Kansas To Nix Expansion of Google Fiber and Municipal Broadband 430
symbolset writes: "Consumerist, among others, is reporting on a Kansas bill to restrict municipal support of broadband expansion. Purportedly to ensure a 'level playing field' to encourage commercial expansion in this area, these bills are usually referred to as oligopoly protection acts. Everywhere they have been implemented expansion of new broadband technology stops. In this specific case no municipal entity in Kansas will be able to enter the same sort of agreements that enabled Google Fiber. From the bill:
Except with regard to unserved areas, a municipality may not, directly or indirectly:
(1) Offer to provide to one or more subscribers, video, telecommunications or broadband service; or
(2) purchase, lease, construct, maintain or operate any facility for the purpose of enabling a private business or entity to offer, provide, carry, or deliver video, telecommunications or broadband service to one or more subscribers."
Except with regard to unserved areas, a municipality may not, directly or indirectly:
(1) Offer to provide to one or more subscribers, video, telecommunications or broadband service; or
(2) purchase, lease, construct, maintain or operate any facility for the purpose of enabling a private business or entity to offer, provide, carry, or deliver video, telecommunications or broadband service to one or more subscribers."
But Kansas! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But Kansas! (Score:5, Funny)
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Darn, I'm sure Google was excited by the prospect of providing broadband access to the tens of people who live in municipalities in Kansas.
Actually, yes. KCK was the first municipality that Google fiber signed a deal with. Mostly because one entity (the city) owned all the plant and rights of way, so it was a simple arrangement between WyCo/KCK government and Google.
Re:But Kansas! (Score:4, Informative)
Colorado did the same stupid thing a few years back, after being bribed and or intimidated by the likes of Comcast and Qwest.
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Re:But Kansas! (Score:4, Interesting)
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I live in Kansas and on the one hand I'd like to have google fiber and on the other hand I can get residential 150mbps internet for $99/mo. What would a municipality funding more broadband carriers into my community accomplish? What would it do to the three competing broadband carriers already here? I'm on the fence.
I know western Kansas has places were you are lucky to get 1.5mbps dsl and I'm not so sure a municipality with 1-10k people could even afford to support broadband expansion into their community.
Re:But Kansas! (Score:4, Insightful)
You can get 150mbps for $99/mo BECAUSE Google fiber moved into your state. Maybe not your direct neighborhood, but near enough that your cable providers upped their offerings so less people clamored for Google to roll out fiber to their neighborhood.
This bill is about cable companies protecting their monopolies/profits so that no Municipalities get the bright idea to compete. Those small rural towns are pure profit for cable--the infrastructure is already in place (thanks to government money), there is no competition, and they can offer low speeds at high prices.
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If this law is blocked, it doesn't necessarily mean that ever community is going to get into the municipal broadband business. Enacting this law, however, will mean that the status quo will remain in place: that communities not presently served by affordable broadband will remain sh
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that communities not presently served by affordable broadband will remain shit outta luck,
The good thing about capitalism is that if a company can make money doing something they will. The fact there is no "affordable" broadband somewhere is a good indication that broadband cannot be done at a cost that you find "affordable". One reason some places get broadband at what you find to be "affordable" prices is because everyone else subsidizes it. I.e., people who have no interest in broadband pay for your broadband.
and communities served by a sole-provider monopoly will continue to get screwed.
I've been reading this discussion looking for someone to bring up the "monopoly" s
Re:But Kansas! (Score:4, Informative)
In Hong Kong that will cost you $168 HKD /month on a 6mo contract.
That is just under $22 USD / month.
Also includes phone service (not that useful as everyone has cell phone).
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I can get FIOS, Cable, or DSL from three different companies at one house. I guess you could still say that they are three separate technology monopolies if you wanted since I only get one choice of each but providing internet they all compete against each other. {there is also satellite internet which I fogot about}
Re:But Kansas! (Score:5, Insightful)
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That is the American Political Machine for you
I'm sure you meant that.
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No, they didn't. You can disagree, but there's nothing intrinsically incorrect about the accusation they've leveled.
Freedom! (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom for Oligarchs. Higher prices for you.
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Sounds like... (Score:3)
Re:Sounds like... (Score:5, Insightful)
America has the best government money can buy.
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Every democracy has the political leadership they deserve.
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Be careful what you wish for.
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I once used an IRC client on a terminal connected via a not-very-well-configured serial line. The 'idiot, you just downed the network interface over SSH' port. Thus I am one of the few people to have done the 'embarassing backspace reveal' in recent years.
Everyone thought I was just joking with it.
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I think the point was, in that case it would be ^H^H^H^H^H. In caps.
Ain't no pedantry like technological pedantry.
BWAHAHAHAHA! (Score:5, Insightful)
encourage the development and widespread use of technological advances in providing video, telecommunications and broadband services at competitive rates; and
That will never happen. Under no circumstances will people be able to get any of those services at competitive rates. What they will get are high prices for slow speeds.
Looks like Verizon/Comcast/whomever was successful in bribing Kansas State House members into bringing this bill up for consideration.
Gotta love fascism. Nothing like getting shafted by the government AND private industry.
Re:BWAHAHAHAHA! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:BWAHAHAHAHA! (Score:4, Insightful)
"...encourage the development and widespread use of technological advances in providing video, telecommunications and broadband services at competitive rates..."
At the same time that they hand out local monopolies to the carriers.
BRILLIANT. Not contradictory at all.
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Are Americans ready to admit they don't have a free market,that they do not have a truly capitalist system, but have a government completely beholden to the rich and corporations?
I truly feel I'm watched the rise, am watching the decline, and soon, will be watching the fall of the USA.
Re:BWAHAHAHAHA! (Score:4, Insightful)
You make your sarcastic comments, but where I am, it's getting very very competitive here. Hell, recently TWC bumped us up from 2 to 10 Mbps for free. Also gave us free HBO (not an introductory offer, just plain free), and offered to give us a wifi point (already covered, but still).
Of course, I'm in KCMO, in a section where Google Fiber isn't yet, but is imminently on its way, but I'm sure that's completely irrelevant, and does not undermine the cableco's competitiveness message in any way at all.
Fiber optic cables are direct analogs to roads (Score:5, Insightful)
What's so hard to understand?
Municipalities should own infrastructure.
We have a situation where the roads of the future are privately owned, gated, and tolled. The rest of the world is preparing to steamroller over you.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
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We have a situation where the roads of the future are privately owned, gated, and tolled.
Snowcrash was a warning, not a blueprint.
Re:Fiber optic cables are direct analogs to roads (Score:4, Insightful)
I love this idea that municipal ownership would magically fix everything. What, exactly, are you smoking?
In my area the electric, gas, cable, internet, and telephone utilities are private. The water, sewer, and streets are municipal.
So what are the track records of each? Well, we do get an occasional power outage, mostly from falling tree limbs during storms. However, the electric company is constanly out trimming trees to try and avoid that. There is an occasional gas leak. When that happens the gas company is there and fixes the problem very quickly. I have way more channels and options available on cable than I ever had before - seems the cable company must have been improving its infrastructure. My internet connection is faster and more reliable than it ever has been, and I can't remember the last time there was an outage. Don't use POTS anymore, but can't recall ever having an outage when I did.
On the other hand, in my small town there is a water main break at least once a month. Their excuse? 'The system is very old and needs to be updated.' Are there any plans to do such an update? Nope.
A city near me had a 100 year old sanitary sewer main break which flooded several houses with raw sewage. The houses had to be torn down. They also have a collapsed sewer line that caused a sinkhole in the middle of a busy residential street. The street has been closed for 2 YEARS. So what are they doing? 'Deciding how to proceed'. They also have a major street with a lot of traffic lights. At one point the lights were pretty well synchronized so traffic moved smoothly. Something happened and they got out of sync - traffic is a nightmare. After a few months of this people were complaining rather loudly. The citys response? 'It would take the city electrician A WHOLE DAY to retime the lights - we can't afford that'. Been like that for about 5 years now.
Yeah, municipal ownership sure is a magic bullet.
Re:Fiber optic cables are direct analogs to roads (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're stacking the deck here pretty unfavorably.
In Minneapolis, the water utility is self funding and has done infrastrucure upgrades. Our water plant is state of the art, with filtration down to .03μ. They have been engaged in a multi-year project to reline water mains to prevent corrosive sclerosis of the iron piping.
I can't think of any specific catastrophes with the sewer system and I know for a fact that upgrades of the treatment plants are ongoing as I drive by one frequently and know it has been updated and expanded because I've seen the construction, plus Federal water quality rules would be unlikely to let them get worse.
Gas and electric utilities, while private in most places, are also heavily regulated. The state PUC has turned down or drastically reduced rate increases; the only reason they trim trees is to contain their own costs from damage, the cost is built into the states' approved rate structure and an inherent safety concern over downed lines. Don't kid yourself into thinking its done as a consumer initiative, especially with how badly they butcher the trees. Gas line maintenance is also heavily driven not by consumer need but by safety. There have been at least two gas line explosions I can think of in the last 10 years despite this.
Cable TV prices have oustripped inflation by nearly 10%, yet performance has stagnated and poor service is pretty much common, and cable does everything it can to resist any pro-consumer initiatives. Ala carte pricing where it exists is a joke, explicitly structured to be uncompetitive. Cable card was resisted with maximum effort to maintain device rental monopolies. Internet service remains slow, expensive and fraught with all manner of rules and restrictions, and likely to get worse with the recent loss of net neutrality rules.
I dont think most people want a purely municiple cable TV, I think what they want is a municipal fiber backbone that can be leased out to private operators to offer services. Cable doesn't want this because it would mean choice and choice would cut out their rent seeking and just further the march to internet delivered content from someone else.
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Probably because every time the municipal utility wanted to raise rates to cover a bond issue or to enact a sensible maintenance schedule, the city council got all pissy that their water rates would increase from "practically free" to "what it actually costs" Or when the state DOT wants to raise the gas tax (w
Car analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine every transport company building their own road system, and what that would do to competition, and prices.
In other words, companies should not be able to have direct control over basic infrastructure. That's what we (should) have a government for.
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Actually, many toll roads are privately owned (For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I... [wikipedia.org] and to a lesser extent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org] ).
What's funny about the I-185 toll road is how absolutely bad things are:
1) There is almost no mileage/time savings vs the primary highways
2) The tolls have skyrocketed over the past few years because it's basically a useless road (It now costs $6 cash
Why? (Score:2)
Can someone explain me how this is possible and what the reasoning is behind this law? I mean, lawmakers are chosen by the people, for the people, land of the free, etc, how can that lead to a law forbidding the people to self-organise? It seems a bit paradoxal, one would expect that these lawmakers will be removed after the next election.
Where is capitalism when you need it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Communism and Capitalism both have some things in common. Not only do they both begin with the letter C, but they are both "great ideas" and neither ever actually happen.
Every time I see a story about a municipality taking their lack of development and progress into their own hands, some previously uninterested party steps in and says, "This is my territory and you can't build where we don't want to build." On its face it's ridiculous. They want to cherry pick -- to invest in the markets which offer the best returns. We all get that. But to deny anyone else the opportunity to operate in less favored zones is 100% anti-competitive and 100% anti-capitalist. Trying to keep other parties from participating in the marketplace takes the free out of free markets.
I think it's about time there were some public hearings on the situation so that we can get them to say things they don't mean and can later be held to account on.
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This may come as a shock to you but the filthy uneducated commie pinkos beat you to orbit a man around the Earth and designed some of the best jet-fighters in the world.
The failure of communism is that it lends itself to stagnation and autocracy. The failure of predatory capitalism is that it lends itself to balkanization of services, byzantine contracts completely leveraged in favor of the service provider and crony-capitalism. In neither of these is technological enfeeblement the largest issue. Technologi
A little misleading (Score:5, Informative)
I think the bill is a bad idea, but I don't think it would stop Google from deploying fiber elsewhere in Kansas. It doesn't do anything to prevent deployments, it just prevents municipalities from offering the special treatment that helped get KC selected as the first city out of 1100 candidates.
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So what do you do when you are in an area that isn't going to be high profit and already has an incumbent with no interest in providing good and reasonably priced service? Providing incentives for other companies to come in and build infrastructure and create competition sounds like a good way to fix that. Otherwise it's minimum speed minimum cap ADSL forever.
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So what do you do when you are in an area that isn't going to be high profit and already has an incumbent with no interest in providing good and reasonably priced service?
Perhaps a potential competitor could ask residents to help fund the initial cost of building the infrastructure. Perhaps the company could promise that every resident who offers a certain amount of start-up capital will receive free service for some period of time upon completion of the infrastructure. Or perhaps the competitor could offer stock to the residents, so that the residents could make their money back over time if the company is successful. Either way, the municipal should stay out of the negotia
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As someone who lives in the area, let me be really clear what's going on here.
The Kansas City, Kansas (KCK)/Wyandotte County area is largely working class, a lot of immigrants or first generation citizens. Basically, Democrats. Yes, they do exist in Kansas. This is also the area that has had the most growth in "cool stuff" over the last few years: The national champion soccer team's stadium is there (Sporting KC), the NASCAR track is there, and they just finished building a HUGE 2-building office space t
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"IANAL, but I don't think granting easements and the like would be included in those activities prohibited by (b). But it's (a) that I dislike the most. Why prohibit a municipality from offering services? "
Municipalities *should* be generally prohibited from offering services like that, on the grounds that they have an unfair advantage (they can tax your money then spend it to compete against you among other things) and there is a whole line of undesirable consequences that flow from that - driving out othe
VoIP, Jabber, Skype, etc, now prohibited (3d)!! (Score:5, Informative)
The law of unintended consequences... While Section 3b, in regards to "video services", makes clear reference to "through wireline facilities located at least in part in the public rights-of-way", and clearly is about cable tv (no thread to netflicks for example), 3d is a very different animal:
(d) "Telecommunications service" means the two-way transmission of
signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, messages, data or other
information of any nature by wire, radio, light waves or other
electromagnetic means, offered to the public generally.
Hmm...does not seem to be based on actual broadband service providers or any specific limitations. The way it is written would seem to exclude any form of VoIP or chat "service" (jabber, skype, etc)!!!! WTF?! Way to go Kansas!
Re:VoIP, Jabber, Skype, etc, now prohibited (3d)!! (Score:4, Interesting)
What is a web site, but writing, images, sounds, and data. Kansas has been officially disconnected from the Internet.
Not disconnected, but it sounds like municipal web sites may be verboten.
Re:"two way" services (Score:2)
This I think does not apply to "publishing" as written (web sites). But certainly it could as written also cover file sharing, too....
...On a mattress stuffed with $100s (Score:2)
How do the politicians pushing bills like this present them as anything but pure greed and cronyism with a straight face? I mean, I really can't come up with even a plausible cover story to make this more palatable. Even the old standby of "protecting jobs" doesn't fly, because someone still needs to run the networks, and seriously, how do you sell "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company" as a private
Re:...On a mattress stuffed with $100s (Score:5, Interesting)
Then again, maybe the politicians just don't even bother trying to have a cover story anymore, because they know we already consider them all nothing but self-serving asshats, yet the majority will still vote them back into office again and again and again.
The only way things will change is to always vote out the incumbent. Every time. Even if you agree with 100% of their positions and votes. Lets spend a few election cycles churning up the sludge. Maybe some of them will get the hint, and maybe some better people will see that they have a shot at getting in, once the old-boy network has been rattled to pieces.
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Then again, maybe the politicians just don't even bother trying to have a cover story anymore, because they know we already consider them all nothing but self-serving asshats, yet the majority will still vote them back into office again and again and again.
This... most people think 'their' representative(s) are not that bad, it's the others that suck, so they vote theirs in again. All a politician has to do is sell himself to his constituents on a few issues, say look at what I have done for you (if an incumbent or holder of other political positions), and smear everyone else into oblivion. It gets lapped up, and the cycle repeats ad nauseum.
Honest name (Score:3)
Let's give this an honest name shall we. Why don't we call these bills Protect Oligopoly Results Kineticly act - or PORK acts. The only thing these bills do is protect the business model of existing oligopolies and prevent competition. They are inherently anti-capitalist and have no place in the US (or anywhere else in my opinion).
Competition is a wonderful thing and those countries that have competition have much better service for much better prices and their companies still make quite a bit of money.
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Re:Honest name (Score:5, Interesting)
Better idea, how about a bill which bans government from providing or subsidizing broadband in any county in which broadband (at least 5Mb/s) is available to 100% of residences. Think about it ;-)
Those who live in Kansas (Score:4, Informative)
The bill is by "The committee on commerce" which looks to be... http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/committees/ctte_s_cmrce_1/
You might want to contact them. We all know where / how this bill got it's start. You need to voice your opinion and remind them who they really serve.
We Are Many; They Are Few. (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been observing this sort of greedy corporatism for years. We seriously need to first set up a nationally recognized, "voluntary" standard that at least four competing broadband providers should be available in each jurisdiction and then start a national nonprofit organization that relentlessly pressures non-compliant local and state governments into abolishing laws and regulations that discourage or outright prevent this kind of minimum coverage. Constant lawsuits that dig up dirt about payoffs to politicians and expose semi-monopolies would be an excellent idea as well. It may be a little early to truly establish the idea that universal access to low-cost, high-speed Internet communications is a basic human right, but it's a good propaganda tool.
I'm a dreaming fanatic about free markets, but we don't have free markets for broadband Internet access. We have utterly corrupt corporatism. It's high time to savagely fight back against the greedy parasites at Time Warner and Cox and the rest who absolutely hate the idea of having to give up their bloated, government-protected profits.
Alternative article title (Score:5, Funny)
you know.. (Score:2)
GAAAHH!! (Score:2)
This drives me crazy. I live in a relatively populated but rural area of North Carolina. I'm in a subdivision that started in 2008 but didn't get built out much because of the financial crash. Because of this I can't get cable Internet (they won't run a line into the subdivision) and AT&T won't bother to expand their DSL. What I pay Verizon for a measly 10GB of wireless data a month is about the same as what Google is charging it's fiber people. Stupid legislators like this will keep me in the Internet
Only 20% Served (Score:4, Interesting)
The law is horrible in many ways. The three that stand out to me:
1) Municipalities are allowed to engage in broadband efforts ONLY if 9 out of 10 homes in a census block have no broadband. This means that the big ISPs can wire up 11% of homes and call it a day. The other 89%? Too bad, but you guys aren't profitable enough to care about.
2) Satellite and mobile is counted as broadband. Never mind that satellite would be hideously expensive or that mobile can have tiny caps compared to wired broadband. In fact, it doesn't matter if the ISP is going to charge you $200 a month for 1GB of access. That's considered available access and you can't launch a municipal broadband effort.
3) This bill was literally written by the big ISPs who don't want competition from Google Fiber and municipal broadband. So the cries of "this will increase competition" are out-and-out lies. This is all about protecting the profits of the big ISPs by preventing municipalities from serving the non-served. The ISPs are afraid that, if municipalities are able to do this by themselves, they won't give lots of cash to Verizon, etc to build and run out networks. (Which those ISPs can then pocket, not build the networks, and lobby to keep them from having to uphold their end of the deal.)
Dear Google (Score:2)
Dear Google -
Fuck Kansas. I have a better proposition for you: Finish wiring up Missouri.
Our government is very friendly to large corporations such as yours, our residents would welcome the additional competition and higher quality service you're offering, and we have 2 major and 1 minor city in a nice, triangular geography that is quite conducive to building a state wide fiber loop.
We'd be happy to have your business.
Following South Carolina's Lead (Score:5, Informative)
We had the same thing happen here a couple of years ago. Oconee county got fed up with the broadband players' reluctance to hook up rural parts of the county, so they decided to go in with the Feds to roll out universal fiber to all, because of the economic implications of such..
In response, AT&T objected, said they had planned on universal coverage, and lobbied the State for a "level playing field" law that would prohibit hooking residences up to any publicly funded infrastructure where the same subsidies were not given to AT&T and other private carriers.
The day the bill was signed into Law, the AT&T CEO declared wireline infrastructure dead, and that not one more penny would be sunk into wireline expansion in South Carolina.
Re:munis are broke (Score:5, Informative)
Because AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc didn't get any government assistance to build their networks....http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2010/07/att_verizon_get_most_federal_a.html
Re:munis are broke (Score:5, Informative)
munis didn't fund wars... nice try though
Maybe not... but spending by Munis is also not responsible for the vast majority of US public debt. As of 2012 (the latest year-end I can find data for without logging into Bloomberg and compiling the data):
US local government debt as a percentage of GDP was around 7-8%.
US state government debt as a percentage of GDP was around 19-20%.
US federal government debt as a percentage of GDP was a touch over 120%.
So, by far the biggest contributor to US public debt is the US Federal Government, and by far the biggest single-ticket item of its expenditure is military spending ($700 Billion per year in direct contract awards), with massive spending on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The most thorough study that I can find public reference to is by Brown University, which puts the cost of troop deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and logistical support in Pakistan, plus domestic spending on debt interest to service that cost, at something over $6 Trillion so far, and that is only since 2003.
The study itself does not seem to be publicly available on the interwebs - Crawford, Neta and Catherine Lutz. "Economic and Budgetary Costs of the Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan to the United States: A Summary". Costs of War. Brown University.
But you can check out the Wikipedia article to get the basics: Financial cost of the Iraq War [wikipedia.org]
Seeing as the current US Federal Debt burden is somewhere between $17 and $17.5 Trillion, the "non-War" debt burden is still a not-inconsiderable $11 Trillion, but the annual Military Gravy Train in the US dwarfs the rest of the debt components.
You are ignoring entitlement numbers (Score:3)
Your concluding statement isn't accurate at all.
The "mandatory" spending on entitlement programs dwarfs military spending: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
We have a spending problem, but it's not limited just to the military budget, and it is simply not true to say that the military spending "dwarfs" the rest of the debt components. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite.
This has a nice visual breakdown of federal income and outlay: http://www.washingtonpost.com/... [washingtonpost.com]
Also, refer to the GAO's citizen's repo
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municipality
noun
1.
a city or town that has corporate status and local government.
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And Google doing this is any different from any other company who demands and/or extracts concessions from the local municipality in exchange for opening a business there? Exemptions such as no taxes for the duration of its existence, exemptions to zoning laws, exemptions to local pollution standards, etc etc?
At least Google's concessions are largely unharmful to the local community, and the end result is actually fostering competition in an area that's normally a monopoly. Imagine that....local government
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the government shouldn't be giving any money to any corporate interests
*IF* this bill actually did what you say here, I doubt many would be outraged. Yes, it would interfere with some Internet services, but it would also mean that the incumbents must start paying the city back for all right of way they are using at market rates.
It would also mean no more city or state money for the NFL stadiums, tax abatements for any business, etc.
I'm pretty sure most here could get on board with that.
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... in exchange they provided free internet to public buildings, including schools.
Not that I have a problem with adding more competition in to broadband service (much the opposite, I lobbied hard to get my city the Google Fiber project that ended up going to KC), but I wanted to point something out - that's basically how crack dealers work. The first hit is free, but once you're hooked...
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Re:munis are broke (Score:4, Informative)
Have you seen the scale of rates being charged? They are charging $300 for the fiber install, which they are even willing to finance at 0% interest over a year ($25 a month!), and if you do nothing else, you get a FREE 5 Mbps connection. If you opt for the full connection, they waive the install fee, and then give you 1 GBps down AND up for $70. In addition, they are providing free gigabit service to schools, libraries and hospitals.
And what is the city giving in return? An expedited permit process, and only charging half as much per pole to connect. How is this a bad deal for the city or it's constituents?
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Re:They don't deserve it anyway. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps if they pray really hard, God will create a super fast broadband network for them.
They'll need to pray harder than the lobbyists who wrote this bill.
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Perhaps if they pray really hard, God will create a super fast broadband network for them.
They'll need to p(r)ay harder than the lobbyists who wrote this bill.
There, I fixed that for you.
Re:They don't deserve it anyway. (Score:5, Funny)
Kansans mustn't have broadband, they might gain forbidden knowledge [wikipedia.org].
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Nope, no closed minded bigotry here....
Wacky thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
It is quite humourous that normally when people hold wacky beliefs - beliefs that have no evidence and defy common sense - are labeled "kooks"; but as soon as they identify themselves as "Christian", we have to treat those beliefs with respect.
Re:Wacky thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. If someone had a few thousand followers now who claimed he could bring people back from the dead, create food out of nothing, his mother was a virgin etc etc. they'd be called a cult and laughed at. Point to an old book that claims the same thing and ... presto piety.
Re:Wacky thinking (Score:5, Funny)
presto piety.
why did you have to go and say that? now I'm really hungry for pizza, and I have no idea why!
Re:Wacky thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wacky thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
And that is an attitude that we seem to lack around here. We, as a society, need to learn to be able to not give a damn about other people's wacky beliefs (unless you believe I need to be set on fire or something and then we have a problem). There are people in the world who believe that cows are sacred. We slaughter and eat these sacred cows daily. They are going to teach their children that cows are sacred and we are going to teach our children that cows are tasty.
It does not hurt you for someone to believe that the world was created by a flying spaghetti monster or aliens or green mold. It does not hurt anyone that people want to believe that invisible space monkeys have a plan for them that involves them giving food to the poor. It does not hurt anyone if someone wants to believe that the world magically sprung into being cause their invisible magic man cried or something. And it doesn't hurt anyone when they teach their children these things. No one complains that Amish kids grow up without electricity. If the kids decide their parents are crack pots, they will figure that out on their own when they realize that cows and bacon are tasty and the internet is grand thing.
I wish we would stop trying to force our beliefs on each other. Let people teach their kids about their invisible men or aliens or evolution as they see fit.
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Re:Wacky thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
> but when you shed your mortal coil and find yourself in the Pit you will wail in disbelief
That's alright, I know I'll be in good company. After all most people on Earth never encountered Christianity at all. Plus most Christians worship wrong anyway, and will end up in the Pit along with the rest of us - just ask the members of any *other* Christian sect.
Re:Wacky thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
It matters not whether you follow Christian beliefs or not during your time on this earth, but when you shed your mortal coil and find yourself in the Pit you will wail in disbelief ... but by that time, it will be too late.
AKA: "I don't care about people, but I'm forced to be ethical because otherwise I'll be in the pit." That's an inspiring ethical approach you've got there.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
No willful ignorance in order to maintain a vague sense of political correctness here. Please do try to convince the class why Kansas and other such places don't deserve the hard time they get for their high density of bible thumpers.
How about for the same reason that poor children in the inner cities don't deserve the "hard time" they get for their high density of gang bangers and drug dealers?
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Yeah, you've isolated what bigotry does wrong here: judging individuals from a group, while judging that group from different individuals.
And that's all well and good except gang-bangers don't run the local government, in a way that suggests a persistent cultural problem. There's something wrong with the state as a whole, even if you can say it's only because of a scant majority of those that happen to vote.
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Perhaps if they pray really hard, God will create a super fast broadband network for them.
best not. someone might download porn or read about evil-ution if they have broadband.
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Haven't you seen Debbie Does Denisova?
The Invisible Hand (Score:5, Insightful)
of the market at work, not God! Except when it is not.
All these companies bleat and cry every time they might get regulated even a little, yet will lobby for these sort of laws to increase their profitability.
WWJD? Pretty sure he would dickpunch the lot of them.
Re:The Invisible Hand (Score:5, Insightful)
"yet another bit of evidence that markets work better than regulated rent seeking"
I don't agree. You are assuming that all regulation is the same. If however regulation was say, I don't know, made for say consumer protection, and for the citizens rather than bought and paid for by corporations, I think you would see regulation that works for the most part. It just happens that regulation is bent one way or another depending upon which corporate lobby paid for it (or took perfectly good regulation, to amend it to include loopholes for them and their buddies).
Unless you can totally separate the state from the commercial interests their will always be political interference. Having totally independent regulation without corporate bias would enable the markets rather than detract from them. The market becomes skewed when one commercial interest gains leverage via regulation which is exactly what is happening in this story. Then you get several lobbies in a political bidding war, which is exactly what the politician wants to help win his/her next election.
Re:The Invisible Hand (Score:5, Insightful)
You are assuming that all regulation is the same.
The phrase "Regulated rent seeking" implies the shitty kind of regulation.
If however regulation was say, I don't know, made for say consumer protection, and for the citizens rather than bought and paid for by corporations, I think you would see regulation that works for the most part.
"If".
The market becomes skewed when one commercial interest gains leverage via regulation which is exactly what is happening in this story.
I agree. I just don't see the point of trying to make a dig at the "Invisible Hand", when the market is being so blatantly thwarted and bypassed. It's like complaining a technology is unsafe because someone died after going through considerable trouble to remove the safeguards on the technology.
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No, there must be gays working for Google. There is nothing God can do...
(Damn Fred Phelps)
Re: (Score:3)
Thanks ALEC(American Leglislative Exchange Council)
Thanks Google, for joining ALEC and legitamizing Americas' true Shadow Government.
Thanks to all the State legislatures bought and paid for by ALEC
American land of the "free"(TM), home of the cowering masses of consumers beholden to mega-corporations.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZeWPScnolo [youtube.com]
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Perhaps if they pray really hard, God will create a super fast broadband network for them.
I suspect God has bigger things to deal with than internet connections. But it doesnt hurt to try....
Considering that if God exists, he does so outside of space and time. So he could theoretically have time for everything, because time has no meaning to him.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually, as a non-believer I have to concede that 'god exists outside of [our] space and time' is one of the more reasonable and rational statements you could make. If God created the universe then he must necessarily have existed outside the spacetime he just created. Now, any statements as to how his "spacetime analogue" and our own may interact start treading on much more tenuous ground, but the basic assertion is necessarily valid.
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Umm, broadband providers do have to continuously upgrade the hardware and lines to handle increasing requirements, the problem is there is no requirement to do so. It would be the same with roads if they were owned privately.
Your stawman that I want the government to takeover is off base and ignores what I said completely. I am for the
Re: (Score:2)
It is beyond ironic that in a thread about poor broadband governance you recommend running Colin Powell for President.
His son Michael ran the FCC during G.W. Bush's term and had the chance to make the internet common carrier and guarantee us net neutrality. He did not do that. He sold out to the corporate interests.
What makes you think his father would be any different?