[SLL] Nationwide Internet: melting down?

[Glenn Stone]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2007 at 09:11:59AM -0700, Ken Meyer wrote:
>Government (i.e. the FCC) certainly abets the monopolistic qualities of
>cable providers, but how else does it subsidize them, Glenn?

The FCC abets cable's monopoly status.  The local governments *establish* it
by allowing only one franchisee per region; the subsidy is not so much a
direct one as an indirect one, in that cable operators do not have to
compete amongst themselves.  Of course, these days they *do* compete with
sattelite operators for TV, and with telco for everything else, which rather
limits how much they can rook the customers... but truth be told, when you
read the fine print, it only limits the introductory price, not the price in
the fine print.  (Sure it's $25/mo for the first x months.  After that and
forevermore you'll pay about double that.  Quadruple if you want real
customer service.)  

ObLinux:  I'm looking forward to seeing the networking ideas incorporated
into the OneLaptopPerChild project making it into first-world, grown-up
PC's... if there were a good mesh network around here, I would so be into
it... the way to "get" monopolies as to treat them as censorship and route
around them.  

-- Glenn