| What more needs to be said? This is nothing more than greedy companies which have virtual monopoly because of insufficient regulation.
But there really is no excuse for the shameless greed in my view. |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | ow many "competitors" in Sweden? Since Karl thinks that's the solution. |
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 thegeekPremium
join:2008-02-21
right here
kudos:2
 ·Suddenlink
| reply to horseathalt7
Re: What more needs to be said? Another factor is the mindless sheep who gladly dole out hundreds of dollars so that they can have the latest and greatest tech in the palms of their hands. If the people refused to pay then the prices would come down. Verizon and AT&T are just testing what the market will bare. And so far they haven't found the ceiling.
BTW, I'm part of that mindless sheep group. I love my smartphones. |
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| reply to horseathalt7
I think it's a problem with too much regulation. Why can't I start my own cellular provider and compete with these guys? I can't. They government has regulations in place that would prevent me from even dreaming of doing so. There are too many regulations in place that protect the interest of larger companies. If your answer is to increase regulation it's just inviting them to shut others out of the market even more and raise prices in their government made monopoly.
The answer is less, not more regulation. I know we can't have people just starting companies and transmitting over top of one another on random frequencies but there has to be a better way to allocate spectrum. With technology like the internet this should be easy. Why can't I bid on spectrum at a zip code or city level? Have like an ebay but set up by the FCC for spectrum. If I could bid on spectrum locally and start a small local provider I would be all over that. I could actually provide a good deal to people and grow from there. The rules in place now are anti-capitalistic and that's why we are seeing these ridiculous prices. |
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| reply to horseathalt7
As long as this country is a market economy, this will continue. |
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Reviews:
·RoadRunner Cable
| reply to BF69
Re: ow many "competitors" in Sweden? Not everything less in Sweden either, or is readily available as it is in the US.
Many other countries also do not use the subsidy model which artificially inflates the cost of service, and typically support 'run what you brung' approach w/o contracts. |
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 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | reply to joe94395
Re: What more needs to be said? said by joe94395:I think it's a problem with too much regulation. Why can't I start my own cellular provider and compete with these guys? I can't. They government has regulations in place that would prevent me from even dreaming of doing so.
Nope. It's AT&T and Verizon preventing you. They use their roaming/peering agreements to make sure that you must go through them at inflated prices. You have the choice of helping them dominate and making them tons of money while having very little for your own company.... *OR* you must build out your entire network of towers to cover the nation from scratch because they will prevent or penalize your company so that your customers can't roam on their towers at a reasonable price. They behave very anti-competitively on towers and backhaul.
Secondly, they defeat the FCC's efforts to create competition by gaming the spectrum auctions and squatting on bandwidth just to make sure it's scarce for competitors.
It's not over regulation. It's lack of sufficient regulation.
Recently Cable MSO's and others have tried to get into this market, and even with their financial muscle and customer base, they quickly saw the writing on the wall and acquiesced. It's also suspected that Dish Network's plans will falter as well.
The situation in the USA is truly beyond compare.
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | reply to en103
It's a socialist economy, all are.... our economy in many areas is becoming a fascist (Corporate) economy. |
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Reviews:
 ·Callcentric
| Socialist means the government owns and operates it, which is not the case. We are indeed corporate fascists, with the top 1% pulling the strings.
Confusing the low (cherry-picked) information voter is a key of the GOP's strategy. Crony capitalism has failed us yet again, however, the GOP still claims it's this imaginary socialism that is to blame; something actual socialist nation's laugh at. |
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 IowaCowboyWant to go back to IowaPremium
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA
·Comcast
 ·Verizon Broadban..
| I like the unlimited voice and text I like the unlimited talk and text and the ShareEverything plans made it cheaper to add mom (who uses voice and text) and grandma (who uses strictly voice) to my ShareEverything plan than to have them on a separate AT&T account.
Still teaching grandma how to use her Samsung Convoy II but mom has mastered the same phone.
I use most of the data on my iPhone, Jetpack, and iPad 3.
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I wish I still lived in Iowa; Everything there from rent and groceries to Cable TV is much cheaper in Iowa (especially with an overbuilder in town). |
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BiggA
join:2005-11-23
EARTH Reviews:
·Comcast
| Gee, I wonder Sure, the overages are usually a rip-off, but in terms of the base plans, look at the area Verizon is rolling out with LTE, and the population density overall, and then do the same in Europe. It should be pretty obvious why it costs so much. It's not cheap to put in fiber aggregation and microwave distribution backhaul throughout the mountains of New Hampshire and the plains of the midwest and such. And that's not to mention the retrofit cost on each and every tower... |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | reply to horseathalt7
Re: What more needs to be said? said by horseathalt7:This is nothing more than greedy companies which have virtual monopoly because of insufficient regulation.
But there really is no excuse for the shameless greed in my view.
Consumer greed is what drives the market. You want the service; you're willing to pay their asking price. If there wasn't sufficient demand, they couldn't charge the rates they do.
Regulation would only result in higher rates. |
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| reply to BF69
Re: ow many "competitors" in Sweden? That doesn't really matter, they probably have price controls in place there, or there is less corporate greed. I believe that some of those countries must have some "regular workers" on their board of directors besides our usual greedy slime balls.. Either way, the number of competitors in Sweden isn't relevant. Apples to Oranges comparison. |
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KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | reply to elray
Re: What more needs to be said? Controlled or Managed Supply is the problem.
The demand is there; It's the choice in supply that isn't. (Carefully orchestrated.)
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"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
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Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
·T-Mobile US
·Clear Wireless
 ·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to BiggA
Re: Gee, I wonder And how is it that the great flat Midwest (where we put freeways and huge factory farms down in a few years) or densely populated New England manage to be expensive compared to Sweden.
Or for that matter, the mountains of Austria and Switzerland are a lot harder to provide wireless coverage over than anywhere in the US east of Denver!
I think the words oligopoly and greed are more accurate than costs to explain the problem. |
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Reviews:
·AT&T U-Verse
·Mediacom
·T-Mobile US
| how big are Austria and Switzerland together compared to half of the US? In addition, the populations are denser and less spread out there than say Oklahoma. In addition, the densest area in the us, in big cities like Chicago or NYC have more than two choices for wireless carriers. |
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| You can change your plan While I'm definitely not defending Verizon's high prices, you can go onto their website and change your data plan if you think you are going to use a lot (or if you did use a lot) in a given month. This will let you avoid overages. You can then back it back down the next month.
To Verizon's credit, their 4g LTE network is amazing. I was in Ogunquit, ME getting 50 megs down and 20 up. I used it to bypass crappy hotel wifi for my laptop.
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My beta Ruby on Rails tutorial site! |
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| reply to KrK
Re: What more needs to be said? I disagree. The answer is not more regulation. If you shifted responsibility for spectrum allocation from the national to a more local level like state or county you would create a situation where smaller competitors could get a start. Having the ability for a company to outbid everyone on a national level is anti-competitive and adding more regulations is just going to make it more so.
They can put out one big fire and prevent competition pretty easily on the national level but if you reduced the market size for spectrum to a smaller area it would be nearly impossible for companies like Verizon or AT&T to always win every spectrum auction in every locality. Investment groups would be able to target more profitable areas like certain cities and then grow their network from there. It would put the necessary spectrum investment within the reach of investors. Shrink the role of the federal government and shift the power of spectrum allocation to smaller areas.
The federal government does not have the ability to create competition, they can only limit it through increases in regulation. |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | reply to KrK
said by KrK:Controlled or Managed Supply is the problem.
The demand is there; It's the choice in supply that isn't. (Carefully orchestrated.)
The demand would not exist without a product deployed. Cellco isn't going to launch a service they expect to lose money on.
Spectrum segmentation already constrains supply. How would you add "choice in supply" without further limiting available bandwidth? |
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CXM_SplicerLooking at the bigger picturePremium
join:2011-08-11
NYC
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Verizon FiOS
| reply to joe94395
I think you are underestimating the resourcefulness of the incumbents... it would hardly be impossible for them to win every auction at local levels. They would simply set up spectrum affiliates in each market and still be able to outbid everyone. One thing you have to realize is that if you reduce the size of a spectrum footprint, you also have to reduce the cost of that footprint or no company would be able to stay in business. So, if you are thinking they couldn't afford to buy all spectrum in all markets, I assure you they would. Any small company that ended up with spectrum Verizon wanted would simply be sued out of existence. That's not to say that cell spectrum allocation wouldn't work at a local level but I don't think it would have the effect you think it will.
I agree with KrK, we need more regulation on big business, not less. Regulations certainly DO create more competition, it is business that eliminates it... that's why they hate regulation so much and spend billions lobbing to get rid of it. We need stronger Anti-trust laws and regulatory agencies that have the interest of the public and small business in mind rather than simply rubber-stamping everything that goes past their desks. |
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