And let the games begin!!!

She did bring up utilities, i.e. Phone companies. Please listen to the interview link I posted.

She called them coercive monopolies. Also the power monpolies you speak of are not efficient, nor does what they charge demonstrate anything BUT a coercive monopoly.

And if Rand had brought up utilities, you could argue such a point.

What shouldn't be overlooked is that the whole point of a market-based economy ISN'T competition at all - but efficiency and maximization in matching buyers and sellers. To take the hard line and say that a monopoly can never be the most efficient method of providing an economic and efficient solution to a problem is completely debunked by the presence of commodity utilities like those which exist for power and water. That's my point: you're trying to argue that unless competition exists, the market can not reach a point of efficiency. I'm trying to point out that you're putting the cart before the horse in the case of utilities.

IN GENERAL, competition in providing goods and services creates a feedback mechanism necessary in a market system to maintain balance between supply and demand. But it only works in the cases where the other necessary portions of the market such as free entry of competitors, availability of production resources, availability of labor, open delivery of product, size of market, etc. also hold true. In the realm of utilities, these items don't conform to the standard market models because several of these key predicates are absent or so heavily skewed by natural circumstances as to distort the model past any recognition. That's what I mean about practical: that a solution exists. I can't buy a hypothesis or an ideal. I want a product or service. Show me how one can effectively deliver utilities using a competitive model (versus a monopolistic model) and I'll happily go along. I don't object to the presence of a competitive marketplace for delivering goods and services (see Boeing vs Airbus or Intel vs AMD). But the goal is not the presence of competition, but the efficient allocation of resources.

I admire the zeal, but idealism takes a back seat in my mind to practicality, which has to come first.

On that I totally disagree. Too many pithy sayings come to mind for that.

All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing.
If you do not stand for something you will fall for anything.
Accepting what IS, is not the same thing as agreeing with "what is".

When YOUR conviction takes the back seat you have sold out your conviction to the highest bidder.

Ayn Rand also in her interview with Phil Donohue clearly stated that when free market exists there can be no monopoly.
Directly from Ayn Rand. in her voice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE9NGOgd...

"No different from your local car dealership, or major car manufacturer."

Yes, they are private businesses, but they are also commodity monopolies. VERY different in the market. I can't go down the street and get electricity from the next dealership down the road like I can with a car or truck. The presence (or in this case absence) of competition is a very big part of this conversation, and in fact I would argue that it forms the fundamental point of contention.

"They MAKE electricity, provide the service, the Government does NOT own any of it in the USA."

The utility companies are being granted monopoly operation for a particular region in exchange for oversight and price controls. And why? Because all parties involved recognize that it is impractical to duplicate the power grid. Or the water/sewer grid. Everyone involved is making a choice to intentionally limit (eliminate really) competition for the sake of practicality. If you want to justify a realistic, non-monopolistic approach to "public" utilities, I'm all ears. But it has to be a practical solution first. It's just that much better if it conforms to the ideal.

"So at what point does the private business, i.e. electric company become owned by the public?"

When they are nationalized, as in countries in the EU. You are correct that that has not happened as of yet in the United States. They do not become a government-controlled company just because they have publicly-held stock, however. Stockholders do not run the typical publicly-held business - all they can do is call for leadership changes. The terms are completely different when referring to a utility company. In such a case, the Board of Directors is the Utility Commission and they specifically retain in their charter the ability to set commodity pricing. As the taxpayers control the Utility Commission, they then have a direct say in the commodity pricing. Different business models _via contract_ because of the recognition of monopoly vs open-market conditions.

"The term "Public Utility" is the antithesis of anything Ayn Rand stood for."

I am fully aware that Rand objected to government-controlled business and I agree, but she did so in the realm where capitalism, i.e. competition, was a BETTER method of governing the market. I don't deny that premise, but one MUST acknowledge the predicate: competition! Again, I admire the zeal, but idealism takes a back seat in my mind to practicality, which has to come first.

Here is the problem. the proverbial "Public Utility" is a PRIVATE COMPANY!!! No different from your local car dealership, or major car manufacturer.

They MAKE electricity, provide the service, the Government does NOT own any of it in the USA.

So at what point does the private business, i.e. electric company become owned by the public? Answer: when they become a publicly traded stock then they are owned ONLY by the shareholders, not you or me or the government.

The term "Public Utility" is the antithesis of anything Ayn Rand stood for. Trying to define anything in terms of "Public Good" is nothing short of communism.

The minute ANYONE thinks or justifies for any reason that Government needs to step in and regulate private business regardless of how many people use it, they have separated themselves completely from Objectivism.

While I agree with the principles, the problem is that we are in fact dealing with a public utility (the one thing they actually got right in all this) and all its associated barriers to entry. It isn't as if anyone can start up a telecommunications company to compete. So the very first thing we have to recognize is that this ISN'T a free market - those ideals go right out the window.

I don't like the government regulation part of things, but the reality in the infrastructure is that it isn't efficient for the market to install multiple service providers in a given area any more than it would make sense to lay multiple water pipes or electrical lines. And wireless just taps into those in-ground lines - it extends, not replaces.

The problem is who owns the physical cable. It's EXPENSIVE and time-consuming to do utility work, and wireless is only good for very short distances. Competition would be great but the reality is that there are staggeringly huge barriers-to-entry in the telecomm market. In business terms, a barrier to entry is a hurdle a business must be able to jump just to get into the market in the first place, and can represent everything from initial investment to regulations to industry protections, etc. In this case, it's like you walking up to a 20-story skyscraper (the initial investment) and then being given a pair of lead boots (utility regulation) and told you have to jump over the building. No normal person is going to manage it.

In a "free" market they can only charge as much as people are willing to pay. Keep in mind that back in the 1990's cell phones would cost you thousands, and the monthly rates could cost you thousands. Companies soon realized that lowering their prices, and making more freely available boosted their profits,

Initially you might see a pinch but in the end all benefit.

Think about Cars, and Air Conditioning. All the things we take totally for granted used to be things ONLY the rich could afford. Now the biggest issue facing the "poor" and I use that term loosely from the perspective of the USA is Obesity.

Totally free unregulated markets always lower prices and make everything more affordable, or the product and the business dies. In a totally FREE market there could NEVER be a monopoly that harmed the people. It is ONLY when government intrudes and tries to "regulate" fairness that you get the harm to society.

+1

Either way, "if" your in an areas say. 10 miles from a fiber hub. You should be able to easily setup a WiMax antenna then get a bunch of subscribers to pay the freight. For scojohnson's neighborhood, if he did the legwork could probably get enough people to get his own free internet and make a profit at the same time.

The Internet remains what it always has been -- a bunch of computers owned by lots of different individuals, who are in the habit of forwarding each other's mail for free but don't have to.

If the government tries to regulate the Internet we will simply rename the Internet and continue using it in our own ways, with whatever tech workarounds we need.

Just don't panic, and don't assume that government people have the ability to control us just because they make the claim.

if these telecommunications companies jack up their fees, in a free market, wouldn't other telecommunications companies compete by offering higher quality at lower fees as in all other areas of the free market?

I confess I'm not knowledgeable in the area of how the internet works, so thanks for your clarification.

cool. I found this too: http://www.wimax-industry.com/sp/tsc/1j....
I think it's a stretch b/c they're showing cases of things that don't attenuate much or they're arguing that even in the Fresnel zone the fading is frequently selective so if the bandwidth is wide enough some of the subcarriers get through.
I have heard of commercial systems that push into the Fresnel zone, but I've never heard of someone putting up a system with earth between the TX and RX antennas.
It's interesting. I'm calling it a stretch.

http://www.wimax-industry.com/sp/wcm/ogn...
Both LOS and NLOS solutions. It is NOT factually wrong. Depends on which frequencies you are using. NLOS is less than 30 miles so overlapping antennas would be needed but you could easily cover a MASSIVE area with 3 small antennas.

"non-line of sight"
This one part is factually wrong.

Here is an idea. WiMAX. How about some people get together TAKE THE RISK with YOUR money, implement WiMAX yourself and say screw the cable company.

Oh that's right YOU would have to risk YOUR money. Then everyone can tell YOU what to and not to do with the infrastructure YOU setup.

WiMAX up to 70 MBPS, 30 mile range, non-line of sight. Install a Tower near a fiber link. Go for it.

No, it won't work. In my neighborhood, for example, we don't have any cable providers, only very outdated DSL (from the 90's) despite being in an urban area of 4.5 million people (the county-agreed monopoly). I can throw a baseball and hit 2 different Starbucks and the per capita income is over $150,000, but we can't get anything more than 1.5 megabit DSL (for 75.00). We have old telephone POTS copper in the ground, and DirecTV or Dish. They actually sell this retarded "cable" TV thing, which is kind of like a modem, and you click on a channel, it stalls for 5 or 6 seconds, then streams that channel to you. If you change channels, it takes 5-10 seconds each click. I just don't use or pay for it, so I get beat up on the DSL price. If you are willing to take their crappy cable service, you get a $20 discount on the DSL. Its basically a guaranteed revenue/profit-margin model for themselves, 'Unbundle' and the price goes up, so they don't really care, they get paid either way. The absolute opposite of a free market.

4G also requires antennas, which require jurisdictional permits... you basically make my argument for me, open the flood gates for anyone to compete, and I agree, its fair-game and it would be much better.

If we don't allow those floodgates to be open, we need to regulate the monopolies that result.

My preference would be to tear down the monopolies and let the buyer choose.

"Comcast wants to sell their video on demand service, but people would rather just have Netflix for $8 / month, and the Netflix creates traffic on Comcast's network. "
Will this scenario work: Comcast says, "Why I'm paying to deliver my competitions' video?" So they offer a lower priced service that has just their content. But then people are willing to pay more for unfettered content. DSL providers appear. 4G providers offer an LTE service using beamforming spatial diversity directing signals to a fixed antenna on people's houses. Hardware manufactures' offer equipment to share non-cable-company data with neighbors via Wi-Fi or Wi-Max, at a small price. Eventually all data ends up coming down to the same price, i.e. mostly set by the Shannon's Law and the cost of a receive chain with a given sensitivity.

If my scenario above works, we don't need gov't-enforced Net Neutrality. (I'm not sure if it will work though. I know only enough to be dangerous when it comes to moving lots of data.)

how about if I am "paying" for that 50% I get it. If I am paying by mutual agreement with no coercion for 100 meg I get it.

Value for value agreed upon by two consenting parties. THAT is the basis of Objectivism AND rational self-interest.

I think that's the argument.

They don't want to do that though, because its kind of incestuous... Comcast wants to sell their video on demand service, but people would rather just have Netflix for $8 / month, and the Netflix creates traffic on Comcast's network.

However, this is really BS... Netflix traffic is inbound at the datacenter level and is within the same internal building networks (Netflix's datacenter cage space to Comcast's space). Its not like Comcast is paying more to some other provider for that traffic somewhere, it's just 'traffic' and the last time I looked... its pretty cheap to build out network performance...

It's about wanting to block a competitor unfairly from the marketplace, the same routine that cable & telephone companies have been doing for years. Get a regulated monopoly with a city government by buying off the counsel members, and charge a premium for your services in perpetuity while making it impossible for another competitor to enter the same market.

If there really was a free market, we would have better customer service, and service vans would show up at the time they say they will not (sometime between 8 am and 5 pm).

" If you are buying Internet service, you should get Internet service, not 50% of the Internet, or whatever the provider chooses to provide you."
Their argument is over half their traffic is a few streaming video companies. Why don't they just charge their customers by the GB, without regard to which companies transmitted the data?

We're not really disagreeing here, I'm arguing that if these monopolies exist, then they need to be regulated against gouging the customer, my preference though is to not allow the monopolies and let anyone participate. Wireless or Satellite are obvious competitors, there shouldn't be any restraint on issuing permits.

So if the ISP doesn't like your GaltsGulchOnline access and just blocks it, feel free to pick up a book.

Or do you just really not like the idea of not having to watch whatever Hollywood deems is in your interest to watch.

That is what the "OFF" button is for, <CANCEL ACCOUNT> button and books are for. Free Market baby free market.