This is an especially well researched and intelligent opinion piece from Bloomberg. Important Reading: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-05-20/at-t-and-directv-team-up-against-customers This article explains why the U.S. will continue to lag behind other countries when it comes to bandwidth and data transmission rates for the populace in general. More importantly, it reveals yet another factor widening gaps and strengthening barriers between economically advantaged and disadvantaged social classes in the U.S.A.
you might enjoy this as something to think about. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/archives/41937
even worse http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2014/05/fccs_net_neutrality_vote_would.html U.S. regulators advanced a proposal to let Internet-service providers led by AT&T and Comcast Corp. charge Web companies such as Google and Facebook to provide fast lanes for their content. that means internet service providers can purposely slow down your preferred traffic unless content providers also pay them besides push customers upgrade to use fast lanes.
Somebody on this board described the American system properly. I would give them credit if I could remembered who it was. "The United States is the most successful corporation in the World" That sums up this country perfectly! If you don't believe it then you still need time to mature. That is how the world works!
Thank you so much! I just now read the Davies article for which you gave the link. In my opinion it is a brilliantly clear presentation of how and why our American (and British) style capitalism arrived at its present state. It also is wonderful food for thought, and I think it's especially important reading for all those, such as myself, who have a natural "libertarian" bent to their personal politics. I should mention, I suppose, for the benefit of some younger readers, that in Europe the term "neoliberal" is used in place of what might be described as an intersection of "libertarian" and "neocon" politics in the U.S.A. The problem with all these political descriptors is that unless one is using them in the academically correct sense, as Davies does, they take on rather nebulous meaning when applied to one's personal politics. Thank you again for the link. I hope all ET participants will read the Davies article. I'll go further! I hope, though I know it won't happen, that all U.S. citizens, especially politicians, read the Davies article. Also, when I read Davies' parenthetic remark: "Unless one wants to descend into biological reductionism...", I immediately thought of E.O. Wilson's newest book: "The Social Conquest of Earth". Putting the Davies and Wilson conjectures together seems to give a complete picture of what is really going on in our modern capitalist societies.
SSDD. don't you see a similarities with US stock market micro structure? once 'they' squeezed out all the competitors(retail,prop traders) they now turning to a regulators and ask them to basically enforce a bigger spreads. so they can rip your pension plans(managers of those plans and funds that are in it have invest,right?). and what so great about this scheme-nobody cares,cause it's not their money anyway. it's YOUR money. same here. they know that existing customer won't \can't pay anymore(i'm paying $350 a month for internet,some tv channels and family wireless phone plan(same or better service,using SAME infrastructure would cost a small fraction of that in other countries))-so rather than compete thru the price(same as we USE to do on very few exchanges-NYSE and NASDAQ)-they turn to a content providers and planning to charge them. what a beautiful country and times we are living in...on the bright side-one can always participate in this carnage by simply buying the stock.
This is about controlling the programming people are allowed to see. If DirecTV became too well-capitalized, they might branch into delivering their own content (including new TV channels). Next time you read "bandwidth", realize it is watching that bandwidth (NSA) as well as directing the "news" or "programming" that one is allowed to see.