[Nrsolis]

Ya know, I can't help feeling that this quote is apropos:

"Everything is amazing, and nobody is happy." --Louis C.K.

It used to be the case that you couldn't get ANYTHING approaching 5mbps download speed in your home. Now we regularly get 15, 25, and even 50mbps download speeds.

You also couldn't get decent wireless data. Remember EDGE? 1xRTT? Try streaming Netflix back then.

I remember Airphone and using a MODEM to get 9600bps data so I could send an urgent IM and followup email via the Airphone on a flight to a co-worker. Now I can get GoGo inflight internet pretty regularly. I'm looking forward to my next transatlantic on Lufthansa when I can have access to the Internet for almost the entire flight.

Need high-speed internet out in the middle of NOWHERE? You can get two-way high-speed Internet via satellite for a very reasonable sum.

It's all amazing and nobody is happy.

I've spent the past 20 years working in the Internet industry for almost EVERY major ISP out there. It's quite disheartening to see your router capacities double every two years when you're locked into a 7-year depreciation cycle for network hardware. Ditto for long-haul transmission.

This wireless is different? Maybe you weren't there for the tower space leasing negotiations I witnessed. You think broadband is expensive? Try sticking 3 antennas along with hardline 150' up a pole and tell me that your broadband is expensive when you see the monthly bill for tower leasing for a SINGLE site.

WOW.

The long term trend for high-speed internet pricing is DOWN. We get more and more downstream and upstream capacity per dollar with each passing year. Wired AND wireless. What was once IMPOSSIBLY expensive is only going to get less so in the future.

I used to pay $12.80 PER HOUR for 1200bps access.

BTW, You're Welcome.

Too expensive? Don't pay it. I think you can still get a 56kb modem on Ebay. Dialup ISP service is something like $7.95/mo now.

And that's in 2011 dollars.

[MrVitaliy]

I can't disagree. Perhaps it's all the Netflix, Dropbox and Youtubes that are way ahead of what wireless infrastructure can currently support. And frankly, it is those cloud services that steal the spotlight not the ISPs.

Although, having unlimited 56kb connection and downloading non-stop for a month (maximum utilization on customer's end with whooping 3kbyte/s) would result in roughly 7.5 Gbytes of downloaded data per month. Which is still 4x the standard 2Gb limit set by cellular phone companies. Not to mention cheaper.

[nitrogen]

Ya know, I can't help feeling that this quote is apropos:

"Everything is amazing, and nobody is happy." --Louis C.K.

Whenever this point is raised, I always argue that human progress depends on the amazing becoming commonplace, luxuries becoming essentials, etc. If we were always walking around being bewildered by everything, we'd have no reason to improve.

[Nrsolis]

My main point was to illustrate just how far we've come in absolute terms.

My second point was to point out that there are real reasons why the assumptions made about what broadband "costs" aren't really relevant to what you "pay" for it.

Without putting too fine a point on it, CAPEX on equipment/fiber tend to be dwarfed by the OPEX of leasing and labor costs associated with running a telecomm business for profit. Somewhat distended depreciation schedules mandated by GAAP compound the problem of removing obsolete assets from production networks and replacing them with newer equipment.

BTW, pricing for "Internet" has been "metered" almost from the beginning of commercial availability. UUNET did 95th percentile pricing for almost all of its dedicated access customers because that was the best way to tie consumption patterns to bandwidth availability.

If bandwidth seems expensive now, it's only because you've been paying for it for a very, very short time.

[nitrogen]

My first encounter with the Internet was on a 10hr/mo. dial-up connection with a 14.4kbps modem, and I'd been using BBSes before that. I definitely appreciate how far we've come :). Still, ISPs have reached the point where they're holding back technological progress to satisfy their own ends. Municipal fiber projects and independent ISPs often don't impose the same restrictions as the monopoly players, which suggests that it's possible to run a network without, for example, forcing Netflix to pay an extra fee on top of its existing bandwidth payments.

So does the extended depreciation force equipment owners to pay the taxes they would've written off for the extra years if they just disconnect the equipment and let it sit in a closet?

[Nrsolis]

How many municipal ISPs are there? Municipal fiber companies?

Careful. I used to work for a municipal fiber company and they are FAR from being the best group to build the kind of Infrastructure we need. Don't even get me started on the problem of politicizing the communications infrastructure of a city.

The only path forward is for us to get some real competition between the cablecos and the telcos.