I know a lot of people who are unhappy with their ISP (Internet Service Provider) – connections are often slow and unreliable, customer service is abysmal, and sometimes there are even explicit usage restrictions. Even worse, many areas are dominated by a single companies with local monopolies, so the consumer doesn’t even have a choice. Finally, there are many rural areas for which no one has even bothered to build broadband access, raising issues relating to the ‘digital divide‘.
My idea consists of two main parts: first, a map that shows which ISP’s are providing access to which areas of the country/world; second, discussion boards for the users of a specific ISP in a specific region. These would facilitate self-organization of users who are victims of a particular location-specific policy of a particular ISP, allowing them to assert themselves to that ISP’s customer service not as single individuals, but instead as important customer groups with the power to organize a boycott or take some other action.
(In writing this, I felt I was villifying ISP’s more than I should be. I don’t blame them for acting as they are as profit-maximizing entities, but I see it as a problem that the current arrangement discourages competition and creates a sub-optimal equilibrium. As I recall, capitalism works most efficiently when everyone has perfect information.)
(For the first few of these, at least, I think I’m going to link back to the introductory web idea post.)
Jorge Ortiz | 26-Oct-08 at 6:07 pm | Permalink
Broadband ISPs (as opposed to telephone ISPs) have very high per unit/house/building infrastructure costs. It makes sense to only incur these costs once. This makes broadband ISPs very similar to utilities like water, gas, and electricity that also have local monopolies.
Unfortunately, broadband ISPs aren’t regulated or operated like local utility monopolies.
Ideally, government would incur the (high initial) cost of wiring each home with broadband, then rent those wires to several service providers who can compete with each other on price and service to the consumer.
Of course, that would majorly upset existing phone and cable monopolies, so it probably won’t happen any time soon.
Jorge Ortiz | 26-Oct-08 at 6:08 pm | Permalink
Also, you should probably link back to the original “web idea” post at the beginning of each new blog post, with a short description of what “web idea” means. If it’s in italics, the reader can distinguish this “meta” content from the “real” content that follows.
Lehrblogger | 09-Nov-08 at 3:37 am | Permalink
If the government owns the wires, are there consequent concerns about censorship of content? Or would the amount of control that the government has not change substantively either way?
Organizations of dissatisfied broadband customers could also lobby local governments to bring about this change. If the existing monopolies don’t want it to happen, and are exerting pressure on the federal government to prevent it, pressure from local constituents might make a difference.
Good idea re linking back with italics at the top – I’ve adopted it in subsequent posts.