You really think that the data caps and pricing for wireless are going to be practical for most people compared to wired internet? They won't be, not if any significant number of people try to switch to a wireless carrier from landline for streaming, downloading games, etc.
The carriers are experimenting with unlimited plans again. I got on board when ATT started theirs up earlier this year, and I'm grandfathered in now that they've altered it significantly. I generally use about 500GB per month and still get better speed than my terrible DSL I had before.
As I said, as the bandwidth grows, they will want to compete with comcast, cox, and other landline services. Customers are clamoring for them, they will eventually provide products suitable for that market.
No, it won't happen immediately. Yes, there's going to be a lot of pain. Yes, some people will be at the mercy of their provider with little real choice.
That's already occurring, though, in terms of raw speeds. We were lucky to convince the DSL provider to change their settings to allow 3mbit/s on our line even though we were "too far away" according to their tables. We had no other reasonable choice until ATT rolled out their plan, and I was seriously considering rolling my own fiber.
Those underserved people are going to remain underserved, and the fight about net neutrality already rang hollow with them because they don't get enough internet to worry about whether netflix is slower - it's only going to come at them at 480p no matter which ISP is fighting with netflix.
Everyone else will have multiple choices. I could choose between comcast and att DSL at all my previous residences, and they were competitive.
I don't think the net neutrality fight will really make or break those that only have one choice, so I don't think it's worth crafting national regulations based on such a small portion of the population.
As such it's not worth arging about the people who don't have choice.
What's worth arguing about is collusion - whether intentional or undirected - such that even if you have multiple choices it doesn't matter.
It's worth arguing about whether this may stimulate competition because - perhaps - ISPs will have something more to compete about rather than just bandwidth. Maybe your two choices provide the same speeds, but one includes HBO now for the same cost. You never watch HBO, but it's "more" so you might choose it, and the ISP is able to gain a customer it wouldn't have otherwise.
I don't know.
Let's see.
Mostly my apathy for this is high simply because I'm already underserved.
It's like the big kids arguing over the thanksgiving feast while I'm stuck at the kids table with the macaroni and cheese.
For all the words spilled over the poor and underprivileged, I don't think this fight is about them, nor will it truly affect them. It's about the big players trying to get money from each other - comcast wanting a piece of netflix's pie, and so forth.
And before you pretend netflix or any other internet company is an innocent party, they are an 8 billion dollar a year company and will do anything to protect that from others.
Maybe consumers will lose. I guess we will find out.
