> The New York law requiring Internet providers to offer cheap plans to people with low incomes will take effect on Wednesday this week following a multi-year court battle in which the state defeated broadband industry lobby groups.
I don't like these types of mandates because it distorts the market. Politicians get to say "we provided X people with internet service and we didn't use a dollar of tax payers' money". Which sounds nice, but you can't really get something for nothing. This will increase costs for ISPs and likely increase prices for others. How much? Who knows!
If politicians feel that low income New Yorkers deserve reduced cost or free internet, give them a voucher for internet. Better yet, figure out how much of a voucher they would need and give them a check. Let them decide whether they want to buy internet, or better food or housing or whatever else. Or if you go the voucher router, giving them options lets ISPs compete for this. Don't think taxpayers should pay? Make a special ISP tax and give it to these people to make it budget neutral.
Not to mention the red tape and abuse this will create. I really don't want me ISP to track my income.
What they decided on is the worst possible option as it results in hidden costs and bad incentives. The only people its good for (compared to the alternatives), is politicians who can by dictate just seemingly create free things for people for no cost.
This does not increase the cost to ISPs.
It does marginally decrease their profits.
A profit is not a cost, and despite what finance bros think lower profits are also not a cost.
It is perfectly possible to supply 1000Mbps symmetrical fiber service to end users for $20/mo because numerous self-sufficient non-profit municipal broadband organizations in the United States are doing just that.
This is 2.5% the capacity for 75% the money. If ISPs can't figure out how to do that profitably, they deserve to fail.
After several decades of taking public money to build out their networks, ISPs can give back a little by very slightly lowering their margins when serving low income residents.
> I don't like these types of mandates because it distorts the market.
Internet access is more or less a “natural monopoly” because of right of way issues and cost to build just like electricity and gas and water. Those things have always been regulated and had price controls.
> Politicians get to say "we provided X people with internet service and we didn't use a dollar of tax payers' money". Which sounds nice, but you can't really get something for nothing. This will increase costs for ISPs and likely increase prices for others. How much? Who knows!
And what happens when ISPs can charge whatever they want - again a natural monopoly - should the subsidies increase,
This is a lot of words. Do you think Internet should be a utility, or not? Obviously: yes. You enjoy water, schools, roads and power. Trash removal in NYC is free, and it's better for that community than being private. But also, you work in tech or something. More customers, less money being paid on meaningless rents. And fuck Comcast, right? Think critically. We don't need ISPs, and little about that ecosystem resulted in innovation that mattered historically.
Internet is a utility, like water.
We can't have true competition with utilities, because we'd need six sets of pipes into every apartment just to have six competing providers, so the government needs to step in and regulate utilities, because they are a natural monopoly.
> Which sounds nice, but you can't really get something for nothing.
This is hyperbole. First, nobody's getting something for nothing. Second, the eligibility is limited. Besides, this is hardly the first time a price regulation has been applied to a failing market.
> I really don't want me ISP to track my income.
Then don't apply for the discount.
Right on! You're not even covering the half of it. Incumbent dinosaur ISPs will fight this kicking and screaming, but after they have their tantrums they will embrace it because it keeps new competition out of the market. This general pattern of "unfunded mandates" creates time bombs that become entrenched and impossible to fix (look at the catastrophe of the healthcare industry)
If you want to actually screw big cable (and you should), support the direct action of municipal fiber. The funds for the build out don't even need to come from the general tax fund - with the popularity of such services in 2025, municipal bonds are more than sufficient.
Commercial ISPs are a 1980s idea when few people wanted the service.
Municipal networks, even if last mile only, are the only sensible modern approach where everyone deserves to have access to the service.
Then you can layer different national providers on the framework for individual and commercial contract service and then you can realistically talk about a municipally operated "best effort" /free/ service for everyone else and for those who cannot afford anything.
The market is already distorted by the telephone and cable companies being granted local monopolies.
Vouchers don't work since the ISPs will just raise the price to take into account the increased purchasing power.
Just adding the burden to the ISPs of offering service at a fixed price will let ISPs compete for who can do it the most efficiently and raise the prices for other customers the least.
But in general I agree with the concept of "just give people enough money so they can afford a base standard cost of living", but in the US specifically that seems very anathema to the culture, they're always trying to control how poor people spend their money (see "food stamps" something I've never seen anywhere else) so unless you do the same thing across the board, just giving one single targeted handout will not have the desired effect.
What hidden costs? Taxes? Probably the top 5 thing I'd love my taxes to go to.
I think the downsides will be obvious: their internet is super cheap but not really fast. In other words, not too dissimilar to 3/4/5g plans with phones almost everyone has. No one's gonna be streaming Netflix and any Youtube over 360p on this plan.
If we're arguing that the Internet is a public need, then I don't see the downsides here. use slow internet to get lower income people on their feet. They hopefully rise up and then grab jobs that can allow better internet in the long term.
Subsidising doesn't make the market more efficient. As a capitalist American you should have said "we need more competition!"
In France Free dropped the price from something like 45$ to 15$/month, and then they did the same with mobile plans and a 2$/month plan that still exist today.
Recently the senate invited the CEO and asked them why they don't increase their prices. The CEO got mad at them for even asking the question, being proud of proposing low prices while still making a lot of money gave back a lot of consumption power to the people according to them
What will actually increase costs for others is the ISPs deciding to raising prices.
Problem solved - AT&T just announced that they're no longer supplying home internet in NY.
Is there a real market? I'm not int the US, but from reading things like these when they come up, people usually complain about the lack of choice. No competition, no market. No market, there is nothing to distort.
but the Internet is free once the infrastructures base costs have been paid.
> Price increases are to be capped at 2 percent per year, and state officials will periodically review whether minimum required speeds should be raised.
2% is below current inflation rates, so this could potentially go haywire super easily.
New York has been here before; the subway was fixed to a nickel for four decades, which ended up bankrupting the private subway companies and set the stage for the underfunded, deferred maintenance of future decades, which New York is still working through the backlog for nearly a hundred years later.
While I agree that people getting internet in this day and age is _basically_ a necessity (and thus the govt should interfere when needed to make that happen), doing it in this way is the worse possible implementation. Was it necessary in this case? I don't know.
First, foster competition. I don't know the NY landscape, but in the West Coast, it's not uncommon for a residency to have effectively a single option for ISP. Ensure consumers have options (incentivize creation of new ISPs? Stop allowing big corporations to buy small ones? break up big corporations and force them to compete?)
Second could the government offer public internet? (ie, be a player in the market).
Only as a last resort should these types of heavy hand price enforcements should be taken.
Internet access is so important it should be available for low or no cost to basically everyone. Price caps like this are a half-assed fix because the providers are incentivized to make finding, ordering and having that service as painful as possible.
It's a bit like rental price controls. Look at all the vacant rent stabilized units in NYC. The real solution to housing is for the government to provide housing, not force discounts onto the private sector.
The real solution to this is for municipal broadband for the last mile. There is absolutely no reason why Internet access is as expensive as it is in the US. The only reason is rent-seeking national ISPs.
This is fantastic. We need more controls like this to put the screws on the obscenities that are modern telecoms. What would be the next great step to take is to mandate local loop unbundling like was done with copper. The fiber should be publically owned and privately owned providers have the option of a handoff to deliver their service over that local loop. But I'll take one minor win at a time.
Hopefully the users most interested in these benefits can start to get them as soon as possible. Any bit helps for those where $20 is actually a big stretch.
> New York Public Service Commission Chair Rory Christian last week issued an order stating that the law will take effect on January 15.
> $15 broadband plans with download speeds of at least 25Mbps, or $20-per-month service with 200Mbps speeds.
This looks like it will be applied statewide. Not sure if remote parts of the state can handle such heavy connections.
How about we just get rid of entrenched local monopolies instead? All this is doing is legalizing them.
>"any recurring taxes and fees such as recurring rental fees for service provider equipment required to obtain broadband service and usage fees.
Where I am (outside NY) low income broadband is a thing, and the taxes and fees are included in the $15/~$25 a major telecom provider offers. The alternative provider to them advertises a $20 month special, but when you check into it the taxes and fees for that provider add on about 100% to the bill. Advertised mbps in the US, is sort of another sorely needed conversation.
Didn’t see in the article what they define as “low income”. As a general rule of thumb I don’t like government and bureaucracy interfering with free market, however I see the potential benefits here. Glad they excluded smaller ISPs with less than 20k customers.
200Mbps is barely enough for TV streaming if you are on Comcast (Xfinity). You need 500.
I have tried 300 and had issues once in a while, 500 works fine. That is because with Comcast, you will never get 200Mbps, no matter what the plan, at least were I live.
This article brings way more questions than it answers like:
1. Starlink has more than 20K customers, can I get Starlink at home?
2. A) What if I live somewhere remote and the nearest cable is 20 miles from home?
B) If Verizon has cable but I want Xfinity, should they be forced to dig 20 miles to my home?
C) I am waiting more than 14 days for this 20-mile cable to come to my home and I am running out of patience. How long can they stall this?
4. If someone is already locked into a long-term contract with a higher price, can they switch immediately to the $15 plan without penalty?
5. Will the $15 plan include unlimited data, or can ISPs impose data caps? So far in the article I saw only bandwidth requirements—no mention of data caps or latency.
6. What happens to customers if their ISP gets an exemption after initially offering the $15/$20 plan?
I am sure the lawmakers had good (PR) intentions here, and probably my questions are already answered, but this article is in pure Ars style.
I'm not even from the USA, I'm just curious how these things work.
Edit: Formatting and swapped ISP names in the examples