Big Telecoms Strangling Municipal Broadband, FCC Intervention May Provide Relief 204
MojoKid writes: With limited choice and often dismal upstream speeds, it's no wonder many people are excited to hear that newcomers like Google Fiber are expanding super-fast gigabit internet across the country. But some Americans also have access to other high-speed fiber internet options that compete with the big guys like Comcast and Time Warner Cable: municipal internet. In the case of the small town of Wilson, NC, town officials first approached Time Warner Cable and Embarq, requesting faster Internet access for their residents and businesses. Both companies, likely not seeing a need to "waste" resources on a town of just 47,000 residents, rebuffed their demands. So what did Wilson do? It spent $28 million dollars to build its own high-speed Internet network, Greenlight, for its residents, offering faster speeds and lower prices than what the big guys could offer. And wouldn't you know it; that finally got the big telecoms to respond.
However, the response wasn't to build-out infrastructure in Wilson or compete on price; it was to try and kill municipal broadband efforts altogether in NC, citing unfair competition. NC's governor at the time, Bev Perdue, had the opportunity to veto the House bill that was introduced, but instead allowed it to become law. However, a new report indicates that the FCC is prepared to side with these smaller towns that ran into roadblocks deploying and maintaining their own high-speed Internet networks. The two towns in question include aforementioned Wilson, and Chattanooga, TN. Action by the FCC would effectively strike down the laws — like those that strangle Greenlight in Wilson — which prevent cities from undercutting established players on price. The FCC is also expected to propose regulating internet service as a utility later this week.
However, the response wasn't to build-out infrastructure in Wilson or compete on price; it was to try and kill municipal broadband efforts altogether in NC, citing unfair competition. NC's governor at the time, Bev Perdue, had the opportunity to veto the House bill that was introduced, but instead allowed it to become law. However, a new report indicates that the FCC is prepared to side with these smaller towns that ran into roadblocks deploying and maintaining their own high-speed Internet networks. The two towns in question include aforementioned Wilson, and Chattanooga, TN. Action by the FCC would effectively strike down the laws — like those that strangle Greenlight in Wilson — which prevent cities from undercutting established players on price. The FCC is also expected to propose regulating internet service as a utility later this week.
YESSSS (Score:2)
We the Government (Score:5, Insightful)
We the Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations, will not allow the democratic process to interfere with the rights of business to dictate monopolistic and oligopolistic solutions to citize ... erh, customers.
In particular, you have no right to competition nor to form any "more perfect union" that reeks of socialism or even just consumers rights.
Business must be allowed perfect freedom. All other freedoms are coincidental.
Signed.
Your governor.
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Besides, it's the only reasonable way to do a municipal-scale project where initial construction costs overwhelm the incremental costs of adding new subscribers. So if I decline to pay now and then wait 5 years until the infrastructure is built and paid for by the first subscribers then should I pay the whol
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This is a local council. The decision was made by majority of representatives on the council, so it's the _will_ _of_ _the_ _people_.
Uh, what? No, and also no. That's the same argument made to make people believe that the USA is a democracy when it's actually an oligarchy. Representatives ignore the will of their constituents all the time. Sometimes they successfully lie to them and make them believe that this is not what is happening, and thus retain their support, for example claiming that they have selected the lesser of evils — presenting a false dichotomy.
Besides, it's the only reasonable way to do a municipal-scale project where initial construction costs overwhelm the incremental costs of adding new subscribers.
Nope. It should be run with the efficiency of any business, meaning that
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Sorry, but "pay for what you get" doesn't work with lots of essential stuff.
When you eventually get service, you will pay THE SAME RATES EVERYONE ELSE DOES
No. You don't get it. The cost of fiber optics is basically a $lotsofmoney to dig trenches and lay the backbone fiber. Then it's a couple hundreds of bucks to connect your apartment/home to the nearest point of presence. That's why most of the subscriber fee will go towards repayment of the initia
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If you have a connection for a gas stove, you are paying for the connection and the ability to use it. If I traveled for a month I'd not be using my water connection, but it is still connected and it is still available for use with the turn of a tap.
And how is that different from the fast Internet connection?
You want another example? I have lots! Last month my council decided to fund a new park. By your standard it should be a commercial park with fee paid each time you step inside. You see, not everyone will use this new park!
If you think the fees will go down, you're naive. Since your argument depends on an impossibility, your argument fails.
Not true. My new housing development paid quite a bit of money to connect to the electric grid. Once the connection fee was paid (about 4 years) the monthly electricity bill went down. So yes, it happens a lot. So your argument
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If you have a gas stove and no gas connection then you should pay nothing. I know I wouldn't pay a dime for gas service if I bought a gas stove (or the house had one when I bought it) and I never call the gas company for a hookup.
So for the years when I had no car and couldn't use freeways I should have paid nothing to support them? Can I file for a rebate for that? And don't try to claim that roads are paid for by gas taxes-- that hasn't been true for quite a long time. A substantial portion of funding for roads comes from general taxes. We should just make all roads toll roads then, and let private companies build and maintain them and charge whatever they want for them, and every time you cross from one companies territory to
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Yes, just like the rest of us.
No one's freedom is impeded by the prohibition for governments to compete with private interests. What we are talking about is not a bunch of people getting together to run cables. No — the talk is of coercing — at gun point (as all taxes are collected) — all of the town's residents (whether they want it or not) to pay for some Common Good[TM]. And that shall not be allowed to stand — not in a country, that calls itself free.
Oh I see, government itself is the enemy of freedom! If there were no government and no taxes we would all be perfectly free! Just look at, where is it now that has no functioning government? Someplace in Africa maybe? Boy are those people ever free!
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Oh I see, government itself is the enemy of freedom!
Since the government hires the people to ... monitor cellphone calls, use radars to search people's homes, put people in prison, etc, ... I'd say you already know the answer.
If there were no government and no taxes we would all be perfectly free!
Artificial dichotomy. Too much water, you die. Too little water you die. Just the right amount of water -- you die from something else. Too much government, you lose freedoms. Too little government, you have the ultimate freedom to protect your own freedom. Just the right amount of government -- they don't take away freedoms arbitrari
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Oh I see, government itself is the enemy of freedom!
Since the government hires the people to ... monitor cellphone calls, use radars to search people's homes, put people in prison, etc, ... I'd say you already know the answer.
If there were no government and no taxes we would all be perfectly free!
Artificial dichotomy. Too much water, you die. Too little water you die. Just the right amount of water -- you die from something else. Too much government, you lose freedoms. Too little government, you have the ultimate freedom to protect your own freedom. Just the right amount of government -- they don't take away freedoms arbitrarily and don't let others do so, either.
Government that competes using taxpayer dollars with existing corporations just because some people don't like the customer service they're getting is the wrong level of government. If there are so many people wanting another provider, another company would show up and eat the existing one's lunch. That doesn't happen. Hmmmm.
Maybe if you use the word freedom a few dozen more times it will all work itself out? You have arrived at the point where your awareness of the situation ends. "Another company" can't show up since many municipalities have incumbent agreements that specifically *forbid* anyone from competing with the cable or phone company that first installed infrastructure. Who thought of those laws? It wasn't the will of the people, not by a last mile, but I will give you one guess as to who did. There is such a terr
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If there are so many people wanting another provider, another company would show up and eat the existing one's lunch.
If I get together with a group of like minded individual with the goal of creating a local fibre ISP, we will fail for the simple lack of access. In most areas, governments have given a local monopoly to an incumbent cable and/or telephone company, and they have exclusive access to the infrastructure needed to run new cables.
Even if it was physically possible, do we really want 47 different sets of cables run up and down every street?This sounds like a huge waste of resources, and a logistical nightmare
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What we are talking about is not a bunch of people getting together to run cables. No — the talk is of coercing — at gun point (as all taxes are collected) — all of the town's residents (whether they want it or not) to pay for some Common Good[TM]. And that shall not be allowed to stand — not in a country, that calls itself free.
Like for police, fire, roads, water, trash pickup, sewer, and any of a number of other municipal services? Try moving to Somalia or Detroit.
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So you'd rather be forced to fund services you may not need or want?
That's pretty much the price of living in a civilized society. If you don't like it, try someplace like Somalia.
Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been wondering how long it would be before internet access began to be regarded as a utility. It has a lot in common with water and electricity in the 21st century - important to everyday life, high capital investment to put in infrastructure, commoditized once that infrastructure is in place. The parallel with electricity is especially close - different providers all use (or in theory can use) the same wires.
Of course, internet access is not as important as electricity and water in a fundamental survival sense, but the key is whether access to it is regarded as a norm of civilized life. 150 years ago access to electricity was rare and not part of day to day life - arguably, electrical infrastructure is not critical for survival or even for civilized living. Yet, today, living without electricity is not something most of us would care to contemplate. I suspect over the next 50 years "information infrastructure" will come to be regarded much the same way - theoretically we could make do without it, but the normal functioning of society and people's interactions with that society will require it.
Whether tha'ts a good thing is of course another question, but to me regulating the internet as a utility is in 2015 a no brainer.
Honestly, what needs to happen. (Score:2)
There should be procedure in place to allow for a municipal build-out if the municipality can document either a a rebuff from major local providers or total lack of response to multiple requests with a 60 day waiting period between request and assumed "rebuff".
If providers flat out decline to provide for the area, they should have no say in the area providing for itself.
Any competition is good competition (Score:5, Interesting)
The ILEC's (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) need competition. I work in an area only a few thousand feet from fiber. After Frontier bought that piece of Verizon land (many years ago) they stopped all FiOS deployments. The only landline access available to my main office is T1, currently $650/mo. That's 1.5Mbps up/down to the lowest bidder with Frontier providing the local loop. I was paying $2,600/mo for four T1's to get 6Mbps. The lines went down continuously. Customer service was a joke. I lived in this hell for almost ten years until the neighboring city started providing internet access. We were able to get a point-to-point 5.8GHz solution for less than $1,000 setup and 400/month that provides 30Mbps up/down and has near 100% uptime, better than anything provided by the the local telephone (err, data transport) companies.
free market? my a$$ (Score:2)
Now, how come that the most "free" country in the world has laws for that? Shenanigans. If the "ruling" lobbyists can make laws they want, then it's not a free country and it's not a free market, just state and accept that, and quit whining about how things stand.
About damn time this happens (Score:2)
$28 million is a lot! (Score:5, Interesting)
The $28 million was the original estimate. The cost at the moment is about $38 million [coalitionf...conomy.org].
There are about 5,400 subscribers of the broadband service giving a debt of about $6,300 per subscriber.
Wow! $6,300 per subscriber is a lot!
That's... let's see here... $525 per subscriber per month.
Yikes! That's Huuuuuuge!
That's... let's see here... $52.50 per month for 10 years.
That's... not unreasonable.
Okay, internet access is more than the build-out cost, let's suppose it's equally distributed 50% amortization and 50% ongoing costs (bandwidth, maintenance, power, &c).
That's... let's see here... roughly $100 per month for 10 years.
How long is the system expected to last? Amortization is usually over a 20 year period.
That's... let's see here... roughly $50 per month for 20 years.
That's... not unreasonable.
And doing this will bring employment for a couple of people in the town, and having fast internet access might bring a business or two to the town to generate more tax revenue.
[...] giving a debt of about $6,300 per subscriber.
I love emotionally framed arguments. It forces me to stop and analyze the real situation.
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You're missing a few things:
First, spending this borrowed money might employ a few people in town, but it also means less money is available to employ other people in the town (demand is reduced for some jobs while increased for others).
Second, the article shows that operating costs are over $11 million per year and that revenues aren't enough to cover those costs.
That puts revenues at nearly $170/month/subscriber and still money must be taken from the general fund to help pay for the system.
Re:$28 million is a lot! (Score:4, Insightful)
But it makes the town a better place to live, so more people (and businesses) move there, increasing the number of subscribers and lowering the cost for everyone. Hey, it could happen.
Didn't work for Philadelphia (Score:3)
Sure. And a pink elephant could materialize out of thin air. Fortunately, we don't need to guess — the City of Brotherly Love tried municipal WiFi (much cheaper than running actual cables) years ago. By 2008 the system was shut down [arstechnica.com]. Earthlink actually wanted to hand it off to the city's government, but found no interes
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Because free wifi across an entire city is exactly the same as paid high speed internet in small towns.
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Yes, it is very similar. The exact same things were said on this very /. 10-15 years ago about the "great promise" of municipal WiFi [slashdot.org], that the new generation of wide-eyed socialists are saying now: praising the Glorious Collective and denouncing the Greedy Corporations.
Paid or not, it is run by the government for The Greater Good[TM]. So it will become mismanaged very quickly — like all collectively
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Paid or not makes a HUGE difference. Free services are tax supported, paid subscriptions pay for themselves. If you cant raise constant taxes then a free solution will fail, and it is hard to raise reoccurring taxes. So you are really comparing apples and oranges.
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Nothing collectively-owned "pays for itself" in practice — this is why USSR collapsed, why Israel (mostly) abolished the idea of kibbutzes, and why Venezuela is falling apart.
And in theory it was and remains "unfair competition" — because competing with city hall is just as impossible as winning against a team, that has the referee officially playing for it.
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Having a duopoly is "unfair competition", so get that phrases out. When you have a duopoly and refuse to give the services that the town wants what should the town do, shrug and say OK? It is not like Wilson just woke up and said, you know we should build our own, no, they went to TWC first and TWC said nope, we will not provide these services.
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Also how many services did the USSR own that collected subscriptions and were not profitable? You are taking it to an absurd level.
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Meanwhile, no competing service could possibly appear — because you can not "fight city hall".
Cell phones aren't competing?
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You are comparing municipal broadband over fibre to municipal wifi. One is a fixed, high speed line to your home or business and the other is a low speed shared resource used mostly outside or by people too cheap to get broadband.
The two are quite fundamentally different problems too. Wifi can be installed on an ad-hok basis where a fixed line is available to get coverage. Broadband requires massive amounts of infrastructure to be put in the ground or up poles. Businesses have been unwilling to install bro
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Yep. So WiFi is (or should be) a lot easier to roll out and maintain — and yet, it did not survive.
There is, but it is not, what you have in mind. The utilities have become monopolies because of the myth of natural monopoly [mises.org]. A myth very convenien
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Yep. So WiFi is (or should be) a lot easier to roll out and maintain — and yet, it did not survive.
There is little demand for a high latency unstable bandwidth connection. Wifi can be better than some poorly maintained fixed line connections, but it's not hard for even DSL to be better because of latency and packet-loss.
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Because it was free, a free service with no revenue CANNOT survive. Can you really not understand the difference?
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Broadband doesn't have to require massive investments. I have 52 Mbps VDSL2 over the same old copper pair that's been in the ground for the better part of a century. At the end of the street, there's a concentrator that takes hundreds of copper pairs and bundles them on a single fiber. So, the investment is quite modest. It did not involve digging trenches in my street.
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The investment to put the copper into place was done years ago for POTS purposes. And maintenance cost have probably gone down, because I used to be connected through ~2 miles of copper pair, and now it's about a quarter mile.
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Sure. And a pink elephant could materialize out of thin air. Fortunately, we don't need to guess — the City of Brotherly Love tried municipal WiFi (much cheaper than running actual cables) years ago. By 2008 the system was shut down [arstechnica.com]. Earthlink actually wanted to hand it off to the city's government, but found no interest...
Seattle's municipal WiFi went dark in 2012 [smartplanet.com]. Other examples abound.
Yes, not only is government competing with private sector illegal — it is also a bad idea.
Except you are not simply talking about government. You are also talking about HOA's and similar communities.
For instance, one of my friend's bought a house in a community 15-20 years back. The CableTV companies didn't want anything to do with the community; so they ran their own lines to everyone's house. It was simply an HOA that did the work and the residents split the costs. Same thing has happened in many communities around the nation only to have the big players (especially the Cable companies) com
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Yes, it would be preferable for a company to do the buildout - they're probably doing it for other towns and might be able to do it cheaper and with better expertise than a town trying to do it by themselves. Then again, they have to make a profit and thus it might not be profitable for them to go into an area (as is the case here apparently).
I'd argue that a taxpayer would have more of a say than a customer - a taxpayer is a voter and can make enough noise with neighbors to actually get something to happe
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A taxpayer has more say than a customer?? are you kidding? Sure, a taxpayer can vote...once every two years or so, and whatever he wants will be compromised out of the equation long before it's time to vote, and he still has to pay for it. A customer can look at what's on offer and say 'no thanks.' There is no more powerful vote than that of the wallet.
Re:$28 million is a lot! (Score:4, Funny)
You aren't active in your local government, are you? Your loss.
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You aren't active in your local government, are you? Your loss.
My local government is actively corrupt, with the cops in cahoots with the local meth gangs — they refused to bust them for ages, we got a new Sheriff who did something about it, and they literally showed up in force to interfere, they've since drummed him out of office because he was cleaning up too many meth labs. The same old boys' network has run this place for ages and it will never change until they die. The only way I lose is if I actually go involve myself with that stuff and go rapidly premat
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Sounds like you should be reporting this to the Federal level.
Without hard evidence in-hand, I'd just be telling them things they already know, that they can read from the news. And even then, odds are good the evidence just disappears. You don't seem to get that corruption is endemic to the USA too, it's not just for the third world. It's everywhere. We've just written most of ours into the law, so that it's legal, or quasi-legal.
Re:$28 million is a lot! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think by using phrases like "fuzzy-warm feel-good liberal nitwits" you pretty much sideline yourself. Politics is all about compromise and finding a common solution, something that is obviously missing from your world view. No wonder you feel that your efforts have come to naught. No one wants to be called a nitwit.
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Soo.....you proved my point.
Ahh, no. Exactly the opposite. But if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy and think you won because you didn't quite understand what I said, that's fine. It would be my loss to participate further, just as I said earlier.
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Soo.....you proved my point.
Ahh, no. Exactly the opposite. But if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy and think you won because you didn't quite understand what I said, that's fine. It would be my loss to participate further, just as I said earlier.
and the next time such an issue came up I lost nothing by not being an active participant in the dog and pony show the council was being put through. Were I one of the warm-fuzzy feel-good nitwits, I'd have gotten a great deal of warm-fuzzy feel-good goose bumps all over and feel so happy -- while actually accomplishing nothing.
Actually, he is correct. You just showed you are not currently active. He did not say you were never active, but that you are not currently active.
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I said:
I'd argue that a taxpayer would have more of a say than a customer - a taxpayer is a voter and can make enough noise with neighbors to actually get something to happen. Believe me, it's happened in my town and not in a good way(IMO), but voters have a tremendous power that customers just do not have. A group of 20 people complaining during a town meeting will be far more effective than the same 20 people at Verizon's shareholder meeting. All politics is local.
You said:
For each issue I've taken an active stand in, about twenty vocal fuzzy-warm feel-good liberal nitwits captivated the imagination of the small minded city council members who thought their actions would be world-changing events.
You proved my point.
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A taxpayer has more say than a customer?? are you kidding? Sure, a taxpayer can vote...once every two years or so, and whatever he wants will be compromised out of the equation long before it's time to vote, and he still has to pay for it. A customer can look at what's on offer and say 'no thanks.' There is no more powerful vote than that of the wallet.
Except in this case where the "voting with your wallet" essentially means sell your home (if you have one) and move elsewhere if you don't like the one or two options available to you; but the problem is no matter where you go you basically will only have those same kind of one or two options (with possibly the same or different entities being your options).
Typically the choice is: Cable Internet (Comcast, Cox, TWC/RoadRunner, Charter, WindStream, and may be a couple smaller players) and either DSL (AT
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The revenue per subscriber is way off, too. Consider a base charge, Spotify, NetFlix, Apple/Microsoft/Google/Amazon TV, SmartHome/Alarms, and all the other value-add/combo services. Revenues 2x that price aren't out of the questions. Say-- $110/mo.
Add in the fact that the citizens, and the local govs have the rights-of-way, easements, and knowledge of the underground infrastructure. High-density installations benefit first, but whole suburbs can be serviced without huge capital outlays.
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Re:$28 million is a lot! (Score:5, Informative)
You're missing a few things:[...]
Second, the article shows that operating costs are over $11 million per year and that revenues aren't enough to cover those costs.
That puts revenues at nearly $170/month/subscriber and still money must be taken from the general fund to help pay for the system.
I've been over the article front-to-back and could not find anything about the operating costs.
The article *does* mention the projected prices and tiers:
Greenlight provides Internet-only service ranging from 40 Mbps for $39.95 per month to 1 Gbps for $104.95 per month. There are also package bundles available that add TV and phone service.
In short, you're lying. The article says no such thing.
First, spending this borrowed money might employ a few people in town, but it also means less money is available to employ other people in the town (demand is reduced for some jobs while increased for others).
Secondly, your objection is the "broken window fallacy" [wikipedia.org] and it doesn't apply to this situation.
Ask yourself: does your argument also apply to road and bridge maintenance? By foregoing the buildout and repair of roads, and by avoiding maintenance for bridges one could employ other people doing other town duties such as the fire station and police.
If your argument is valid for internet service then it's valid for roads and bridges, yes?
Also, you're relying on an emotional frame by referring to the money as "borrowed money". Borrowing and being in debt is baaaad! (But let's ignore the fact that all municipal projects of any stripe are built using borrowed money.)
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Spending money to build infrastructure isn't deficit spending. It's an investment in the local economy. If it brings a few businesses to town or even better, creates them, it is essentially free
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Spending money to build infrastructure isn't deficit spending.
If you have to borrow the money to build the infrastructure, yes, it is deficit spending. You're spending more money than you take in.
If it brings a few businesses to town or even better, creates them, it is essentially free
Borrowing money is never free, and the biggest lie is that taxpayer funded ANYTHING is "free".
What about the companies that leave town -- like the ones that the competition from the local government kill or keep from coming in to compete with the existing services? It's already bad enough that a second company won't come compete because the return on investment would be lo
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What about the companies that leave town -- like the ones that the competition from the local government kill or keep from coming in to compete with the existing services? It's already bad enough that a second company won't come compete because the return on investment would be low; imagine how many would come if the competition from the taxpayer-funded system made that ROI negative? (Answer: none).
Like Comcast? They're not going to bring money to or keep money in your local town-- they're going to pay as little as possible to people to ignore you on the phone for support, put an office staffed at minimum wage and located as far from you as possible, and give you as little service as possible while charging you exorbitant rates for bad service (with the money going to line someone's pockets far from your town). And if they can't make enough profit in your town, they'll get legislation to prevent you
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You're arguing with someone that named themselves Obfuscant.
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I know. I was bored...
Re:$28 million is a lot! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I just replaced a cable modem that was 10+ years old. I've got other equipment that is still going strong after 15 years. The only thing that was done, other than the occasional clean out of dust, was to replace a single fan. So yes, 20 years should be possible and if not the replacement costs of the powered equipment is a lot less than the full cost of installation. Replacing a CPE device will be less than $100 and will most probably support a faster connection speed. Replacing a line card will be simi
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LOL, In this case yeah. It would probably cut down on the ulcer's I get every time I talk to Comcast.
Who knows maybe the town will actually try and provide good service instead of the BS the typical monopoly does.
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That is not what is happening at all. They borrowed the money, and the paid service is paying the borrowed money back. The townsfolk themselves are not paying for it. If it did not work you would have an argument, but thus far it has worked, and therefore they are not.
Re:or $2,000 per household, owed by non-subscriber (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder why the city council thought they were so much better qualified to make these projections than the people who run ISPs for a living.
Their reasons are irrelevant. The decision to employ public funds to this end was made by the people. If the ISPs insist the weight of their opinion must be greater than that of the people those ISPs should be dismantled as they're a threat to democracy.
Re:or $2,000 per household, owed by non-subscriber (Score:5, Insightful)
If the majority can decide to force me at gunpoint to pay for something I did not want, then the "democracy" must be dismantled as not a mere threat, but actual impediment to freedom.
As a white person I have to say only another white boy would say something this ridiculous.
Every government ever has forced people to pay for things they didn't want. Pacifists funded the revolution at the exact same rate as Patriots. You couldn't get out of paying for the war that conquered the Indians of Ohio by claiming you had a principled disagreement with the policy of Indian Removal to West of the Mississippi.
BTW, the policy of Indian Removal probably would not have worked if the Native Americans had real governments that could do things like insist that the Oglala Lakota of what is now South Dakota send 1,500 number of warriors to a rally point in Green Bay to join the Unified Native Resistance Army. Since they didn't we got to fight each nation thirteen-on-one, with some very rare exceptions (i.e.: Tecumseh), and even those exceptions typically didn't have the political power to enforce taxation or military service. Which meant that when they lost a battle they lost the war.
Re:or $2,000 per household, owed by non-subscriber (Score:5, Informative)
Probably because the people at the ISP's don't give a shit what services the people there need/want?
I briefly tried to take a blog on technology issues into the domain of a youtube channel. However my internet is a 20/1 connection, at 1 mbps it takes me 3-4 hours to upload one ~40 minute segment. While I'm uploading I can't even use the internet for anything else. I need much faster up, but those big companies don't give a rats ass what I need. My best option for internet is what I have now. No business options even exist beyond what I have for residential service (a 3x bill just gets me 24/7 support and a change of name to 'business service').
These companies want to milk existing infrastructure for their own profit with no benefit to their customers. The other big businesses and financial services who own their stock get a good return though.
5,400 want it, 47,000 get the bill. Most don't wan (Score:2)
>. Probably because the people at the ISP's don't give a shit what services the people there need/want?
> Probably because the people at the ISP's don't give a shit what services the people there need/want?
"Town of 47,000 residents ... 5,400 subscribers".
5,400 people want the service, enough to pay $50/ month for it. 47,000 people are being forced to pay for it. It seems to me the city council doesn't care what the overwhelming majority of the people want. If the majority wanted the service, ISPs
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That's what businesses do - provide what people want.
No, no they don't. They provide the subset of what people what that they can make the maximum profit on. Occasionally, for the good of the people, we force them to do more. It's still profitable activity overall, but there's less profit than if they did only what they wanted to, and not what we actually want them to do. The obvious example is the penetration of the POTS network. We forced the telcos to connect people that they didn't want to connect, even though they wanted to be connected. We did it for th
It's called arithmetic (Score:2)
There are 47,000 people in the city (who are on the hook for the bill).
Of those 47,000, only 5,400 have chosen to get the service.
The remaining people, who chose not to get the service, are the overwhelming majority.
You don't have to read minds, you can read TFA. Most citizens have chosen not to get the service.
ISPs, like other companies, seek to make money. You don't have to read their minds to know, that's one of their primary goals. They might also be environmentally conscience, care for their employe
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There are 47,000 people in the city (who are on the hook for the bill).
Of those 47,000, only 5,400 have chosen to get the service.
The remaining people, who chose not to get the service, are the overwhelming majority.
You don't have to read minds, you can read TFA. Most citizens have chosen not to get the service.
There's a flaw in your logic here - you are quoting 'people in the city' in one breath and then comparing it to 'households' in the next breath. Exactly how many house holds would you expect to see have more than one subscriber?
I'm not sure exactly what the average household size is to use for this, but assuming that's 4 (2.5 kids and all that) then the uptake is more like 45%. That's a pretty good number even compared to top commercial offerings. (How many are rented and not allowed by landlord or stuck in
it's 2.51 . I could convert bc I looked it up. (Score:2)
Average household size in North Carolina is 2.51. I had looked it up so I could do the conversion correctly.
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What the average household size is does not really matter, especially if all the households that have it are larger than the average, which you do not know. Even still I see no conversion in your numbers. It also does not take into account buisness
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Average household size in North Carolina is 2.51. I had looked it up so I could do the conversion correctly.
And yet you managed to present it incorrectly anyway.
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There are 47,000 people in the city (who are on the hook for the bill).
Of those 47,000, only 5,400 have chosen to get the service.
47K people may be only 9K to 15K households. If all the households have 2 adults and 2.2 kids, 5400 is about half the households in the city. It may very easily be that while there's insufficient profit available for a large providers to come in, it's more than worth it for the residents to have what's become a rather important utility for much or most of the developed world.
you keep guessing instead of reading (Score:2)
>. 47K people may be only 9K to 15K households. If all the households have 2 adults and 2.2 kids, 5400 is about half the households in the city
If unicorns farted rainbows ...
It is not the case that all households have two adults and 2.2 children. I've told you twice already, the average household size is 2.51, meaning 18,801 households. Next time read the post you're replying to, m'kay?
18,801 households. Why guess? (Score:2)
5,400 get service, of the 18,801 households who have to pay for it.
I don't think I'll ever understand why people make wild guesses and post them as though they were facts.
Re: (Score:2)
something about pots, kettles, and their colors comes to mind...
no, my first post in the thread computed household (Score:2)
>. Says the person who only made note of the household issue when called on it,
No, the very first post made in the thread, I said how many households.
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You forgot age distribution. About 1/3 of the people in Wilson are under 19.
and guess where kids live? (Score:2)
Guess where kids live? Hint - there is a reason that there are 47,000 people and 18,801 households.
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Except your claim was :
Of those 47,000, only 5,400 have chosen to get the service.
That does not hold up well when you calculate the number of people per household. In short other than using statistics you are making shiat up. Because you cannot know if those 5400 HOUSEHOLDS have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 people in them.
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I remember back when my GF and I first got broadband in our house. Some of our friends who had it before we did had gotten in trouble with the cable company for using their own router. The cable company was able to detect this because the modem would report the MAC address of the connected device to the cable company. Our friends were forced to rent and use a supplied router, then charged based on the number of PCs that router reported (or for 2, if the router reported
When our subscription started, after g
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Re:or $2,000 per household, owed by non-subscriber (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see this as that different from a municipal water system. The town, through it's elected officials, chose to implement this plan. Perhaps the citizens voted for this system knowing that initially it wouldn't break even but think that it was good for the town as a whole. Much as I might vote for a municipal water system even though I get my water from a well and don't want to subscribe to the water system. I realize that it's good for the town and therefore good for me indirectly even if I don't directly take advantage of it. I support bond measures for schools even though I don't have children and don't plan too and so do some who send their children to private schools. Who are we, not part of the town, to question their wisdom and judgement from afar. Perhaps the town made the judgement that as the internet grows and government services migrate to the net, more people will sign up and it will be revenue neutral or even make them money down the road. I support the idea the local government is the best and I see no reason to over turn their judgement here.
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Re:Couldn't they have spent that money better? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they borrowed money in the form of municipal bonds to get this done and it doesn't pay off and they default or declare bankruptcy why should the state bail them out? The creditors who bought the bonds should take a haircut for making a bad investment. Why should the state bail out those investors? Isn't that how municipal bond markets are suppose to work? Isn't that why they're private, won't private investors look at what the bonds are for and make a judgement if it's a good investment of their money or not? Who are you to tell the bond holders how to invest their money?
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Yes we know that if you do not pay your taxes you will face sanctions (though it is highly unlikely guns will be drawn unless you draw first
You don't follow the news, do you? Even peripherally?
Re:It is unfair competition (Score:5, Interesting)
Dude, at least RTFS.
That's what Wilson NC did. They asked the inumbents to build out and give a quote.
The big boys told them to go to hell. At which point, they decided to build out their own.
Re:It is unfair competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, towns that protect incumbents, then want to throw those incumbents out to run their own service...huh?
How about this: government is the provider of last resort (it kinda works this way already for a bunch of other services). If the local telcos or ISPs thought it was profitable, then they would have already done it. But they didn't. So it's up to the local government to step in and work to improve their community. One of the reasons we're in the house (and town) we're in now was because back in 1998 there was Cable Internet service available. These days I'm fairly certain that a house without access to high speed Internet service will sell for far less than a house that does have access to it. Higher house prices equals higher taxes. It's in their interest to make the tax base as wide and high as possible.
Re:It is unfair competition (Score:4, Insightful)
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If the local telcos or ISPs thought it was profitable, then they would have already done it.
This is a common fallacy, if the ISPs thought they could make a higher return on their investment providing crappy service (particularly if they have no competition) then there is no incentive for them to provide good service (particularly if it means they will have competition).
The town (presumably) would not be profit focused and therefore be more concerned with the quality of the service than the return on investm
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Re:It is unfair competition (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the comparison between people in the US who have electricity provided by a commercial for-profit entity and those who have it provided by a co-op/municipal entity. All the evidence I can find suggests that the municipal systems are better for the community than the commercial operators.
I cant find any suggestions that people living in areas where the electricity is provided by a municipal monopoly are unhappy with the service or wish they had a commercial operator running things.
And there is nothing to suggest that municipal broadband is going to be anywhere near as crap as the current offerings. Its likely to be high speed fiber links (so already it will be faster in the real world than the crappy speeds most cable and DSL operators currently give you) and there is no real reason for the municipality to try and pull tricks to protect TV revenues (since the municipalities generally dont have skin in the TV game in the way the current monopolies do)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
For somebody making such a claim, you offer surprisingly few citations. Zero to be precise.
I certainly am unhappy with our electricity-provider — our wires hang on the poles, which makes them vulnerable to even light snow and wind. We routinely lose power fo
Re:It is unfair competition (Score:4, Interesting)
For somebody making such a claim, you offer surprisingly few citations. Zero to be precise.
During the Enron Induced Electricity Crisis in southern California I lived in the City of Pasadena. Pasadena has its own municipal water and power service, and did a very good job of managing costs so that I didn't see rate increases at all, while customers of SoCal Edison were paying enormous amounts of money for power when they had it, and had plenty of brownouts/rolling blackouts while I had stable service. The City of Los Angeles did even better - DWP had done a very good job of planning and prepurchasing power and had excess available that they could sell at a profit, lowering the cost for their own municipal subscribers. Most municipal systems did similarly well during the summer of Enron, while private electricity was a disaster.
I now live in unincorporated LA county and am served by SoCal Edison. When we had a huge windstorm that took out power for about 1 million households across multiple power providers, Pasadena had nearly everybody back up in a day (they've spent a great deal of effort moving a lot of the supply underground and on reliability in general). I was driving across LA during the first full day after the storm and every hour or so the radio would report that another 100,000 of LA DWP customers were back up, but no change in SCE. Nearly all of about 400K City of LA customers were back up in 2 days, while SCE took as long as a week for many customers (they had something like 500K customers out), and was essentially incapable of even estimating how much they had to fix or when they could do it. SCE has had absolutely terrible service for most of the time that I've been in their service area, and I would gladly pay Pasadena prices for their reliability.
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Cables must be buried underground, but, facing no competition the local utility is not in any hurry to do that.
Fine. Then vote to spend 10x - 100x (depending on terrain) as much to run the cables, and raise the rates to pay for the ***HUGE*** bond issue required to implement it.
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As much as people complain about its occasionally byzantine bureaucracy and its sometimes lapses into small-time corruption (such as giving open terms to the politically powerful), Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) serves over 400k subscribers, rapidly fixes outages in a major metropolitan area prone to thunderstorm damage, repeatedly wins awards [mlgw.com] for reliability of service and water quality, and has a AA bond rating. It offers extremely favorable terms and payment programs [mlgw.com] for low-income subscribers. Oh,
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I cant find any suggestions that people living in areas where the electricity is provided by a municipal monopoly are unhappy with the service or wish they had a commercial operator running things.
Even though I am not within the city limits and cannot vote on city matters, I am still required to use City of Austin electricity.
My last house was also outside the city limits but was not inside the boundaries of the City of Austin electricity.
When I could select my provider, my per-KWH cost of electricity was much lower.
Austin has a very strong green party lobby and a very progressive cost structure for electricity(first 500kwh are less than half the price of the second 500kwh and after that it climbs ra
Re:better than in Australia (Score:4, Interesting)
The act is "Broadband Network Companies Act 2011" so you can't really blame it for the ageing infrastructure. If you want to blame anyone for the ageing infrastructure blame the ISP's that failed to invest in new technologies.
This two decade old paper shows Telstra's plans for FTTH in 1994 INT94b.PDF [telepower.com.au]. Telstra failed to act on this for two decades. The introduction of the NBN is a reaction to that failure to act and a recognition that the costs are such that you needed a longer term outlook than next quarter's earnings. The NBN also got caught up in partisan politics which hasn't helped.
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I agree - CenturyLink is pure shit. Thankfully we have a smaller regional cable internet company that still gives at least half a shit about its customers (Midcontinent). I live in terror of the day that Comcast / TW / whoever comes in an buys them out.
Re:helpful to NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Since corporate-owned Internet was provably no obstacle to government surveillance, your question is irrelevant.