Telco Sues City For Plan To Roll Out Own Broadband 681
Syngularity writes 'MaximumPC is featuring an article about one broadband provider's decision to sue the city of Monticello, Minnesota after residents passed a referendum to roll out their own fiber optic system. TDS Telecommunications had earlier denied the city's request for the company to provide fiber optic service. During the ensuing legal battle, which prevented the citizens from following through with their plans, TDS Telecommunications took the opportunity to roll out a fiber system.'
That'll learn 'em. (Score:4, Insightful)
Revoke TDS' exclusive license (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem solved. Actually I bet just the threat alone would be enough to make TDS fall on its knees and obey the government.
Re:Not government's job (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're against public roads then.
Re:Not government's job (Score:5, Insightful)
Except in this case the citizens *asked* the government to perform this service (hence the part about the referendum). This isn't the government "dabbling" in other services. This is a government doing exactly what it's citizens are asking it to.
I wish the system could do something good for once (Score:1, Insightful)
...and have a judge who throws the suit out, on the grounds of it attempting to stifle competition.
Seriously, corporations shouldn't be allowed to do this sort of thing.
This is why I hate the legal system. Lawyers aren't the weak link.
Judges are.
We have 17 year olds, here in Australia, who can kill people, and get 2.5-3 years for it, in a youth training centre. The police do their job. The lawyers do theirs. Every other part of the system works; except the judges.
Unlike most people, I don't have such a big issue with lawyers; because I say to any judge who reads this, that I know where the fault with the system really is. It isn't with them, judges. It's with you.
You're against the post office? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not government's job (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you READ the article, douchington, or do your Ayn Rand superpowers render that unnecessary? The private company refused to provide a service that the residents wanted, so said residents passed a referendum to do it themselves. The private company turned around and used the court system to hold up the process while it built a system, and is now butthurt because the city might offer competition.
And yes, TJ is rolling over in his grave - because idiots like you try to invoke his name.
Re:Not government's job (Score:4, Insightful)
This is capitalism at its finest.
Re:Not government's job (Score:2, Insightful)
At least public roads are directly funded by those who use them (drivers). If you don't drive, then you don't pay the "use fee" collected at the pumps.
That should be true of all government-provided systems. You want to send a letter: you pay the cost of the stamp. You want to ride the subway or metro train: you pay the ticket. You want to build a house in Nowhere, Virginia: You pay the installation costs. There should not be any subsidization for these services by non-users. Not one single dime.
The government runs pipes all the time! (Score:5, Insightful)
Municipality can run water pipes, sewer pipes, and gas pipes.
Please tell me why the Internet pipe is any different from these other pipes.
Re:I wish the system could do something good for o (Score:5, Insightful)
This doesn't relate to the article, but I can't not respond to the parent.
You're complaining about the youth offenders system in Australia? On /. ? People complaining about short jail sentences, particularly for young offenders was why I had to stop reading the forums on Canadian news sites. Canada and Australia both have extremely low crime rates because the criminal justice system has reasonable sentences, especially for young people. I'm tired of the "lock them up and throw away the key" mentality; it focuses on vengeance rather than prevention.
The role of the criminal justice system is to make streets a safer place, not to make you feel better after crimes have been committed. If you make it impossible for offenders to find jobs or otherwise become part of society again you limit their options and increase the likelihood of a re-offense. Certainly a strong punishment is necessary for the enforcement of laws but longer sentences are not the solution to crime; they're a simple campaign line for politicians because everyone loves to hear it. The only important factor is making sure that the fewest possible crimes occur.
I plan to move to Australia later this year. Don't fuck it up before I get there. (It already seems to be the only developed country with worse internet service than Canada, which makes me sad, although the weather looks better.)
Privitization (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not government's job (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't drive, then you don't pay the "use fee" collected at the pumps.
Your kidding, right? Do you ride the bus? Buses run on Diesel (mostly.) which pays road tax. Do you purchase food at local stores? Guess how it got there.. You pay more as a driver, but everybody helps pay for it. But mostly, Look at water.
You know, other easy to make comments aside, you have no idea how much we take water for granted in the US. The vast majority of Americans are given very clean drinking water, and their waste is treated, by the government. We take that for granted, but many illnesses that used to be very common are exceedingly rare in the US. People talk about bottled water, and how much it makes for the companies, but its usage pales in comparison to a single days output from a municipal system. If you want to see the errors in your very conservative logic, go read about south America, where several nations (bolivia comes to mind) have "sold" the exclusive rights to make drinking water to a private, profit driven company. Make sure you read about the riots, protests, cost increases, and even how some protesters were killed. Meanwhile, we take it for granted here.
Re:Not government's job - call the wambalance (Score:4, Insightful)
what happnes when you dont drive - dont pay for the road and you have a heart attack does the ambalance have to drive cross country because YOU never contributed to a road in your life?
Should someone come and take all the pavement and street lighting etc up at your your house?
Re:Not government's job (Score:1, Insightful)
At least public roads are directly funded by those who use them (drivers). If you don't drive, then you don't pay the "use fee" collected at the pumps.
Unlike the telcos' infrastructure, which was entirely paid out of AT&T and Comcast's pockets without a dime of public money... oh, wait...
Re:Not government's job (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not government's job (Score:4, Insightful)
That's fine. Their town; their decision.
But rather than have government do the job, I think I would simply called Verizon on the phone and said, "We want FiOS and and have the 70% of the population willing to buy it." Corporations have the expertise and experience to do the job, which politicians lack, so let corporations handle it.
Preventing the creation of a governmental company, no matter what line of business, is anti capitalistic. Sometimes something is of the collective interest of everybody, then, in general, there are no differences. When everbody agrees (more or less) is when you create a governmental postal system, fire dept., health care, roads, and in this case communication. There should always be private alternatives and they should never be banned, as that would be anti capitalistic as well. But adding the artificial constrain on a market which means prohibiting the formation of a governmental company does not foster sane capitalism. There should be fair grounds though, but that's easily arranged.
Re:Not government's job (Score:4, Insightful)
Wiring is infrastructure (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm as free market as anybody, but wiring is infrastructure, and I don't have a problem with infrastructure being provided by the government. Let the local government, through the power utility, run fiber optic to everyplace that receives power, unless a private company provides a 100MB connection to the house for less than $20. That 100MB line should have low enough latency to provide live TV and VOIP phone connections. If the private companies won't build a better product than can be provided publicly, they shouldn't expect protection from competition.
Re:Not government's job (Score:1, Insightful)
The best rail networks in the world are govt run systems. Why are they the best? Because they don't have to make a profit, but do have to come up to a very high standard for the millions of people that have to use them daily. Not everything needs to make a positive cashflow like the US military machine. You seem to be confused by government. It doesn't mean they phsyically run things themselves, it means they pay the bill to external companies. Again, see US military.
Re:Not government's job (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not government's job (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>Preventing the creation of a governmental company, no matter what line of business, is anti capitalistic
Yeah I agree.
So what's that have to do with my original statement, that I think a private corporation like Verizon FiOS would do a better job? This is no different than if the U.S. Army says "we need more tanks." They don't build the tanks themselves. They ring-up Lockheed or Northrop or some other corporation and have them build the tanks.
Also: I don't agree with your premise that a government monopoly is any better than a Comcast monopoly or Microsoft monopoly o ATT monopoly. We should steer clear of monopolies wherever we can, which is why I disagree with having a postal monopoly (which is deep in debt) or passenger rail monopoly (ditto).
I like choice. Monopolies take away that power.
Re:That'll learn 'em. (Score:3, Insightful)
Next time the town should be more careful about granting exclusive contracts.
What was given by the government, can be taken away by the government.
It is just sad they do not do so when the other side has so clearly violated the terms of the exclusive contract.
Re:Not government's job (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not government's job (Score:3, Insightful)
Jefferson and his colleagues wrote the federal constitution, laying out the powers and operation of the federal government with other powers reserved to the people or the states. The constitution they wrote placed considerable limits on the scope of the federal government; but placed very few limits on the scope of state and local government(pretty much, "no foreign policy, no violations of citizens enumerated rights" and not a whole lot else). Had the constitution been written to create a libertarian government, rather than a limited federal government presiding over a collection of state governments, it would have looked hugely different.
Of course, just because state and local governments can doesn't necessarily mean that they should, so it is perfectly legitimate to advocate for state and local governments along libertarian lines; but the assertion that the legitimate scope of government is tightly limited simply because the legitimate scope of the federal government is tightly limited is silly.
Re:Privitization (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Revoke TDS' exclusive license (Score:5, Insightful)
I appreciate your fear and concern about government run communications networks, but there are constitutional and other laws in place to ensure that whatever the government does in terms of snooping or investigating is available to public scrutiny. One way the government uses to get around this is by asking non-government entities to do the spying for them.
I think the concerns are the same regardless of who is running the show. But in this case, especially, it was the community at large who pushed for the creation of a fiber infrastructure. I think there would be less to fear from this particular government body than from the typical self-appointed/self-anointed government players we typically see day-to-day.
Re:Not government's job (Score:1, Insightful)
Heaven forbid that tax money should be spent educating our youth!
Re:Not government's job (Score:4, Insightful)
Goes to show the biggest enemy of the free market is...the free market.
Corporate welfare state (Score:5, Insightful)
Next time the town should be more careful about granting exclusive contracts.
Exclusive deals usually go sour before the ink is dry. It's not a new problem and if it were easily solved, it would be solved by now. Here's the obligatory quote summing up the problem:
It's tenacity probably owes something to shortcomings in human nature and the inability of society to self-correct in those areas.
Re:Not government's job (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not government's job (Score:5, Insightful)
It is called a trade off. When the government spends money on infrastructure it isn't throwing it away. That money will provide jobs to people in the US those people will buy stuff and provide more jobs and all those people will pay taxes. Some of that stuff may be education for their children or themselves which will pay more benefits.
Think about the rural electrification project from the 1930s. That paid huge benefits to the country in increased productivity and quality of life in rural America
In the end things like roads, phone lines, and now data lines are used by everybody. The more people that have access the more benefit to everybody. I know that it is may be unpopular to say it but $300 spent on infrastructure will benefit the US a lot more than that same money spent on a game console made in china by a Japanese company.
Re:Not government's job - call the wambalance (Score:1, Insightful)
when you have a heart attack the ambulance service pays the road tax and you pay the ambulance service. riding in an ambulance is not free but by paying the ambulance service you pay for the road usage. so he is still correct because he is paying to use it.
Re:I wish the system could do something good for o (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate how 'vengeance' has become a dirty word; and yet if you have been the victim of a crime, surely it is a basic human need. If you don't factor it into the sentence, you will just encourage vigilantism.
Re:You're against the post office? (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree, what a ridiculous comparison.
The post office takes your mail and other packages and routes them through the postal network for delivery.
Your ISP facilitates sending your e-mail and other packets and assists in routing them through a large network for delivery.
These 2 services are so conceptually different I can't even begin to think of a single way they are analogous.
Re:Not government's job (Score:5, Insightful)
As a second point everyone benefits from good roads not just those who drive on them. Police and fire departments can respond better on good roads. Less congestion means better air quality. Better roads also bring in more business which means more jobs. The road infrastructure is tied into almost everything we do. Thus everyone helps pay for it. Your precept that only those who drive benefit from roads is both short sighted and incorrect.
That's insightful (Score:3, Insightful)
Moreover, (and I'm getting more off topic) disease is a lot like fire. America will probably get a single payer health insurance plan after a plague does for health care what the London fire did for firefighting.
Re:Not government's job (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not government's job (Score:3, Insightful)
Police are not babysitters. They are not there to protect us from ourselves. They are there to defend property and citizens from each other. For those reasons they are important.
If thugs go after some ethnic group that isn't yours you should not have to pay for their protection.
What does ethnicity have to do with anything? They are people too and would get the same protections of property and self as any other ethnicity.
If some indigent gets sick or insured you shouldn't have to pay for their care. Let them die if they don't have the money.
In a perfect and ideal world, no this would never happen. However ( and this is the point that everyone in the healthcare debate seems to miss ) It costs money to provide healthcare. In some cases lots of money. What is the value of human life? If a procedure is going to cost 100 million dollars to save 1 person is it still worth it because life is valuable? Death is inevitable, we are all going to die. It is just a matter of time. In some cases it is not worth it, even for a family member to pay the costs of healthcare. It is sometimes better to let your own child die then pay for a miracle. The idea that the government should pay whatever costs are necessary at the taxpayers expense is impractical. It doesn't mean we as a society shouldn't strive to provide care for all, it just means you must take into account the real costs in the real world and ask if it is worth it. Healthcare has costs it cannot and never will be free. Also, death is natural and it is not inhumane to let people die - no one lives forever.
On Education: For starters a public education system is the tenth plank of the communist manifesto. Second the public education system is used as an indoctrination tool and inhibits free thought, in the public education system you are punished for being a non-conformist. Then there is the cost of public education, once again people aren't practical about how to pay for it. Even if the first two points didn't matter the public education system is horribly underfunded to even meet its stated goals. Here are two more reasons why some people don't want to support public education: 1. They never used it (private or home schooled). 2. It holds back the bright students in order to cater to the failing ones.
I don't think anyone is for no-government. However we managed just fine for hundreds of years with less government. I'm all for government, just less of it. For instance in the case of this telco issue, the people organized to put in their own fiber network (a public project is not necessarily a government project) and the government instead of promoting competition though fair trade stopped the people for building the product they wanted. In this case that is not a free market, that is a government regulated market hampering progress.
Re:That'll learn 'em. (Score:3, Insightful)
"...then lease that to the telcos and ISPs..."
FAIL
"...then lease that to whoever wants to provide service..."
FIXED
That's the kind of thinking that gets you into these constricted agreements.
Perhaps some building owners would like to contract for service. Around here (Phoenix), Qwest bundles DirecTV with DSL and POTS to entice us to jump ship and kiss cable goodbye. A complex could certainly negotiate a deal.
Of course, in Tempe, the municipal WiFi failed spectacularly. The provider didn't complete the network, couldn't bill subscribers, didn't answer the city government, and when they took over the provider took all the equipment they could and left town. Truly an epic FAIL. Chandler was having them build a network also, which predictably stopped when the outfit escaped Tempe.
Municipal systems are not always winners. But contracts always bring problems. Count on it.
Re:That'll learn 'em. (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe that the municipalities should invest all of the capital in the costliest part of rolling out broadband, then lease that to politically connected telcos and ISPs at costs so low the bonds used to build the network in the first place will never be repaid, leaving taxpayers to foot the bill
FTFY.
Re:To All The Constitution Advocates (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't knock the comedians. Most comedians are very intelligent people, and as knowledgable or more than the averaged informed person. They are so intelligent, in fact, that they long ago realized that the best way to put out controversial statements is through comedy, that the best way to combat ridiculousness is not by shouting it down, but through ridicule.
You can't say certain things and get away with it, but comedians can in their routine. Why do you think the Daily Show and Colbert Report are so popular? They say the things that we're all thinking, but we can't say for fear of the repurcussions. You don't see people calling Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert unpatriotic when they constantly derided Bush and co. But any other public figure would've had hell to pay had they said the same thing, on or off the air.
So don't go knocking comedians. They make people think while making them laugh.
Re:Privitization (Score:3, Insightful)
Not so creepy when you know that the founders of Second Life read Snow Crash and intentionally tried to build the system described in the book.
Same with Google Earth.
Re:To All The Constitution Advocates (Score:5, Insightful)
Al Franken wasn't elected because of his comedy work exactly. Starting with Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot he used his comedy celebrity to engage in political advocacy. You may disagree with his politics, but he does actually stand for something, and if you read his books and listen to his speeches he'll let you know exactly what he stands for.
I mean, if we're going to have a "no celebrities in politics" rule, then obviously Ronald Reagan should never have been president, but often the same folks who vilify Senator Franken for being an ill-informed celebrity are the same folks who wanted to name an airport after Reagan.
Re:I wish the system could do something good for o (Score:4, Insightful)
Fucking prick.
Re:1 Million Strong Against our SOCIALIST Fire Dep (Score:1, Insightful)
Who do you imagine paid for this service if not taxpayers?
"Volunteer" fire departments are not free; they are simply staffed by non-full time fire fighters. They are compensated in full for their time spent responding to calls by the municipality.
Re:1 Million Strong Against our SOCIALIST Fire Dep (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:free market (Score:3, Insightful)
"Separate delivery from production" doesn't solve anything.
Say we do that, and three water companies provide water to some common pool, and one water distribution company sends that water around.
What have you solved? You still have a one-company bottleneck - the distribution company - that can charge whatever it wants to deliver the utility, because the one thing you definitely don't want to do is install two identical delivery systems.
So let's look at it from a customer's perspective: Jim wants water, so he contacts the distribution company (which actually pipes the water to his house). So we can already see that Jim doesn't get to pick his distributor - only one company has pipes run to his house. Does Jim get to pick which water supplier to use? Of course not - the water comes from a common pool! Jim still has one and only one choice - the distributor. He has to take whatever price the distributor sets.
Sure, you could set up some scheme where each water company pumps whatever it wants into the pool, and Jim's usage is metered and he pays his chosen supplier based on that - but now he has to pay two bills: one to the supplier and one to the distributor, each with their own taxes, administrative fees, and so on. Furthermore, you now have possible problems where a supplier puts X gallons into the pool one day, but its customers use X+10 gallons - and this can be true for every supplier. That kind of situation is very difficult to deal with fairly (fairly to all the suppliers, that is) when multiple suppliers have to go through a single distributor. It's kind of like ISPs' attempts to charge different rates based on content, actually - and please don't tell me you think that scheme is workable.
In other words, you've made the system a lot more complicated for zero gain. "More complicated" is of course equivalent to "more expensive" in the long run, I'm sure you'll agree.
Also, its foolish to think that having competition is going to increase costs in any way. If that were the case, then there would be no need for governments to grant monopolies to companies. They would be "natural"
I don't think you understand why the government grants monopolies to utilities. It's basically a paper saying "we'll let you run the monopoly on utility X as long as you don't screw over your customers by charging too much." It's not about the monopoly itself, per se, it's about protecting the customers - they do it precisely by acknowledging that it's a natural monopoly.
Besides, as I've pointed out, your competing "water suppliers" could not possibly reduce costs, and even if they could reduce the cost of water production you have given no guarantee that the customers would see the price lowered, because the distributor would be the one charging them.
You're assuming an odd sort of circumstance, where two companies come in and plant pipes to every house in a town even if they aren't a customer.
Exactly - and that's because the only way two water utilities could truly compete is if each company has control over the whole process, from production to distribution. I've already described why, above.
[Flying cars] worked startlingly well, and were capable of full autopilot for both takeoff and landing, meaning that there wouldn't be any problems with human error as you put it.
I'm not worried about takeoff and landing. I'm worried about what's in between. There would be TONS of problems with human error. OH no, Jim forgot to refuel his car, and now he's plummeting 2000 feet onto a school. Yeah, that sounds like a real good idea - let's implement that Real Soon Now.
I should also point out that I'm calling your bluff - your statements regarding existing viable flying cars are only valid if you're referring to small passenger aircraft (complete with wings and a propeller), rather than what the words "flying car" imply (that is, some
Re:1 Million Strong Against our SOCIALIST Fire Dep (Score:2, Insightful)