephone exchanges, and the pits/ducts....
They have a wholesale side of the company where they are forced by law to allow other service providers access to the infrastructure to sell services on via unbundled local loop (ULL) or line sharing services (LSS).
LSS services are basically telstra renting out everything to the service provider at cost, and a small premium. So they take all the profits, and make it neigh impossible for anyone else to compete with other providers.
ULL services are telstra giving access to just the copper pairs, service providers come in with their own equipment in the headend. The other providers still must pay rent, and line rental fees to telstra.
Imagine then, how these other companies can compete at a retail service level, against the company that owns all the lines?
They can set their prices as high as the competition regulator will allow them (which in a vast majority of the access undertaking costs, is FAR above what it actually costs telstra themselves), and then sell those same services to its retail arm for less than they charge their competition....they can price match and reap way more profits, or undercut them and drive the competition out of the market!!
Competition came in the 90's in the form of an HFC rollout by Optus, but every street Optus went down with HFC, Telstra followed them, the very next week, making their rollout far less lucrative (ie. not commercially viable).
The practice was ruled anti-competitve and telstra got fined heavily for it. Doesnt matter, it stopped anyone else from wanting to roll out an HFC network ever since.
Recently it has come to a head, Telstra have been forced to vertically seperate their wholesale and retail arms, the prices they set have been capped lower on the wholesale side, they cant over-quote competitors for access over what they provide their own retail arm....but thats not enough.
Noone can run out fibre, cause telstra own all the pits and pipes.
So...the government has stepped in, in the past 4 years or so, created a government owned company called NBNco (National Broadband Network Company), to buy up all the copper lines, rip them out, and roll out fibre to 93% of homes using GPON FTTH technology.
The opposition (who will likely win the coming election) wants to tear this apart. The very same people who set up the rules and regulations and sold off telstra into private hands, and made this mess in the first place, wants to go back on relying on private industry to upgrade this - a critical service infrastructure - which has already shown to be a COMPLETE failure in the past.
I hope that whoever wins, this NBN stays....wholesale competition has never ever worked for national infrastructure. Never, in any country.
charliem says...It really boggles the mind. These guys have been told time and again, that for wireless to replace fixed line infrastructure, youd need more wireless spectrum than is currently available, youd need about 5000 times more towers (power and fibre to those towers!!), and even then it would still be sub-par, and severely limited upgrade path!!
Im a telecoms engineer, I work for an equipment vendor specialising in FTTx products (point to point, and PON), and HFC products (traditional docsis 1 - 3, RFoG, DPON etc..)...so take it from me, there is honestly no contender for technology upgradability, serviceability, cost, quality, life span...etc...etc....it ticks every single box (short of direct P2P equipment, but thats a discussion for another day, I dont think it suits our geological landscape here).
Reading what comes out of their mouths on a daily basis for the past 2-3 years, and seeing peoples reactions of trust and agreement to it...it just makes me cry, honestly. They are so misleading and its all for political points.
Destroying our communications future at the cost of an election.
Quote hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
I'm with you. I can't believe the Libs are still talking about WiMax as a suitable alternative to the NBN. I'm a little more hopeful about Tony Abbot torpedoing things before the actual election - even if polls currently have them ahead.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Don't give up hope - the opposition always says they will get rid of the previous government's programs, but they often don't. NBN is far enough along that they would be foolish to axe it - could sell it to Telstra though (gasp).
It really boggles the mind. These guys have been told time and again, that for wireless to replace fixed line infrastructure, youd need more wireless spectrum than is currently available, youd need about 5000 times more towers (power and fibre to those towers!!), and even then it would still be sub-par, and severely limited upgrade path!!
Im a telecoms engineer, I work for an equipment vendor specialising in FTTx products (point to point, and PON), and HFC products (traditional docsis 1 - 3, RFoG, DPON etc..)...so take it from me, there is honestly no contender for technology upgradability, serviceability, cost, quality, life span...etc...etc....it ticks every single box (short of direct P2P equipment, but thats a discussion for another day, I dont think it suits our geological landscape here).
Reading what comes out of their mouths on a daily basis for the past 2-3 years, and seeing peoples reactions of trust and agreement to it...it just makes me cry, honestly. They are so misleading and its all for political points.
Destroying our communications future at the cost of an election.
antMeh to Chrome.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Should be working for everyone now. Lucky fixed.
Meh to Chrome.
charliem says...Selling the NBN to telstra would be giving the root of the problem weve had for the last 15-20 years, another 50 years to live as a root of the exact same problem we are trying to fix
antTalks sounds good, but can she really do it?
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
Needs your vote Ant - everyone deserves fibre to the premises at a reasonable price.
That sounds pretty elite, first-world-problemish, I know, I know. Buy I believe in the Internet as a great equaliser.
Talks sounds good, but can she really do it?
articianI've heard of her, and I've heard of the initiative. Also have heard of the online democratic voting system. I am someone who'd support this more than 100%.
Was incredibly dismayed that at the time of my signing, only ~1300 people of the 100k necessary had given their vote.
I signed, but for someone who's "faith" in the US is already well in the deficit, that's not doing much for me.
Still signed though! At least....
anthttp://www.dslreports.com/shownews/123091
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
BoingBoing did a thing on it a while back too: http://boingboing.net/2013/01/24/susan-crawford-should-run-the.html
I don't know why the petition is doing so poorly ... something, something, the people get the government they deserve ...
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/123091
chingaleraWouldn't a better course of action than the above proposed alternatives include kidnapping family members of large mining concerns, telecommunications executives and maybe a few senator's kids?? It might simply get everyone's service pro-VIDED a lot quicker and what not??
(You'll notice that the sarcasm box remains unchecked??)
Discuss...
Enable JavaScript to submit a comment.