It's always good to see more competition and a freer market in Eastern Europe than in Washington, DC!<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 3:47 PM, Veni Markovski <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:veni@veni.com" target="_blank">veni@veni.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Colleagues,<br>
when I moved to NY 7 years ago, I was shocked to see there are
only 2 ISPs for 7 million people.<br>
There are 2000 ISPs in Bulgaria, for the same number of people.<br>
<br>
And prices? It costs $ 15 (one, five) for 100 Mbps, or 1000 Mbps
(1 Gbps) in Bulgaria. And it costs $ 50 / 3 Mbps in NY. We used
these in a number of publications, and interviews <br>
<br>
Come on! <br>
<br>
I blogged about it: </font><br>
<h3><a href="http://blog.veni.com/?p=155" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Net Neutrality talk with the FTC" target="_blank">Net
Neutrality talk with the FTC</a></h3>
<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><br>
best,<br>
veni<br>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<div>On 12/20/2012 15:41, Paul Brigner
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>Hi Dave,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks for your comments. Many members in the NY Chapter
have raised this issue with me. I will forward your note to
our Public Policy team and start a discussion internally on how
ISOC can work on this topic.</div>
<br>
<div>
<span style="text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-variant:normal;text-align:-webkit-auto;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:normal;border-collapse:separate;text-transform:none;font-size:medium;white-space:normal;font-family:Helvetica;word-spacing:0px">Best regards,<br>
Paul Brigner<br>
<br>
Regional Bureau Director, North America<br>
Internet Society<br>
<br>
"The Internet is for Everyone"<br>
<br>
<br>
</span>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<div>On Dec 20, 2012, at 2:51 PM, Dave Burstein <<a href="mailto:daveb@dslprime.com" target="_blank">daveb@dslprime.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite"><font face="verdana, sans-serif">On the
NY ISOC list, Thomas writes </font>
<div><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">"Here's
the vision thing. What would have happened if I'd have
said</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">something
like,</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
* ISOC-NY advocates for universal access to a quality Net
experience</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
for every New Yorker. We believe every resident should
have Internet</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
access with enough speed that it enables them to fully
participate</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-size:12.800000190734863px;font-family:arial,sans-serif">
in deciding upon and receiving government services."</span></div>
<div><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, sans-serif">I just spent two weeks
in Dubai where ISOC had strong opinions on how poor
countries should bring down costs. I wanted to cry out
"Physician heal thyself" because the increases in U.S.
costs lately have been unconscionable. Verizon's fees
start at $55 as far as I can tell (only 1 megabit!)and for
most in NYC (FiOS territory) the minimum is over $78. The
standard service at Time Warner cable is $58. I just
doublechecked those prices with the companies.</font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, sans-serif"> That's much higher
than the $20-45 that was a common fee in years past.
Verizon by most measures is up 50-100%, Time Warner 20%.
All this at a time the cost to deliver the service is
going down. (Routers, modems, capex of the companies, even
support, as I've reported elsewhere).</font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, sans-serif"><br>
</font></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> Before
that, I was at ECTA Brussels where speaker after speaker
pointed out European prices are often half what the
Americans charge for similar. That's slightly exaggerated
but the gap is clear. </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> It's time
to start working - hard - to make sure the Internet is
affordable to Americans. Otherwise, our advice to the
Africans is hollow. </span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"> How do we
turn around ISOC to start doing something about prices
going up in America.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">db</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">p.s. I cc'd
this directly to Paul, North American ISOC rep. As a
former Verizon employee, he knows they are looking to
maximize profits so of course take advantage of weak
competition. He and Sally have done a great job bringing
the chapters and members into the ISOC discussion. They
also have been doing a great job getting the telcos
involved in ISOC. It's particularly difficult for ISOS to
get involved in bringing affordability to the U.S., but
that's what we need to do.</span></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br>
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Chapter Portal (AMS): <a href="https://portal.isoc.org" target="_blank">https://portal.isoc.org</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>David Vyorst<div><font size="1">Co-Founder, Relay Station Social Media</font><br>
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