Is Competition More Effective than Net Neutrality?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 15th Aug 2010 20:28 UTC
Internet & Networking Lots of talk on net neutrality this week, mostly due to the joint policy proposal from Google and Verzion. While many Americans are calling for government-imposed net neutrality rules, The New York Times' Eric Pfanner proposes a different solution - one that has been working wonders in Europe. And hey, what a coincidence - I'm European!
E-mail Print r 5   · Read More · 50 Comment(s) http://osne.ws/ia0
Thread beginning with comment 437008
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[2]: Sweden
by olefiver on Mon 16th Aug 2010 11:04 UTC in reply to "RE: Sweden"
olefiver
Member since:
2008-04-04

Please correct me if I am wrong, but switching ISP in Europe is not as easy as you guys make it seem. The fierce competition has made them offer long-term contracts only, with heavy penalties for early termination. So yes, at first, when you are not yet committed, choosing a provider is easy. But once you do, you are tied for at least the first year, and to switch you have to either prove you are relocating outside their coverage or to wait for the contract term to run out. (Well, at least they accept relocation as an excuse. In the US you often can't get away with that and have to pay the penalty regardless.) Or you pay the penalty, which is large enough to make it lucrative for the provider and unpleasant for you. I seem to recall hearing that often it is larger than the strict equivalent of the remaining months in the contract, which gives the provider a nice little bonus.

Worked for an ISP in Norway.
The cost for early termination of an one year contract (regardless of ADSL line speed etc, you where only binded for one year), was about NOK 1.000,-
Which on the smallest contract was around 3 or 4 months of monthly fees.

If you had an ADSL line from an ISP, there was generally no cost to change provider, provided the one year binding was over.

And the ISPs handled the provider change, generally no massive paperwork for the customer required to change ISP.

Though, all of the above only applied for ADSL lines.
ISP using coax/cable is a different story.

Reply Parent Score: 1