A State-By-State Guide To Restrictive Community Broadband Laws 160
blottsie writes On Tuesday, President Obama will unveil a dramatic push to improve broadband Internet service for people around the country through community-built municipal broadband networks. Problem is, state legislatures around the country have passed laws making it considerably more difficult for these public Internet projects to get off the ground. In some states, building municipal broadband is prohibited altogether. This piece dives into the state laws standing between us and more competitive Internet service markets.
What does it mean? (Score:3)
Re:What does it mean? (Score:5, Insightful)
It means you'd have to get a majority of your neighbors to vote for internet, and in the deep south that kind of collectivism just isn't going to happen except in one of them there big liberal cities, and the big cities have probably already signed exclusive contracts with the cable company.
Re:What does it mean? (Score:4, Interesting)
Exclusive franchises for cable companies have been prohibited by the FCC. [fcc.gov].
The Communications Act authorizes local franchising authorities to grant one or more franchises within their jurisdiction. However, a local franchising authority may not grant an exclusive franchise, and may not unreasonably withhold its consent for new service.
Re:What does it mean? (Score:4, Informative)
82% of households have access to two or more broadband providers:
http://www.broadband.gov/plan/... [broadband.gov]
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The definition of "broadband" is about to change, lets see how many people have access to 25/3 of faster Internet.
I'd be curious to know how many people actually get their rated speeds.
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Re:What does it mean? (Score:5, Informative)
And 99.9% of that 82% are likely within a larger metroplitan area........
I also pulled this from your link.... "Given that approximately 96% of the population has at most two wireline providers, there are reasons to be concerned about wireline broadband competition in the United States."
(I've told this story on here before but it needs re-telling....)
I moved to a rural NC area about 10-12 years ago and desired to start a computer shop but soon discovered that dial-up was all that was available. At that time satellite was prohibitively expensive for my meager funds and not that much faster. I heard about the state legislature enacting a new "E-NC" initiative to facilitate rural connectivity and with a cell tower only a few hundred yards across a field from me I decided maybe I could try a wireless internet service venture instead. I found a contact number and had a very interesting conversation with the director of the E-NC initiative at that time....
I explained my situation and idea to him and asked about the possibility of getting funding to try a start-up to service my local areas internet needs. He told me that they had exhausted the funds set aside on 3 projects already. They had researched each proposed area, contacted the local phone/cable companies and verified that they had no plans of pursuing high-speed internet options in the area, and then released the funds for the start-ups. As soon as the funds were released the phone companies suddenly announced they would begin DSL service in 2 of the areas, effectively killing those start-ups. In both cases it was Sprint(later to become Embarq) who pulled the shenanigans. Of course, they also controlled the area I lived in. We didn't get a DSL option for another 6-7 years when the 3g wireless options came around and finally made them move.....
Big money/corporations are(generally) evil...... jus' sayin'........
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"These data do not necessarily mean that 82% (78% + 4%) of housing units have two or three competitive options for wireline broadband service—the data used here do not provide adequate information on price and performance to determine if multiple providers present in a given area compete head-to-head."
So that's kinda a big fat nothing statistic.
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82% of households have access to two or more broadband providers:
This describes a pretty bogus form of "competition." This statistics means that 82% of households can choose between 4Mbps AT&T/DSL over twisted copper and 20 MBps Comcast/TW over coax. That's an extremely limited form of competition, similar to claiming that Tyson Chicken competes with Midwest Beef, or that Audi competes with Peterbilt.
There are limited regions where you can choose between multiple DSL providers (although this will usually require that you pay AT&T for dial tone and either AT
Re:What does it mean? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to ask a question and risk downmod: I wonder how many saying, "Right on!" over that are bent out of shape over laws forbidding another competitor who doesn't have to play by the rules: local government, a "company" with the power to tax, and make you pay for the service whether you want it or not.
Let's see, shall we?
Wilson, NC built its network because there was no high speed internet available to local businesses. The existing provider refused to work with Wilson to move them to something faster. So, they built their own.
So, Wilson, NC now has fiber to the home. And, it is cheaper than the crappy service they had before.
You can't refuse to provide service to a community and then whine when they decide to serve themselves.
The legislature later passed ridiculous restrictions on community broadband. Wilson is grandfathered for the most part.
"undercutting a private sector unable to keep up" (Score:5, Insightful)
>> deep-pocketed government entities from undercutting a private sector unable to keep up
Funniest thing I read all day.
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"gubmint bad! monopoly i mean capitalism good!"
*drool* snort
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FTFY: tax-financed gubmint monopoly bad! consumer choice and free markets good!
("*drool* snort"? You should have that looked at.)
Re:"undercutting a private sector unable to keep u (Score:5, Insightful)
educate yourself
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
then form an opinion
do you honestly believe that if government wasn't there the big guys would fade away? with weak government, the power vacuum is filled even more by plutocrats. they *want* a weak government. without government you think monopolies don't or won't exist? less government means less *regulation*, they gobble up more, you get less choice buddy. and you get less legal recourse from being shafted
what you want, if you follow through on the coherent thought, is less corruption, not a weaker government that is even yet more beholden to money. not possible? study the laws on corruption in the nordic countries, you know, those evil socialist horrors that are actually richer, happier, and more upwardly mobile meritocracies than the usa pretends it is, but is rapidly losing with a shrinking middle class and corrupt congresswhores beholden to the financial powers that less government unleashes even more
good luck kid escaping the bullshit mythology
Re:"undercutting a private sector unable to keep u (Score:4, Insightful)
After finding that wonderful article on rent seeking (although you still don't seem to understand that "rent seeking" is a failure of government, not markets), I suggest you look up the articles on "regulatory capture" and "public choice theory". More regulation is the primary mechanism by which "plutocrats" engage in rent seeking and create monopolies, and politicians and government employees invariably support them in that effort, not because they are bad people (most of them are quite well meaning), but because that's the way such systems function.
Government is responsible for creating artificial monopolies. So, "without government" there wouldn't be any artificial monopolies. Would we be dragged into a quagmire of natural monopolies if government got completely out of the business of regulating markets? Nobody knows for certain because it has never been tried, but given what we know, it seems very unlikely.
Take it from an ex-northern European: you don't know what you're talking about. I suggest you read "The Almost Nearly Perfect People" by Booth. Northern Europe is neither socialist, nor a meritocracy, nor particularly successful. And even if it were any of those things, we couldn't implement the Nordic model in the US.
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http://www.verisi.com/resource... [verisi.com]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ch... [forbes.com]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04... [nytimes.com]
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The first two links cook up an arbitrary measure of "prosperity":
For the NYTimes article, note that even according to their numbers, the US lead in terms of median income is mainly shrinking relative to Norway and Canada, two countries with small populations and huge natural resources.
Other parts of the NYTimes article are just bogus
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Would we be dragged into a quagmire of natural monopolies if government got completely out of the business of regulating markets?
You keep using that word, I do not think it means [wikipedia.org] what you think it means.
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No, I don't keep using the word "natural monopoly" other than to tell people that the concept is bullshit. Nobody has ever demonstrated the existence of a permanent natural monopoly in anything.
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No, I don't keep using the word "natural monopoly" other than to tell people that the concept is bullshit.
So you are of the opinion that in (for example) industries with large fixed investments such as water distribution, electrical distribution etc. that the most efficient use of resources would be to have multiple companies competing for the same customers? That is, that there would naturally develop a situation where multiple companies would lay roads, or water/sewage lines, or electrical lines to your house, and that that would lead to a more efficient use of resources? (E.g. lower total cost for the system
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The fact that your paper from 1998 even still asks the question shows you that the question certainly wasn't settled by then, so clearly,
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The fact that your paper from 1998 even still asks the question shows you that the question certainly wasn't settled by then
Hardly. There are still papers published on Darwin's theory of evolution, how it applies in different situations, addressing paradoxes arising from the theory etc. This doesn't mean that the issue wasn't "settled" long ago.
The reason these require "large fixed investments" is not because there is a "natural monopoly" it is because power companies, electric companies, and municipal providers like it that way.
So the price of building roads, erecting power poles, and building a power station are artificially raised due to regulatory capture by how much? It's not like there aren't private roads, and it's not like they're built cheaper, in fact they cost as much as building a road anywhere.
And wh
Hmm (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, please, I don't mind.
That being said, I was under the impression that - yes there are some laws/ordinances prohibiting (or outright banning) municipal broadband from happening - it was COST and MAINTENANCE of the actual infrastructure that was stopping these communities.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
These laws have been passed because certain municipalities have been able to successfully cover the cost and maintenance of their own networks.
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Well put.
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Yes, they have been able to "successfully cover them" by diverting taxes from homeowners for this wasteful pet project, and for giving themselves sweet deals for easement and digging up roads.
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Just like they did with water, sewage, and the other utilities...
If only we had corporate monopolies for those too! I'm looking forward to my monthly sewage cap.
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Connection fee
3/4 inch $6.00
1 inch $10.50
1 1/4 inch $14.00
1 1/2 inch
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"municipal broadband would be rationed, unreliable, and overpriced in the same way municipal water and sewer are"
Sure, water can be rationed and pricy in some areas where it is sparse, but does more than 0.1% of America have unreliable water and sewer?
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Yep, like Cedar Falls Utilities (which Obama visited last week) which has been doing this since 1995.
http://blog.cfu.net/2015/01/th... [cfu.net]
building municipal broadband is prohibited (Score:1, Flamebait)
This is why we need a federal government to put the hammer down. To hell with 'states rights'!
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I couldn't give two shits about my state (the 10th I've lived in) of Texas, and am pretty sure even the idiots with the "Secede" bumper stickers feel more loyalty to the US than they do the old boy network that runs this place. I'm an American that happens to live in the region known as Texas. I sure wouldn't mind seeing all the anti-muni laws tossed out across the country. I would gladly fork $5k over to have true high speed broadband delivered to my house on the restriction that anyone could provide me wi
Re:building municipal broadband is prohibited (Score:4, Informative)
So if you support such nonsense, WHERE in the Constitution does it grant the Federal Government the power to regulate internet providers?
Its called the "commerce clause" and even "originalist" extraordinaire Anton Scalia has no problems with that (see his concurrence in Gonzales vs Rauch).
When you can show me an Internet system that only provides service within a state, and does not transmit packets across state lines, I will believe that that one particular system (but not others generally) should be free from Federal regulation. Otherwise the power to regulate interstate commerce in the Constitution provides the authority. This was uncontroversial in the 19th Century when the Interstate Commerce Commission was created (1886) to regulate railways, and did so within states, since they carried interstate commerce.
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Its called the "commerce clause" and even "originalist" extraordinaire Anton Scalia has no problems with that (see his concurrence in Gonzales vs Rauch).
People buying their internet from a local municipal broadband service is about as far from "interstate" as you can get.
It doesn't really matter if the federal government can convince the Supreme Court otherwise. (The SC, by its nature, tends to allow federal overreach). The fact of the matter is that it shouldn't -- this is something that can be perfectly adequately addressed at the local level, and should be. You should get your state representatives and government to fix their laws, not the President o
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I agree with your opinion of the opinion of the Supreme Court, but there is a long line of decisions that underpin the Fed's ability to regulate almost anything. Expecting the Supreme Court to change its opinion on this topic is wishful thinking. It isn't going to happen any time soon.
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lol.. There is no municipalities rights in the US constitution that is supposed to limit what the feds can do. But yes, the closer to the people the better.
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lol.. There is no municipalities rights in the US constitution that is supposed to limit what the feds can do.
Well, kinda there is. The 10th amendment [wikipedia.org] expressly reserves for the states any powers not specifically specified by the Constitution to the Fed. On the other hand, your local municipality only has powers as outlined by your state constitution. Typically, any city is completely subordinate to whatever state it happens to be in, but states, and therefore cities, have rights over the Feds unless the Constitution specifically says otherwise (most often, by virtue of the commerce clause [wikipedia.org]).
With municipal broadba
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Well, any municipal rights would be endowed by the state as they are political subdivisions of the state. There is no constitutional amendment or provision specifically for the municipalities.
I'm not sure why you are going off with the rest of your comment. It's meaningless to that point. And I did say that local control is better.
As was set into rule and demonstrated in Wickard v. Filburn, a substantial effect on interstate commerce is all that is needed for the feds to assume control or power to regulate
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It's interstate commerce, so of course the federal government gets to regulate it. Up until it goes to the SCOTUS and the conservative appointees decide that it's time to gut th interstate commerce clause again like they did with health care.
Bottom line here is that the main purpose of the internet is interstate and intercountry commerce, relatively few people exclusively use content in the same state in which it was produced.
what about bans on private competition (overbuilde (Score:3)
It seems to me the article addresses less than half the problem. In many cities and counties, one cable has been granted a legal franchise - effectively a government-enforced monopoly outlawing other companies providing better service to compete. Because right now providers are needing to build out fiber networks anyway, overbuilders who compete with incumbents have done quite well, where they are allowed to do so. That say this is because they are going into areas where Comcast or Time Warner has an existing COAX network. The new competitor builds a FIBER network. Comcast doesn't have a huge advantage since they also have to build their own fiber network to compete.
The article assumes without evidence that politicians would do a better job of running an ISP than processionals can. Looking at the actual results from city projects vs private over builders suggests the opposite - frequently after cities make a huge mess of the project hiring the mayor's brother-in-law to build it at 250% of the going rate, they end up selling the half-completed network to an experienced company who finishes the job and provides good service.
Can we get a list of states or major cities that allow private competition? I know some parts of the Austin metro area have four or five companies competing, and you can get good service at a great price.
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That say this is because they are going into areas where Comcast or Time Warner has an existing COAX network. The new competitor builds a FIBER network. Comcast doesn't have a huge advantage since they also have to build their own fiber network to compete.
The technology already exists to crank up COAX cable speeds to 1Gbit.
Docsis 3.1 is allegedly going to be 10/1 Gbit capable, though it will depend on the quality of the COAX to your home.
The only catch is that the hardware isn't ready yet, it's still being designed and built [multichannel.com]
with expensive upgrades and fresh coax, yes. My co (Score:2)
That's true, my cable company, Suddenlink, is delivering high speeds with coax for the last mile. They are spending a billion dollars* or something to upgrade their network to make that happen. At the same time, a competitor can spend the same billion dollars to build fiber, or to build their own high-speed coax. The old, soggy coax that Comcast already has can't provide those speeds, so they have to do new build just like the new competitor does, partially erasing Comcast's advantage from being there f
Re:what about bans on private competition (overbui (Score:4)
There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of Public Utility Districts in the country that provide electricity and telephone service to their customers often with lower cost and higher quality of service than the for profit competitors. They have boards elected from the customer base and their only focus is providing the service to their customers. I see no reason that can't work for internet connections as well.
maybe one problem has been tech deploy vs maintena (Score:2)
>. . I see no reason that can't work for internet connections as well.
That is an interesting point. I'm not sure about all of the reasons one has often worked well and the hasn't. Perhaps having a board of volunteer citizens deploying a brand new $200 million technology project is different from having them oversee the maintaince of 100-year-old power lines in many ways. If a private company, such as the Edison Company, had already built a high-speed fiber network like they did the power network, an
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> City: Well, we can't let a competing company start up because of this franchise agreement signed 25 years ago. Maybe we can set up our own internet service as a utility.
Exclusive contracts are already illegal.
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But they can be effectively exclusive, if the cost to build out is too high or an existing franchisee or operator makes it difficult to share resources. In my town, the simple answer is that one carrier was here first, which means a competing carrier would have to rely on revenue from customers who switch in order to justify a complete build-out. Not a great gamble, no big bucks here, particularly in the short term, so they don't bother, and we suffer under an effective monopoly.
I mean, if someone's willi
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Citizens: Well, internet is better and now I have more choices.
Politicians: Death panels! Terroist fistbumps! Benghazi!
Obama: Internet access is the right of every American. If you don't buy an approved Internet Access Plan from the state exchange, say hello to my little frenz at the IRS.
but politicians are better at legislating (Score:3)
I should mention that politicians are probably better at passing laws than ISPs are. Each type of organization has it's own structure and it's own specialty. The city council promotes fairness and deliberativeness by taking holding two public hearings and taking six months to weigh a decision. That's good since they are passing laws.
The company that builds new fiber networks makes decisions much quicker, and that's good because we want the whole city built out in a year or two, not ten or twenty years. S
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And let's face it, fiber networks are not a new technology anymore. Fiber laying, termination and maintenance are pretty simple so that municipalities can either do it themselves or they can easily find a cont
why should it be illegal to be better than Comcast (Score:2)
Suddenlink provides good service and has happy customers. Explain why it should be illegal for them to offer their better service to people who currently suffer Comcast. Take your time, I'll wait.
I didn't say it should be illegal for politicians to run ISPs. I said it's silly to think that ONLY politicians can run ISPs.
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The article lists places that prohibit cities from competing with Comcast. I asked for a list of places that prohibit ANYONE from competing with Comcast, because Wave and CenturyLink do a good job. I said it's silly to pretend that the choice is between Comcast or politicians. You and others started arguing with me. Maybe you forgot to read my post before arguing with it?,
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Then there are sparsely populated areas where it simply makes no sense to build several competing networks.
Oakland prohibits competition. Why is that good? (Score:2)
Within the city limits of Oakland, it is effectively illegal to compete with Comcast, because the city council granted Comcast a franchise. This city document discusses the fees that Comcast pays for exclusivity protection.
http://clerkwebsvr1.oaklandnet... [oaklandnet.com]
Outside the city limits, the Almeda County Franchise Authority sets the rules, negotiating fees (and campaign contributions) for exclusive franchises. Grande Communications isn't there building a state-of-the-art fiber network because they aren't allow
ps - let's put the guys who CAUSED the problem in (Score:2)
BTW, factoring in your position, as I currently understand it, here's what Oakland has now:
Unlike ie metro Austin, with five companies competing, the City of Oakland council decided to grant Comcast a monopoly, in exchange for Comcast paying them.
Comcast sucks, really bad.
You, an Oakland resident, are unhappy with the situation.
I know! Let's put the same people who CAUSED the problem (the city) in charge of building a new $200 million network, with money they take from you by force! That'll solve it for s
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Comcast only has exclusive cable franchise that it got for network upgrade and which has expired 2 years ago. And you're incoherent, I want the CITY itself to build AND OWN a fiber network. It's NOT possible right now because of California regulations. Are you perhaps paid to not understand this?
not sure what morticians have to do with it (Score:2)
I'm not sure what undertakers have to with it, but I see I did understand you correctly. The CITY decided to force you to use Comcast, so you've decided the CITY is a bunch of geniuses who will do everything right, and you want the CITY to borrow money in your name so that the CITY can contract for a network to be built, just like they contracted for Comcast to provide service. You do realize the city doesn't make fiber optic cables, or routers, or even know how to terminate a fiber, right? They'll co
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You STILL haven't explained to me why you think it should be illegal for a company with low prices and high customer satisfaction ratings to come give you the same great service my neighbors and I enjoy.
You are definitely paid to be deliberately obtuse. I have NO OBJECTION at all to multiple ISPs providing a competitive high-class service. It's great when they are available. Yet in most parts of the country the situation is quite different, and it doesn't actually mat
link? (Score:2)
>.
The municipality had NO CHOICE but to give Comcast a franchise in exchange for network upgrade. I read the minutes in archives.
Can you by chance grab that link from your history? It seems odd that the council had NO CHOICE but to have Comcast pay them. You understand Comcast pays them for the privilege. It would also mark the first time I know of that Comcast was willing to pay for a territory that Frontier, CenturyLink, etc wouldn't build out for free.
>. . I have NO OBJECTION at all
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In Chattanooga, for example, the municipality originally charged $350 / month. When asked how they determined that rate, the chairman replied "because we can". No market studies, no break-even analysis, just screw over the citizens "because we can".
YOU LIE! Initially Chattanooga were charged $50 for 50Mbit connection (it's $59 for 100Mbit now) to cover the price of the rollout. $350 was only charged for the premium 1G package because there literally were no precedents of 1G rollout in the US and they couldn't price it.
You're factually mistaken about "in most parts". The fact is, by far the majority of Americans live in areas with franchise laws barring competition, by a large margin.
Nope. Not true. Check the FCC's report.
I'm not sure why you're struggling so hard to convince yourself you have to choose between the crap you have now and the kind of crap decisions we could expect from your lovely city council.
I'd go with the decision to build a municipally-owned infrastructure and then rent it to any ISP that would want to provide service. You can have a crappy 1Mbit connection with mandatory anal rape f
Densest person ever. You work for the TPB contract (Score:2)
>. You can have a crappy 1Mbit connection with mandatory anal rape from your friendly nice multinational corporation.
I've told you a few times now, we get gigabit for $70 / month. Most providers aren't Comcast. I'm not sure if you're the densest person to ever visit Slashdot, or if you're the contractor making millions on the muni deal. Or maybe you just ate too many mushrooms while reading your communist propaganda and now your brain is utterly fried.
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Re:but politicians are better at legislating (Score:4, Interesting)
Chattanooga lost their credit rating did to overwhelming debt from their government broadband attempt
No. This, at least, is unsubstantiated FUD.
From Forbes.com [forbes.com]:
In fact, contrary to Stephenson’s claims that municipal broadband hurt municipal credit ratings, S&P just upgraded the Chattanooga public utility’s bond rating, stating, “The system is providing reliable information to the electric utility on outages, losses and usage, which helps reduce the electric system’s costs.”
A quick google search of Chattanooga and broadband turned up multiple articles agreeing that their local internet deployment has been a roaring success [nytimes.com], particularly in bringing a new wave of business and revenue to the city [timesfreepress.com].
Not every city is successful [washingtonpost.com], but that's no reason for states to prohibit them from trying [arstechnica.com], if nothing else to give the monopolists an incentive to improve their crappy race-to-the-bottom service.
Explain why it should be illegal to do better? (Score:2)
Suddenlink provides good service and has happy customers. Explain why it should be illegal to offer their better service to people who currently suffer Comcast.
I didn't say it should be illegal for politicians to run ISPs. I said it's silly to think that ONLY politicians can run ISPs.
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I didn't say it should be illegal for politicians to run ISPs. I said it's silly to think that ONLY politicians can run ISPs.
Hmm. I'm not aware of any municipality where ONLY the government is PERMITTED to run an ISP (that might turn out bad, sooner or later). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm only aware of Big Telecomm complaining that they can't COMPETE with municipals, service for price, which results in an EFFECTIVE local government monopoly. I don't think this is a bad thing, because I think it would only last so long as the government-run ISP didn't suck.
If and when it does start to suck, a commercial competitor wo
politicians make deals for a living (Score:2)
> I'm not aware of any municipality where ONLY the government is PERMITTED to run an ISP.
I can't name one off the top of my head that currently still has that law. I can say that when Chatanooga was charging $350 / month for their government run service, they had a strong incentive to keep out competitors offering a similar service for $100.
> if the politicians tried to make it difficult for them (and why would they? they can't legally profit from it)
Here are three reasons:
City council members spend
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Kinda, not quite right.
Just checked at https://epbfi.com/internet/ [epbfi.com], 100 Mbps is $57.99... not free, but not bad. Triple-play goes for $132.82. It ain't Sweden [fool.com], but not awful.
And whereas Bob the Politician would like campaign funding for keeping his job (would that be a part-time or a full-time job, by the way? term limits? what's the pay? does he really give a shit about keeping that job in a local city council?), he can get a lot more campaign donations by getting into bed with commercial internet provider
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Chattanooga lost their credit rating did to overwhelming debt from their government broadband attempt
Chattanooga paid off all debt after 3 years, while saving the local community $50mil/year in increased electrical stability, general savings, and quicker repairs because of the fiber.
Utopia got the lowest bidder, who so happened to have a horrible track record of unprofessional network implementations.
link? Their financial report says $200 million hol (Score:2)
Do you have a link to whatever source you're interpreting in that way? Their latest annual financial statement shows them as being $200 million in the hole, and that's after the Obama administration gave them $200 million in tax apayer money collected from other states.
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34 subscribers at $350 != $250 million (Score:2)
I'd love to see that link, because the documentation I've seen says they had 34 subscribers at $350 each. That's $11,900/month in revenue, or $143,000 per year. I'm not sure how you pay off $250,000,000 in debt using $143,000 in revenue. The interest alone was more than their revenue.
I _think_ what you may be remembering is they calculated that y dropping it to $70/month, they projected that could get 30% of the market, which would allow them to keep up with their interest payments rather than continuing
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"Our customer service representatives and business sales team added thousands of customers to the fiber optic network, earning $80.7 million in revenue over the past fiscal year.[2013]"
They make $80mil/year in revenue, but they save $50mil/year because of the fiber. Even if they offered the 1Gb for $0/month, they'd still be nearly breaking even.
thanks. $70 sells well, it seems (Score:2)
Thanks for that quote. It doesn't surprise me that they have a lot of customers now, at $70/month. At $350 or $300 each month, that's a much tougher sell
we mostly agree. Suddenlink does better than polit (Score:2)
>. State governments ban local governments from creating broadband networks at the request of telecom monopolies and you stand on a pulpit and preach about government non-interference. They are interfering by granting these monopolies in the first place!
We're in agreement there, 100%. Governments shouldn't grant monopolies to their donors. Where we see things differently is that perhaps you've never heard of Suddenlink or any of the two hundred other cable companies that aren't Comcast and Time Warner
typo "can beat" should be "can't beat" (Score:2)
I had a typo. When we CAN'T do a better job than the private companies we compete with, we partner with them.
If the entire model seems completely foreign, consider state colleges and universities, who compete with private colleges to attract students. We're the same. We're a government agency just like the University of California is, and we compete just like UC competes with private universities.
Don't know the words "lost" or "fell"? (Score:2)
As mentioned in the story you linked to, they had AAA in 2013. Two months after that story, they were downgraded due to the excessive debt load for the municipal fiber, which isn't fiscally sound.
On several mutated hands, oh god, a mutant. (Score:4, Funny)
On one hand, free access to information is arguably a fundamental right. The simple fact is, our governments are moving more and more towards online services. It's more painful, for example, in my state, to attempt to set up an appointment at the DMV via phone, than it is to click a few buttons on a web form. (And heaven forfend you simply show up without an appointment - hope you have a week of vacation saved up. I'm only slightly exaggerating.)
On the other hand, the Federal government has no mandate, nor any business whatsoever, backing public Internet access projects. This is solely within the domain of the powers of individual states.
On that third mutated hand, a man in a funny hat named Lincoln bitchslapped the sovereign power of states (admittedly, for perhaps worthy goals) with extreme prejudice, so screw that noise - grind the states and municipalities into dust if they want to suck the phallus of monopolizing providers.
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Enough of the anti-city agenda (Score:5, Insightful)
Laws prohibiting municipal broadband are entirely anti-city. In a country where politics is such that cities are routinely decried (while ironically states redistribute their tax revenues to rural areas and suburbs), I think it is time to frame broadband rights as a freedom from government for cities.
Cities should be allowed to be more independent from the states that hold them. They should not be stripped of the competitive advantages that localized economies of scale provide. They should be allowed to offer their own utilities, to toll the interstates that cut through them, and they shouldn't have to pay a gasoline tax that largely serves rural interests, and above all, part of that independence should be to allow them to offer broadband.
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Do ghettos exist outside of cities, or do they exist because cities take wealth from financially productive run-down areas [strongtowns.org] and use it to attract newer but relatively unproductive big-box stores in middle-class neighborhoods?
If the latter, it would appear that breaking up cities as if they were monopolies would prevent the flow of wealth from the poor to the rich and thereby prevent ghettos from forming.
So what (Score:2)
I think that could, in the modern American political discourse, be the refrain. Have a look at a map. Generally speaking, urban areas vote blue and in favor of some sort of a national vision, whereas rural areas consistently lap up a steady diet of misinformation that says they are supporting the cities when every outlay from the state capitals to even the federal government suggests the opposite is true. The rural areas say they hate government and redistribution of wealth - fine - then let them do with
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The rural areas say they hate government and redistribution of wealth - fine - then let them do without the wealth redistributed to them and maybe cities, unshackled by them, can begin to turn their own finances around.
Oh, how I hate this simplistic meme about how "blue" cities support the "red" suburbs and rural areas. One thing that it ignores is that a great deal of the wealth generated in cities is created by people who live (and vote) in suburbs and rural areas. it's called "commuting."
Or try this thought experiment: cities stop "distributing their wealth" to the suburbs and rural areas, and the suburbs and rural areas stop distributing their wealth to the cities... as well as "their" food, water, oil, gas, and elect
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What it means is (Score:2)
I remember a few years ago Verizon stopped expanding FIOS and cited just these sort of local restrictions as the primary reason they stopped. Pity for those of you who don't have FTTP service
Suckage Waiting To Happen (Score:2)
And we are talking about wired internet here mostly, is that how it works in the future? I don't think so.
Wireless is the future, the same way that phones, while not replacing the desktop entirely, are your computer "on the road" and for a fair percentage of people their only "computer".
And wouldn't municipality internet be a patchwork quilt with varying degrees of quality, just like
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I am proposing that the federal government step in to overrule local laws in place that prevent commercial businesses from running their own infrastructure and selling their own service. You may not be aware, but that is actually the situation today in much of the USA.
If bob's HISpeed LowDrag ISP shows up with the cash to lay lines for a service, they should be allowed to do it. Certainly there should
Sure (Score:2)
If I were to identify something I am not happy with, it is the government approving all these mergers so we are in a situation with few providers.
The government got "us" into this situation by bad practices, I don't see more bad ideas getting us out of the situation --- it is passing the buck.
But I did misinterpret what you were advocating.
Hiposcrisy alert (Score:3)
Today, the evilz socialistically guvmint want's to install public broadband? NO no NO! you goddamned commie! Thatz takin away money form the free market!"
But they don't think there is enough profit, or something, so "NO broadband for you! Fucking ignorant commies anyhow.
The similarites are kinda cute.
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people want bad enough to be willing to pay for it
But people willing to pay and broadband companines willing to provide are two different things. In most cases, public utilities have a much lower cost structure than private enterprise. So they can justify providing service in ares which might not attract private investment at this time. The private providers allocate resources based upon maximising their ROI. And so it might be a while before the most profitable neighborhoods are wires up and they get around to the lower revenue areas. Or perhap never. Bu
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Citations?
Do you have any proof to this conspiracy theory?
Actually, no, they are pretty bad it — and the bigger the city, the worse t
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In most cases, public utilities have a much lower cost structure than private enterprise.
Citations?
I've worked in the power utility industry for years. As a direct employee for a (now defunct) investor owned utility, PSE. And I have done some consulting for some neigboring utilities. I do know that Seattle City Light and Snohomish County PUDs' operations costs were lower than PSE's back when my company had itw own maintenance crews. Now that they subcontract all of that work out, their costs have skyrocketed to about double the rates of the public entities. This is partly why they went under as a publicl
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So, you offer a single anecdote — whatever its merits — to back up the claim that started with "In most cases ...".
I've seen more cases of well-cleaned private parking lots next to snow-boggled [nydailynews.com] public streets than that.
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How do you know? They effectively seem to be piggy-backing on the infrastructure created and paid for by electric customers. That's probably a great way of keeping down costs. But the only reason this ends up being "municipal" is because the power company itself started out municipal. If private power companies were less regulated elsewhere, you'd probably see these kinds of offerings all ove