Virginia 'Broadband Deployment Act' Would Kill Municipal Broadband Deployment (arstechnica.com) 200
Virginia lawmakers are considering a bill called the "Virginia Broadband Deployment Act," but instead of resulting in more broadband deployment, the legislation would make it more difficult for municipalities to offer Internet service. From a report: The Virginia House of Delegates legislation proposed this week by Republican lawmaker Kathy Byron would prohibit municipal broadband deployments except in very limited circumstances. Among other things, a locality wouldn't be allowed to offer Internet service if an existing network already provides 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds to 90 percent of potential customers. That speed threshold is low enough that it can be met by old DSL lines in areas that haven't received more modern cable and fiber networks. Even if that condition is met, a city or town would have to jump through a few hoops before offering service. The municipality would have to pay for a "comprehensive broadband assessment," and then issue a request for proposals giving for-profit ISPs six months to submit a plan for broadband deployment. After receiving proposals from private ISPs, the local government would have to determine whether providing grants or subsidies to a private ISP would be more cost-effective than building a municipal broadband network.
Hey, cable companies: (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't even do as well as the government, you don't deserve to be in business.
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The government can subsidize the costs and offer service for well below the actual costs, which is unfair competition.
The issue in high costs with broadband come from partial or complete monopolies of ISPs. ISPs like Comcast can charge whatever they want in many areas because they are the only viable option.
In order to reduce costs, the government can help introduce competition. When many companies offer similar service, they compete for customers in price and customers win. I really like this idea in Vi
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to reduce costs, the government can help introduce competition.
Here is how to do it: When trenching the streets, install a wide (12" or more) PUBLICLY OWNED conduit pipe. Then allow any bonded provider to run cable or fiber through that pipe for a small standard fee. Since 99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching, this will make the market far more competitive.
Imagine how competitive the package delivery business would be if FedEx, UPS, and USPS each had to build their own network of roads? A single network of publicly owned roads fixes that problem, and allows competition to thrive. We can do the same with cable conduits.
Re: Hey, cable companies: (Score:2)
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Here is how to do it: When trenching the streets, install a wide (12" or more) PUBLICLY OWNED conduit pipe. Then allow any bonded provider to run cable or fiber through that pipe for a small standard fee. Since 99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching, this will make the market far more competitive.
Why bother? Copper and coax are quite clearly inferior solutions for new deployment and laying down a 12" pipe would be a huge cost, just lay down a fiber to the nearest central and let companies compete for what boxes they want to put on the ends. Put out a bid with a reasonable residential SLA for line maintenance, make sure the penalties are sufficient for good service.
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. Government is bad. Any idea that involves government is bad. In cases where the government consistently does something better and cheaper than private industry (like health care in every other first world country), government is still bad because government is bad.
What's important is that you conclude that government is bad first, and then figure out how you'll reach that conclusion. Otherwise, you may actually come to a different conclusion in some cases, which would be wrong, because government is bad.
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One way to prove that government is bad is to eliminate government funding, create gridlock, spread misinformation about government, and so forth until the government actually is bad. Republicans are on the cusp of perfecting this technique.
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Exactly. Government is bad. Any idea that involves government is bad. In cases where the government consistently does something better and cheaper than private industry (like health care in every other first world country), government is still bad because government is bad.
What's important is that you conclude that government is bad first, and then figure out how you'll reach that conclusion. Otherwise, you may actually come to a different conclusion in some cases, which would be wrong, because government is bad.
You are a God among men.
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Exactly. Government is bad. Any idea that involves government is bad. In cases where the government consistently does something better and cheaper than private industry (like health care in every other first world country), government is still bad because government is bad.
What's important is that you conclude that government is bad first, and then figure out how you'll reach that conclusion. Otherwise, you may actually come to a different conclusion in some cases, which would be wrong, because government is bad.
You have it all wrong. Government is bad, expect when it pass regulations that protect my business model or job. Then it is most excellent.
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:4, Interesting)
Improper Government is bad. Just that most modern governements are involved in way more than they should be (arresting people for serving food to the homeless??? WTF??)
My solution is much more simple. Government manages not just the Conduit, but the actual Fiber in it. Bring it all back to a COLO facility where the competition happens. The "cable" companies no longer control the cable, only the content. And since each customer can get the services they want, from the provider(s) they want, it is all open to anyone who want access to those customers. All they need is a feed from the COLO to whatever they are offering.
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But there needs to be ONE network on which all providers provide the service. Just like water and electricity.
I know that's basically what you meant, just stating it explicitly for the trolls
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:5, Insightful)
Just what we need.... an expansion of government powers and responsibilities. Did you learn nothing from the last election?
My municipal water system is cheaper and far more reliable than my internet service. In the past 10 years, I can't remember a single unscheduled outage of water service, and scheduled outages for water infrastructure improvements are rare and are announced months in advance (often with public hearings years in advance) and generally only lasted a couple hours.
If that's the kind of service I can expect from government owned conduit, I say bring it on.
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My municipal water system is cheaper and far more reliable than my internet service...
Two problems with your assertion:
1) If governments tightly regulated ISP pricing and behavior like they do the local water utility, you might have had a workable analogy.
2) Two words: Flint, Michigan.
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My municipal water system is cheaper and far more reliable than my internet service.
I think there is a significant difference in the infrastructure between the two. You can't tell the difference between water molecules that come out your tap, but you desperately need the packet addressed to you to be the one coming out your internet tap, for one thing.
If the municipality owned and maintained the conduit as the grandparent poster suggested, what's the significant difference between owning and managing empty pipes compared to owning and managing water filled pipes?
In the past 10 years, I can't remember a single unscheduled outage of water service,
Happens in my town on a semi-regular basis. Some nudge ran into a fire hydrant and cracked a pipe last week, taking out an entire block of water users, for example. Collapsed pipes that weren't maintained properly (because it was a government function to maintain them and they spent the money on less important, more visible things) several times last summer.
I don't doubt it happens but does it happen as often as the regular internet outages I see from Comcast?
If that's the kind of service I can expect from government owned conduit, I say bring it on.
You will happily force others to pay for your happiness, it seems. The ends do not always justify the means.
Well no, I expect that the customers of the service (i.e. me) will pay for it through access fees charged to the ISP's.
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And if your water supply is not broadband enough to support bluegrass, you can always resort to drip irrigation.
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:4, Insightful)
From the standard arguments of small government that I've heard, this sounds like a very bad thing. Shouldn't the People vote on these things through their small municipal government, where your vote buys you more substantial representation? (It looks like the smallest city in Virginia is around 4k people.)
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Hypocrisy is the cornerstone of government.
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For fuck's sake, local governments already running sewer pipes and water lines, why not just run conduit for fiber as well, and then lease it out? I think the idea is genius.
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why not just run conduit for fiber as well, and then lease it out? I think the idea is genius.
I see nothing in this law that prevents such an operation, only the operation of an ISP service by the municipalities. In fact, I would bet that there are cities that do exactly this already, in places where there is sufficient population to justify the cost of the conduit.
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Did you learn nothing from the last election?
I think the lesson is that forcing people to do things or restricting options are both bad. Depending on the topic and your political leanings there will be things that you are inclined to force people to do in the name of (your version of) decency and other things that you will be inclined to forbid. Both impulses need to be reigned in as much as possible. For example, as fun as the left found it to force bakers to make wedding cakes that they really didn't want to that is a terrible precedent. Now fre
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there is a LOT more to package delivery, than roads. There is nothing else to ISP beyond running and maintaining cables (and routers), so your analogy is not valid.
What? Who told you that? There are basically three major physical parts to package delivery, namely roads and interchanges, vehicles, and drivers. Networks have cables, routers, and switches, as well as hardware and users. (We will omit international considerations from both examples at this time.) Networks and roads both require maintenance as equipment fails. And they both require management to deal with malicious actors. They both also require the other kind of management to make them happen; networks ha
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:5, Insightful)
The real hurdle to ISP-propagation is the local governments' corruption and ineptitude
If there were high prices and lack of competition in 5 or 10% of locales, then simple corruption and ineptitude would be a reasonable explanation. But when the problem exists everywhere, you need to look for systemic structural problems.
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Why must my methodology differ?
Indeed it is a system problem. And, according to the article I cited, that problem is the local governments mistreating commercial ISPs. The companies need the governments' cooperation to lay cables, and the local mayors, town councils et al consider
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Citation, please...
Do a little research on how LDDS started [wikipedia.org] It wasn't because the cable they paid for was expensive.
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:5, Insightful)
The best, cheapest Internet access in America is consistently community owned. And it doesn't even have to be a large community. The small town of Sandy, OR has the best, cheapest Internet in the country. Forty dollars for 300Mbps symmetric or $60 for gigabit. No bandwidth cap. And they work with content providers like Netflix so their citizens get the fastest, highest quality content they can. Far better than any of the cable companies, which refuse to work with Netflix without significant payment. It's amazing how well your incentives align when your shareholders are also your customers.
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It's amazing how well your incentives align when your shareholders are also your customers.
When some of the shareholders are the only customers, and the rest of the shareholders are required to invest by force of law. It's amazing how cheap internet can be when the "company" providing it doesn't have to worry about a profit or keeping the shareholders happy, and they don't have to provide service to everyone who is putting money into the system.
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:4, Informative)
It's amazing how cheap internet can be when the "company" providing it doesn't have to worry about a profit
Yes, it sure is. A normal business needs to charge cost of business+profit where government only needs to charge cost of doing business.
or keeping the shareholders happy, and they don't have to provide service to everyone who is putting money into the system.
There are tons of things that people pay taxes for where they don't receive a direct benefit. For example, childless people paying for schools or paying for public transit when you never use it. Much like municipal fiber networks, even if you don't directly utilize the service it still makes your city a better place to live. Having good schools, transit and internet encourages companies to locate in your city (which can lower your taxes) and also can encourage high-income people to locate in your city (which also can lower your taxes). Sometimes doing things for the public good is the best path even if you don't partake of the particular service.
That being said, I do live in a city with a municipal fiber network and I have used it ever since it was installed, for the last 10 years or so. I have never had a problem with it and it has always been a much better level of service than I ever got from Comcast (who was my former internet provider and my current cable provider). It's superior from a technical point of view as well as from a customer service point of view. I choose my own ISP and can easily switch if they do something I don't like, which certainly can't be said of the cable company monopoly that exists in most places. As you observe above, the city can provide the service cheaper than a private company because they don't need to make a profit, they just need to break even.
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where government only needs to charge cost of doing business.
They don't even need to charge that much. They can operate at a loss because the "shareholders" will be forced by law to cover the losses. What other business do you know of where the shareholders cannot sell their stock at any price and must continue to invest more money in the company even when it is losing money?
There are tons of things that people pay taxes for where they don't receive a direct benefit.
Internet doesn't need to be yet another one, since there are companies already in existence that can provide the service to those who want it.
I choose my own ISP and can easily switch if they do something I don't like, which certainly can't be said of the cable company monopoly that exists in most places.
Uhh, you can chose not to use the municipal service,
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I choose my own ISP and can easily switch if they do something I don't like, which certainly can't be said of the cable company monopoly that exists in most places.
Uhh, you can chose not to use the municipal service, but you can't choose not to pay taxes. You CAN choose not to use Comcast and you won't pay Comcast a dime if you don't use them. You can switch just as easily if it is Comcast or Citycast.
No, the city only provides the pipe, an ISP provides the actual internet service. There is competition among ISPs, where there isn't among the traditional providers (telco and cableco)
And the alleged "cable monopoly" isn't really, since there is no monopoly for ISPs and never has been. The only monopoly that used to exist was for cable TV service, but "video content" no longer has any monopolies, and "Internet" has never had one.
There is a monopoly on the infrastructure. No other cable companies are allowed to run lines to each house, only the one that the government has selected. If you are so against government, why do you support a government-enforced cable monopoly? No, there isn't a monopoly on video service but there is an effective duopoly
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the city only provides the pipe, an ISP provides the actual internet service.
The city IS the ISP. Lmgtfy: here: [sandy.or.us] "SandyNet is the Internet Service Provider owned by the people of Sandy and operated as a public service by the City of Sandy." Now tell me again how the city only owns the pipes. Tell my how ANY municipal ISP service "only provides the pipes". If they only provide the pipes, they aren't an ISP -- BY DEFINITION.
I wasn't talking about Sandy, OR, I was talking about my local municipal fiber network, Utopia [utopianet.org], that link is a list of the 9 different ISPs that provide service on the network. Comcast and Century Link have also been invited to provide ISP service on the network, but they prefer to lobby the state government to shut down Utopia, just like in Virginia. As the article notes, this isn't the people telling their government to ban municipal networks, this is the Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association, a cable industry group, pushing the legislation.
An open municipal network provides way more competition that currently exists because it lowers the barriers to entry for ISPs,
You have got to be joking. It increases the barriers to entry. If you know that you're going to have to charge a price for services that competes with a non-profit taxpayer backed service that can operate at a loss, you're not going to try. Your barrier is now the fight you'll have to make to get any subscribers, and a need to make a profit.
I am talking about ISPs that run over the municipal network. Any company that meets the basic requirements are free to offer internet, phone or video services on the network. The barriers of entry are much lower than a service provider that has to string cable across the city (if they are even allowed to).
If you are in favor of healthy competition you should be in favor of municipal networks.
The world of 1984 and Ministry of Truth has arrived.
No, ignorance is not truth and freedom is not slavery. This isn't 1984, and my city government is not Big Brother. How many ISPs can you get gigabit internet from? I have at least 10 that I know of, if that's not competition then what is?
At its core, government is the people banding together to provide those same people with services. It's no different than a farm co-op. Yes, government (particularly at the national level) is growing much larger than I would like to see it but at the local level there is still a great deal of control by the people and a method for firing elected officials that don't use the people's money wisely. You are just so convinced that government == bad (and probably taxation == theft) that you just can't even conceive the notion of the government providing a useful service for the people. Society doesn't exist for businesses to make a profit, it exists to better the lives of the people in the society. I think that basic services that everyone or most everyone in the city use should be provided by the government to keep costs down - because the people banding together to provide the service is more efficient (read: cheaper) than having a company do it with the associated profit margin. These services include roads, police, firefighters, water, sewer, power, and in my view, communications. If it's something that everyone needs to use then why should the people pay a middleman (a for profit company) to build such services when they can provide it themselves, via government.
Incidentally, here [whitehouse.gov] is a White House report on how municipal networks spur competition, but I'm sure you'll immediately discount it because Obama is the debbil.
I can see yo
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I wasn't talking about Sandy, OR,
I was, and the person I replied to was, and the comments I made were in the context of a municipal ISP. You're arguing about something completely different.
I can see you're ideologically opposed to municipal networks and I'm unlikely to change that so I'll quit trying.
So far, the only attempts you have made are trying to convince me that municipal infrastructure without municipal ISP service isn't bad, and I've not been talking about that. So yes, your arguments about a different situation are unlikely to change my mind about the actual topic of discussion. Hmmm.
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There's no reason why you couldn't structure the municipal broadband such that it has to break even over some suitable period. That would prevent it from continually being subsidized by the local municipality.
Where I live one of the main local telcos is owned by the province, and rather than being subsidized it consistently provides a profit back to the provincial government, while simultaneously being highly competitive with the big national telcos.
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There's no reason why you couldn't structure the municipal broadband such that it has to break even over some suitable period.
There's no reason it couldn't be structured to require that the prices be higher than any competing commercial ISP, too. But if you think that any city would do that, or that the people who are pushing the city to provide cheap broadband would accept that, you're naive at best. The whole purpose of a municipal ISP is to have lower rates than the commercial providers.
No, any city agency that can charge low prices and hide the losses by dipping into the general fund will do so.
Where I live one of the main local telcos is owned by the province, and rather than being subsidized it consistently provides a profit back to the provincial government, while simultaneously being highly competitive with the big national telcos.
So you actually live someplace
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:4, Insightful)
You seem to have a very poor understanding of how democracies work.
My understanding is they are operating at break-even, so people that don't use it aren't really paying anything. In fact, it's saved the city government money that they were spending on very expensive commercial Internet access. Their problem is that demand has forced them to accelerate their build out (they projected very conservatively). Yes, being able to sell cheap municipal bonds helps. But capital isn't what's holding back the telcos. After all, a tiny city government just kicked their asses because they thought their customers had no other options. Also, it turns out that having widely available cheap and fast Internet has externalities that benefit even people that don't have it at home. Hard to fit on to a balance sheet, but still true!
You should really follow up on this, because it sounds like it would change your world view. Look up Jeremy Pietzold; he'd be happy to answer any reasonably worded questions you have about SandyNet. I think you'd find that he's generally an economic conservative, but perhaps he's more pragmatic than some. He's certainly invested more time than anybody here on this topic.
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You seem to have a very poor understanding of how democracies work. My understanding is they are operating at break-even, so people that don't use it aren't really paying anything.
Except the backing of the general fund when there is a loss. And the loss of competition when a for-profit company cannot compete and pulls out.
In fact, it's saved the city government money that they were spending on very expensive commercial Internet access.
If the city government didn't have internet access written into the cable franchise then they are fools. In any case, to HAVE internet service, the city is paying someone for it, and it is now being funded by the taxpayers -- just like it was before the city became it's own ISP. Those taxpayers are either "customers" of the city ISP or just plain old taxpayers who
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:4, Insightful)
LUS Lafayette LA City owned.
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2,000x2,000 - 2,000 Mbps (2 Gbps) download & upload
- $299.95 - $500 installation fee, $500 activation fee and 48-month contract required.
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Just so you can get the correct citation, do you want the costs of wiring with the government seizing a right of way for you, or costs of wiring if you have to individually negotiate with every property owner whose land you are going to dig up?
Here's a fancy little equation from 2011 [performantnetworks.com] that doesn't include buying the property, and is just the cost of installation, not maintance or upg
Re:Hey, cable companies: (Score:5, Insightful)
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Horseshit. This "act" is Rent-seeking [wikipedia.org] at its most basic and obvious, and all the Free Market evangelism in the world won't change it.
Stigler nailed it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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This won't change as long as the voters stop paying attention and instead instinctively vote only for those of the correct red vs blue teams. They don't know if the guy is a crook or not, but they'll vote for him because that's the lever they always pull. And besides these issues are extremely complicated for the average voter to think about, as compared to easily digested voter information of "my opponent is an evil liberal/conservative with his hand in your wallet".
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The government can subsidize the costs and offer service for well below the actual costs, which is unfair competition.
That seems like a red herring. "The Government" isn't some giant mega-corp paying out stockholders, it is run and funded by the citizens. That's not "the government" subsidizing the costs, it's the taxes paid by the people who live there. The people are subsidizing the costs, so why shouldn't the government be allowed to build and maintain a network for the benefit of the people which is paid for by the people? The answer of course is because the ISPs think they deserve everyone's money. That doesn't m
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Even if the private company can build a better network at the same price, the customers of the private network will not just be paying that price--they don't become exempt from taxes, so they'd have to pay double. This prevents private networks from becoming successful.
What you would be saying is only correct if the people can choose to p
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The people are subsidizing the costs, so why shouldn't the government be allowed to build and maintain a network for the benefit of the people which is paid for by the people? The answer of course is because the ISPs think they deserve everyone's money.
You have it 180 degrees backwards. When a commercial ISP serves a community it gets money from some of the people. When a government runs an ISP they get money from ALL of the people, even those who don't want the service. It's the governments who think they deserve everyone's money, and they regularly increase the amount of everyone's money they take by raising taxes.
Why shouldn't they do this for internet? Because it creates and unfair marketplace for existing commercial operations, and subsidizes the re
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And when commercial services just have no interest in serving your community? You can't force these companies to serve you. So, you just do without? So, you doom a community to having no new companies move in because you cant give them good internet service? That was Winston Salem, NC. And they provided their own service because NOBODY ELSE WOULD. And then the NC legislature stepped in and banned the practice for future communities. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
So, we have a law banning local government
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And when commercial services just have no interest in serving your community?
Start one. Or accept the fact that it is not cost-effective to provide service where you are. "I don't want to pay what it would cost" isn't a reason to force others to subsidize your internet.
So, you just do without?
I would love it were there a Golden Corral in my town. There isn't. I cannot force Golden Corral to come to town, so I should get the city to open up a buffet restaurant operated by taxpayer funds? I should not worry that such a "business" operated at cost or below might drive other for-profit restaurants already in t
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The government can subsidize the costs and offer service for well below the actual costs, which is unfair competition.
Except that the government has to pay those massively overpaid gov't workers who only work 3 days a week.
You can't have it both ways.
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This is a silly argument though. You may as well say that if a company doesn't have the same need to have high profits that they shouldn't compete as it's unfair to the fat cats. Generally the conservative stance for as long as I can remember was "government are inefficient, slow, wasteful, and out of touch with the citizens." But as soon as government does something efficient and desirable the message changes to "government shouldn't do that!" I think some of this is just bitter resentment that their t
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And yet citizens vote FOR municipal broadband because the professional corporations have a product that's overpriced and underserviced. These corporations know that they have the inferior product which is why they're lobbying legislatures to make competition illegal. Voters need to hate the internet providers more, since we have plenty of municipal electricity/gas providers because the voters really really hate the big power companies and the big power company bills and there's not a lot of legislative ac
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I'm gonna quit Frontier ASAP for backing this kind of nonsense...
http://www.telecompetitor.com/... [telecompetitor.com]
https://muninetworks.org/conte... [muninetworks.org]
https://www.benton.org/headlin... [benton.org]
https://psmag.com/the-fight-ov... [psmag.com]
" AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, CenturyLink, Verizon, Frontier. To stay in power, they’ve fought against cities and municipalities in state legislatures across the country.
“It’s been kind of a war,” says Christopher Mitchell, the director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative.
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Well... (Score:3)
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You're either poor or got too much money to play with."
The poor folks are mostly in southern or western Virginia, where they have lived for generations. The rich folks are mostly Yankee immigrant lawyers and politicians living around the beltway. There are now enough northern immigrants that Virginia has gone blue in the last three presidential elections.
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we aren't immigrants. we're merely educated. i've lived in Northern Virginia all my life.
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i've lived in Northern Virginia all my life.
Do you know how to make cornpone? Do you eat biscuits with gravy? Have you ever BBQed a road killed possum?
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Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
Overall the state isn't a bad place to live, though it has its crazy quirks, and some parts of it are very different from others. Most of the tech jobs are up near or in DC, and relate to the Federal Government in some way. The DC suburbs are pricy and traffic sucks (though not as bad as the Bay Area still). The weather usually isn't too bad, though people have no clue how to drive in snow. The food is pretty good, and you're well positioned between both the Northern and Southern regions of the country.
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Ok, I've made a note in your permanent file.
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It was on your list?
Be honest now. You didn't really have a list, did you?
More of that small, local govt freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
It's just more of that Republican love of smaller, more local government at work. Smell the FREEDOM!
Notice a funny thing about these Republican bills: their content is usually the OPPOSITE of the bill's name. This is because when you summarize it, it never sounds like sonething you would want to pass. At least if you are an ordinary citizen, that is, and not some megacorp or rich person.
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Consistently retarded.
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What they really mean is that they want a smaller government if run by their opposing party, but a larger government if their party is in charge. It's the only way to ensure that you prevent the people from doing things your party disapproves of and that you're allowed to keep doing what the other party disapproves of.
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To be fair, letting corporations run everything is technically "smaller government". Republicans might be stupid, but they are consistent.
It's not!
There is a huge difference between Corporations and local governments.
Who are both responsible to? Shareholders somewhere or people actually you know from local City Council meetings.
What is their underlying objective? Increase return of investment to shareholders or run a municipality most efficient serving the people living there.
You can see how municipalities are fought for their independence by state governments occupied by people dependent on campaign contributions when municipalities trying
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Trump has sort of given up on the Democrat vs Republican model. He's a none-of-the-above because he doesn't adopt the ideals or platforms of either party. He only seems Republican because that's the party he's currently groping. The republicans are merely holding their noses long enough to get their wish lists approved.
Uh huh... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Small government!" "Local control!"
Smells Like (Score:3)
Republican lawmaker Kathy Byron (Score:2)
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The $X Party is the party of the Devil, not the party of God.
Crony Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Results (Score:4, Insightful)
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whether the last mile is handled by an ISP or a group of individuals.
A group of people banding together to become an ISP _IS_ an ISP. And the law in question here doesn't stop that.
in which case no ISP would sell a group of people bandwidth to be sub-divided.
Upstream providers would be HAPPY to sell service to anyone they can. It's money in their pocket. Why wouldn't they? It won't be illegal for people to form an new ISP to take advantage of an underserved customer base. What other excuse would there be to not sell to them?
So which ISP (Score:2)
owns Kathy Byron?
Or do they share..
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It looks like her primary master is Verizon [votesmart.org].
Only a problem when they block better (G fiber) (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this state law goes a bit overboard. That I can think of, municipal fiber is only a problem in two types of cases. Sometimes, city council just isn't very good at running an ISP - they are mostly car dealers, real estate agents, and insurance agents, not networking experts. So they waste taxpayer money with their toy ISP. The local voters can probably handle that most of the time.
Many of us probably recall Google announced they'd build out Google fiber only in cities where the local government didn't get in the way too much, dragging out permit processes for years, demanding kickbacks, etc. That reminds us that cities can and sometimes do make it very difficult, time consuming, and expensive for ISPs to offer improved services. Suppose you're councilman Jones. Two years ago, you proposed spending $50 million of taxpayer money building Muninet, run by the city. You get Muninet operational, a bit over budget, but it's providing 25 Mbps for $35. You and the rest of the city council aren't experienced at running an ISP, so sometimes there are glitches, but it should recover the $50 million investment over the next 12 years. You've taken some heat from the local newspaper for increasing taxes to pay for mediocre service, but you'll probably manage to get re-elected - you can spin it as a reasonably successful project, in it's first two years.
Now Google comes knocking, wanting to offer gigabit for $70. That makes your Muninet 25 Mbps look like utter shit. If Google is allowed to offer gigabit, nobody will pay for Muninet service anymore and your record will show taxpayers (voters) were left holding the bag for the $50 million construction cost. Are you going to approve Google fiber ( the death of Muninet) or are you going to do everything you can to keep gigabit at bay, protecting your Muninet project?
When the politicians who are responsible regulating / approving services are also running a competing service, they have a conflict of interest. That does need to be addressed somehow, but I don't think it means tax payer ISPs need to be banned.
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When the politicians who are responsible regulating / approving services are also running a competing service, they have a conflict of interest. That does need to be addressed somehow, but I don't think it means tax payer ISPs need to be banned.
I don't know about that. I think maybe it does. I think that governments that want to enable these projects need to take viability into account. What technology is muninet using? If it's using wireless, then it would have better been enabled by simply letting someone else do it. Make it easy for technically proficient residents to run a WISP and they'll do it themselves. If it's using fiber, then they should have pulled fiber useful to people like Google, who can then use their fiber. If it's copper, that w
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It sounds like you should get kicked in the taint for rolling out a new network in the age of fiber but deciding to run with Cat-5 because you got a great deal on spools. Just because the network is publicly-funded doesn't also mean that all of the expertise needs to come from the community. Part of that public funding is hiring a designer who knows what they're doing.
Muni Fiber doesn't mean Muni ISP (Score:2)
Municipal fiber shouldn't mean "municipal ISP".
IMHO, the municipality should charter a municipal corporation and use the municipality's bonding authority to fund the network buildout. Obviously the relevant experts should be hired from the utility and telecoms environment so that it's built to whatever the current standard is in such a network, with an eye towards long-term viability and maximum flexibility.
Once built, the fiber network is only that -- a fiber network. Part of the network buildout should
EPB costs five times as much as Google fiber (Score:2)
> EPBFI are offering gig-level service for the same price that Google Fiber was.
EPB costs five times as much as Google fiber, and you're forced to pay most of that cost whether you want the service or not. Most of the cost of EPB is funded by federal tax dollars - residents of California being forced to pay the bill for Chattanooga's internet service. The next largest source of funding is from residents' electric bills. Again, you pay for it whether you want the internet service or not. About 20% of the
If you ignore the cost to build the network (Score:2)
Last year's financial statement, which you so helpfully linked to, shows that their subscriber revenue approximately covers the cost of customer service and other expenses they had last year while using the network that taxpayers spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build.
When you invest in infrastructure, a key number is how long it takes to recover your investment. If you spend $350 million building a network and it generates gross profit of $70 million / year, the recovery period is five years - it t
Both can be problems (Score:2)
> Also, Google's problem isn't with municipal ISP's. Their problem is that the local provider, Comcast, AT&T, etc
I have no doubt that some ISPs have tried to slow Google fiber down however they could. Also, we know that Google announced at the outset that they wouldn't even consider b deploying in a city until the city itself promised not to be a major pain in the butt. They didn't insist on that because of their imagination. City administrations HAVE derailed deployments, sometimes but not al
Comcast wrote Sheri Weiner's Nashville bill (Score:2)
You can of course Google for yourself if you'd like to see a dozen examples, but here's one to get you started. Nashville council member Sheri Weiner admits the anti-Google fiber council proposal she sponsored was written by AT&T and Comcast.
I think this one can be tough to decide..... (Score:2)
The bottom line is - we all want more fast, inexpensive broadband options. So when you live in a city that doesn't really have them, you jump at the first opportunity that comes along. Sometimes, that's going to be your local government proposing a roll-out of a city-wide system.
If it seems like a law is trying to block that from happening, your first reaction is to protest that law!
But like someone else on here pointed out? Municipal Internet doesn't always have the best long-term track record. It's likely
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And yet what if there's no choice? So many parts of the world have great inexpensive internet, but in America we're told that it's too expensive to roll out service if you're unlucky enough to live where you do, or the costs are extremely high for rather mediocre service, and in order to keep those prices down to an almost affordable level they had to fire all the customer service people who know what they were doing. Seriously, if former republics of the Soviet Union can have faster and cheaper internet
It's all about Value (Score:2)
If our corporate overlords can't make any money from something, it has a value of zero to the people in charge of those kinds of decisions.
Geee... (Score:2)
And this doesn't scream "Bought and paid for by Cable Companies".....
WTF? (Score:3)
Really cock sucking whore. Do you have proof to support this assertion that does not come with wheel barrels full of cash....
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"Really cock sucking whore. Do you have proof to support this assertion that does not come with wheel barrels full of cash....
Cocksucking whores across all of America join in demanding an apology from you for comparing them to a conscienceless bottom feeder like Kathy Byron. Spokes-slut Anya Neeze says that when the lipstick hits the love muscle, at least she and her colleagues provide something of value to average guys. The only things Byron sucks hang small, limp and useless from the crotches of rich
Guess whose reelection war chests are now full? (Score:2)
Thanks to bullshit like citizens united I can only speculate that the cable companies went door to door acting as citizens making large contributions to law makers who saw the world as they do.
How About ? (Score:2)
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They don't have to. They got elected in the first place. Now all the pretense of being a nice person can be shed. With all the wheelbarrows of money you get from corporations telling you how to vote you can easily put out all that bad press you want about opponents in upcoming re-election campaigns. Many politicians go quickly into being widely hated in their districts and yet somehow manage to keep staying in office. Othertimes their district is loved by the voters who only care about one issue, and d