[opendtv] Re: TV Technology: FCC Comment Filing System Flooded
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 15 May 2017 02:47:05 +0000
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
Just like the little streaming box makers don't want neutrality.
What crap...
Really Craig? Even this has to be belabored? Just how many web sites can you
browse with a Roku of AppleTV, Craig? Of course, those boxes are not
indispensable, so no one needs to care. Just buy something better and you're
done. Not so with broadband service, however.
Just like MVPDs don't want neutrality.
Provide even one example of an MVPD violating the current FCC
definition of Net Neutrality.
For ISP service, they aren't allowed to, for the time being. So, to belabor
again, for MVPD service, everything is up for negotiation. For example, the
MVPDs do not automatically have to deliver everything the local broadcaster
transmits (multicasts). Some of this is the nature of the old broadcast-only
technology, which only permits so much content in constant 24/7 streams. So its
origins are well understood, although now obsolete. With Internet delivery,
that level of collusion is unnecessary and unwanted, by the very vast majority
of people. (But not Craig. He likes it. Just keep reading!)
If you want to talk about collusion, how is it that Hulu Live is
the first VMVPD service to offer almost all of the networks in the
extended basic bundles, offered by the content congloms that OWN
Hulu?
Really Craig? Even this has to be belabored? Two points here: (1) Any and all
TV content aggregation sites have to deal with the content owners, what's your
point? The fact is, every household has access to these, and every household
has a choice to opt out, and look for some other "bundle" that better suits
their wants. Collusion cannot force the choices on consumers. Consumers have
multiple other choices available any instant they choose to look. And (2), the
mere fact that these congloms have decided to unravel the MVPD bundles, making
(what Craig seems to think are) many of the "live streams" available online
too, should tell you where TV distribution is going. And by the way, notice
that only Hulu will create this exact formula. You don't need other sites to
duplicate this exactly, because everyone as access to all of the OTT sites.
They have to compete. They can't just duplicate each others' bundles and
prices, Craig. (Oh yeah, but only as long as Internet broadband service is
guaranteed to be neutral.)
It is no conspiracy theory that five companies own 90% of
what we watch, and rather than regulating out of control cable
rate increases,
ROTFL. Craig even has to resort to asking for MORE regulation, when it comes to
untwisting his convoluted "logic." The fact is, it takes resources to produce
the content that these congloms produce. That there are 5 congloms is a hell of
a lot more competition that the one, or at most two broadband providers, for
the vast majority of households. So you're completely barking up the wrong
tree, and have done so forever. Why? This is your way to justifying your choice
to swear loyalty to the local monopoly. If they behave like a monopoly, Craig
needs to attribute this to some arcane conspiracy.
And it is no conspiracy theory that these bundles are now moving to
the Internet, at lower prices
And again Craig can't fathom how the economy works. Of COURSE they are going
for much lower prices on the Internet, Craig. THAT'S HOW COMPETITION WORKS!!
People aren't forced to pay for their one and only choice of bundles, as they
were in the old MVPD days. They can choose to ignore Hulu Live. They can choose
to use other OTT sites, such as Sling TV, or Netflix, or Amazon, or Yahoo View
even. No one has to make the same choices you want, Craig.
Do you really not get that competition keeps prices in check? Do you really not
get that monopolies can set whatever prices they want to? Are you really
opposed to an economy that can self-regulate? Unbelievably, now Craig wants for
the FCC to regulate what the content owners demand for their content?
Listen to yourself, Craig. You argue all over the map.
- by cutting out the profits margins of the MVPDS
What is it about competition that you don't get, Craig? Do you really not
comprehend that "cutting into profit margins" is EXACTLY how competition allows
markets to self-regulate?
That's what happens when politicians and regulators choose winners
and losers.
Wrong. Neutrality cannot pick winners and losers. That's what happens when a
guaranteed-to-be-neutral distribution infrastructure fosters competition, as
opposed to making competition impossible.
Because the congloms are cutting these local monopolies out of the
picture with respect to selling the very popular extended basic TV
bundles.
DUH!! Again, you make no sense. Unnecessary middlemen *MUST* be cut out, to
keep prices in check. An yet, those local monopolies are still essential, but
in a different role. Their new role, though, is as a neutral broadband
provider. The old gatekeeper role CAN NOW BE REMOVED, and it must be removed,
for competition to allow prices to self-regulate. That's why a mandate of
neutrality is needed.
Craig thinks that nirvana is to have non-neutral Internet service, such that
the same profit margins can be wrenched out of Internet content too, by the
MVPD/ISPs.
How can the Internet be winning, with all of these "cord cutters,"
yet the legacy MVPD services that are losing customers are the "only
winners?"
Legacy MVPD services are LOSERS, Craig. They are losing customers, and having
to charge ever higher prices to the faithful few, such as yourself. The winners
are the OTT sites, gaining a bigger and bigger following every year. Where did
you come with this new invention, that legacy MVPDs are winners? They might be
winners in their brand new role as ISPs, not in the slowly eroding legacy MVPD
service. Only you are fond of that old non-neutral role, for whatever reason.
Only you can claim that big profit margins, for a now unnecessary role, is a
good thing. That's why I keep saying, you always champion anti-competitive
models. Always. And here was the proof again. You make no sense, Craig.
Is it because for the next few years the cable systems will enjoy a
competitive advantage with the ISP service needed to access the
cheaper bundles available from Hulu Live et al?
That cannot be it. I can subscribe to DirecTV Now and use my AT&T
cellular service to access this service - with no data cap.
Exactly. Which is why the legacy model, you know, the one you strangely call
the "superior medium," is losing customers steadily.
I can still remember when I paid in excess of $200/mo for a business
landline and the long distance charges I incurred working with
consulting customers around the U.S.
NOW, that $200/mo provides my family (four lines) with cellular
telephone service including unlimited calling to the U.S., ...
Isn't it funny how Craig just finished bemoaning the fact that legacy MVPD
profits won't be available anymore, when OTT sites replace legacy MVPD bundles,
and yet here he is trumpeting the fact that competition is good for telco
service?
One truly has to wonder how his mind works.
How much did the cable industry spend to build the current hybrid
fiber/coax infrastructure that delivers the vast majority of
entertainment television streams to more than 80 million U.S. homes?
About the same as the telcos are having to do, to deploy competitive broadband
service. What's your point? These infrastructures have to be self-sustaining,
Craig. They have to become efficient enough to provide the service that
matters, for prices that are reasonable. That's why, for instance, they are
designing a wireless "last mile" scheme, to save on cost. Did they care, when
they were just legacy MVPDs? Not really. They could get away with charging
higher and higher prices, with nothing much to keep costs in check. They had
loyal servants such a you, Craig, keeping them afloat. But now, as an essential
service, because they have the luxury of operating as local monopolies, the FCC
can keep tabs on them, to see if they try to gouge the customers. Not much of
that going on previously. No one needed to care. Just an entertainment service,
after all.
How ugh did the telcos spend to build out FTTH systems like the one
you now use for your high speed broadband?
Exactly the same as your legacy MVPD. Oh, except for the first year(s?),
Verizon had no "TV the bundles" to force on anyone. They were operating only a
neutral telco. And yet, they started deploying this expensive FTTH system
anyway. Then, just like Google, they had to refigure, and came up with this
fixed 5G scheme. All to save on costs. Instead, Craig thinks that saving on
costs should not matter, on the contrary, NOT saving on cost is like wearing a
badge of honor. And the customers SHOULD pay the high prices, and SHOULD want
to receive all those programs they never watch, for reasons that only Craig can
fathom.
How much did broadcasters spend to upgrade to digital TV in spectrum
that they were GIVEN?
This is Craig's narrative. It's okay for local monopolies to gouge their
customers, because those local monopolies were deploying a heavily
labor-intensive system, that costs lots of money? So all's fair. Competition
from the Internet is bad, proclaims Craig, because these local monopolies are
unable to extract the ever increasing prices. Amazing, ain't it?
How much have consumers paid in retransmission consent fees for the
broadcast networks they are FORCED to buy from cable systems?
As I said, the correct way to do this was to remove any retrans consent channel
from the basic bundle. Your huge problem, Craig, is that your arguments are
totally specious and inconsistent. You logic ... isn't. You can look at one
market distortion and ignore the far more egregious ones, that cost everyone
far more money.
Talk about picking winners and losers...
Explain how a mandated neutrality can pick winners and losers.
Duh. its is a partisan blog. Big deal.
Last I looked, 52 posts, all pro-net-neutrality. On exactly the same topic as
the NPRM.
The only "obvious" is that municipal systems do not operate with the
profit motive.
That is hilarious!
Craig can't even figure this much out. He's telling us how local monopoly MVPDs
need the unjustifiable profits they make from pushing stuff on consumers that
consumers don't want, and he can't understand that a municipal system would
never operate this way. Because it does not need to maximize profits. It needs
to sustain itself only.
I am forced to buy electricity from a municipal system with the
highest rates in the state of Florida.
Is this the same state that has a strange absence of FOTA TV service, to favor
the special interests? Local monopolies need to be regulated. If your
regulators aren't up to the task, you kick them out of office and get better
ones. When there is no competition, nothing else works, Craig. And yet, in the
rest of the country, power rates have gone up less than inflation. The only
thing keeping things in check is regulation.
Municipal ISP systems that do not operate with a profit motive FAIL
Bert.
FALSE! They have to operate to cover costs. For example, Craig, a local
municipal broadband system does not have to pay for those monopolistic TV "the
bundles" that you keep trumpeting. Those costs are non-existent. **THEREFORE**,
these municipal ISPs don't benefit from blocking OTT sites, as your much
beloved MVPDs would prefer doing.
1. All of the municipal systems that have failed and cost taxpayers
millions of dollars.
Then the only honest thing for YOU to do, Craig, is to ignore what they have to
say about Title II or neutrality. And to inform Chairman Pai that what these
municipal ISPs say is immaterial, certainly on the matter of keeping Internet
service neutral.
2. The municipal systems that have succeeded, generating profits to
reduce the tax burden in their cities.
Not profits; at best, tax surplus. They aren't lining their pockets with
profits, Craig. And they do not benefit from a non-neutral service. Who
benefits from non-neutral service is those who want to control the content you
get, to make special deals with content owners. Collusion. I doubt municipal
broadband nets would get by with collusion.
And what happens when these profitable municipal systems want to
expand outside of their city/county limits? They compete with
companies that are heavily regulated,
False. They are all regulated under Title II now, apparently, plus the
municipal broadband systems shouldn't even have such options. That's why they
are called municipal. And in any event, once again, the only honest thing for
you to have done is to dismiss what they have to say, as being irrelevant or
hypocritical. Instead, just like the Chairman, you were trumpeting their cause,
just because it suited your twisted "logic" at the time.
The owner of content (well, supposed owner)? Obviously okay.
NOPE. This was a clear net neutrality violation Bert.
Since when do broadcasters own Internet access networks, Craig? Another
completely specious argument. Neutrality applies to the INFRASTRUCTURE. At
least, when I pointed to your AppleTV, designed only for collusion, I told you
that those silly boxes have nothing to do with the delivery pipe, and can
easily be avoided. Your streaming boxes aren't "neutral" in any sense of the
word, ... but they are not infrastructure. They don't need to be. Buy something
better.
Earth to Craig: You cannot force any content owner to sell his wares, if he
doesn't want to. The TV networks were completely justified in nipping this
other middleman monopoly in the bud.
Not if you are the unlucky owner of an ISP service regulated under
Title II.
And justifiably so, for ESSENTIAL infrastructures, as well over 100 years of
laws prove. For frivolous entertainment nets? Who gives a hoot. Pay up and shut
up.
There is plenty of competition today Bert,
You only have Cox, for broadband to your home. Sorry Craig. One is not plenty.
Nor is two. What a long list of specious arguments, from Craig!!
Bert
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