jarlmaster
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So I was curious today as to how the National Broadband Plan has been coming along and it's really improved. 33.9 mpbs in 2014 which is up from a pathetic 10 mpbs in 2010. That's a DRAMATIC improvement, regardless of the fact that ISP's have increased their maximum speeds by a large margin since 2010 as well, which skews the data a bit. I would assume that, much like the wealth in the US, its top heavy, with a small percentage of people with very fast internet speeds shifting the average. Regardless, it's progress, but its still behind many other developed countries.
The issue is the ridiculous cost of internet in the US given how cheap it is to provide. I've seen costs from .01 cents to a cent per gig of bandwith. I consume roughly 400gb of data a month, perhaps more. At most that costs the ISP (Comcast in this case) 4 dollars a month and at the least 4 cents... Now obviously there are operating costs involved which the company leverages on the consumer, which is why I pay more than 4 dollars a month for internet. I get 150mpbs down speeds and I pay roughly 60 bucks a month for that. That's 15 times the maximum cost of the internet itself. Now consider that for the 2015 fiscal year, Comcast brought in 74.5 billion dollars in revenue and after all was said and done, netted 8.1 billion dollars. That's an insane amount of money. Operating costs were 35 billion last year. So Comcast is essentially charging more than double what their operating costs are. That's ridiculous.
Google Fiber costs 70 dollars a month for a 1 gpbs connection. 10 dollars more for 6.6 times faster internet. They also provide free broadband at 20-30 mpbs for other users after they pay a 300 fee. So what gives? Google is a profit hungry company just like Comcast. They could make so much more money but they don't. This just highlights that Comcast, as well as other ISP's, are price gouging.
The internet should be a government provided service in my opinion. Or at the very least, companies should be heavily regulated with absurd prices like this reduced.
The issue is the ridiculous cost of internet in the US given how cheap it is to provide. I've seen costs from .01 cents to a cent per gig of bandwith. I consume roughly 400gb of data a month, perhaps more. At most that costs the ISP (Comcast in this case) 4 dollars a month and at the least 4 cents... Now obviously there are operating costs involved which the company leverages on the consumer, which is why I pay more than 4 dollars a month for internet. I get 150mpbs down speeds and I pay roughly 60 bucks a month for that. That's 15 times the maximum cost of the internet itself. Now consider that for the 2015 fiscal year, Comcast brought in 74.5 billion dollars in revenue and after all was said and done, netted 8.1 billion dollars. That's an insane amount of money. Operating costs were 35 billion last year. So Comcast is essentially charging more than double what their operating costs are. That's ridiculous.
Google Fiber costs 70 dollars a month for a 1 gpbs connection. 10 dollars more for 6.6 times faster internet. They also provide free broadband at 20-30 mpbs for other users after they pay a 300 fee. So what gives? Google is a profit hungry company just like Comcast. They could make so much more money but they don't. This just highlights that Comcast, as well as other ISP's, are price gouging.
The internet should be a government provided service in my opinion. Or at the very least, companies should be heavily regulated with absurd prices like this reduced.