
Comcast: Your New Overlord - abennett
http://www.itworld.com/internet/103658/comcast-your-new-overlord
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viggity
I'm very much against the government enforcing "net neutrality", I'd much
rather see regulations that eliminated the monopoly companies like comcast
hold over a regional area and in turn lets the marketplace turn net neutrality
a non-issue

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pixelbath
It's a very uphill battle. I worked for the company that provides the "Get ___
Channel" promotions for MSOs (Multiple System Operators, like Comcast,
Charter, Time-Warner before being bought by Comcast, etc.), and the
stranglehold they have on cable is staggering.

When cable first came out, it was seen as both a luxury and a way to bring
high-quality programming to rural areas. Once MSOs began providing upstream
data connections, they jumped through a lot of hoops to remain out of reach of
telco regulation.

Considering Comcast is the largest cable system provider in the US, they'll
either keep lobbying themselves into immunity, or someone in Congress will get
a big hair up their ass that can't be removed by "greasing the wheels," and
it'll be a monopoly breakup on the scale of AT&T in 1984.

Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath. Lobby money is still pretty powerful.

Some good reading on the cable system history:
<http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=unitedstatesc>

It was sickening when I first read the history of cable, but I have since come
to realize that many industries operate the same way. Expecting companies to
regulate their own industries is precisely how we arrived at the current
situation. Anybody remember cable deregulation in 1996? Has it gotten better
since? [http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/06/cable-
deregulatio...](http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/06/cable-deregulation-
good-for-consumers-ars-like-hell-it-is.ars)

How about energy industry deregulation?
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisis>

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MaysonL
You forgot the big one: banking.

