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The Internet Government Networking Businesses Politics

Municipal Broadband Projects Spread Across U.S. 140

Posted by Zonk from the competition-is-healthy dept.
Mediacitizen writes "Media rights group Free Press has just unveiled an online broadband map showing the vast extent to which publicly supported 'Community Internet' projects have overtaken towns across the country. Hundreds of communities now have municipal broadband systems on the drawing board, despite aggressive lobbying efforts by big telephone and cable companies to derail these projects. The national map shows Community Internet is spreading like a prairie fire."
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Municipal Broadband Projects Spread Across U.S. More

Municipal Broadband Projects Spread Across U.S.

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  • I'm tired reading of another solution for the poor urban that can afford a laptop and wireless. How about us sad 48K dialup bastards in the dark zone of rural internet.
    • Move to Saskatchewan:
      http://www.sasktel.com/about_sasktel/news_room/200 4_news_releases/sasktel_announces_communitynet_dep loyment_schedule.html [sasktel.com]
      With the spread of Community Net II wireless land based line-of-sight internet access in rural Saskatchewan, I wonder how long until more communities set up their own podcasts here. All I'm aware of so far is an independent TV station out of Indian Head, SK. I'll try to look it up and give a link for that later.

      • Re:Community Net II (Score:5, Funny)

        by Zapraki ( 737378 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @01:04AM (#13636436)
        line-of-sight internet access in rural Saskatchewan
        So... that pretty much encompases the entire province I'd say.

        • Re:Community Net II (Score:4, Informative)

          by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @01:15AM (#13636463) Homepage Journal
          "So... that pretty much encompases the entire province I'd say."

          Sweet joke. Yeah they just put a tower up on Spy Hill, Wood Mountain, and Climax for redundancy, as a tower anywhere would serve all locations, or at least the edges of towns facing the towers.

          For those that don't get the joke, there are no towers in any of those three places that sound like high elevations, and SK has an un-deserved reputation for being a completely flat wheat field because that's what it looks like from the Trans Canada Highway through the southern grain belt. Nearly half of the province is actually trees, lakes, rocks, and brush.
          • Yeah but that other "half" with trees rocks, lakes and brush is really not Canadian territory ... rather it is the Kingdom of Mosquitoes. Their government graciously allows us to frequently wander into their territory in order to keep their food supply fresh. For those of you who have never seen a northern mosquito, they are about 20 lbs of flying blood sucking madness that generally travel in extremely large, well organized hunting parties. Your best portable defenses are a flamethrower or a shotgun, bec
            • . . . in order to keep their food supply fresh.

              When a mosquito sucks your blood it is not feeding. It's a reproductive act.

              It's always a female, if that makes you feel any better about it.

              KFG

              • When a mosquito sucks your blood it is not feeding. It's a reproductive act.

                Ok, public service message everyone. If you get caught by one of these swarms, please douse yourself with gasoline and set yourself on fire. With that one simple act you have saved the rest of us from tens of thousands of new mosquitos.

                You are the weakest link in the chain.
              • "
                When a mosquito sucks your blood it is not feeding. It's a reproductive act."

                But it is feeding. I eat before sex too. It would be a reproductive act if while feeding, she were laying eggs in the bloodstream of a new host [which malaria kinda is I suppose].
            • Up here we call them the "border Patrol".
    • You (and I) gave that up when we moved to a rural area. There are benefits to living in a more populated community. Pooling resources is one of them.

  • It's a Good Thing. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pantero Blanco ( 792776 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @12:54AM (#13636402)
    This is how broadband was introduced to the mid-sized towns (10k-30k population) in my region a few years back. Service has been much better than I've heard delivered from the big ISPs; I've only had one or two downtimes and they only lasted a few minutes...Though I did end up having to show the cable guy how to configure a network connection properly. All he knew was "ipconfig".


    • Now this is boring, but I once read an interesting article regarding the issue of communism and open source ( Is open source communist? [zdnet.com])

      I can see similar questions being raised about the "Community Internet" as well, and it makes sense why such things don't last too long in USA. The entire discussion of communism in Community Projects seems focussed around proving how evil they might be simply on the grounds of being remotely communist or hinting to be so. "Its communist so don't do it" is one of the many

      • Re:It's a Good Thing. (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Why do we have 500+ billion for war but not for education or medicare? And free Internet?

        Well, because when the Islamic Extremists cut off your head becuase you shaved your beard or didn't pray today you won't need an education, health care or 'free internet'? Do you really think thugs will go away if you ignore them? Nothing is free.

        • You're thinking too short term. With the advancement of the Internet, the power of porn will get so powerful that either they all give up on any pretense towards religiosity and just start fwapping, or it will piss them off so much that they all suicide bomb themselves at once, in which case terrorism would stop being a problem because they'd all be dead.
        • I'm sorry, I just can't agree with that. It seems the american government only wants to spend money on the Military. It's wrong. I'm sorry if I annoy anyone with what I'm saying here, but if more money was spent on public services, then more lives would have been saved in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. By increasing all sorts of public services at home, it enables a more security consious society automatically. People will be happier because they will see the government actually helping them for o

        • Re:It's a Good Thing. (Score:2, Informative)

          by Malor ( 3658 )
          Um, we have spent three hundred billion dollars to make more extremists. Invading Iraq and linking that to the so-called "War on Terror" was an outright lie. No WMDs. No link to Al Qaeda.

          Invading Iraq because of 9/11 was precisely equivalent to invading Mexico for Pearl Harbor.

          It's worth pointing out that there were no terrorists in Iraq before we invaded. Days when there are only two or three car bombs are now good days there.

          When you look at the Bush team's absolutely inept handling of the Katrina dis
        • yes this is true: pittsburgh was in imminent danger of being overrun by islamic extremists up until we invaded iraq.
      • If you really think about it, you could consider many civitan and church activities that are designed to help the community with minimal or no personal gain "communist". The average American's main complaint with Cold War Communism is the intense Government control and elimination of religion and culture that comes along with it. Neither of those is really relevant to Open Source, or cheap municipal Internet service.
        • The average American's main complaint with Cold War Communism is the intense Government control and elimination of ... culture that comes along with it. Neither of those is really relevant to Open Source, or cheap municipal Internet service.
          Municipal and community are opposites. Open source is an example of community. Municipalities are built on command and control hierarchies, artifacts of patterns of conquest. Wifi/wimax/etc beats hell out of dialup, but let's not confuse a technology with a politcal stru

        • Fantastic Point

          Anyone saying that something is communist siply because it does not offer any financial gain is off their rocker! One of the good points about communism is that everyone got the same, and services were provided (in theory anyway!). The big problem was in the implementation and with government taking away civil liberties, and any shred of human rights whatsoever. Oh, and also they wanted to bomb anyone who didn't agree with them, and convert them to their ways.

          If someone finally decid

      • The student loan system in USA is a vaguely related, yet relevant example. Why do we have 500+ billion for war but not for education or medicare?

        I got enough money to pay for school and about $3,000 for living/travel expenses this semester alone.

        LK
      • he people have decided to band together and undercut the telecom companies .Under a capitalist system it is a capitalist initiative . The big telephone companies are just moaning because they can't compete and will lose money .. This is a mainstay of the capitalist system , Things that are not commercially viable have no right to exist.
        The same can be said for OSS , It is just an extension of capitalism under the current western system . People have seen a chance to make free software for which they can pos
        • While you're right about the Open Source, there is a key difference between that model and "community" internet: community projects are, or have the option to be, partly funded by taxation. That takes optionality out of the model and makes it un-capitalistic. If I did not want to be a part of community Internet, I'd have no choice not to pay for it.
          • Hm .. I would have thought that they could set this up as a non-profit enterprise on behalf of the community.
            It could certainly make money as it doesn't require any real form of marketing budget and could rely on many existing council services for which it could also feed money back .

            If it requires no profit then I have no idea why it should cost tax payers anything unless they use it

            Then I did forget about the ineptitude of most city councils and the corruption . They will see it as a great way to sneak i
        • ...with the big telecoms is any indication that they "get" sharing and open source yet. Example, we have the two polar opposites, community supported wifi, and then 'the other way" where joe big company does all of it. I wonder why we can't have a blend? Like, if the local telco wanted to get broadband out here, yet not go through the expense of running all brand new cables, they could offer people deals to setup APs at their homes. Using the existing poles as antenna mount points leading to a mesh network.

      • Why do we have 500+ billion for war but not for education or medicare?

        Please learn the difference between the responsibilities at the state level and the federal level, and the scales of those costs.

        And free Internet?

        (blinks) Free Internet? You realize that's impossible right? You do realize that you'll be paying for it anyway, but the federal government will take an extra cut out of that to pay for it's horrific inefficiencies. And that it can't actually lower the costs it takes to provide Internet service

        • Oh Noes!!!

          Maybe we want to be albe to provide it to ourselves and not have it either sold to us in restricted forms or provided to us by inefficient beuracracies. That's what the community is trying to do where I live in Texas but that 'efficient' government is attempting to pass regulations that will end up prohibiting it at the behest of the companies that sell access. Is that what anti-communism is all about? Why is that good or efficient?

          • Re:It's a Good Thing. (Score:1, Flamebait)

            by Zigg ( 64962 )

            Maybe we want to be albe to provide it to ourselves and not have it either sold to us in restricted forms or provided to us by inefficient beuracracies.

            Maybe we want to be "albe" to opt out of paying for everyone else's free access, run by your "beuracracy".

      • Basically, if an ISP can make good money off providing broadband service, why will it let a community body run such projects for free or cheap?

        They are fighting tooth and nail to prevent the cities from providing this service: they don't want to provide the service themselves, but they don't want anybody else to provide the service, either. While the various companies involved aren't actually declaring a goal of ensuring that certain groups of people don't have broadband access, this is indeed the de fac

    • It's a good thing until some naieve soccer mom or religuous nut job finds out you can get porn (gasp) through this muni broadband and then starts making a big stink about their tax dollars paying for their children to be corrupted. Then some local politician decides to cash in on the publicity and proposes a "save the children!" law to censor the whole local network.

      • Well,then, you just need to get together an equally noisy gang of porn afficionados, and make an equally big stink about people intruding on your right to download your favorite entertainment.

        And while you're at it, point out the availability of all sorts of content-filtering software that they can install. You don't like left-wing politics? Here's a package that will keep it out of your machine. You don't like bonsai kittens? Here's another package to filter that out. Here's a package to block religiou
    • And what did it cost? Who paid for it? Was it from your local town tax, or did everyone in America have to pay? If it is just your local town taxes paying for this system, I am not as against it. Socialism works better when a small community (less than 50k) gets together and agrees to pay for something like this. It is another thing to ask the entire country to pay for your broadband access when you choose to live in an area that can not easily receieve it in a profitable way. The internet is a priviledge,

  • F/OSS software is the only truly free market of which I am aware, and the methodology of building and sharing one's own has spread into other arena well--beauty!

    Markets work on info, and the telcos/cable unreasonable rates have been "taxing" small business and consultants (such as myself) at highly excessive rates.

    These communities, one or another "get it"--their economies will enefit in sooooo many ways from this (relatively) minor investments.

    I love it.

    • the only truly free market

      Tax supported wifi networks are "free market"? I think you need a dictionary. It's one thing to argue that wifi networks need to be government owned and/or taxpayer funded, but to claim that they are "free market" is preposterous.
    • Yeah right! As I drive along on pothole-riddled roads I marvel at the efficiency of government-run infrastructures. I read a study that said that almost every bridge in my state is in dire need of repair. I wonder where the billions upon billions of tax dollars earmarked for the roads disappeared to? Mark my words, if the government supplies "free wireless" we will have the most expensive, most unreliable, most snooped-upon wireless networks on the planet. This is because there is an inherent problem with g

  • Municipal Broadband (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mrclark13 ( 812867 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @12:57AM (#13636412)
    That's nice and all, but for most states it is at most 4 or 5 municipalities. How many thousands are in the US total? Plus, what is the impact on local taxes of providing "free" broadband. Personally, I'd rather have some free market competition to drive prices down.

    • Re:Municipal Broadband (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Burning1 ( 204959 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @01:25AM (#13636483) Homepage
      You mean market compitition like Pacific Bell vs... well... Pacific Bell?

    • I think the point is that it is growing, and the exciting thing is that, if these projects are supported, and shown to be a Good Thing, you might just find one popping up to you fairly soon, and you might just be really happy when it does.

      • ...you might just find one popping up to you fairly soon, and you might just be really happy when it does.

        In fact, one did pop up where I work, and I'm pissed. I have to pay for it through my taxes, but I don't get to use it, and even if they decided I was worthy of using it, I wouldn't anyway; I have nice fast access from my desk at work.

        In short, they're confiscating my money in order to hand out perks. There's no benefit at all for me in that.

    • What if competition between private companies doesn't occour ? Remember that certain capital investments (sunk costs) effectively constitute a financial barrier to entry or a disincentive to compete ; also, what if they simply don't want to compete and are happy with their current schemes or with some pro-forma competition ?

      Additionally competition mostly benefits the third non competing party, which often is the consumer. Many companies have realized that and are pushing workers/consumers against each othe

  • The ISPs say... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "They are coming captain!! They are everywhere! We can't stop them!!"
    "Hold your position!! Reinforcement will arrive soon!!"
    "We can't hold the line much long-"NO CARRIER

    • You forgot how that exchange really ends.

      The politicians say, "Hooray! We've successfully fattened our coffers and insured our reelection by providing something for 'free' yet again!"

  • It's nice to see John McCain doing some good for the country -- as one of the few bipartisan senators -- and not actually giving in to corporate interests, despite several computer-related [opensecrets.org] comapanies contributing to his 2004 campagin. It's too bad that there are so many bad nuts that counteract him, especially in this case (e.g. Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act, Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005).

    • Re:Common cents (Score:5, Informative)

      by johansalk ( 818687 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @02:11AM (#13636625)
      "Broadband Reports explains that Texas Representative Pete Sessions is trying to pass the "Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005" (HR2726), which would ban towns and cities from wiring themselves for broadband.

      However Sessions is not only a 16 year ex-SBC employee, his wife works for Cingular, and he holds half a million dollars in SBC stock options, according to an e-mail being circulated today by media reform outfit Free Press.

      "Congressman Sessions is the latest poster child for corruption on Capitol Hill," says Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press."

      from http://www.dailywireless.org/modules.php?name=News &file=article&sid=4255 [dailywireless.org]

  • Qwest and Utopia (Score:5, Insightful)

    by helix400 ( 558178 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @01:27AM (#13636494) Journal
    I'm sad my city voted down Utopia. Qwest sent every one of their lobbyists out to stop this plan of FTTH for every home and business in the city. They argued it would fail and cost the cities money. But if it failed, then the fiber plan would go out to the highest bidder. Obviously, Qwest could have afforded it had they known it would fail....but they knew it wouldn't fail. So they had to stop it.

    Luckily other cities voted for it. Already some are offering cheap plans for 15MB down and up, with businesses getting 30 MB down and up.

    • They argued it would fail and cost the cities money.

      Well, of course it would cost the cities money. The citizenry should not be forced to pay for something they may not use.

      • you mean like parks, and stop signs in the parts of town I don't use, and plowing over there too? That's the weakest excuse I've ever heard. There are MILLIONS of things in EVERY city that the majority of citizens never will use in their day-to-day lives, that doesn't mean they shouldn't have to help pay for it.

        • You're the one advocating an expansion in government spending. The burden is on you to provide "excuses" for doing so. My reasoning is simple -- because I don't want to pay for your free access. It's pretty damn straightforward. Perhaps you'd like to enlighten me with your "excuses" for confiscating my money to run your Internet connection -- how does it benefit me, exactly?

          And yeah -- roads are (or are supposed to be; unfortunately reality does not often reflect this) paid for, in general, with user

    • To be specific, Utopia is offering 15 mbps both ways for $44 per month to home users. That is ten times the bandwidth that Qwest is offering for DSL(when its available in your neighborhood) at only a slightly higher price. I moved to Sandy UT last year and am angry that Sandy did not participate in UTOPIA. With the kind of bandwidth UTOPIA is offering, I believe that the cities participating will see an explosion of online businesses, whether located in homes or business sites.

  • Socialism . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Amiasian ( 157604 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @01:30AM (#13636504)
    . . . is hereby proven to not always be a bad thing. Historic biases not withstanding.
    • Building infrastructure with tax dollars is not socialist, unless you consider the interstate system a remnant of soviet america. What is socialist is a nanny-welfare state.
      • Building infrastructure with tax dollars is not socialist, unless you consider the interstate system a remnant of soviet america. What is socialist is a nanny-welfare state.

        Yes, the interstate system is consistent with socialism. No, the Soviets do not define socialism. Yes, a traditional welfare system is consistent with socialism. No, corporate welfare is not consistent with socialism. No, enforcing moral behavior (as in a "nanny state") is not relevant to socialism.
        • "No, enforcing moral behavior (as in a "nanny state")"

          Yeah, that's wrong. A nanny state has nothing to do with "moral behavior." A nanny state is one that provides for the needs of it's citizens from cradle to grave, sometimes overzealously.
          • That was an intentional skew on my part. Here's what a Nanny State [wikipedia.org] is, according to wikipedia.

            From the linked article:
            "Policies such as bans on smoking in public places, high taxes on junk food, bans on recreational drug use, and anti-pornography laws are seen by their opponents as an example of a functioning nanny state."

            Your definition is indeed part of what "nanny state" has come to mean, but it is certainly not the final word on nannydom.
    • I see. Socialism a "good thing" when we can get someone else to pay for something we want (but that they don't necessarily care about). It's a "bad thing" when we're made to pay for something someone else wants but we don't care about. Is that how it works?

  • Insularband. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 24, 2005 @01:32AM (#13636507)
    "Hundreds of communities now have municipal broadband systems on the drawing board, despite aggressive lobbying efforts by big telephone and cable companies to derail these projects."

    Well that's all well and good, but I'll let you in on a secret. The internet is composed of linked smaller networks. Municipal broadband to be truely useful, needs to be linked to other networks. Guess who owns those links? That's right, telephone and cable. It's one thing to be insular and say "I don't need you". It's another to realize that you are just spiting your face.

    "The national map shows Community Internet is spreading like a prairie fire.""

    Ms O'Leary's cow will be glad to hear that.
    • no, they only own the ports onto the net, not the net itself.

      the net (in theory...) doesn't belong to any one group.

      i'd gladly cut off my nose if i could be sure that by doing so, they and other greedy scumbags would cease to exist.
    • sure but provided you don't have all your users maxing out thier bandwidth at the same time i'd imagine the costs of buying the onward link for a community broadband project wouldn't be unaffordable.

      afaict you can get T1 and its higher bandwidth relatives almost anywhere its just they are out of the price range of an individual user. Community broadband projects fix that.
  • that this causes existing providers to lower their rates.

  • The Modern Library (Score:5, Insightful)

    by daemonenwind ( 178848 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @01:47AM (#13636549)
    The internet is to the modern age what books were to those who came before. In the past, you could be intelligent and educated if your family could afford a fairly large, private library, stocked with the expected classics. Or if you had access to one somehow, usually through a university.

    The advent of public libraries allowed common people access to the educational tools and knowledge base once held only by the social elite. This lies at the heart of the American Dream - people who labor for little or nothing can raise children who, through public education and public libraries, know a more prosperous life as their inborn potential allows. The social and financial potential of their parents no longer truly mattered.

    Today, almost anything you could want to learn exists on the internet, from home repairs to getting a foundation in some of the most advanced scientific research mankind does. Not having this access leaves you at a serious disadvantage to those who do have it. A modern city of any signifigance does not exist without a public library at its center somewhere, and, if society acts with the same wisdom as before, ways will be found to bring the internet readily to the masses. Civic access to the internet is, in this context, the only truly logical way to go.

    Besides, Orson Scott Card predicted civic net access in Ender's Game. You wanna argue against the guy?

  • Welfare for techies (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Arandir ( 19206 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @01:55AM (#13636575) Homepage Journal
    I cannot understand why people think this is a good policy. It's welfare for techies. Who is going to be using these new taxpayer funded networks? The very people most able to afford broadband access! Do you really think the poor are going to be flocking down to BestBuy to pick up laptops so they can take advantage of this "free" service? Hah! This is a giveaway to the rich! If this is truly for the poor and needy, then why not give them $20 a month to go shop for online access?

    But beyond that, I can't understand why *slashdot* readers are creaming their pants over this topic. If it were anything else they would be bitching at government intrusion into our lives. We're worried about the government snooping on our networks, yet we're clamouring for government owned networks? There's a whole section on Slashot called "YRO", yet no one seems to realize that government operated wifi networks are a huge threat to your rights online.
    • Tell me about it. We must be new here ;)
    • Community Internet isn't necessarily Government-owned Internet. Here, it's run by a local company that gets most of its revenue from Cable TV as a service for the town. The local government endorses and promotes them because it's better for the community, but they don't own the network.
    • they're owned by the communities, local ones. not by the government.

      and since commercial isp's can't provide good service at a reasonable price, then they can fuck off.

      50 bucks a month for lousy 3 mb/s down? if we had competition, you know, back in the olden days before government was invented, we could get the same service for 10 bucks a month.

      sounds like you're not very interested in competition... even if it must come from sources you don't like. i'd rather satan open an isp and let people get cheap fast
      • they're owned by the communities, local ones. not by the government.

        Most "community" wifi networks are owned by the government and operated either by the government or a government appointed monopoly. It might not be the national, state or county government, but it sure as hell is the local city government.

        I'm glad the community wifi in your town is private and out of the hands of government. But I know my own city council too well. When they say "community wifi" they mean "taxpayer funded city employee mai
    • Well, let's see.

      Dell sells brand new, full computer packages for $300. A used P3-600 desktop is so cheap as to be laughable. Sure they're crap, but they're both enough to push the internet.

      Ever serve in a food pantry? People come in wearing new shoes worth as much as that new Dell computer. It can be done, and this is the very group that would benefit most - poorer people living in high-density urban housing. Urban-sponsored Wimax makes little sense for suburbs where lot sizes push 1 acre and beyond.
    • I was about to post exactly this but you managed express my thoughts exactly.

      I would only add the following:

      Internet access is a luxury expense like cable TV/dishwasher/dvd player/vcr/gym membership/cell phone/wow subscription et al. In california where I live our roads are falling apart, our schools don't teach the children, the population increases by millions why no provisions done to handle water supplies, electricity, etc. and yet now I get to subsidize free Internet. Internet that won't be used for mu
    • If they're so "poor" they can't afford a 200$ computer, odds are pretty good they collect welfare themselves already, and aren't paying a lick of taxes anyways, so I doubt they really give a shit what the rest of the community wants to pay for.

      One of my coworkers communities is on that map, they have community wireless. What did it do? It meant that qwest and comcast had to start charging 30$ a month (the price to access the wireless in chaska) to try and compete instead of 50$ a month. They're still i

    • Re:Welfare for techies (Score:2, Interesting)

      by jcnnghm ( 538570 )
      a) Infrastructure is traditionally a public expense (see the road system) or a few people build a ton of it, lock the rest out, and charge every few miles.

      b) We are rapidly going to an IP based market for all services. My phones now run over IP, in the next couple of years I'm sure we'll see a good IPTV offering when the Internet speeds get high enough. Intrusion would be allowing one company to own the line to your house, and only provide their TV, Phone, and Voice services without competition (i.e. Only
      • Replace words referring to the internet with words referring to cable television, and then reread your post. Why should we trust government to with the internet when they've done such a crappy job with cable? Hell, one main reason people want government wifi is to get out from the cable monopolies that *government* created.

        Government isn't the solution to government problems.
        • Because when everything is delivered over IP you can pick whatever provider you want. Your cable monopoly is in place because the only provider that can service the lines is the one that owns them.
    • No, Halliburton's non-bid contracts are a give away to the rich. Municipal internet is something I (and the rest of the middle-class) might actually use. Meanwhile, those who are truly rich don't care what the rest of us do to get our internet.

    • Re:Welfare for techies (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jc42 ( 318812 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @04:29PM (#13640157) Homepage Journal
      I cannot understand why people think this is a good policy. It's welfare for techies.

      Well, as one of those techies, all I can say is "Sounds good to me!" If hiring people to provide a wanted service is "welfare", I'll take the label along with the job. I've been insulted in worse ways by the neocon crowd.

      Anyway, if you're not a techie (aka "nerd"), WTF are you doing here? Didn't you read the line at the top of the main page? Do we have a non-nerd spy in our midst?

      Leaving internet access to the commercial guys makes just about as much sense as leaving the road system to them. They've had over a decade to convince us, and what they've done is supply service only to the cities. As with roads, electricity, and telephone service a century ago, they can't be bothered with the low-density areas. And now they have the gall to fight "community" internet politically. They won't supply service, and they want to make it illegal for us to supply our own service.

      If they can't and won't do the job, the hell with them. Give the job to the people who are willing to do it. (Hey, that's us techies. And a lot of our hick rural buddies out in the sticks. ;-)

  • Screw the local telecoms (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    God I hope this stuff continues.

    I'm forced to accept the local monopoly for DSL. I'm at 68% of the bandwidth I had just 6 months ago. They are adding customers before upgrading thier capacity.

    I told them I'd be filing an antitrust initiative with local/federal government. So tired of this shit.

    • I'm forced to accept the local monopoly for DSL. I'm at 68% of the bandwidth I had just 6 months ago. They are adding customers before upgrading thier capacity.

      You think a government-run solution will be better? Do you drive much on your roads? At least a privately-held company will be able to order more capacity without i.e. a millage proposal on the ballot.

      Not to mention it's rather amusing to see you arguing a government-supplied solution, which no private company can compete with by default, is

      • Except that the way it generally works is that private companies run everything including the network, but they don't own it so if they are doing a bad job, they can be easily replaced.
    • They are adding customers before upgrading thier capacity.

      and that is unexpected?

      the only "isp" that's adding bandwidth before subscribers is google.. they haven't got any (yet), but when they do.. those lucky bastards will have sub-zero pings to frag the night away.

      although if you look at it backwards, dialup isp's are adding available bandwidth all the time..... through a reduction in subscribers.

      • the only "isp" that's adding bandwidth before subscribers is google.. they haven't got any (yet), but when they do.. those lucky bastards will have sub-zero pings to frag the night away.

        So when Google Wifi goes into effect, are they going to automatically increase your bandwidth every second like they do with email storage space?

  • Question (Score:2, Interesting)

    by scavok ( 810313 )
    How is this causing cable and telecommunications companies to lose money? The cities and states aren't getting free bandwith. It's costing taxpayers money. Where is that money going if it's not to the Qwests and Comcasts who own and maintain the internet infrastructure in cities?

  • Powered by (Score:3, Informative)

    by bckspc ( 172870 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @05:32AM (#13637043) Homepage
    The Flash map itself if powered by my DIY Map tool. It's free (as in beer) for personal and non-profit use. You can download it at http://backspace.com/mapapp/ [backspace.com].

  • Municipal Broadband (Score:3, Informative)

    by jcdick1 ( 254644 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @07:19AM (#13637235)
    Where I live in Wyandotte, Michigan, we've had municipal broadband for years. Its not free, but "competitively priced" as if a company provided the service. I pay ~$50 for 4Mb/512k cable service. The city contracted a Canadian provider, ParaSun Technologies, to be the ISP. The city owns the cable network, so they can provide whatever services they want. Of course, the city also owns their own power plant and water treatment facilities. The only services provided by public utility companies is natural gas and telephone.

  • Municipal Services or Co-op (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Trailwalker ( 648636 ) on Saturday September 24, 2005 @07:51AM (#13637315)
    Basic services are often provided by municipalities. Water, sewerage, police, roads, et al.

    An alternative to municipal or state provision of services is the co-op. Co-ops brought electricity to vast areas when private electric companies/monopolies would not make the investment in infrastructure to make electricity available.

    Internet access is rapidly becoming a necessity. If private business will not service a market, then local government or a co-op can do this. Which of the two is a matter of local circumstance.

    The co-op seems to be an overlooked option.
  • I read people saying this is so great and all, but they should stop and think about it for a second. The problem with communications lies at the FCC, this is why the evil greedy communications giants are ALBE to be evil greedy and stupid and still be around for so long.

    The FCC , and Gov't in general, is nothing more than a public face to a cartel of elites who throw a few bones to the populists out there and blather on about the needs of the communities while they raise the barrier of entry thru regulation
  • The one thing that gets me about the Telcos is that at least here in Minneapolis, Cingular (at the time AT&T) forced the move. All of the cities police squads use CDPD to talk back to the HQ (for which AT&T gladly charged them) then a few years ago they stated that they were going to drop all CDPD in favor of GPRS. My company (which uses it for other reasons) was not to happy, but the city had just invested all that hard earned tax payer dollars into the radio system. So, now they are looking at WiF
  • Hi!

    Welcome to look at our 1 Gbps/100 Mbps project. It has been online since 1999 and just got upgraded to 1 Gbps uplink to the Internet.

    http://www.bjornerback.com/tomas/mattgrand [bjornerback.com] (currently 77 845 visitors since 1999).

    And yes, my server WILL be able to handle a Slashdotting! (I guess quite a lot of you guys already have seen the page, but it got updated with pictures of the 1 Gbps equipment a few days ago). /Tomas
  • *PLEASE* stop writing shitty flash interfaces that are *COMPLETELY UNINTUITIVE*.

    Thank you.

  • Municipalities should offer it (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Broadband access has become increasingly essential to economic growth,
    health care, and education. What electric power and telephones were to
    the 20th Century, broadband access will be to the 21st. Towns that
    don't have affordable broadband lose jobs. Their children suffer a
    serious disadvantage in college or in the workforce, where fluency
    with computers and the Internet is increasingly assumed as a matter of
    course. Communities without broadband cannot take advantage of new
    breakthroughs in tel-medicine or the e

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