Slashdot Log In
US ISPs Using Push Polling To Stop Cheap Internet
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Apr 29, 2009 07:15 AM
from the we-don't-want-your-kind-here dept.
from the we-don't-want-your-kind-here dept.
An anonymous reader writes "What happens when a new ISP is started somewhere in the United States that completely blows out of the water all the other ISPs in the area, in terms of price and performance? Apparently, that question is being answered in North Carolina, where Greenlight Inc., a company started by a city government, is trying to offer faster, more reliable, and cheaper Internet service to the local residents. Time Warner and Embarq can't compete. So they are not only lobbying the state government to destroy the upstart competition, but are now using push polling methods to gain support, across the two cities that could benefit from the new ISP, for the 'Level the playing field' legislation they got introduced in the legislature." A local news outlet provides coverage more friendly to the incumbents' point of view.
Related Stories
[+]
Time Warner Cable Won't Compete, Seeks Legislation 621 comments
narramissic writes "The good people of Wilson, NC pay $99/month for 10/10 Mbps internet service, 81 TV channels and telephone service. How'd they manage that, you ask? Well, the city-owned and operated cable service called Greenlight came into being when the City of Wilson approached TWC and local DSL provider Embarq and requested faster service for the area. 'TWC refused the request. And so Greenlight was born,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'Now Time Warner Cable and Embarq are upset that they've got competition, and rather than try to go head to head with Greenlight on price and service, they've instead been lobbying the state government of NC to pass laws to put Greenlight out of business. Apparently they're having some success, as the NC State Senate has proposed bills that would do TWC's bidding.'"
Submission: US ISPs Using Push Polling to Stop Cheap Internet by Anonymous Coward
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Well yeah... (Score:5, Interesting)
Surprise someone finally realized that the last mile is a natural monopoly and should be a utility.
This totally ruins their business model of selling something that costs almost nothing for a lot more than nothing.
Of course they're going to pull out every stop to well stop this from happening.
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Interesting)
They can pull out every stop if they want. But with an economy that sucks, even if most of it is in peoples heads, people are looking for every way they can to save a penny.
Now would be the perfect time for some upstart companies to gain some market share by simply pricing themselves $10 or so cheaper than the competition. Throw in the added bandwidth and its a no-brainer. The biggest hurdle is getting your name out there. They need to make sure they budget for the right kind of local marketing for it to work.
Parent
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
AS someone who worked for a small ISP (Score:5, Interesting)
What really stinks, especially in rural areas, is that you have to buy your back-end bandwidth from a person you are competing against.
They get their money either way, charging a fortune for a 1.5 Mb T1 line, again, especially in rural areas.
So they make a killing off of a bunch of bonded T1 lines or a partial DS3, and then you have to compete with them against their own offerings (i.e. 19.99 and 29.99 a month DSL).
So you get the headache of customer support and make a little money, and the phone company does good either way. Your niche market in a rural area is areas not serviced by the phone company, which means when the phone company does go into a new area, you lose your customers in that area because you can hardly compete with the people who own the infrastructure.
Again, I know there are more options in larger cities, but there is a reason a business likes to be a monopoly.
Transporter_ii
Parent
Re:AS someone who worked for a small ISP (Score:5, Interesting)
A similar thing happened to some "community internet" initiatives in the UK. In villages where there was no broadband, people costed out getting a T1 line to their village and splitting the cost. It usually came to slightly more than broadband from the big providers - but with the choice of that or dial-up people would sign up for the service.
The community projects would get the money together and order the T1 line. What British Telecom did, of course, was install a much bigger trunk than needed for a single T1 line, as the extra cost is pretty low and then offer broadband in the area. Many people would then say "I wouldn't have signed for the community project if I knew that broadband was coming here anyway" and try to get out of their commitment. Usually after a year which people had signed up to the project would fold because everyone would switch to BT rather than renew. So BT gets paid to install a line and then uses it to give cheaper competition.
Parent
Re:AS someone who worked for a small ISP (Score:5, Interesting)
As a counter-example, my dad's office building is in the middle of Midvale, Utah, which is effectively part of Salt Lake City. He wanted to get Comcast internet service for his office building. They wouldn't provide it, because they would have had to run a cable across the street (literally). He offered to pay for it himself, and they still said no.
Instead, they wanted him to get some percentage of the tenants of that business park to sign up for Comcast - they wanted him to do their marketing for them! As a busy accountant, my dad hardly has time to do that kind of thing.
He ended up getting Qwest DSL instead.
Parent
Re:AS someone who worked for a small ISP (Score:5, Informative)
Had the villagers gotten together and negotiated with the telco directly, then there probably wouldn't have been an issue, saved some money, and one hell of a headache.
I think you missed the last article about this situation - the city did ask the telcos to provide service (after providing marketing demographics), and the telcos said no. They then took the next logical step - they set up their own ISP to serve their needs. I don't see what else they could have done.
Parent
Re:AS someone who worked for a small ISP (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, our company is in exactly this situation. But there are other factors that you do not take into account. Large companies also like to screw their own customers. We found that plain hatred of the competition has driven a lot of customers our way, merely because we like to treat them like human beings.
Very large corporations also compete within their own department. Our bandwidth salesman makes zero money off of his company's DSL customers. Any customer we get is more bandwidth sold for him and he gives us a very decent deal.
Parent
REALLY misleading title (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:REALLY misleading title (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how this bill is unfair at all.
I guess you missed this bit:
Establish a separate enterprise fund for communications service and shall
use this fund to separately account for revenues, expenses, property, and
source of investment dollars associated with the provision of
communications service.
Is a telco or cable company required to keep separate accounts for their internet service? Why are they not required to keep their internet and other services separate? Why is a cable company allowed to leverage it's existing monopoly by subsidizing it's internet service (like it might do to drive it's internet competition out of business), but a city isn't?
If it was *REALLY* about "leveling" the playing field, I would assume that the bill would say that *ALL* internet providers would be subject to these rules, not just cities.
Parent
Re:REALLY misleading title (Score:5, Interesting)
And there's the rub.
When I was growing up, we used to have two choices for cable TV - Warner Cable (later became Time Warner) and Viacom Cable.
Warner was the "newcomer". They started running "specials", subsidized by their monopolies on OTHER cities. For a while, you got a basic cable package for $15/month and the pay channels like HBO for another $5 or so.
Then, Viacom folded. They couldn't compete any more, they were losing customers in droves to the "specials" because at that price, Warner was actually selling the service below cost (but claiming it was a "special" and a "sale", so getting around state laws against below-cost permanent pricing).
What did people find out once Viacom was dead? TW did what they do to everyone once they have a monopoly - they started running TV ads with the "happy king" declaring "I declare Warner Cable for my entire kingdom!" with a shit-eating grin on his face.
Meanwhile those "special" $15/month rates were expired out, and within 3 months the base price was $80/month.
Look at the prices you're offered for ISP service. If you are in a "competition" area, one of the lucky SOB's on a border (and the borders move as they put each other out of business), you can probably swing some ridiculously cheap pricing. Otherwise, what do you get? Comcrap pretty much has a monopoly on our area. DSL service is technically "available" if you want roughly the same data rate as a pair of 33.6 phone modems (no seriously: they haven't upgraded their equipment in 10 years or more).
Comcrap, 10 miles down the road, offers their "high tier" speed at $40/month. For us, "low tier" is $50/month. That's because 10 miles down the road, Verizon owns the lines and is offering FiOS to compete with Comcrap. Meanwhile, Comcrap's own internal memos show that they could double the speed to EVERY USER IN THEIR NETWORK, both up and down, for a mere $6/customer one-time cost, and they refuse to do it.
That's the kind of shit you deal with. They all want a monopoly so they can gouge the crap out of you.
Parent
Re:REALLY misleading title (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm with you on this -- the monopoly is completely anti-consumer. The problem is that with significantly lower operating costs, the city will be able to drive the telcos out, and then THEY will be the monopoly. I hate private monopolies but I hate the state as monopoly equally. Simple solution here. Tell the city they cannot collect fees/taxes on the ISPs we're all good. I definitely want the city to come in and bust up the Telco monopoly -- I just don't want one monopoly to be replaced by another.
"
I agree the way the telcos are going about this is wrong though. I'd rather see legislation like: Where municipalities set up their own ISP, they cannot assess city taxes or fees on competing ISPs."
It's all about operating costs -- make those as equal as you can, and THEN let everyone compete.
Parent
Re:REALLY misleading title (Score:5, Interesting)
From the techjournalsouth article-
"If the cable/phone companies really want a level playing field, they'd open their books just like we do in the spirit of open meetings and open records law. They don't want a level playing field. They want to be the only team on the field."
It seems the community internet operating books will be transparent, so people can see what costs are, and where the money is going. It's a public service, not a for-profit business like Time Warner is.
While it's true a monopoly is generally anti-consumer, a publicly open/owned monopoly is far less likely to be in a position to price gouge for crap service, where the larger, established private monopolies already are.
Parent
"Levelling the playing field" my ass (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Informative)
The immediate goal was 98% coverage by the end of 2007 and 100% as soon as it would be possible to get there. At the moment the coverage is at about 99.5% with an estimate that they will reach practically 100% by the end of the year. To achieve this goal they have so far given local governments 850 million NOK to build and improve infrastructure; and ISP and local commercial interests have contributed to; in total about 1.5 billion NOK has been spent.
If you can read Norwegian www.regjeringen.no [regjeringen.no] has more info.
Here is a quote from 2007 by the then Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy; Åslaug Haga [wikipedia.org]
The quote is in Norwegian [regjeringen.no] so I have tried to translate as best I can.
Creation of a broadband infrastructure is an important part of our [the party coalition in Government] goals for the districts. We can not accept that anyone in this country becomes losers in the digital evolution. Broadband also gives opportunities for economic development and growth. To ensure full broadband coverage the Government has decided to stimulate faster expansions of the infrastructure; especially in those areas were it isn't commercially profitable to do so.
Think of this as you will; but despite my disagreements with some of the things said and done by various ministers and the government in general; at one point I agree. Full broadband coverage is essential to modern life. It is a means of communication, of gaining information about what is happening, of paying your bills if the nearest bank is a day away, or an important tool for education or self-education. And much much more. Providing full coverage with affordable broadband should be a goal for any country that wish to ensure their citizens grain a high degree of familiarity with technology; and wish to remain competitive in the global market.
Parent
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
I beg to differ, this is exactly why government intervention makes sense in many cases. You believe that it is important to have a really fast Internet connection, but unimportant that little Johnny and Suzie have jump ropes. Someone else thinks the jumps ropes are WAY more important. Neither of you has the individual ability to afford to either upgrade the Schools (to any meaningful degree), or upgrade the Internet connection. Through tax dollars and bonds the local government has the ability to do a passable job of both and mitigates compromise. You don't get 100Mbps symmetric Internet (yet), and your neighbor doesn't get a Montesori school on every corner, but you both get some reasonable approximation of what you want.
Parent
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
You would run into a situation where the rich can send their kids to better schools, and they get better jobs, and then they make more money, and send their kids to better schools, who make more money. Later on you run into a situation where poor people won't be able to afford school. Two more or less permanent classes. The death of the American dream.
So in a Capitalist system Johnny gets his jumprope, and a new playground set besides, and we all get 100MB service to our homes.
In a capitalist system Johnny gets his jumprope and playground if his daddy is rich. Most kids would get to play with sticks and rocks.
We don't all get 100MB service to our homes. Rich people get 100MB service to their homes.
Of course, in that system the local government would NOT be allowed to limit the number of ISPs servicing an area, so there would be real competition for service in that last mile.
I don't think the government does limit the number of ISP's. I think the free market does. As long as ISP's keep their prices under the cost of implementation of new infrastructure there will never be any competition.
There might be a few more wires strung and/or tunnels dug to run the lines, but there would be more service, more competition, and CHEAPER PRICES.
This is a fantasy. In reality we would end up with 1 really cheap ISP who puts the others out of business, at which point they would either buy out or purchase the equipment from the other companies. The new monopoly would languor just as much as they currently do and could charge as much as they want for their service.
It never fails to amaze me how many people don't understand that most of the major socio-political and economic problems we have today are directly due to the application of too much socialistic GMI and not enough application of Capitalistic Federalism. It would be funny if it wasn't so sick and sad.
I agree there is too much socialism in some cases, but it is usually a failure of implementation or corruption manifesting itself. I should be able to take the money for my education and apply it to any school. But to take away public education and turn it completely over to the private sector is not only ludicrous, its downright evil.
Parent
Re:Econ 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
As was proved during the Reagan era, the rich AND poor BOTH get richer when Government gets out of the way (i.e., fetters to productivity are removed).
8 years is a dreadfully short time to 'prove' an economic method. For all you know what is happening right now is a direct result of Reagan era policies, so I am going to call bullshit on that, but if you can actually provide some reasonable backup for your opinion then maybe you can change my mind!
I am not going to pretend that there isn't bad regulation (goddamn there is tons of it), and it should be gotten rid of, but people who say that all regulation is bad regulation are just crazies. Should we take out anti-trust legislation? Was it smart of us to remove the investment bank regulation? What about safety regulation? What about anti-discrimination legislation?
There are 'fetters to productivity' and there is 'good legislation' but to say that all legislation that fetters productivity cannot be good is wrong.
Parent
Re:Econ 101 (Score:5, Informative)
As was proved during the Reagan era, the rich AND poor BOTH get richer when Government gets out of the way
Wrong. 80% of the population experienced a decrease in income from 1977 to 1988 (Kevin Phillips [wikipedia.org], The Politics of Rich and Poor, p. 17).
Parent
Re:Econ 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
You're quoting a Wikipedia article about the nutcase Kevin Phillips?
I used Keven Phillips because he is about as Republican as you can get without the white robes and burning crosses. I could have used a litany other sources [nytimes.com], but then I'd be accused of lib'rul bias.
To put it another way, your numbers are wrong just like Phillips is.
Did you want to contribute any actual evidence to counter the original point, or just try re-frame the topic with a smear? You wingnuts are so pathetically predictable. (See? Smear! Let's not talk about the actual problem!)
Parent
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're seriously comparing East and West Germany as your examples? Excellent choice.it allows me to point out this excellent thing called compromise, or the middle road. You see you are completely correct that East Germany represents an example of the failure of a completely centrally controlled economy. Bad idea, you could just as easily point out the Soviet Union or China before recent reforms. West Germany on teh other hand is hardly an example of unfettered capitalism. It has significant socialist elements including a state sponsored universal health care system, significant wage and work restrictions (to ensure that workers can make a decent living in in menial jobs), state subsidies funding rail and road networks, a much more generous unemployment benefit that the US has, indeed pretty much all of the "normal" European social programs. Despite this its economy is just a strong as the US (smaller, yes, it has a much smaller population) if not stronger, and the "social safety net" that the working poor rely upon is certainly much better. It is arguably better to be rich in the United States than in Germany, but it is certainly better to be poor (or even middle class, for lower end of the "middle class" spectrum) in Germany.
Similarly, as I point out below, the United States is a much more "socialist" country than it was 100 years ago, but the lot of the poor has improved significantly. You are correct that a completely centrally managed economy is a disaster, but for a strong and viable country with a good economy, a mix of private industry with the state managing essential services and providing a fair playing field seems to be the best deal for the most people. Good example!
Parent
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Others have already pointed out the problems with this arrangement. It rarely serves the poor, people in out of the way places, or generally anyone it is not as profitable to serve very well. There's any number of reasons that someone might not be profitable to serve, but for some essential services (Electricity, telephone, education, garbage collection, and arguably Internet among many others) we as a society have decided that everyone SHOULD be served. So the government either serves them (public utility) or forces a company to do so as part of its contract (regulated monopoly). Others have gone into more detail on this above me, so instead I'll add something else.
For a good look at how things run when something close to "pure capitalism" is practiced, look at the US (or indeed most industrialized nations) in the mid to late 19th and early 20th centuries. Monopolies and trusts dominated the business landscape, the majority of people worked 6-7 days a week for 12 or more hours a day often for near slave wages. Abuses like the "Company Store System" all but indentured workers in mining, fishing, and other industries that require some level of isolation from urban centers. Illiteracy rates ran into the 50 or 60% range (some of this was due to high illiteracy rates in new immigrants, true, but they represented on a fraction of the literacy problem).
Pure capitalism has been tried, and it generally produced a level of suffering on par with feudalism. Remember that when ideas like Socialism and even Communism were initially proposed, the "suffering of the workers" was not that they had smaller TV's than the well off, or that they had crappy or limited health insurance; it was that they worked like dogs from sun up to sundown (luckily electric lights hadn't caught on yet for most of this period) 6 days a week for (hopefully) just enough money to pay the rent and feed the kids. I'm often floored when people present pure capitalism as if it will usher in some new Utopian or semi-Utopian world where competition drives down prices and increases services without any apparent consideration for the fact that it's been tried. It may have driven down prices (for the rich and middle class), and increased services (for the rich and middle class), but it did so at the expense of significant suffering for the working class
Parent
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Small suppliers simply couldn't afford to lay the cable, and you would never have very many suppliers because that would dilute the market and even big players wouldn't be able to recover the cable costs.
Which is where the local government could step in, take out a loan, and run the cable to get a connection, then lease use to private companies equally. Free markets are a good idea -- but you do not have to go 100% free market and 0% government, you can find a happy medium. The problem is that right now we are like 10% free market and 90% government, with the big corporations running the government. I could go on about that, but that would be (-1) off topic.
Parent
Re:Well yeah... (Score:5, Informative)
This is free market 101. Why government sucks.
Are you insane? For a change a government is bringing wonderful service to its taxpayers (low-cost, high-speed internet) and you somehow still make the comment that "government sucks"?? That's not even trolling, it's certifiable.
I am not kidding when I say this: You have a mental disorder. Probably severe cognitive dissonance, but you'd need a full exam to be sure. Please see a therapist. Honestly. No joke.
Parent
Push Polling (Score:5, Informative)
Because I had never heard of the (incredibly vague) term, I RTFS and found in the comments a description:
The story submission is lame, and the story it's about is too. Anyone have a link to a good story on the same subject?
Re:Push Polling (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Push Polling (Score:5, Informative)
Because I had never heard of the (incredibly vague) term
Example of a push polling question: "would you still vote for Joe Candidate if news of his secret heroin addiction were to become public?" Basically, it's a speech disguised as an opinion poll.
Parent
Re:Push Polling (Score:4, Insightful)
Better yet, it's usually structured as slander with a built in escape clause:
"Would you vote for Joe Candidate if it turned out he was hiding a secret cocaine addiction, paid for by ongoing embezzlement at his current job and a flourishing side business in white slavery?"
When the inevitable crapstorm starts, push poller can say "Hey, I never said he did blow and pimped whores, I was just asking a hypothetical!"
Parent
Re:Push Polling (Score:5, Informative)
Well if you want to know what a "push poll" is, you could have googled it and the first thing up would be an article on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].
But anyway, the basic idea is that polls should properly be designed to be impartial in themselves. If you're really trying to find out what people think about the President's performance, for example, you might call people and ask, "Do you approve of the President's performance so far?"
If, on the other hand, you aren't interested in what people think, and instead you're hoping to influence opinion, then you might ask something like, "Doesn't it bother you that the President is doing such an obviously awful job?" or "Aren't you bothered by the outrageous amounts of money the President is spending?" That's push-polling.
In the 2000 election, Bush's campaign called around asking something like, "How would you feel if you found out John McCain had an illegitimate black baby after an affair with a black woman?" Now that didn't happen, but the question was defended as "hypothetical" even though many of the people called didn't believe it was hypothetical.
Sometimes when doing a push poll, the idea is to affect the results of the poll so that they can publish them and say, "See, [X]% of the people see thing my way!" But then sometimes, they don't even bother to record the responses because the point is just to try to influence opinion under the guise of a poll.
Parent
Merit (Score:5, Insightful)
Any company started and run by any Government is not a "level playing field" IMO. It may be a way for Government price manipulation, but then that's not letting the market determine price.
Secondly, since it is started and run by the Government, wouldn't this be considered a public service instead?
Re:Merit (Score:5, Insightful)
"The Market" was rejected by the monopoly players in this case. If you had been following the story, the local government requested better service and lower prices and they simply refused. There are times when "the market" (aka, "the people") need to push ahead instead of "waiting for the leaders."
This story is quite similar to others where these players in the ISP game quite frequently refuse the requests of municipalities resulting in the municipalities building their own infrastructures which then results in the communications companies filing legal actions against it. I find it most profound when it happens that a given company doesn't want to offer ANY service to an area and yet will fight tooth and nail when a local government wants to build its own.
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Insightful)
Those notions had occurred to me. But "authorities" have always had access to my traffic... some of it quite secretly.
"Not sufficient demand" arguments are great reasons for these telecoms to NOT CARE and yet they do. The reality is that these ISPs are trying to protect their over-sized profit model as municipalities are going to learn how expensive it is to operate and install these services versus how much they pay for them and begin to realize that the consumer is NOT getting a good deal at all. Exposing that kind of truth is a big deal and threatens their million-dollar annual bonuses.
And given that this service is paying for itself and ultimately will be quite profitable negates the argument that it wouldn't have been profitable... it wouldn't be profitable ENOUGH.
The fact of the matter is that internet service is quickly becoming a necessary utility just as telephone and electric power services are today. (They were once fancy options as well!) It is a utility that has yet to fall under regulation and as we can see throughout history, unregulated necessary utilities tend to drive prices higher and burden consumers painfully to the detriment of local economies. (more money being drained from local economies by high utility prices and less money available for local spending which ALSO means less taxed income for local government) Texas and California deregulated electric power and we experience rolling blackouts, the highest prices for power in the nation and even more complaints about their profitability. Meanwhile, in states where power utilities are regulated, no such problems exist for power, no one is going out of business and the citizenry is less burdened.
Government regulation over various aspects of commercial activity are not bad by definition. A guest on the Daily Show put is ever so simply when she explained that since the beginning of the U.S., we have had financial crisis cycles until we emerged from the great depression with strict regulations and government backing. Following that was more than 50 years of relative stability and prosperity and a defeat of the financial crisis cycle. But when regulation was pulled back on S&Ls, an S&L crisis soon followed. Some said the answer was "less regulation" and so more regulations were removed and even more crises occurred.
Here's a truth that EVERY parent knows:
Unregulated kids are going to do dumb, crazy and bad things. They WILL burn your house down if you are not careful.
I find that this truth is not just restricted to children includes adults and the adults who run businesses as well. And this is especially true when these adults who run businesses are as arrogant and narcissistic as they are demonstrating themselves to be... and they demonstrate that they don't feel at all responsible or accountable for the mess they created.
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmmmm...here's some food for thought: city governments already run trash collection services, schools, snow removal services, real estate brokerages, electrical services, cable TV services, electric utilities, water utilities, etc. There are private equivalents for all these services (and more) that city governments provide. (Yes, including water utilities and trash removal. If you don't believe me, I will show you my water bill and trash removal bill) and in some instances these even compete in the same community.
I don't see anybody fighting over that. How is running an Internet service provider any different?
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Insightful)
It is only a non level playing field if the government *loses* money in their own ISP but keeps it afloat anyway. If the government ISP company *makes* money using the same business processes that the industry would (or could or should), how can you talk about a non level playing field?
If the governemnt ISP makes a fair and honest profit, then the ISPs have no right to complain. But of course it makes business sense for them to complain anyway.
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Informative)
I agree 100%. And in this instance of Wilson, NC, this is the case. From the Mayor Brian Bowman's blog:
One last note, Wilson tax money does not fund Greenlight (ed note: Wilson's municipal ISP). Citizens who choose Greenlight buy the services just like they would from any other provider.
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Insightful)
My (admittedly thin) understanding is that the people of the town were fed up with TWC, got together, and made something happen. That's what government is for: By the people and for the people. Of course it has its limitations, but when corporations have a stranglehold it is actually refreshing to me to see that the government is still a way for people to take a stand, even at a tiny local level.
I think the precedent is a great one. If it shoes people that they really can do something, rather than being squashed by a big corp, then great.
Also, the all-or-nothing argument seems a bit much. Do you just propose that people continue to live under the current oppression?
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Insightful)
You should understand two things here.
1) The government is NOT using taxpayer money to fund this.
2) They are PROFITABLE
It's not like their selling low, and then subsidizing the costs with taxpayer money. They're selling the service at the price they sell it, and STILL MAKING MONEY.
I think that's the bottom line here.
I see Broadband as no different an essential service to live these days. I certainly couldn't live without it, my job depends on it.
If public companies refuse to provide this, then it should be the governments responsibility to step in and provide this service.
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Informative)
They're a non-profit organization, with 100% of revenue funding the employees and expansion of service.
Parent
No Sir! (Score:5, Interesting)
The government here is in the wrong for poking its nose where it doesn't belong. Either the entire ISP business should be under government control or none of it should be. By cherry picking certain parts, the government has made a very bad decision with long term ramifications for all business in the state.
Then let's privatize the Fire Department and all other services exclusively run by government.
Or even better, let's put the entire issue to a public vote. This would be the ultimate form of democracy. How about that?
You are one of the folks that thinks that anything run by government is bad as if, when you find yourself on the death bed...being bamboozled by insurance companies...as if who provides the service you need at the material time matters. What would matter to you is how you can get the help you need. I do not care who provides a service as long as I am satisfied.
People with your thoughts are partly responsible with the current financial crisis. It's insane. I would like you to call for a referendum on this issue instead of ranting around here.
Remember, a drowning man will cling to a reed with the hope that it will offer a lifeline of some sort.
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Interesting)
You know, socialism isn't outlawed by the U.S. Constitution. I'm in favor of the government doing whatever it can do better then big business, e.g. replace the joke of a medical insurance system with a single payer government run system.
Admittedly socialism doesn't work well in many cases because the process is corrupted by the rich and powerful and special interests. But on the local level, a socialized industry might work better then on the national level, because the people will have more influence to avoid corruption then they do on the national level.
If cities can provide broadband service cheaper then private companies, I want them to. As long as its self supporting and not subsidized.
I'm tired of CEOs making millions of dollars for doing nothing unique or that a lot of other people making far less couldn't do.
And the telecoms are among the worst of the bunch in undeserved profits.
Parent
Re:Merit (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in favor of the government doing whatever it can do better then big business, e.g. replace the joke of a medical insurance system with a single payer government run system.
- that would be a mistake, I live in Canada, it's no joke. Our cancer patients have to wait for over 70 days now to start getting critical treatment, our emergency rooms are filled with people who are waiting for 8-16 hours to get service and half of our people do not have a physician, forget about getting an appointment with a specialist in less than 3-4 months (sometimes 6-9 months).
You do not want to remove competition, what you do want is to add competition.
Have the government run a competing system, then you'll get somewhere.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If we had adopted that thinking in other areas, half the country would still be in the dark, or only have access to 2 AMPs of power, when the areas with densest population had 20 AMP service.
The government either has a role in the business of electric power delivery or it doesn't.
By putting the government in direct competition with private enterprises, the government is both pricing private companies out of the market and erecting a monopoly where natural competition would be the norm.
Now, you can say
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Either the entire ISP business should be under government control or none of it should be.
Why all or none? Both capitalism and government can be powerful forces for good and evil, depending entirely on how they are managed. A local government or semi-public cooperative might work very well as an ISP.
How can they win? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, this would make the internet a public service more than a paid for service, so, unfortunately, there is a large gray area there - and the companies making the pretty penny are going to fight in that gray area.
Re:How can they win? (Score:5, Informative)
Its not just roads. As an earlier post pointed out, many city or county governments handle garbage collection, electricity, and/or natural gas.
All of these are handled in other places by private companies.
City of Chicago handles garbage collection.
In the city of Darien, BFI handles garbage collection.
City of Naperville does electricity.
ComEd sells me my electricity.
Parent
Corporations trolled (Score:5, Interesting)
And I fucking RAGED.
*You* didn't want the customers, fuckers, *YOU*. They came to you begging for service. You denied. Now they did it themselves and you blame unfair competition? Go jerk off in some cold closet, incompetent bastards...
TW pays a bribe for access; Greenlight benefits (Score:4, Interesting)
At least in the Triangle area in NC, TW pays the local municipalities a bribe, I mean an "Access Fee" that can approach something like 15% of the revenue. While their methods are all unsavory, they are rightfully angry that their bribe is underwriting a competitor.
North Carolinians, write or call NC Congress. (Score:5, Informative)
The bills in question are NC Senate bill 1004 and NC House bill 1242. You can find contact information for your state congresspeople here:
http://www.votesmart.org/index.htm [votesmart.org]
And remember, even if you're a NC resident who doesn't live in Wilson, this is a *state-level* issue, and your opinion counts. Not only that, but if these bills pass, it means no cheap internet for you, either. Be heard now, while it matters.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It is a very popular political tool.
Re:Only one way for city and citizens to win (Score:5, Interesting)
The city of Ashland in southern Oregon operates a fiber-optic network that's open to multiple ISPs. The city does not operate its own ISP at all, and they don't sell Internet access directly to residents; you have to sign up with an ISP, and the ISP pays the city for access to the fiber network. The city sets the speed and charges the ISP more for faster speeds, but the ISP provides the Internet connection, tech support, etc.
Parent