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RE: TV and Internet
Not correct, thomasmnile. The California Public Utilities Commission regulates traditional wireline telecommunications facilities and services in California and is also the state video franchising authority in California. Your state, OP’s state may or may not.
Regulation of Cable/Satellite Providers
Reread the OP's post. Appears they are referring to their part time residence in Florida. Ultimate regulation of the provider is FCC. In Florida locally, it's the city or county government, and all they do is negotiate franchise agreements which these cable providers or their predecessors (since they have changed hands many times over the year and absorbed by Big Cable). I can tell you from experience ranting to the franchise grantors is a fundamental waste of time. Gotta keep the franchise fees and taxes (state and local) coming. State PSC here does electric utilities (private, not municipally owned), legacy wireline phone companies (who has that?) gas utilites, and pipeline transmission companies. No state oversight that I'm aware of in 5 decades living here.
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thomasmnile
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10/11/22 02:58pm |
Technology Corner
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RE: TV and Internet
Cable providers are regulated by the FCC, not locally. OP: Are you 100% fiber from the street, into your community and to your home? The blinding download speeds advertised by providers are at the ethernet ports on the modem (if so equipped). The WiFi speeds are maybe half or so the 'wired' speed on a good day, and are dependent on how many devices are active within your home. What speeds comes through the wire to the modem are also traffic volume dependent.
By way of example, we have Spectrum, who now touts download speeds "up to" 300 mbps. Haven't seen it yet, we've had 200 mbps service before the upgrade to 300, never saw better than 180-ish at an ethernet port on the router (checked once by a Spectrum tech). Our WiFi speeds (equipment is a Spectrum owned Modem/Router combo) are typically 112-150 mbps down, 8-12 mbps up. WiFi can indeed be glitchy, ours is frequently. However, Spectrum's marketing and disclaimers cover their butts quite thoroughly and the CSR's in their call centers are quick to recite them when you have an Internet problem and they remotely peer into your home setup and pronounce all is well. With Spectrum, their service (in many but not areas) is fiber to the street, coax into our apartment complex, and RG-59 coax (so last century, the complex is nearly 40 years old) into the individual apartments. Better than dialup, but the technology within the buildings will never allow for the full benefit of fiber technology.
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thomasmnile
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10/10/22 05:18pm |
Technology Corner
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RE: The impact of Ian...
Some of the collateral effects of old Ian and the biblical rainfall he visited on much of Central Florida:
Failure of a number of water and sewage infrastructure facilities around the area. The City of Orlando has a restrict water usage order in effect, meaning they pretty much don't want you putting any water down any drain that connects to the sewer system. A 36" sewage force main transporting wastewater from 3 pump stations around the city failed catastrophically early Sunday morning. We experienced an 8" water main and 30" stormwater drain failure directly in front of our apartment Friday night, complete with a car that drove into the hole because the lighting is so dim he couldn't tell what was in front of him; no water geyser.
Given that Florida is fundamentally atop a limestone "sponge" and the subsurface soils are currently like oatmeal (especially the interior), I fear as the groundwater table lowers and things dry out, there's gonna be a whole lot of sinkholes going on.....and more water/sewer/stormwater/ natural gas line failures; or simply the earth moving under our feet.
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thomasmnile
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10/04/22 12:52pm |
Snowbirds
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