American government is stupid

[maggieNomar 0]

If the government had half a brain they'd do more to look after the people.

It is not, nor should it be, government's job to "look after" people. The federal government's job is to look after the nation and create an environment where people CAN thrive, not to ensure that they DO thrive. Ensuring and promoting basic rights is a long way from ensuring and promoting every conceivable luxury or convenience that is possibly available to all people of the nation.

It's a total rip off being charged twice over and over again and I've the feeling most people here just expect it and pay for it?

If you are unhappy with the terms of service, do not use the service. If you think you can do better, then go into the business and offer the service on the terms you find more palatable.

I had an O2 mobile back home, pay as you go and it came with 300 free texts every month!! I never got charged a penny for an incoming call or text.. how much would you pay twice over here for that?

Nothing, because it's not a service I use.

Text messaging is not a utility or essential service, by even the biggest stretch of imagination. They should be able to charge whatever in the hell they want. If people find it too much, they will not buy the service. Lack of demand will reduce the price. This is called capitalism and it is SUPPOSED to be the economic system that we operate under. Even the USCIS says so (:

You must work for the government. While it is agreed that texting or even cell phones are not a necessity, you cannot control/ignore incoming txt like you can a phone call. I remember last Valentine's day some people were sending around a v-day message like it was an email forward. Not everyone has unlimited texting!!

[akdiver 3]

While it is agreed that texting or even cell phones are not a necessity, you cannot control/ignore incoming txt like you can a phone call. I remember last Valentine's day some people were sending around a v-day message like it was an email forward. Not everyone has unlimited texting!!

But you can:

a). Not get a cell phone.

B). Not get text messaging service with your cell phone.

c). Not give people your cell phone number, preventing them from sending you text messages

d). Not call anyone who has caller ID.

Using these steps - I have no problems at all with getting unwanted text messages.

[IAMX 3,055]

Aside from the basic freedom principle here - there is also the fact that people need a lot less in life than they think they do. They're convinced they simply must have this, that, or the other. Now, while that keeps the economy rolling, the fact is, we don't actually need the overwhelming majority of the ####### that is peddled to us. It's just a WANT. People WANT this that or the other, but they don't NEED it. This belief that our WANTS are actually NEEDS is what lead to the entitlement mentality that has brought this country to its knees.

I disagree about entitlement. Entitlement is for people who don't even want to work, let alone be educated.

The government regulation has nothing to do with entitlement, but a government check in economics that is even the prevailing mentality today behind saving Freddie and Fannie. The only funny thing is Republicans then turn around and talk about the free market when in reality they mean outsourcing. Stupid people of course lap this up and go "oh yeah, free market! capitalism!". No. Not really.

The whole idea behind capitalism is business interests first (bottom line), everything else second. Being a business major, I certainly know this in regards to the principles of micro and macroeconomics.

The whole idea behind the American idea of the market was for the consumer. The consumer makes a choice, and companies compete for their choice. That choice being to do business with them, via products and services. Now, with mergers and acquisitions going rampant, there becomes far less choice, and now the corporation can offer far less service for far more price. Consumer has just lost a good portion, if not all, of the "consumer-first" behind the market. Hence, why we have an FTC and antitrust laws. However, this administration has been great being in collusion with corporations, like AT&T, spying on Americans. AT&T provides services to tens if not a hundred million or more Americans. Now, knowing what they were doing, why can't people just simply jump to another POTS service? Oh yeah.. because of franchising agreements and the Bush administration allowing re-consolidation of the Bells. Remember the Bells? They were broken up because they were a monopoly and charging people out the ### for services, hindering growth and technology with attempts to clamp down on competitive pricing. Now, if you live in an AT&T service area, your only choice of POTS is AT&T, being the ILEC. There's no debate or CLEC anymore to compete with. If you're in Verizon territory (formerly a Bell), same thing. NSA colluded with them too. This is the very mark of corporate socialism, government colluding with corporation and/or corporation having far too much a say in government and rights, not free market.

Now, if you have little choice over who carries a certain area of your town, you are a student and want to set up a meeting with someone who's in class, you can't call them, because it would interrupt class. You can text message them. The problem is, of course, not to get charged up the ### for text (and we KNOW it doesn't cost much at all, whatsoever, to deliver 1kb or less of data) and be forced into bundling and 2-year commitments with ridiculous fees aimed at reducing competition by forcing one into a contract with bad service. The cell phone industry, much like cable, has got away with quite a bit. If it were not plausible to reasonably price text messaging service, why is Metro offering free unlimited texts with almost all of their plans? While some charge 10, 25, and 50 cents for delivering messages, and yes, some even charge for READING a message.

Because of the market going down the shitter, and because of more mergers and acquisitions, which result in far less competition, it is even more important for government to play a role in keeping the corporation in check.

I'm 100% sure once the FTC gets their heads out of their collective asses, well, out from the administration's ###, they will go after this. However, given their slowness of going toward forcing cable companies to give consumers a choice in channels, as in, not paying for an assload they don't want, need, or watch, it may be a few years off.

Edited September 10, 2008 by SRVT

[akdiver 3]

But at the end of the day - the consumer still has a choice - buy the service, or not. The problem is that the consumer once the service on the terms that THEY dictate, not the terms that the PROVIDER dictates.

As for local phone service - we have at least six choices:

a). Go with no service

B). Go with ACS (pots)

c). Go with AT&T (pots)

d). Go with GCI (pots)

e). Go with a VOIP solution (multiple providers to choose from)

f). Go with a cell phone solution (4 providers to choose from)

I dunno where this lack of choice comes from. Seems like if ole hick Alaska has some choice, the high and mighty rest of the U.S. should have some (:

[IAMX 3,055]

Nope, the rest of the nation doesn't when it comes to POTS. I'm pretty sure both AT&T Alascom and ACS, being both ILECs, do not share lines. I know without a doubt GCI is a CLEC and is at the behest of whichever ILEC they lease the lines from, hence, will often provide higher costing service since they at leasing it from AT&T Alascom or ACS.

Anyways, we have franchising laws (they call it an agreement, but I doubt consumers would agree to less competition) here which means states or cities have only one ILEC. Here in California it's either AT&T or Verizon, depending on the city, as they honored previous agreements. Only one. Which means your DSL goes through them too.

This is the consequence of such franchising laws:

http://www.geneva.il.us/att/ilhb1500.htm

You are lucky in that very few corporations care about Alaska.

Edited September 10, 2008 by SRVT

[akdiver 3]

Nope, the rest of the nation doesn't when it comes to POTS. I'm pretty sure both AT&T Alascom and ACS, being both ILECs, do not share lines. I know without a doubt GCI is a CLEC and is at the behest of whichever ILEC they lease the lines from, hence, will often provide higher costing service since they at leasing it from AT&T Alascom or ACS.

My understand is that, in Anchorage at least, ACS owns the infrastructure and everyone else leases from them. ACS is always bitching about how it is forced to provide wholesales rates that are too low. In any event - price is a different issue. We were talking about choices. And here at least - one has a lot of choice (:

Anyways, we have franchising laws (they call it an agreement, but I doubt consumers would agree to less competition) here which means states or cities have only one ILEC. Here in California it's either AT&T or Verizon, depending on the city, as they honored previous agreements. Only one. Which means your DSL goes through them too.

So - government interfering with a free market.

You are lucky in that very few corporations care about Alaska.

Hey, at least three of them care enough to provide local phone service to Anchorage (: And we've got at least 4 local cell phone providers. Plenty of choice and care from corporations there too (:

Don't get me wrong - I've got no love of these people. I think they all suck (:

Edited September 10, 2008 by akdiver

[Sheriff Uling 3]

Can someone close and remove this thread...?

[akdiver 3]

Can someone close and remove this thread...?

Why?

Yo holmes, if you don't like it, don't read it.

[IAMX 3,055]

Nope, the rest of the nation doesn't when it comes to POTS. I'm pretty sure both AT&T Alascom and ACS, being both ILECs, do not share lines. I know without a doubt GCI is a CLEC and is at the behest of whichever ILEC they lease the lines from, hence, will often provide higher costing service since they at leasing it from AT&T Alascom or ACS.

My understand is that, in Anchorage at least, ACS owns the infrastructure and everyone else leases from them. ACS is always bitching about how it is forced to provide wholesales rates that are too low. In any event - price is a different issue. We were talking about choices. And here at least - one has a lot of choice (:

AT&T bought ILEC rights by acquiring Alascom. They were quite a bit late into the fray, so it isn't a memeber of the RBOC. So you were saved the honor of dealing with the AT&T supergiant, the subsequent breaking up by the government, then the government allowing it to reform again shortly after, but now in collusion with it.

So - government interfering with a free market.

I'd say they are, when it best suits them. There's no consistency at all to this besides getting funds/vacations/lavish parties. From both two major political parties.

Hey, at least three of them care enough to provide local phone service to Anchorage (: And we've got at least 4 local cell phone providers. Plenty of choice and care from corporations there too (:

Depends on if they operate on different spectrums, otherwise it interferes with another's spectrum and the roaming charges become pretty costly. Nonetheless, being in big town USA I have no problem with reception until I go to my alma mater in smalltown USA.

Can someone close and remove this thread...?

Um, why?

[akdiver 3]

AT&T bought ILEC rights by acquiring Alascom. They were quite a bit late into the fray, so it isn't a memeber of the RBOC. So you were saved the honor of dealing with the AT&T supergiant, the subsequent breaking up by the government, then the government allowing it to reform again shortly after, but now in collusion with it.

I regard the federal government's destruction of AT&T as a crime - so, no luck there (:

Depends on if they operate on different spectrums, otherwise it interferes with another's spectrum and the roaming charges become pretty costly.

Yeah, I dunno about all of that. We had AT&T wireless at some point, but they sold out to Cellular One. Recently, they bought out Cellular One, and now AT&T wireless is back. Seems like they can't make up their mind. Now, GCI was repackaging and selling Cell One service under their own name. GCI still works up here after the AT&T buyout, so I assume that either they worked out a similar deal with AT&T, or AT&T just has to put up with them under the terms of the Cell One agreement, for however long it lasts. Those are the two GSM providers. The other two providers are ACS and Alaska Digital. I dunno what technology they use, but it's not GSM. I also don't think one is re-branding the other's service - I think they're really independent. But they don't use GSM, so I don't care - I'd never use their service anyway.

[Sheriff Uling 3]

Can someone close and remove this thread...?

Why?

Yo holmes, if you don't like it, don't read it.

If you don't like my comment, don't reply to it. By the by, I'm not your holmes or anyone else's.

[akdiver 3]

If you don't like my comment, don't reply to it. By the by, I'm not your holmes or anyone else's.

Yo holmes, I love your comment. I honoured it with a reply!

Don't be hatin' now.

Edited September 10, 2008 by akdiver

[IAMX 3,055]

AT&T bought ILEC rights by acquiring Alascom. They were quite a bit late into the fray, so it isn't a memeber of the RBOC. So you were saved the honor of dealing with the AT&T supergiant, the subsequent breaking up by the government, then the government allowing it to reform again shortly after, but now in collusion with it.

I regard the federal government's destruction of AT&T as a crime - so, no luck there (:

Nononono, it didn't destroy AT&T, it broke it up. That's why you see Qwest and Verizon, for instance. Also, previously, Bellsouth, Pacbell, Nevada Bell, etc etc. It was part of the FTC thing about a monopoly not playing by the economic rules every other company plays by. Then again, we favor others in other circumstances, like no-bid contracts. This is just a mess.

Yeah, I dunno about all of that. We had AT&T wireless at some point, but they sold out to Cellular One. Recently, they bought out Cellular One, and now AT&T wireless is back. Seems like they can't make up their mind. Now, GCI was repackaging and selling Cell One service under their own name. GCI still works up here after the AT&T buyout, so I assume that either they worked out a similar deal with AT&T, or AT&T just has to put up with them under the terms of the Cell One agreement, for however long it lasts. Those are the two GSM providers. The other two providers are ACS and Alaska Digital. I dunno what technology they use, but it's not GSM. I also don't think one is re-branding the other's service - I think they're really independent. But they don't use GSM, so I don't care - I'd never use their service anyway.

Hah, this is so funny. I'm in Silicon Valley and some dude in Alaska has more choice of *LECs and cell phone providers than I do.

[akdiver 3]

Nononono, it didn't destroy AT&T, it broke it up. That's why you see Qwest and Verizon, for instance. Also, previously, Bellsouth, Pacbell, Nevada Bell, etc etc. It was part of the FTC thing about a monopoly not playing by the economic rules every other company plays by. Then again, we favor others in other circumstances, like no-bid contracts. This is just a mess.

I guess. But we can agree to disagree (:

Hah, this is so funny. I'm in Silicon Valley and some dude in Alaska has more choice of *LECs and cell phone providers than I do.

Yeah, the competition is quite robust - but the prices still suck. We have three choices for local phone service, 4 choices for cell phone service, one choice for cable tv&cable modem, one choice for DSL (so you have the choice between cable modem and DSL), two choices for satellite tv (so you can choose between no, antenna, cable or sat tv), and probably some other stuff. But recently I saw something that said for broadband at least, we're slow and expensive relative to the rest of the US. Now, to some degree, that's to be expected. Smaller customer base, higher expenses, so higher consumer cost is going to be the result. Geographic difficulties (oceans, mountains, thousands of miles from the next closest state, that sort of thing) probably explains the slower bandwidth issues. Nevertheless, my understand is that Anchorage is considered relatively advanced and wired as far as these things go, relative to cities of a similar size in the rest of the US. But you won't hear about this with the Palin/McCain Obama/Biden war (:

[Sheriff Uling 3]

If you don't like my comment, don't reply to it. By the by, I'm not your holmes or anyone else's.

Yo holmes, I love your comment. I honoured it with a reply!

Don't be hatin' now.

If you have notice kind Sir, I have not attempted to dishonor you as you have me with the holmes comment. I simply take offense to title of your thread because I'm a patriot (not that you are not). I do not have priveledges in this forum, but if this thread was within one that I do moderate, I'd lock and remove it.

So I guess that you are fortunate...

Cheers...

Sheriff Uling