And talking about compression technology. What does that even mean? You sound like the old doorman at my building when describing our business. They do COMPUTER STUFF. lol. Are you talking about taking source video changing it’s format to fit broadcast television. Hate to nub you up with that but everything is compressed unless you’re working straight off of D-beta tapes in a deck which never happens unless you’re a client in my edit suite watching what I’m cutting up. Or your source files are avi’s and some moron is streaming that to you at the cost of insane bandwidth. You’re off your rocker if you think nothing is encoded into another format and compressed in the process then sent out to end users. Comcast does in fact compress the crap outta it’s product (which I hate) but it’s due to the analog signals still on the digital streams to the users and lack of bandwidth because it eats up so much. The hope is that it changes with the switch but if we’ll see a better product that’s up to comcast’s encoding process’s. CMC or comcast media center, is a joke. Their turn around process on any content is laughable 2 weeks to output me a flv? Please I can real time that shit. I cant imagine them changing their encoding profile settings to be upped to multiple passes or output at a higher resolution for many many many months after the switch occurs. Whatever.

I’m tired now

Verizon may redline, but Comcast caps bandwidth.

@ Expat

I’m relatively sure that intent of this thread was to pose Verizon against Comcast – not do ascertain our constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of fiber-optic cable. But if you want to go that route, I’m with friendlynerd and Impaler. There is no fundamental right to premium services offered by private companies. The Comcast author would have you believe that denied access to FIOS is tantamount to being ‘cut off from the world.’ You would have us believe that that denied access to FIOS is tantamount to a life sentence of dial-up. I call bullshit on both counts.

As FIOS is offered as competition to Comcast cable then Verizon thereby forfeits any potential costumers/profits to Comcast – who is, presumably, not redlining those same neighborhoods [Doubt it; I bet it took Comcast a good long time to provide cable to those same neighborhoods. On a side note, I would prefer to hear a Verizon employee discuss the extent to which Verizon employs redlining]. If neither of these despicable corporations would step up and provide reasonably fast-working internet to poor neighborhoods, I would hope that the government would step in force them to do so in a manner which does not favor one corporation over the other.

I will not argue against universal right to access to the internet. Ideally, internet would, indeed, be deemed a vital utility and would be completely socialized [John Lightstone: hollah!]. I will however argue that a private company is, in no way, obligated to provide premium services to a demographic that they deem to be “not worth it.” To imply Verizon is therefore evil in comparison to Comcast is downright silly.

@ Whimsy:

Yeah, I’m a jerk. I admit it. I would love to be proven wrong – but even a substantial portion of the class that isn’t redlined wouldn’t actually use the technology for academically/culturally enriching endeavors.

Access to media can be just as detrimental as helpful – see fox news channel.

Arguing for mandated high-speed internet is pointless unless I reference and praise existing organizations that do exactly that. Tautologically brilliant I suppose.

Old laws aren’t worth referencing because they’re old and therefor worthy of derision.

And, I shouldn’t point out what actually is a liberal position because you don’t know my bona fides.

As for “Very big of you, yourself.” Tres original! I expected more really.

Besides, it’d be pretty to think we here in the comment thread in Philebrity could institute legislative change; but leadership on this issue doesn’t come from castigation.
Seriously, expat, if you wanted to be helpful and not just fly off on your interlocutors with a flurry of typed middle fingers, you could point to the considerable amount of organizations in Philly that work on media access issues, some to national acclaim. All I was saying, is your citation of Tenessee Valley Authority era laws doesn’t really help in the situation, particularly if you don’t actively call for change, preferring to shame your audience.

Very big of you, yourself.

You all are bitching about the difference between Verizon making a fucking killing or a slightly bigger one.

Very big of you.

How many here are/were into throwing wi-fi up throughout the city? Probably a good amount.

@friendlynerd

The point isn’t that you can’t access the internet at all. The point is that the internet is as invaluable today as phone was at one point. And given the way the internet is constructed dial-up doesn’t cut it. Fuck DSL doesn’t cut it. In 5-10 years all the compression you can squeeze down a coaxial won’t cut it either.

@C. The Impaler

You conveniently use an obscure loophole to the “remoteness” part of the Federal mandate to attack the “poverty” angle we are speaking about in regards to poor neighborhoods in Philadelphia…sorry but it doesn’t cut the mustard in this case.

You are correct in asserting that there is no present communications law to mandate good internet access. However, my point was not that the existing laws necessarily mandate it, but that there should be such laws to make it so. And that it’s not very liberal to defer to Verizon’s profit margin when a vital utility is in question.

Again, given the nature of internet, those without access to high-speed service will soon have access to very little.

Mama mia, that’s a feculent rainbow!