Voters Overwhelmingly Back Community Broadband In Chicago and Denver (vice.com) 103
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VICE: Voters in both Denver and Chicago have overwhelmingly thrown their support behind local community broadband projects, joining the hundreds of U.S. communities that have embraced home-grown alternatives to entrenched telecom monopolies. In Chicago, roughly 90 percent of voters approved a non-binding referendum question that asked: "should the city of Chicago act to ensure that all the city's community areas have access to broadband Internet?" The vote opens the door to the city treating broadband more like an essential utility, potentially in the form of community-run fiber networks.
In Denver, 83.5 percent of the city's electorate cast ballots in favor of question 2H, which asked if the city should be exempt from a 2005 law, backed by local telecom monopolies, restricting Colorado towns and cities from being able to build their own local broadband alternatives. [...] "I think the margin in Chicago and Denver is remarkable," [said Christopher Mitchell, director of community broadband networks for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.] "When we work with communities where half the residents have a cable monopoly and the other half don't have any broadband, the demand for something better is strong among both populations."
In Denver, 83.5 percent of the city's electorate cast ballots in favor of question 2H, which asked if the city should be exempt from a 2005 law, backed by local telecom monopolies, restricting Colorado towns and cities from being able to build their own local broadband alternatives. [...] "I think the margin in Chicago and Denver is remarkable," [said Christopher Mitchell, director of community broadband networks for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.] "When we work with communities where half the residents have a cable monopoly and the other half don't have any broadband, the demand for something better is strong among both populations."
Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:2, Interesting)
Never has the philosophy of Libertarianism been stronger among the general population.
Communities discarding unnatural broadband monopolies.
Inept public schools losing students left and right to homeschooling and charter schools as public schools refuse to open or do a reasonable job teaching.
People less and less tolerant of corruption generally...
People have a taste for real freedom now, and that desire is only going to grow from here. The days of giant government are waning.
Re:Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you joking or implying that a vote for municipal run broadband is a vote for libertarianism?
Re:Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:3)
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Libertarianism and socialism are not contradictory, except for uneducated Americans.
There is a weird ideology known as Left-Libertarianism [wikipedia.org] that is unworkable nonsense.
Otherwise, no, libertarianism and socialism are basically opposites.
Municipal broadband is socialism. It is not libertarianism.
But that is just the ideology. More important is the practicality. There is nothing inherently wrong with socialism in some niches. Nobody wants tollbooths on sidewalks.
Municipal broadband has a good track record. Where it has been implemented, people are generally happy with it.
If my city put it
Re: Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:2)
Re: Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:3)
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How can you just declare leftist libertarianism nonsense?
LL promises both freedom and equality.
That is nonsense. Some people are inherently more hardworking and intelligent than others and, given freedom, they will be more prosperous.
You can maximize freedom, or maximize equality, but you can't do both at the same time. Most societies strike a balance between the two.
Some brands of LL only try to make wealth based on natural resources equal. You can't enforce that without the heavy boot of the state. Hence, it is not "libertarian" in any meaningful sense.
Can
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What does a society with "maximum freedom" look like? Do freedom and liberty require laws and law enforcement, or do they require the complete absence of both?
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What does a society with "maximum freedom" look like?
1990s Somalia.
I considered moving there, buying a pickup truck, and mounting an M2 heavy machine gun tripod in the bed. It would be the perfect life: No taxes, no bureaucracy, no one tearing down my roadblock.
But my GF said no.
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You're joking, right? A country plagued by war, genocide, slavery and so on is one where the citizens enjoy maximum freedom? Slavery is freedom?
No, you must be trolling, because you can't actually believe the stupid Orwellian bullshit you just wrote.
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No, I think he believes it!
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Yes, for a very short period of time they enjoyed maximum freedom because there was no government to place any restrictions on them.
But absolute freedom doesn't last for very long, without a government to enforce a baseline balance of freedom vs restrictions, one of the freedoms people have is to impose their will on others using force.
The strong will take over and enslave the weak, because they have the freedom to do so.
Re: Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:4, Informative)
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You can have equality of opportunity, but for the reasons you specified there will never be equality of outcome without heavy handed intervention.
Unfortunately there are many who are not hard working, who have rejected hard work and education - and yet still expect an equal outcome to those who have worked hard.
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I know many people who work much harder than I do for far less money. And some of them are better educated. In fact, some of the hardest working people I know barely make enough to get by.
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Libertarianism is just a rename of liberalism the US has to use because they forgot what liberalism meant. It means right-wing liberalism.
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libertarianism and socialism are basically opposites
No. The only real distinction is the methodology by which they achieve power for oligarchs. Socialism explicitly places oligarchs in power by extolling the virtues of central planning. Libertarianism does it by creating a power vacuum in to which the oligarchs rush.
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Libertarianism and socialism are not contradictory, except for uneducated Americans.
There is a weird ideology known as Left-Libertarianism [wikipedia.org] that is unworkable nonsense.
Otherwise, no, libertarianism and socialism are basically opposites.
An interesting opinion. Personally I take the opposite view and, when someone asks about my political leanings, describe myself as a social libertarian. Essentially I believe that the state should: satisfy the basic needs of its population; enact and enforce the minimum regulations required to ensure that individuals and other entities, e.g. corporations, do not infringe upon the rights of the populace; provide for the defence of the nation; and act as a proxy for the will of their voters (although I'd pers
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While some Libertarian party members would accept gov. owned/ran services such as grid, LEOs, etc, almost universally, it will be MINIMAL monopolies.
Re:Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the time people don't know what the labels they use even mean. Many a young person who fancies himself a "socialist" would be shocked and outraged to be called a "corporatist", but depending on his political philosophy (assuming he has any you can identify), he may well be a "social corporatist", particularly if he's a fan of the Nordic Model.
Political use of philosophical terms like "socialist" or "libertarian" is almost always loaded. It is less about relating a person or idea to a specific body of thought than it is about effect -- often it's used to tell how you should feel. Kind of like brand management. A social scientist has no trouble with applying the term "libertarian socialist" to figures like Noam Chomsky or Emma Goldman. It means they're libertarians of a radically anti-statist type. But a layman who calls himself an "socialist" or a "libertarian" is apt to find the term itself nonsensical, since for him one term identifies membership in the in-group and the other membership in an out-group. You can't be in and out at the same time.
It's almost impossible to have a calm, intelligible discussion over whether something like this is a good idea, because people fall into emotionally loaded, mutually unintelligible cant.
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Yuhuh. Throw the labels in the bin. They can apply, at best, to a single idea, and even then it's never 100%. They are vaguely useful in an academic context, otherwise it's just another excuse to attempt to disregard a point of view without really engaging e.g. "that's just socialist nonsense blah blah". It certainly makes no sense to apply these labels to people, as if any one human being is purely one thing. We're a jumbled mess of contradictions and that's just fine.
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Of course, when I wrote that it sounded like Socialism, many Americans may have assumed I was not approving, but in fact I think community ownership of vital infrastructure is a much better model than the current system.
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Community run libraries sounds like socialism to me.
Why should my tax dollars buy books for poor people to read? If they want to read, they can buy their own books!!!
Damn Commies.
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One reason you might decide to voluntarily pay for a library, is that it could let you read 100 books for the price of buying 10.
The difference between libertarianism and socialism is the "why should" part of your question. If you pay because of a reason, such as efficiency, that's libertarian. (After all, who has the right to prevent you from funding libraries?!) If you pay because the tax man says "pay" while casually resting his hand on a weapo
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Dammit. I forgot to put the <SARCASM> tags on that post!
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I used the "S" word so people may have thought I am against community ownership, but I'm not. At all.
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Seriously, though, this would be libertarian in the sense that the government is actuallly AIDING the free market.
Right now, the incumbents have purchased laws protecting their monopoly, thus there is not a free market.
Re: Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:2)
Community run broadband sounds like Socialism to me.
What do you call all the electric co-ops that cover Texas? Outright communism?
https://www.texas-ec.org/about... [texas-ec.org]
For that matter, what do you call credit unions? Socialist banks? Give us a break.
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Give us a break.
You may have misunderstood. When I use the term "Socialism" I don't mean that it is something bad.
In the cases you have listed, I would say they look great.
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The option for it over an incumbent monopoly is libertarian.
The action for it is socialist.
End result? More broadband options and by extension more competition, I call it a win.
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No, the end result is the cable companies and telcos go to the FCC and the courts, and rain down hellfire on these municipal broadband plans.
Re:Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:4, Informative)
No, the end result is the cable companies and telcos go to the FCC and the courts
The main impediment to municipal broadband is neither the FCC nor the courts. It is state legislatures.
Municipal broadband blocked in 22 states [broadbandnow.com]
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To lazy to read the article but where I live afaik the municipal built and owns a network of pipes and rent out space. As the cable companies don't have to dig up the streets all the time it's cheap and if you want to connect a house in practice the upfront install cost maxes at digging the fiber from the nearest street to your living room and then just regular subscription from a number of companies. This seems to work very well.
Are you joking? (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you joking or implying that a vote for municipal run broadband is a vote for libertarianism?
Are you joking or are you implying voters opting to get rid of government regulation limiting choice is not fundamentally libertarianism in action?
Maybe you don't understand what libertarianism is, if you don't think a community opting to build broadband encompasses that. Maybe you've been wrong all along about what being a libertarian means if you think that. Maybe you have no idea what libertarians actually s
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Are you joking or implying that a vote for municipal run broadband is a vote for libertarianism?
Are you joking or are you implying voters opting to get rid of government regulation limiting choice is not fundamentally libertarianism in action?
Maybe you don't understand what libertarianism is, if you don't think a community opting to build broadband encompasses that. Maybe you've been wrong all along about what being a libertarian means if you think that. Maybe you have no idea what libertarians actually support.
That libertarians would support majority rule and taxed financed collective solutions boggles my mind. I'm not US so I readily admit my lack of knowledge, I was under the impression that US libertarians were in the vein of people like Robert Nozick.
Re: Are you joking? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are you joking or are you implying voters opting to get rid of government regulation limiting choice is not fundamentally libertarianism in action?
That's not what the voters opted for. They didn't opt to get rid of government regulation. They were solely asked whether government should step in to solve a problem that wasn't currently working.
"Should the city of Chicago act to ensure that all the city's community areas have access to broadband Internet?"
Their vote by itself doesn't imply a libertarian solution (e.g. the government should act by repealing regulations). Nor does it imply a statist/governmentist solution (e.g. the government should add re
Without any Cost, vote meaningless or misleading (Score:1)
Of course people are in favor of things when there is no cost associated with it, or at least not stated.
Now rephrase that question to include additional income and property and sales taxes in addition to fees paid by citizens to connect and use the municipal broadband and you will get a drastically different answer.
Re: Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:2)
I thought it was a vote against a law prohibiting municipal broadband?
That's not the same as voting for municipal broadband. Voting against the state telling you what to do seems like a libertarian move to me.
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When your internet is worse than of the many third world countries, well it's time to do something.
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I think the internet here is just too expensive with no incentive [from the big telcos] to improve matters at all.
I mean, why should they if they are monopolies?
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Yep.
I seem the difference quite blatantly in Brazil.
Monopoly was 256KBPS, 100MB cap that would charge you 10 dollars for every extra 100MB you downloaded.
But then the cable companies decided to compete and dropped 512KBPS no caps and with competition magic and time, we got like 200MBPS no caps fiber everywhere.
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Oh my sides, implying city of Chicago government or its vendor selection has anything remotely to do with Libertarian ideals.
Re:Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:5, Insightful)
"People less and less tolerant of corruption generally..."...really? After the President of Grift almost gets re-elected? His Jesus-Nut Dept. of Ed. chief turning education into more "religiously oriented" as long as it is the Jesus Freak kind? Several of his other secretaries hounded from office over graft? Not one peep did we hear from his supporters.
Treating immigrants like vermin? The Christian Right was down with that. Encouraging racism, the Christian Right was down with that too. Turning the Executive Branch into Re-elect Me Campaign Committee? Gee, that didn't elicit much revulsion from the "libertarians". Attempting to screw Americans back into the loving arms of the insurance companies? Nothing wrong in that book from the "libertarians" who apparently never get sick and have no pre-existing conditions. I never met a poor "libertarian".
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Never has the philosophy of Libertarianism been stronger among the general population... The days of giant government are waning.
I assume you are being sarcastic. The local city government used its power of eminent domain to let a fiber optics company dig through every resident's yard whether they wanted the service or not. Every house got an in-ground utility box installed about 2 feet back from the sidewalk, landscaping be damned. Every 10th house got extra large one. Call and complain? "The city said we can install it, so you can't prevent us."
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The days of giant government are waning.
Here is SuperKendall, proselytizing about supposed newfound anti-big government sentiment in a story about voters supporting the government based displacement of private sector owned network services...
The worst part of keeping company with libertarians, paleo-conservatives and others that do not abide establishment group-think are the blithering idiots that inhabit the space.
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Minor point, I would argue this is closer to the definition of the welfare state [wikipedia.org] than of libertarianism. Communities pooling their resources to establish a base level of service to all, rather than allowing a pure profit motive. It's a hybrid system, in other areas capitalism is out in front and determines market price.
You have to look at a community in its totality before you declare it socialist, libertarian or whatever. In these particular cases, we see a combination of democracy, government operate soci
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The party is certainly opposed to the government granted monopoly, but many of the members would also be equally opposed to government ran monopoly such as fiber.
Personally, I argue that having LOCAL government installing/owning the fiber is not a big deal as long as management of fiber and services is contracted out.
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What makes sense is for the government (or other non profit entity) to build and maintain the physical fibre, which runs from people's houses to a central datacenter.
From there, anyone can rent the fibre and provide whatever service over it they want.
Similar to how other utilities operate in many places, you have a single electrical grid but you can buy the power from multiple suppliers.
Re: Libertarianism growing stronger (Score:2)
What's stopping them? (Score:1)
If they want it, who can keep them from getting it?
Regulations? (Score:5, Informative)
If they want it, who can keep them from getting it?
Well, in a lot of places, including Denver until this vote, there are/were rules that communities could not stand up their own broadband efforts.
The thing is, at this point there are a number of examples of communities doing a pretty good job of building out their own broadband network.
I don't think it will work in all cases, but probably any community that wants to be able to do so should be allowed to try.
Actually, no they didn't (Score:2)
Much like a lot of voters held their collective noses and voted for Trump 4 years ago. I predict similar results.
It's all in the question you ask (Score:2)
Voters were asked:
Should the city of Chicago act to ensure that all the city's community areas have access to broadband Internet?
They were not asked:
Should tax payers be on the hook for another billion dollar boondoggle by the crooks at City Hall?
They were not asked:
Should the inept mayor be trying to run an ISP as a side interest when he can't even get basic city services working?
They weren't asked if city hall should be running an ISP.
They didn't vote for city hall to run an ISP.
They voted that Chicago sh
Re:It's all in the question you ask (Score:4, Interesting)
My community has community broadband - fiver to every home. We all have to subscribe, no exceptions. The service is excellent and there has never been downtime that I recall. We are connected directly to a major meet me room.
My own personal service is 1000 up / 1000 down for $70 ( all up, no other taxes or fees ). I can get just shy of 600 in practice from US services and as much 250 from services in Japan and Singapore and in the ballpark of 100 from Europe. ( I am in the Pacific Northwest of the US. )
I don't think that major telcos have a monopoly on good services. You can do community broadband and do it well.
Good question, "should you be forced to buy the ma (Score:2)
> We all have to subscribe, no exceptions.
That's another good way to phrase the question:
Should you be forced to buy your internet service from the mayor's pet project, even if you're perfectly happy with the service you have?
I'm curious, do you know how much your tax cost is on that?
Typically there's are two parts to the cost - constructing the network is added to your tax bill, running the service is paid for by a monthly bill for the service.
Typically, such projects are built with $xx million of tax p
One example: Seattle (Score:2)
Just as one example, one proposal for Seattle would have the ongoing cost of the service paid for by billing everyone the advertised rate of $70 / month.
Construction cost of $463 million would be bonds, putting each household $1,600 in debt. They'd pay off that $1,600/house build cost in higher taxes.
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mayor's pet project
While you have your head shoves up your arse, you will never understand why this measure got such a high percentage of the votes. Stop intentionally misrepresenting it so that it fist your preconceived notions.
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"such a high percentage of the votes"?
There were ZERO votes for having city hall run an ISP. Zero. None. Not one vote. That's the point.
People voted that the city should do something to help people get high speed access. That was the question on the ballot. If the supporters thought that being honest and asking "should there be a law requiring you to buy internet access from City hall?" would get votes, why didn't they ask that?
They weren't transparent about their intentions for a reason.
It's not an acci
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You're trying to insinuate it's the mayor's personal project and by insinuation he's going to get rich off the taxpayers. Stop that.
People voted that the city should do something to help people get high speed access. That was the question on the ballot. If the supporters thought that being honest and asking "should there be a law requiring you to buy internet access from City hall?" would get votes, why didn't they ask that?
They gave the city even more latitude. The city is not required to run muni broadban
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> You're trying to insinuate it's the mayor's personal project and by insinuation he's going to get rich off the taxpayers. Stop that.
No, that's not what I said. What I said is that the answer you get is affected by the question you ask.
> Yeah because people didn't use YOUR politically loaded question eh?
Yeah they didn't ask any of the six or so questions I have as examples. They also didn't ask the most straightforward possible question:
Should the city government run an ISP to all all residents must
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BTW, here are a couple things I've noticed over my life:
If you have to lie to people to get them accept your idea (or actually accept your false representation of your idea), it's probably a bad idea.
1. Yes, you're also being a bad person by lying to people, but you already knew that much. It's also a bad idea, if you have to lie to everyone about it because they won't accept it if they know the truth.
2. If you have to force people to do it, if they won't do it without being completely forced to, it might b
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No, that's not what I said.
You insinuated it.
What I said is that the answer you get is affected by the question you ask.
Uh yeah? And your solution is to ask ludicrously loaded questions to get the answer you want.
Yeah they didn't ask any of the six or so questions I have as examples.
Well, some of those were bordeline libellous, so that's not really surprising, is it?
They also didn't ask the most straightforward possible question:
Should the city government run an ISP to all all residents must subscribe?
That'
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This is like asking "Should the city of Chicago act to ensure that all the city's community areas have access to inside toilets?"
Is the current city government doing something to prevent access? Are there currently some laws preventing some areas from not having broadband?
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They were not asked:
Should tax payers be on the hook for another billion dollar boondoggle by the crooks at City Hall?
It may be instructive that when San Francisco looked at doing a city wide fiber network that it would have cost around $1.7 billion, and to not lose money every resident (and business) would have been required to subscribe. And their own consultants who were hired to make a rosy assessment said that they only way it would be built as cheaply as proposed was if no one objected to the construction, and that the city would bypass the normal processes of impact reviews and permitting and inspections. Which a
Funny! The reason US broadband is behind (Score:1)
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The reason we are behind is because government, esp over the last 4 years, granted a number of monopolies and then enforced it to prevent competition.
Basically, they do NOT have their fingers all over, but on all the wrong parts.
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And then
"Basically, they do NOT have their fingers all over, but on all the wrong parts."
OK
Re:Funny! The reason US broadband is behind (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, not really. It's because the corporate interests have been written into state laws by lobbyists over the past few decades, quite contrary to what might be in the best interests of the people and rather in the best interests of the service providers. They've been protecting their dying business model by writing the rules as they go. So while it might appear to be the "government" that has implemented all of the current regulations it's been done almost entirely on behalf of corporate interests. This has been so successful ingrained that it has convinced citizens such as yourself that the government are at fault.
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Very little is done in government for the good of the public.
Government is there for the self service and profit of those running it and the rich.
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Comcast will find away to mess it up (Score:4, Insightful)
Comcast will find away to mess it up unless they have to deal with lot rules like.
IF THE network / plan forces you to rent hardware then it must be billed at $0/mo
Xfinity Fiber-Only Networks force you to rent there hardware.
NO CAPS / OVERAGES
Can not force TV / home phone as part of the line.
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The big cable/telcos generally lobby at the state level to prohibit municipal broadband, or restrict it to the point that it's unworkable. Planet Money podcast episode here:
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29... [npr.org]
These sorts of things usually get killed (Score:2)
Voted against (Score:3, Interesting)
I voted against it in Denver because I presently enjoy CenturyLink gigabit fiber for $65/month and question whether the city can do better.
Also, municipal finances in general are finicky. For example, although we get posh trash service for "free" (stemming from the "City Beautiful" movement a century ago), due to city finances resulting from COVID, large-item pickup & "extra trash pickup" was cut from every four weeks to every eight weeks -- at a time when residential trash generation has skyrocketed. Imagine next COVID-like scenario where we all have to work from home and the city decides it's the right time to impose data caps.
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Muni have no business doing lit services. A strand or more per home to a central meet me room is all that should be done. Now they could run a lit channel even lease the use of it to ISP's/Media/Telco, but that would get them potential universal access to school/library/city services next to the commercial service.
Check out what Longmont has (Score:1)
I presently enjoy CenturyLink gigabit fiber for $65/month and question whether the city can do better.
If all they do is what Longmont does (and why would they not do that), it would mean $5 more a month than that - but with no data caps [broadbandnow.com].
Not Surprising (Score:2)
Even big well funded companies have problems (Score:1)
Didn't even Google with Google Fiber not live up to expectations?
And not continue?
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The problem is, these setups rarely work as well as planned. Numerous cities have built such systems, only to shut them down due to numerous issues.
Numerous? Can you list a few? I'm aware only of the successful ones (e.g. Chattanooga).
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Until comcast comes in an sues them and wins (Score:2)
Comcast will come up with some bogus reason to stop and use the law for anti competitive practices like they have done before.
Everyone is missing something (Score:2)
...approved a non-binding referendum ...
Its just a "what do you think about this?" not a "We're going to do it!!"
If this had been an actual binding referendum you can bet your ass that the local ISP monopoly would have gotten it defeated with a massive PR campaign and so much FUD/BS that presidential campaigns wouldn't have been able to buy any add space in local media.
When corporations screw the pooch... (Score:2)
You get this. And I don't blame them at all. This is a mesage to corporations to stop screwing around and stop gouging their customers.
Rather have lower speed than data caps or throttle (Score:2)
When I had 1Gbps fibre, (up & down), the gateway to Netflix was still limited. It would buffer the standard 5 to 10 seconds. Then occasionally drop out. And a speed test would show less than 50Mbp
Poor Chicago (Score:2)
And next year's budget is calling for free Internet for more of them, more free Internet-access devices and more free meals. Of course they want a city-owned Internet; because they
The option I have right now (Score:1)
Ok, first off, I don't see a big problem (unless you are part of a big company that basically has a monopoly on things and can charge ludicrous prices because people don't have any choice... I view this from the perspective of the user of said service, not giving two shits about corporations and their need for ever increasing profit...
Anyway, when I lived in my previous apartment I had the option of either paying a local broadband provider for one of their tiers of service and getting it from a ethernet jac