Minn. Supreme Court Upholds City's Right To Build Own Network

BcNexus writes with news from Minnesota that may have significance for cities around the US where municipal networks are either in place or planned: "Here's the latest development in a fight pitting a telecommunication company against government competition. The telco, TDS, took its fight all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court because it thought the city had no right to serve people's internet, voice and television needs with its own network, but has failed." Also from Minnesota today, BcNexus writes "The State of Minnesota was the first to blink and chose to avoid a court showdown when it dropped its attempt to block online gambling sites."

Free markets

[dburkland]

I'm all for free Markets but the current Internet situation in Minnesota is pathetic. If the people want better service and are willing to fork out the dough let them however this project (if it gets off the ground) has a huge chance of failing like the many other attempts at Municipal Internet.

public broadcasting

[sgt scrub]

Public access to the WWW should be a part of the public broadcasting system for the same reasons information should be freely available to a free people. This, of course, assumes that citizens of the U.S. are still a free people.

Also

[DaMattster]

Even if the Minnesota Supreme Court had ruled against a city-owned and run network there are other ways around it. Be clever, start a non-profit ISP and have them build out the network. Fund it through the ubiquitous government grants that the Obama Administration is giving out towards increasing broadband penetration. Also, fund it through city "Technology" grants. The neat thing about legal loopholes is that they sometimes backfire against those that exploit them.

Re:Free markets

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Most of the failed Muni internet setups have been attempts at wide-area wifi. I'd be more inclined toward optimism when it comes to fiber deployments. Wide-area wifi is, unfortunately, a huge pain in the ass. The idea is attractive; but making the tech actually work is a serious headache, at best. Fiber, on the other hand, works pretty well.

I'm not especially interested in having the government be my ISP(once you get to the peering point, let the market sort it out); but I'd love to seem them handle the "last mile" part of the connection with the same efficiency that they've handled my current municipal utilities.

Broadband wireless starts to look good

[bzzfzz]

Internet connectivity in Minnesota is so bad that broadband wireless service, with its slow speed, download caps, and unpredictable coverage, is still an improvement.

Re:Free markets

[poetmatt]

They have this pretty damn well planned. I would not assume this will die especially with the competitive pricing they were originally talking about. It was like $100/mo for a triple-play at 100MB/s or something if I recall correctly. Also they have plenty of the smart enterprising type (ones with actually ethics to boot) behind this whole thing.

You can tell that this has great potential from 2 things:

1: the doublespeak from the non-muni: "The lack of judicial action on the part of the (Minnesota) Supreme Court will likely discourage other private enterprises from doing or expanding their business in Minnesota".

Anyone who screams about lost business when the only lost business is their own, is full of shit.

2:supreme court basically just nullified any potential to enforce a franchise agreement here, and didn't buy the telco BS.. That is huge for good business and this case will expand far outside the state (and has a lot of coverage at the top of google results today too). I guarantee you this has an enormous country-wide impact.

Re:Free markets

[kirillian]

I work in Lincoln, NE. Fiber is offered - by Time Warner Cable only. However, 10 years ago, before Time Warner Cable even laid fiber line, another company LES (Lincoln's municipal electric company) already had a fiber network over the entire city and was planning to offer it to customers. Time Warner lobbied the state legislature to make the use of said fiber illegal. Now everyone is paying Time Warner's lobbying bill back since Time Warner's internet offers are the only viable options for the area...and their pricing is extremely competitive - $35 a month for 1.5mbps down.../sarcasm.

Television

[rm999]

"it thought the city had no right to serve people's internet, voice and television needs with its own network"

I think there is an argument to be made that the city shouldn't be serving television, especially anything public access. With internet and phone the user has full control over the service (assuming a non-tampered connection), but the choice of television stations is highly subjective and could be biased by politicians/bureaucrats. Because the city service will likely be (at least indirectly) subsidized by the tax payer, it may put companies that offer a less biased channel selection under a lot of pressure. This is a bad thing.

Re:Fail?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let's see, Philadelphia owns a monopoly water utility, and it's a giant patronage pit, contantly looses money, and thinks that the best way to deal with dead beats is to raise the rates for those who do pay.

Philadelphia has a monopoly gas utility, and it's a giant patronage pit, constantly looses money, and thinks that the way to deal with dead beats is to raise rates for those who do pay (oh, and by the way, former mayor John Street was one of those dead beats for years when he was in city council. Also a tax dead beat, it turns out. He only paid up when the newspapers asked him about it...)

Then there's electricity. Philadelphia doesn't run that, Exelon does. They seem to make money, and also seem to go after dead beats. However, state Senator Vince Fumo managed to put the squeeze on them to the tune of many millions for his captive non-profit (for not screwing with them via the public utilities commission). On the other hand, he's now facing 20+ years in jail; you make the call.

Wyandotte MI has it's own utilities

[AppleTwoGuru]

Wyandotte MI is a self-sustaining city. It has it's own power, water, cable-tv, and probably it's own internet (wired or wireless) http://www.wyandotte.net/ [wyandotte.net] in spite of the fact Detroit or Detroit companies hold a monopoly on most utilities in the area. When the Detroit utilities want to muscle communities in the area, where Wyandotte holds it's own, they laugh. Comcast is especially upset that Wyandotte had cable even before cable was available anywhere. Comcast can't touch it like they do in the Downriver Area. It is evident you know Wyandotte Cable has been around when the software for the teleprompter stops, and it shows 'Amiga OS 3.9' somewhere on the screen. The power of independence.