A DSL Co-op in Your Neighborhood?

Steve Hamlin writes "In reading on Slashdot about the increasing cost of cable broadband (and DSL is no cheaper), I ran across this article about a neighborhood that put together a co-op for DSL broadband. From a DSLAM housed in a barn to microwave relays, a frame relay T-1, and problems with Qwest, the whole deal."

Comments

Re:Good argument for government intervention...

[renehollan]

The problem with your analysis is that it empowers the state to overcome "activation energy" at the taxpayer's expense so that a desirable steady-state is achieved sooner, rather than later.

Armed with this power, the state can then extend a monopoly status quo beyond the point where it has short-term bebefits.

Libertarians generally say that this is a poor trade. In those cases where many agree that the short-term expense would be worth the immediate benefit, you wouldn't need government intervention.

There are many industries where economies of scale are enormous. The PC industry is one: it costs an enormous amount of money to make the "first" new-fangled CPU. After that, they're cheap as dirt, almost literally. No government intervention was required for this industry to take off. And, while I would have liked to see cheaper PCs sooner, it would be wrong to tax my fellows to achieve this.

The record on government intervention to "jump-start" infrastructure is generally poor, the odd success notwithstanding extended scrutiny of the track record.