[Chapter-delegates] Why is ISOC is doing almost nothing to bring affordable Internet to America

[Veni Markovski]

Colleagues,
when I moved to NY 7 years ago, I was shocked to see there are only 2 
ISPs for 7 million people.
There are 2000 ISPs in Bulgaria, for the same number of people.

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

Come on!

I blogged about it:


      Net Neutrality talk with the FTC <http://blog.veni.com/?p=155>


best,
veni


On 12/20/2012 15:41, Paul Brigner wrote:
> Hi Dave,
>
> 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.
>
> Best regards,
> Paul Brigner
>
> Regional Bureau Director, North America
> Internet Society
>
> "The Internet is for Everyone"
>
>
>
> On Dec 20, 2012, at 2:51 PM, Dave Burstein <daveb at dslprime.com 
> <mailto:daveb at dslprime.com>> wrote:
>
>> On the NY ISOC list, Thomas writes
>>
>> "Here's the vision thing. What would have happened if I'd have said
>> something like,
>>
>> * ISOC-NY advocates for universal access to a quality Net experience
>>   for every New Yorker. We believe every resident should have Internet
>>   access with enough speed that it enables them to fully participate
>>   in deciding upon and receiving government services."
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>     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).
>>
>>    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.
>>
>>    It's time to start working - hard - to make sure the Internet is 
>> affordable to Americans. Otherwise, our advice to the Africans is 
>> hollow.
>>
>>    How do we turn around ISOC to start doing something about prices 
>> going up in America.
>>
>> db
>>
>> 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.
>
>
>
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