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Part of it is that we're talking about state and local governments here. While the worst of them may be inbred, incompetent, and full of cronyism, it's difficult to work up the same terror-inducing aura that the feds can inspire in the tin-foil crowd.

Further, from a privacy standpoint, big business doesn't have a significantly better track record than big government. We all have the sneaking suspicion that they'd sell your personal information to whoever, if only their cost/benefit analysis justified it. So from a privacy standpoint, it's hard for me to get worked up. I can work to unelect the people responsible, go to the meetings where the decisions are made, publicize misdeeds in the local paper, etc. But if Huge Private Provider X is doing something untoward with the data I send over its equipment, or provide crappy service, there isn't a whole lot I can do except hope that there is another provider in my area.

You claim to want "a selection of providers," but that's not an option for many people who aren't willing to move to a different neighborhood. Many people can choose only one provider, and some can't even choose that. That sort of situation is rife with monopoly abuse potential.

Further, I'm guessing you'd be opposed to Utah's UTOPIA Project. Quick summary: Several municipalities have teamed up to finance a big fiber optic layout. Once completed, they intend to rent bandwidth out to service providers, who will compete for the money of businesses and residents.

So instead of having to choose between Crappy Provider X and dial-up, every resident hooked into the system could choose any provider on the system for whatever services they wanted. The UTOPIA folks make a reasonable case that competition will increase because of government involvement. I mean, it's not like Comcast is going to rent its cable out to a competing provider whose sole intention is to steal its customer away.

Under this system, a lot of redundant build-out will be avoided, customers will be guaranteed healthy competition, and a lot of comfortable monopolies will be shattered.

Still, I guess because government is involved, private industry could have done better (in some alternate dimension where they could think beyond the next quarter).

They do have a point, in that governments are allowed to run systems at a loss, indefinitely. No private enterprise can compete with the right of governments to levy taxes.

I think the best way to go is akin to Utah's Utopia Project. The state takes out some municipal bonds, lays out vast swaths of fiber optic cable, connecting a lot of the cities in Utah. Then it pays the bonds back as private service providers rent the lines and compete for customers. The best thing about it is, rather than having to hope that good provider X will get to your area so you can stop using sucky provider Y, they both have to compete for your dollars because changing services is as simple as making a couple of phone calls.

It would be similar to government laying the roads, providing private taxi companies with a forum for competition, rather than having each company build out its own roads over an area. With the latter approach, there is a natural inclination towards unhealthy regional monopolies.

While out here in utah, they're tearing up the streets as fast as they can to lay fiber for the new Utopia Network! (Except in provo, where they want to have their /own/ network, apart from the rest of the state. loosers.)

I guess once they got their high-speed net to all the city buildings and schools, their interest pretty much fizzled, leaving the city-zens still not quite on of the game... I still can't get DSL.

Using this example it should be easy to see that this reaction from telecom (i.e. Bell) is natural survival instinct. They _will_ kick and scream louder and louder until they get their way. POTS *may* be able to support higher then rolled out data speeds but with fiber being rolled out is it worth it? Or are they just trying to make it look like they don't really need fibre optics so they don't look desperate.

What I often wonder about is why there isn't more discussion about having a public network, over which service is offered by competing private parties. We don't have a State-run trucking company along with public roads. Why do we assume it has to be government monopoly vs state monopoly? Private competition over public networks could mean real competition due to low barriers to entry. We all know how a good commons can serve as a platform for widespread success.

And why do we do half-a** measures like mandating private competition over... private networks? That's how things seem to be done here in Utah. I've been trying to help my parents get broadband for 7 years. They live in a town of nearly 100,000 people. They live two blocks from a technology campus/business park. They can't get DSL. It's always "oh, about 6 months from now," from Qwest and has been since 1998. Near as I can tell, at least half of the city must be in the same boat, because that's the portion of Orem that was built around or before my parents home was. Of course, you call up any of Qwest's "competition," and it turns out they're simply reselling Qwest's services, and since Qwest apparently can't get it together to update half of my hometown... no DSL for them.

Of course, Qwest cried and screamed and protested and astroturfed when the UTOPIA project came around, promising not only competing service, but a truly updated public infrastructure. Qwest won't or can't provide the service, but darned if they're going to let somebody else show them up and take away their free lunch. The entrepreneur who started one of the first ISPs in Utah, of course, saw right through them..

Just like this project is being done in only one state in India, I know of at least one state in the U.S. that is doing this. Utah. There is a fiber optic network known as UTOPIA that is being rolled out state wide...except where I live. I live in Provo, and the city planners decided to do it their own way. I will grant, however, that Provo's network is being rolled out a lot faster than UTOPIA is being done. There's already a significant portion of the city with access to iProvo (it's on the richer part of town, of course). But, I don't live in that area. I'm a student barely managing to survive on Top Ramen, and really crappy broadband.

[RANT]The stupid ISP that handles the Internet access for my apartment complex doesn't know how to set up their network! They put idiotic bandwidth limits on users - you get 64 kbps for free, any faster and you have to pay more - and the lousy network they set up can't even handle a fifty percent load. I paid extra for 256K, and I only get that in the morning when everyone else is at school, or late at night when everyone else is asleep. Oh, and you're only allowed to use your internet connection for 5 hours a day. Any more than that and they charge you a dollar an hour. Not to mention how poor the installation was.[/RANT] O.K., now I feel better. Next semester I'm moving into a house and getting cable for my broadband.

I live here in utah and have seen everything on utopia and i support it. you are not seeing all the facts. First it is 100mbit to 1gbit fiber home/bisnis respectivly, http://www.utopianet.org/technology/speed.htm for more info. second they are not just running it for internet services it will also have phone service, cable, video on demand, video phone service etc. second it is not 2,500$ per household that number auctuly varies from city to city http://www.utopianet.org/business_case/costs.htm for more info, total adverage cost is about 1171$ per house hold.

if you need more information hitup http://www.utopianet.org/

ps. their are company's leaping out for this just not in the way you though http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595054887,00 .html
=)

I live here in utah and have seen everything on utopia and i support it. you are not seeing all the facts. First it is 100mbit to 1gbit fiber home/bisnis respectivly, http://www.utopianet.org/technology/speed.htm for more info. second they are not just running it for internet services it will also have phone service, cable, video on demand, video phone service etc. second it is not 2,500$ per household that number auctuly varies from city to city http://www.utopianet.org/business_case/costs.htm for more info, total adverage cost is about 1171$ per house hold.

if you need more information hitup http://www.utopianet.org/

ps. their are company's leaping out for this just not in the way you though http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595054887,00 .html
=)

I live here in utah and have seen everything on utopia and i support it. you are not seeing all the facts. First it is 100mbit to 1gbit fiber home/bisnis respectivly, http://www.utopianet.org/technology/speed.htm for more info. second they are not just running it for internet services it will also have phone service, cable, video on demand, video phone service etc. second it is not 2,500$ per household that number auctuly varies from city to city http://www.utopianet.org/business_case/costs.htm for more info, total adverage cost is about 1171$ per house hold.

if you need more information hitup http://www.utopianet.org/

ps. their are company's leaping out for this just not in the way you though http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595054887,00 .html
=)

Community services, such as Utah's UTOPIA. Unfortunately, the telephone companies are attempting push legislation through to ban it. I encourage Utah /.'ers to write their state representatives and make their opinions known. Further, we should write our Federal Congresscritters and encourage legislation friendly to community broadband.

In Utah, incumbent monopoly telco Qwest's modest investment of $50,000 in campaign contributions and its' powerful lobbyists (one is the son-in-law of the State Senate President) may be enough to kill the UTOPIA 18-city initiative to build a publicly-owned FTTH (fiber to the home) system. A bill (openly crafted by Qwest) that would effectively outlaw city's financing the project sailed out of the Senate and threatens to become law. This action comes after 18 city councils have voted to join UTOPIA and 6 have already made financial guarantees . The UTOPIA system is based on an open-access model allowing multiple competing providers to offer voice, data and video services to subscribers.

This comes as the Salt Lake City Tribune, a strong foe of the UTOPIA initiative, ran an article wondering why Utah is losing its' position as a major technology center.

There are more UTOPIA links at http://communityfiber.blogspot.com/2004_02_08_comm unityfiber_archive.html#107630357108945975

The UTOPIA optical-fiber-to-home plan for Utah seems to be a sensible business plan for using public bonds to bring fiber to 18 cities, but it is (surprise) getting hammered by representatives from the local phone and cable companies, Qwest and Comcast. While their representatives don't seem to mind driving to legislative hearings on public roads, they do seem set against letting this project go ahead.

One of the two area papers, the nominally non-LDS, liberal-ish one that is dominant in the affected metro area, doesn't like UTOPIA either, and thus covers it from that perspective.

In another current, pressing theme, local politicians and newspapers fret over how to best bring high-paying high-tech (back) into the state.

Does anyone have good examples of good high speed networks that bring in or otherwise enable the formation and growth of new industry? I would like to have these to forward to the UTOPIA folks and key legislative offices. (Disclosure: I am an ECE prof. at a U in the UTOPIA footprint.) The Utah legislature is in session for another couple of weeks.

True. I remember an article on SiliconValley.Com talking about tech pro's who were employed at $40K - 60K / Year and HOMELESS, due to the astronomical cost of housing in the Bay area. They could not even afford rent!

What may need to be done by governments, industry, etc. is to encourage back office IT to locate to lower cost areas in the USA. Utah's UTOPIA project might be an example of something local / state government can do. It certainly beats paying for a factory or chicken processing plant to locate in a rural area!

I'm still waiting for UTOPIA which hopes to provide a wholesale network that provide FTTH services without using TAX money!!!.

I'm still waiting for UTOPIA which hopes to provide a wholesale network that provide FTTH services without using TAX money!!!.

A note about the funding for the project from the above web site:

The UTOPIA business case indicates that wholesale usage fees, charged to service providers based on their use of the network, will generate enough revenue to pay the capital investment costs, operating expenses, and debt service obligations associated with building and maintaing the network. No taxpayer money will be needed. However, in order to secure a competitive interest rate on the bonds that UTOPIA will issue to cover the cost of network construction, member cities may pledge to guarantee some of the debt.

So Utah tax payers (me included) won't be paying for this from our taxes. I can't wait, however, until ISPs in Utah start passing the cost of the whole thing onto me (the consumer). Sure I can get Gbit speeds. The "basic" package may cost $28 (probably at speeds comparable to current cable), but wait until you ask for a full Gbit/s. I can get a DS3 (45 Mbits/sec) for about $20,000 per month right now. No thank you. I'm happy with my 640k/256k DSL at $50.

you can read more about the project at their (unfinished website): utopianet.org It's mostly empty, but there is a list of cities and a good FAQ

you can read more about the project at their (unfinished website): utopianet.org It's mostly empty, but there is a list of cities and a good FAQ

you can read more about the project at their (unfinished website): utopianet.org It's mostly empty, but there is a list of cities and a good FAQ