Two Cities Ask the FCC To Preempt State Laws Banning Municipal Fiber Internet 200
Jason Koebler writes Two cities—Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina—have officially asked the federal government to help them bypass state laws banning them from expanding their community owned, gigabit fiber internet connections. In states throughout the country, major cable and telecom companies have battled attempts to create community broadband networks, which they claim put them at a competitive disadvantage. The FCC will decide if its able to circumvent state laws that have been put in place restricting the practice.
Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Vote out the scumbags at the state capitol that passed such a law
Re:Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
But what about if every politician you get to pick from is all spouting the same BS about why municipal broadband is bad?
Who do you vote for then?
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you run for office.
Re:Vote (Score:2)
on the other hand, they oppose building ...anythin (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, they oppose building broadband, or anything else. The level of regulation they want pretty much means we'd be headed back to the stone age. Further, their policies would make it much, much harder for independent ISPs because their platform is that the government should do everything, and the government is controlled by the big corporations. So while it's not their intent, their policy proposals actually strongly favor the large established corporations by their effects.
Re:on the other hand, they oppose building ...anyt (Score:2)
Nice troll but, of course, completely wrong.
You could have spent a minute and actually read the Green Party platform but then you wouldn't have been able to post your rant.
For instance, your assertion that they support big government and corporations controlling everything is directly contradicted by this statement in their platform:
"Since governments too often have an interest in controlling the flow of information, we must constantly guard against official censorship. In our society however, large corporations are a far more common source of censorship than governments. Media outlets kill stories because they undermine corporate interests; advertisers use their financial clout to squelch negative reports; powerful businesses employ the threat of expensive lawsuits to discourage legitimate investigations. The most frequent form of censorship is self-censorship: journalists deciding not to pursue certain stories that they know will be unpopular with the advertisers."
You should actually read their platform. There's a lot in there you might agree with (if you're willing to open your mind).
http://www.gp.org/what-we-beli... [gp.org]
Comprehension fail. Green: Give Wheeler more power (Score:2)
Let's try this one more time, because clearly you missed the entire point. I'm familiar with their platform, and with the actual effects of the policies they advocate, which are frequently the opposite of their stated goals. Let me copy / paste the thesis from my post again since you seem to have missed reading it the first time:
> so while it's not their intent, their policy proposals actually strongly favor the large established corporations by their effects.
To avoid to much redundancy, I'm going to stick to just the first half of their platform to show a dozen or so of their policy proposals. Te second half is more of the same, and a dozen is enough to see the pattern. Their platform includes the following position statements:
citizens are the government [this is their key mistake that makes their policies go against their intentions].
ownership and control of the electromagnetic spectrum to the public [government].
federally funded childcare
Livable Income [federal government pays everyone]
[expand social security]
[Federal] Civilian Conservation Corps
End the privatization of broadcast frequencies [government-controlled media]
Tax electronic advertising to fund democratic [government] media outlets.
require that holders of broadcast licenses present controversial issues of public importance in an equitable and balanced manner [whatever the current administration considers "balanced"]
revoke licenses from outlets that fail to satisfy these obligations.
Governmental (PEG) Access Television
generous public [government] funding for Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television and National Public Radio (NPR)
It's pretty clear, isn't it, that they are for more government - WAY more government. In fact, the preamble of their platform says they seek to refute the idea "that government is intrinsically undesirable and destructive of liberty". They think more federal government leads to more liberty. How cute.
The fact, and this point isn't really arguable, is that the federal government is largely controlled by large corporate interests. That's simply what is. The greens want a lot more federal government control of people. The corps control the government. Therefore, the policy proposals of the greens would in fact mean more corporate control by way of their assistants, the politicians. The greens don't WANT more corporate control, but they want more government control, and don't seem to realize it's precisely the same thing. It's the same people running the corporations and the government, as we've seen this week with the chairman of the FCC / president of the National Cable Television Association, Tom Wheeler.
When Greens say "the FCC should have more power and do more", that means the head of the FCC, Tom Wheeler should have more power and do more. Who do you think Wheeler actually works for? Not for you or me.
Re:Vote (Score:2)
recoiling in disgust is not the same as apathy (Score:3)
Then run for office yourself.
EEEEEWWWWWW
/jk
Have you seen the caliber of psychopathic nimrods that run for office?
That's beneath me.
Re:recoiling in disgust is not the same as apathy (Score:3)
Then run for office yourself.
EEEEEWWWWWW
Have you seen the caliber of psychopathic nimrods that run for office? /jk
That's beneath me.
Yep. And that's how shit keeps happening, the circle jerk goes round and round.
But just imagine if a bunch of non-nimrods stepped up, put cooler heads together, start chipping away at the nimrods.
Might go slow at first, but man, how cool would it be if our legislatures were nimrod-free.
Nimrod-free
(how nice it would be)
Re:recoiling in disgust is not the same as apathy (Score:3)
More like I haven't got time due to having an actual job, and I don't want my personal life becoming public fodder for an attack machine.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
I believe!
I believe that contravenes the US Constitution's ban on religious tests to hold office (Article VI, paragraph 3).
Re:Vote (Score:2, Flamebait)
Yup.. and those provisions haven't enforced in most of US history.
There are a few states that had constitutions before the US constitution was created. Before the 14th amendment, the majority of the US constitution only applied to the federal government.
Discrimination against atheists (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that contravenes the US Constitution's ban on religious tests to hold office (Article VI, paragraph 3).
Which matters not one bit [slashdot.org] in actual practice. There are 7 states (Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas) where the state constitution effectively prohibits atheists from holding public office. Arkansas furthermore prohibits atheists from serving as a witness in court. While this technically hasn't been enforced in a long time, the law hasn't been changed either.
Plus good luck getting elected if you are honest about being an atheist. It's basically considered political suicide in most of the country.
Re:Discrimination against atheists (Score:4, Funny)
Plus good luck getting elected if you are honest about being an atheist. It's basically considered political suicide in most of the country.
Pffft. Who's requiring you to be honest? It's politics. Fuck being honest about that shit. It ain't nobody's business.
(besides, if religious nuts would just keep it as their business, instead of always making it everyone else's business, religion wouldn't be such a fucking problem)
Re:Discrimination against atheists (Score:3)
Who's requiring you to be honest? It's politics.
Nobody. But speaking for myself, I'm not about to hide the fact that I think overly devout theists are mentally ill. So I guess I'll never get elected.
if religious nuts would just keep it as their business, instead of always making it everyone else's business, religion wouldn't be such a fucking problem
But they gain power by spreading their religion. That's why they fight against contraception, push for school prayer and other youth indoctrination, fight any science that points out how ridiculous their mythology is, have missionaries, etc.
Re:Discrimination against atheists (Score:3)
Atheists are distrusted as much as Muslims are among the general population: http://www.pewforum.org/2014/0... [pewforum.org]
Outside of local races in certain areas, I wouldn't expect an open atheist to be elected right now in the USA.
Re:Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
Those laws have been unenforceable for over 50 years. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Vote (Score:2)
Indeed. In fact, they've not been enforceable for over 145 years per the Fourteenth Amendment and Marbury v. Madison (Anything repugnant to the Constitution is void from it's beginnings...)
14th Amendment (Score:2)
Indeed. In fact, they've not been enforceable for over 145 years per the Fourteenth Amendment and Marbury v. Madison (Anything repugnant to the Constitution is void from it's beginnings...)
Bullshit they haven't been enforceable. The Fourteenth didn't eliminate state sponsored discrimination upon its passage. Issues like Jim Crow laws persisted for another hundred years after that and was supported by the Supreme Court in rulings. The 14th Amendment is one of the most heavily litigated parts of the US Constitution.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
And, when, as is the case in North Carolina, those scumbags have gerrymandered both parties into "safe" districts, with the party most responsible having over 50% of the state as such?
What then?
Protest at the capital where they arrest hundreds of people on trumped up charges? Become a violent revolutionary over a tiny infrastructure debate?
Re:Vote (Score:4, Informative)
Vote out the scumbags at the state capitol that passed such a law
This is a very complex issue and has very little to do with the topics you're probably concerned with.
I'll burn up even more Karma educating the ill-informed.
Back when Telephones were a new thing, the government wanted to push their expansion to everyone in the country. It was seen in the same light that we see the internet today. A huge economic boost that would be the most beneficial in rural areas.
First the government just mandated "If you serve here you have to serve rural areas!!!" That went over like a lead balloon. Businesses just refused to install anything. The problem is that one company would come in and do what the government wanted, install service in the profitable city centers, then raise prices for those people to offset the costs of servicing rural customers who are extremely unprofitable to serve. But, rural customers having telephone service is, in the long run, more profitable for society as a whole. But then a competitor would come in and install only for the profitable business centers and drag their feet on installing the rural customers. Able to offer the business parks a cheaper rate, they'd drive the first company out.
So an agreement was struck. The local municipality would sell the telephone company a "franchise" or whatever the term in your local area is. Often this is called a "Monopoly" by the ill informed, but it's anything but that. This agreement comes with heavy burdens for the telephone company. They agree to provide service to everyone, at the same price. (differences exist for commercial and residential) They can not charge you more based on where you live. They also agree to provide service for a period of time, and they cannot abandon this obligation without approval from the municipality. In return, they retain exclusive rights to provide twisted pair copper service in that area.
They do have competitors... LOTS of competitors. Your local cable company, other phone companies, wifi providers, and on and on. It may seem as if there is a monopoly because where you live there is only one option.
Here's the key point to all of this: If you only have one option for a phone company that's because it's unprofitable to serve the area you live in. The only reason you have a phone company option at all, is because they are forced by that franchise agreement to serve you. If the Monopoly you're complaining about did not exist, you would have no phone service at all. None. There are hundreds of phone companies in this country, if it were profitable to provide you service, you'd have a lot of options. Go to any telephone company website, find their get a quote section and put in an address for the local buisness park around you. You'll have dozens of options for service. Alternatively, the easiest way to see where its profitable to provide service is to simply look at your local cable companies footprint. Cable companies are not under the franchise obligations. They only serve areas that are profitable. That footprint is very tightly held within the profitable part of town. Outside that the phone company is losing money.
Now, recently, some municipalities have tried to start their own fiber services. The fact that they are leaving out in these projects is where they are targeted. I've seen dozens of them (I work for a telco) and in every single case the local town is trying to instal Fiber to a local business park to attract new business. A noble idea, but the fact of the matter is, that business park in almost every case is the only profitable part of the entire town. (most towns that try this are relatively small) The park is paying for everyone elses phone service! If they suddenly had virtually free fiber service, the town suddenly becomes a huge expense to the telco. They'll refuse to sign the next franchise agreement and the town will be stuck with maintaining the infrastructure themselves.
If you support this sort of thing you have to realize that what you're supporting is lower prices for businesses, poorer service for everyone else and probably a lot of rural service loosing standard pots service and internet all together.
Re:Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
But, as telcos love to point out, broadband is NOT phone service. It is not subject to the same regulations. That's why they were able to provide it to some neighborhoods and not others. And price it any way they wanted. And maintain it in whatever crappy manner they wanted.
So now the municipality steps in and says, "We can play that game too." We'll pick and choose where we want to run our fiber.
Oddly enough, the argument that municipalities will end up runnig fiber only to the most lucrative areas undermines the telco's arguments. If the city couldn't get the telco to run fiber there, what chance do they have to get it run to less profitable areas?
Re:Vote (Score:2)
FYI competition mean competition within an industry not between industries. So for example AT&T and Verizon are competitors. Time Warner Cable and Direct TV would not be considered competitors to AT&T and Verizon.
Somebody needs to educate themself.
Re:Vote (Score:2)
Here's the key point to all of this: If you only have one option for a phone company that's because it's unprofitable to serve the area you live in.
You're full of shit. I live in a wealthy suburb of San Francisco and have almost no Internet service options (which is what we're talking about in this article - Internet service). Any provider not hamstrung by regulations favoring incumbents would make an absolute killing here. Comcast has the monopoly (I don't care what you call it) on high speed Internet access in my area and has refused to do anything with it except raise prices through the roof while making my Netflix stream play like ass.
While I sympathize with my rural neighbors, I can't think of a single legitimate reason why their choice to live in difficult-to-serve areas means that I have to have shitty, expensive Internet in the heart of the world's high-tech capital.
Re:Vote (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know about the rest of the country, but since I'm currently sitting in the EPB market that was one of the two area submitted to the FCC I'll have to disagree with you.
Our entire local service area is (more or less) fiber ready, with full speed access available from office complexes down to lower-income residential areas. The sections that initially rolled out weren't "Come to our city" showplaces, but instead established areas both commercial and residential.
At my home (in an average suburban neighborhood) I pay _I believe_ $70/mo for gigabit access (which btw is bidirectional... I test out at around 930mbps both upstream and downstream to the EPB central servers).
And since this is Chattanooga, there are plenty of backwoods trailers and rural houses that are really enjoying their new high speed access without having to be in a "highly profitable" section of town.
And believe me, the areas here and there that don't have access yet are pretty much champing at the bit to get it and be able to drop Comcast like a hot potato. (Which might I add, you should see the Comcast ads around here. They almost seem desperate, but that might just be personal bias) ;)
Re:Vote (Score:2)
Re:Vote (Score:3)
Often this is called a "Monopoly" by the ill informed, but it's anything but that.
Was with you up until that point. Maybe when these "burdens" in return for a franchise were conceived they were considered onerous, but now with regulatory capture they really do result in local monopolies and are often in effect exclusive of competition. And basically all the companies have to do is pick and choose which communities they serve and then the burden is something like providing the local schools and the Town with free connections and maybe they will throw in some money for a local access cable tv station where the local politicians get to give some friends, family and their kids air time on local tv. All that "burden" is just passed along to the local subscribers as either extra fees or built into the cost of the service.
Re:Vote - House Bill 129 / Senate Bill 87 (Score:2)
Re:Vote (Score:2)
How do you propose to do that? The districts are gerrymandered to hell and back to favor one party or another and most people don't vote in primaries, so the primary becomes both a UGG ME MORE EXTREME THAN OTHER GUYS contest and the de-facto general election.
The way the country is at this moment you're apt to wind up with a state house full of teabaggers, and while that will at least be different it would be overall worse.
Re:Stop insulting scumbags. (Score:5, Informative)
Wow you really added to the discussion there.
FTA:
Last week, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican who has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the cable and telecommunications industry, introduced an amendment to a key appropriations bill that would prevent the FCC from preempting such state laws.
Re:Stop insulting scumbags. (Score:5, Insightful)
except most of these laws come from republican controlled state legislatures.
Oh, you want a local internet utility to compete with your shoddy telco monopoly? Can't allow that.
Oh, you want a local minimum wage higher than the state or federal minimum? Can't allow that.
Oh, you want a local employment non-discrimination law? Can't allow that.
Oh, you want any of a dozen other topics we oppose as a local level? Can't allow that.
Welcome to the The GOP: the party of small government, handling things that lowest or local level...unless we oppose it.
Re:Stop insulting scumbags. (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is also known by a different name (Score:4, Insightful)
Go Greenlight (Score:5, Informative)
As a Wilson Resident, I can say confidently...
The local bank (BB&T) couldn't get speeds fast enough to do business.
The city ran fiber and put in great speeds - residential basic is 10/10 and business is even better.
Time Warner - the local incumbent cable cried bloody murder while they offered nothing close.
Any problems? call a local number and talk to someone local and problem gets solved.
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:3)
Back on topic, something I witness with regularity is that anyone who lives in a rural area can't even get DSL. CenturyLink doesn't put in the equipment needed to reach a surprisingly large number of people. Probably 1/3 of the county is on dial-up, satellite, or 3G-if-you're-lucky cell provider based Internet access. I know one guy who has a Verizon MiFi that he has to place in a box in his front yard and then use a wireless repeater to make it reach his home. The cities can't "compete" with CenturyLink due to the bullshit NC law that de facto outlaws municipal broadband, but CenturyLink doesn't give half a crap about servicing the entirety of the county. The cable providers (Charter, Time Warner) aren't any better, but their existing delivery infrastructure is far more limited and would take longer to build up.
The bottom line is that the monopoly ISPs won't spend any money to service more people while taking money from rural broadband initiatives to do just that, and towns that want to fix that problem for citizens are legally barred from doing so. In terms of Internet access, this state of affairs is borderline totalitarianism and should not exist in America.
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:3)
How are the two major parties equally scummy when by your own statement the Republicans made things ten times worse than the Democrats?
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:4, Informative)
Also of interest to readers of this post: a blog the City of Wilson started [wordpress.com] when they got fed up and took things into their own hands.
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:2)
They're equally scummy because both of them are willing to sacrifice whatever ethics and morals they claim to have and will buttfuck the public whenever they get a check that is big enough. It doesn't matter who started this, or who continued that, it doesn't really matter who was at the plate when the check came in. Neither of them are willing to stand up to corporations and actually have the integrity to say, sorry, I can't accept that money because I have an ethical problem with it, and I'm also going to tell everyone that you offered it to me. That's why they're equally scummy.
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:2)
.... I hate both parties. They're equally scummy. It makes one feel powerless to know that voting the bums out always means voting more bums in that are not any better in the end.
You've bought in to the lie that there are only two parties. Look beyond the Republicans and Democrats and you might find better bums.
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:2)
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:2)
I also vote Libertarian when I can; I am a card-carrying member of the Libertarian party. When I can't, and I'm too lazy to run myself, I do enough research to figure out who is the current office-holder, and vote for his opponent. If he is the only person on the ballot for the position, I leave the line blank.
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:3)
You'll have to change the system before third parties become viable in this country. First Past the Post has to go, as does letting politicians draw their own goddamn district boundaries.
Re:Go Greenlight (Score:2)
You'll have to change the system before third parties become viable in this country. First Past the Post has to go, as does letting politicians draw their own goddamn district boundaries.
Not necessarily. Even with the disadvantages you cite, the original two US political parties, the Whigs and the Federalists, were toppled. It can happen again. Even without de-throning the Republicans and Democrats, a third party can gather enough support to make the difference in a close contest, and that causes the major parties to give at least lip service to their concerns.
I'm confused (Score:3)
Aren't these two states, Tennessee and North Carolina, states who routinely harp on federal government interference in states rights?
Now they're asking the federal government to override what their own state governments have said.
Reminds me of Texas where that company blew up because they were storing exorbitant amounts of explosive materials and which had never bothered to be regulated because, you know, regulations are evil. Once the place blew up, Gov. Perry says "Texans take care of their own" then proceeded to whine how their request for federal disaster aid was (initially) rejected.
It would be nice if people had some sort of internal consistency. Either the federal government is too big and needs to stop weedling into state government, or it's not.
I can't wait to hear how those who say there is no need for net neutrality will react to their own states asking for just that.
Re:I'm confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
States Rights has always been nothing more than a tool used by people who want something. Usually what they want is to take something from other people. They would just as easily use religion, economics, erroneous statistics, philosophy, or any other intellectual tool they could find.
IMHO, ultimately states don't have rights any more than corporations do. PEOPLE have rights. The PEOPLE should have the right to freely associate and provide broadband. If they want to do that through their city government, fine. There's no need to appeal to "states rights" which has quite a checkered past.
Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
"States Rights" is almost always shorthand for "the state should be free to oppress you, but the feds had better not try to oppress you or put a stop to the state oppressing you". There's a reason why the Southern racists kept talking about states rights.
Re:I'm confused (Score:2)
Chattanooga is a city that has quite a few very wealthy interests that wanted to better their community because they would benefit too. The people that you might normally think of as being against such a venture were not. The broadband is just one piece of the puzzle of investments that have been made with open arms of power brokers.
If you were to have visited it 10 or 15 years ago and then came back today, you'd swear that you were in a different city. The transformation has been nothing short of amazing. And that's why the city is full of tourists most of the year.
FCC does not make laws (Score:2)
Since when does the FCC have the power to "preempt" laws?
Re:FCC does not make laws (Score:2)
internet is interstate commerce since the data will cross state lines, which means its subject to federal regulation
anything that goes on strictly inside the state is not subject to federal regulation
Re:FCC does not make laws (Score:2)
Re:FCC does not make laws (Score:2)
Welcome to a law school! I see you have chosen extended scholarship on the history, scope and meaning of the US Constitution's Commerce Clause.
Please see the law librarian for a beginniner's biography to begin your studies.
Re:FCC does not make laws (Score:2)
Re:FCC does not make laws (Score:2)
But all the magic comes from the Commerce Clause.
You can't build a nuclear reactor without importing components for it across state lines. It starts there. I'd also imagine that NRC and EPA approval would also stem from (mostly) reasonable arguments that the natural environment (wind, water, etc) is inherently interstate and that any risk from a nuclear accident would have interstate impact. Probably some justification on national security grounds relative to radioactive materials as well.
The same thing would be used to justify federal anti-discrimination laws should I decide not serve some group in my local restaurant in which I only serve food obtained locally, cooked in a kitchen made entirely of locally-sourced, locally made cookware and served on locally-made dishware from locally-sourced materials in a building made from locally-sourced building materials by bearded, local bohemians wearing only locally sourced clothing who only drink locally brewed beer in locally made mugs.
Re:FCC does not make laws (Score:4, Insightful)
Since when does the FCC have the power to "preempt" laws?
Since their founding. Your city cannot pass a law permitting the operation of a 200kW tower broadcasting white noise at 2.4 GHz. It's why the FCC exists.
Re:FCC does not make laws (Score:2)
When a state law and a federal conflict one of them has to win. If the federal law is within the powers delegated to the federal government then it will (yeah, yeah, as if there are any in practice limits to federal law these days...).
In this case there's a federal law stating:
If that and a state law preventing the deployment of "advanced telecommunications capacity" conflict then to the courts it will go to determine which one trumps the other and if that one even applies to the case in question. And in an ideal world if the federal government has the authority to create such a law.
Seperate the wire from the service (Score:3, Insightful)
Separate the wire to the house from the service that runs on that wire. The problem will be solved.
Internet providers can still be internet providers, they do not have to be wire maintainers too.
The part that really gets me is the monopoly is maintained and perpetuated by these companies. It costs $X to install and maintain the wires in a community. Over time, the people in that community will pay $X regardless if Verizon does it, Comcast does it, Cox does it, if the home owners associations does it, or if the local government does it. Why not pay $X and let the local government or a third party handle the wires (which can contract out to Verizon, Comcast, or any number of third parties to actually do the work) and then the internet providers can compete for your service over those wires?
I know there is more to this but to me, this just makes sense.
More power to 'em, I say. (Score:2)
Re:More power to 'em, I say. (Score:2)
Whatever Comcast's failings, I wager, you'll find the Internet owned and operated by the government far worse. I predict mandatory "child-protection" filters, for example. Also, any time you violate the service terms (which will be copied from those of commercial providers), you will be committing a crime (however small), rather than merely breaking contract. Oh, and the tech-support will not only be incompetent, but also rude — because, being government employees, they will be impossible to fire.
A government entering a market — any market — is the end of competition in it.
North Carolina has far more pressing matters! (Score:2)
Government is GREAT at providing services! (Score:2)
Roads (and rail-roads), health-care, electricity and telephone — government and government-sanctioned monopolies provide such outstanding services, only a fool or a sell-out would try to prevent their scope from expanding. Tokyo may have competing privately-owned subway lines, but we here in America know better than that!
Take Municipal WiFi — which the young and progressive generation was hailing on this very site only 10 years ago — was not that a roaring success, that swept over the nation?
But we bought those laws, they're ours! (Score:2)
You have to remember that corporations spend good money bribing politicians to buy these laws. This is pure free enterprise. I'm sure that the Supreme court will uphold the right of corporations to buy our politicians... after all, they are the defenders of corporations.
Cities Rights (Score:3)
Local Control can cut both ways, oh Sons of the Confederacy.
First Hand Experience... (Score:2)
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
major cable and telecom companies have battled attempts to create community broadband networks, which they claim put them at a competitive disadvantage.
Complete bullshit.
No - they are right. Municipal broadband might have good customer service and actual high speed connections, which would be a serious competitive disadvantage to entities like Comcast, who do not want to have to match those.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, of all the monthly utility bills I have, the ones I despise the most are landline phone, and cable tv/Internet. And those are both delivered by commercial entities that have a monopoly because they own the lines. With cable and phone lines, you can buy services off another companies, but they are just paying big corps who own the lines, making it so that there's really no way to escape them. And if you ever need your lines fixed, and you're with one of the other guys, the guys who own the lines make sure it isn't fixed quickly. Even with other connectivity problems, the internet providers are often just renting some racks inside the big corps data center, meaning even small configuration issues can take a long time to get resolved.
I like my cell phone provider, because they've allowed smaller players to buy some of the spectrum so they can operate completely independently of the big boys, and they offer much better service, with lower prices for more features.
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Especially since the alternative is for the government to delegate the monopoly to another company. It's a monopoly either way.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
I'd love comcast to have the level of service the Indiana DMV provides.
I can do 95% of what I need without going into the office. If I do go in I can schedule a slot and simply walk in, do my business and walk out. I recently bought a new vehicle and was shocked at how fast and pleasant the experience was.
Comcast on the other hand quotes you a 8 hour time frame the installer will arrive, sends a contractor who may or may not be competent enough to even pull cable, and then blames you if anything goes wrong.
Re: Bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Bullshit (Score:2)
Even the District of Columbia DMV was pretty good, and DC is not known for efficiency. When I got rid of my car, it didn't take very long to hand the plate to the guy, who marked it invalid. That was that. Comcast? I got charged after disconnecting, and the dispute is unresolved after two months.
In other words, "disconnecting" from the DC DMV was easier than disconnecting from Comcast.
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
I have to say something on Comcast's defense here. I have never had bad customer service from them, and I've had cable through them for a very long time. Do I pay through the nose? Yes. But they answer the phone when I call, they get a service guy out to my house in hours, not days, and they hit their promised windows. The technicians are competent, and they're friendly: "hey I've got a 1TB DVR in my truck, if you want I can swap out your old 200GB DVR, you'll get a lot more hours of storage."
I have had no problems with Comcast's customer service. (That said, I haven't had to cancel my service with them for about 25 years, and haven't had to go through the horrors of talking to a "Customer Retention Specialist".)
I'll admit they're better than Qwest(Century Link) (Score:2)
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)
I live in Florida. Yesterday I had to call the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. All I had to do was wait for the option to press '1' for spanish to expire and I was connected immediately to a real person who answered my slightly complicated question easily, clearly and quickly.
I also own a business (and have owned two) in Florida, and every time I've had to deal with the Florida Department of Revenue (sometimes I got busy and forgot to pay my sales taxes) they have been friendly and helpful.
I wish, wish Cox Cable had the kind of friendly and expedient service Florida's government entities do.
Re:Bullshit (Score:3)
Yes. When I think government service, I think good customer service. Then we would have the choice between an ISP that charges for carry on and another that is modeled after the DMV.
I don't know about your state or province (or whatever), and as a resident of Florida, I can certainly find a lot to complain about with my state's services. Our DMV is not one of them. Excellent and friendly service, in and out in minutes (beside a the small wait in the lobby), just an overal great experience from off all places, a freakin' state agency. As the guy ahead of me mentioned, my time with AT&T is nothing to compare with our DMV. A lot of companies could learn from them.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, communities tend to run infrastructure remarkably well. Look at water systems. When is the last time you were in a location with city water, turned on the tap, and nothing came out? (Assuming you weren't cut off for lack of payment, of course.) Towns know how to keep the water flowing. If a town is without water for a period of time, it makes national news. (Yes, there are developing nations that do not have potable water coming out of their taps. The US is not one of those nations, and this is a US topic.)
Governments are not incapable of running such a program, and they are not inherently guaranteed to suck at it.
Now, is this different because it will require tech support? Sure. Are cities prepared to deal with the calls, the service interruptions, the network attacks, etc? The cities that are asking are going into this eyes wide open. The FCC is not mandating that cities must carry their own networks, they are simply being asked to rule on a non-competition clause that unfairly prevents the city itself from providing said competition.
I think the biggest problem the cable companies face is that cities now know exactly how much it costs to run a network, and it's nothing like the extortionate rates the cable companies are charging today. If the city has a competent manager leading the project, and good engineering staff, they will deliver fast data along with great customer service at a price that is not only going to be competitive, it's going to dominate. Everyone wins, except for the shareholders of the cable companies - and as they've been winning for a couple of decades already, my sympathy for their plight is not exactly overwhelming.
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Since the city is still going to have to tie into someone's top tier backbone to carry their traffic to the rest of the world, they'll still likely have to route it through Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, or some other provider's network, and the NSA's taps are on those top tier providers. I also don't know if a city would fight against a National Security Letter any more or less than any other provider, so they would still never tell you about a tap. But at least they could go in claiming to start from the moral high ground: "Support Cleveland's new city-wide Internet service - We Have Never Tapped Anyone's Data (only because we haven't been asked.)"
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Providing choice in providers doesn't really help all that much. I would know, living in central Connecticut. In CT, we have exactly two power companies - Connecticut Light and Power and United Illuminating. UI only serves a small portion of the state, so CL&P has a monopoly over the vast majority of the state. Technically, you're free to choose your power provider.. except all of the providers are CL&P. The state had to add de-regulation language to allow the "choice' in providers, and most of the people in the legislature acknowledge it was a gigantic mistake to do so.
As a result, Connecticut residents pay some of the highest electric rates in the country, and we get worse service - it took CL&P weeks to clean up after Irene and an October snowstorm we had a few years ago because they were busy sending all of their workers to other states because it was more profitable to do so.
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Re:Bullshit (Score:3, Funny)
Only people who lack faith in the a priori truths of Objectivism would be so base as to drag some nonsense about "what is actually happening" into the discussion. It's simply a fact that absolutely anything a government does is just a cover for expropriating the wealth creators and building a cadre of elitist bureaucrats to centrally mismanage things.
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
can be done (Score:5, Insightful)
And when the municipal broadband costs 10x as much, just raise taxes and throw people in jail if they don't pay. And if the service is bad, again raise taxes and throw them in jail if they don't pay. And if they complain, just raise taxes and throw them in jail if they don't pay.
Your competition being able to raise prices (taxes) at the point of a gun to pay for their bad business is a competitive advantage. Not being able to opt-out is a monopoly with the police enforcing it on citizens.
Sure it might be better, but it definitely can be much worse.
If you do a decent job of structuring the municipal broadband delivery company, you can bias it towards the “better” end of the spectrum. For example, you can require that there be no cross-subsidy between broadband and any other municipal function, and no support from general taxation.
The broadband company would have to support itself through user fees, like the Water District does in my town. You pay a monthly fee if the fibre runs past your house. If you want to connect the fibre to your home, you pay a one-time connection charge, followed by a higher monthly fee plus a charge per bit for incoming and outgoing data. If there is a problem you pay to call Customer Service, and a higher price if the call requires a technician to visit your home. These charges would be refunded if the company decides that the problem is their fault. There would also be a service level agreement, and your costs are reduced to near zero if it isn't met.
In addition, and this is crucial, there must be no legal barrier to someone else running his own fibre, and connecting it to the municipal system. He would pay the municipal system for his connection, of course, and provide his own customer service. That competition, or even the possibility of it, will keep customer service quality high.
Re:can be done (Score:2)
Frankly if this is done right the muni primarily provides the natural monopoly portion, just the glass back to the CO, no active gear on poles etc. At the CO they could provide power/cooling and implement there own layer 2/3 network to act as an ISP.
CWDM makes it easy to have a muni network and 8+ other networks on a single fiber. A muni might also resell it's active infrastructure allowing smaller players to enter a market and for efficiency serving lower utilization clients. Besides internet access it's fairly simple to provide library, school and government web site access via a google like install fee to cover costs. Offering metro area network type services is an easy add on, point to point via a dark channel and lit services and multipoint via lit services can be a huge boon to companies. Companies can fill in back-hauling to telco hotels and other muni's allowing for meta services to be built on top much like today's long haul fiber market.
Re:Bullshit (Score:2)
Why wouldn't you be able to opt-out? They want to compete with, not ban the other Telco's.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it might be better, but it definitely can be much worse.
Worse than no high speed broadband service? Wilson built their system because Time Warner and others refused to. So, the city decided to solve the problem themselves. When you refuse to serve a community, you can't complain about 'unfair competition' when they decide to serve themselves.
(Time Warner thanks you for your loyalty)
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)
Municipal companies like this are not funded through taxes..
Sorry to unstuff your strawman.
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)
Municipal companies like this are not funded through taxes..
Then why not start a private company? Why does it need to be a municipal company?
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)
Presumably it is easier to get access to easements and existing municipal infrastructure. Funding is easier as they can self finance through municipal bonds vice getting loans from the bank, and they add a sense of legitimacy that may encourage fence sitters to choose the new option.
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)
If it is easier for a municipal company to get access to existing municipal infrastructure, then the municipal must be making it harder for private companies to do so. This is an example of the local government standing in the way. Remember, I said they need to get out of the way.
Financing through municipal bonds is another example of government cheating, because holders of municipal bounds are exempt from federal income tax. Also, any extra "sense of legitimacy" that a municipal has is probably based on the assumption that a municipal company will be bailed out with tax payer money if necessary. Once again, if residents want high speed internet, can't it be provided by a company that follows the rules of every other private company?
As far as easements, I've never liked the idea of governments forcing easements on private property. I think the existing easements that were created by governments are immoral, and should be retroactively converted into a leasing agreement, in which property owners allow private companies (cable companies, power companies, etc.) to rent easements for a period of 5 to 10 years for some agreed upon yearly fee. That way, the relationship is more like landlord and tenant, instead of master (i.e. government) and slave (i.e. property owner).
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)
Being a libertarian as opposed to an anarchist, you should want government, just as little as is necessary. Easements for infrastructure is very far into the necessary range for government.
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)
A nonprofit competitor is required by law to spend any profits they make on upgrading infrastructure. So unless they massively overhire or have higher expenses because of economies of scale or renting a more expensive building, the nonprofit is pretty much guaranteed to be able to undercut any for-profit competitor while providing better service, because it doesn't have the extra overhead of profit taking.
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)
I think roads are the best (and in some ways the most literal) examples of what municipal broadband should be.
The government builds roads past my house but it only provides "dark asphalt" (aka dark fiber), it doesn't provide any of the services that could be provided by the highway.
The government then licenses "service providers" to provide services on the municipal roads -- taxes for trucks that deliver things to my house, taxis, or even access fees for me to drive a vehicle on those roads. I have to pay myself to utilize the services provided by the roads.
Municipal broadband should be the same way -- it should only be the transit network, anything else -- IP connectivity/Internet should require me to pay an internet provider who in turn has paid for whatever access they need to the municipal network the same way businesses pay fees (direct or indirect) to use the roads to deliver services.
Comcast could sell TV services or Internet services, although I would expect that some other ISP would offer an better product than Comcast and they would be a marginal player, which of course is their entire objection -- hey have a rent-seeking monopoly they want to maintain. If the pipe to your house was open to any service provider, it seems likely they would only get a minority of people who wanted traditional cable television.
Re:raise money privately? (Score:2)