Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and Other Telecoms Fighting to Cash In... on You

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and Other Telecoms Fighting to Cash In... on You.

Note: This article is about Telecommunications and Privacy Laws

-- Tom

 

They were already doing a lot of this, no shock here. The industry has been anti-consumer for as long as they've existed, and they have a ton of clout in Washington.

 

Makes sense when you consider companies have positioned themselves on both ends of any network:

They provide consumers with everything:
- the installer and software for your systems
- the firmware for your hardware
- the hardware to connect to their service
- they handle any data you send/receive over their network(s)

The only option for those unhappy with the current state of affairs, is to get involved and develop alternative solutions. Getting users like my parents to switch over might be a challenge, but I figure within 3-4 generations most computer users will be tech savvy enough to make the leap. I think the biggest hurtle will be providing content that can compete with these companies.

 

What alternative solutions though? There are only so many telecommunications companies in the U.S. The internet and phone services has to come through the lines of somebody. Smaller companies either never get fully off the ground or get told to go pound sand by the bigger dogs through court. In some areas of the country (actually many), there are only one or two choices and in some areas of individual states, no other competition (It's either Time Warner for me or nobody, for example).

 

Wage your own personal war of attrition like me to counter their heavy handed monopoly.

STOCKPILE MOVIES.DOCUMENTARIES.YOUTUBES. and run your own show, oh btw, the best part of all, minus the insane mindless possessed commercials they use to assault your good senses.

I actually started this back on 2005 and been hard at work to amass a huge collection. I seen the handwriting on the wall long before even this current privacy intrusion revolution by the fat cats.

As to do with communications, there are simple ways to jump off that train wreck. Ham operators, citizen band communications, independent frequency long range walkie talkies for local stuff.
The big shots ruin everything and anything scientifically useful for the rest of us every time because of their sick Greed.

 

Ahhh....Time Warner who tried to get "Metered Billing" through and got their nose bloodied and by the rule"s for such things Time Warner gets only one try.

 

Google's already demonstrated how to go nuclear on large proprietary companies. The android operating system was never about turning a massive profit for Google. I honestly believe Google intended to saturate the market with low-cost alternatives. I seen no reason we couldn't do the same with cable providers. I can't think of the name of the company mentioned a couple months back. They pretty much retransmit analog cable signals to customers at a price. Perfectly legal and network providers like fox practically had a melt-down over it. We need these types of innovations to happen with not just a small handful, but a large collection of start-up providers. Besides, how many of you honestly need 5000+ channels in this market? I'm guessing most of you can count the channels/shows you want with your hands. As long as we find a way to deliver the most sought after content: movies, news, series, and sports. I think most people will generally see value in switching over. Especially if the service is extremely affordable. I'm not sure we could compete with internet service providers given they have the leg up on bandwidth and infrastructure. What we can do is produce open-source hardware, firmware, and software solutions to protect user data being sent/received over these networks. The problem here has been convincing users to setup and finance such services. If we can focus on how to get these solutions into consumers homes than I don't think it is entirely hopeless. If enough of us think about this, we are bound to come up with a solution that is both legal and disruptive to these types of organizations.

 

10 Even Worse Things You Don’t Know About Comcast’s Proposed Merger With Time Warner.

-- Tom

 

This merger is beyond nightmarish for a lot of areas of this country, mine included. Comcast services and support make Time Warner look good, and many areas have only one or the other to choose from. The data caps alone will be terrible because the internet we're dealing with now, even leaving out torrenting and gaming, is incompatible with data caps. I can only hope the FCC sees past the attempts of Comcast to make the deal look better, and understand just what this merger would do to consumers. Then again, considering they screwed up net neutrality, they might not see it coming.

 

Funny how when AT&T had a monopoly on phone service that was a big no no. Judge Green made them divest into baby Bells. How has it become accepted for this monopoly to be formed?