Slashdot Mirror
Companies, Government and Community Fiber Rollouts
hype7 writes "Wired is running an interesting article about a number of communities which are dissatisfied with the present communications infrastructure that they are being offered, and are deciding to do something about it. However, many of the corporates who had previously been offering services to these communities have resisted this, with Pennsylvania going so far as to draft law to prevent competition for the communications providers. What is most interesting is that in the communities where the roll outs have taken place, the incumbent providers have "dropped prices to be more competitive ... while not changing rates in areas where it continues to have a monopoly". What I don't understand is why can't a public utilities company provide a public utility if their rate payers want it? What's wrong with additional competition? And why should legislative bodies protect telecommunications monopolies?"
Corporations don't care about the consumer. They never have, and they likely never will. Corporations care about the consumer's money. As long as they can provide the bare minimum required to keep the money flowing into their coffers, that's all they'll do.
Pessimistic, yes. But show me a wildly successful corporation that lavishes it's customers with their every desire. Yeah. Right.
Whenever our normally capitalist system grants somebody a monopoly, it's usally because two of that kind of business would lead to mutual destruction, and we need that business to exist because it makes other businesses possible.
Netflix would not be able to operate if not for the United States Postal Service, for example. The same goes for most magazine subscriptions. Sure, FedEx, UPS and Airborne Express all compete with the USPS express and priority line of services, but everybody else is prohibited by law from making a daily stop at every address without a pre-existing relationship.
Cities control the local water and sewage systems as well for obvious reasons. We can't afford these services becoming unavailable for any length of time for any reason.
POTS used to be an essential utility as it was the only commonly deployed realtime communnication tech. Now, it's not so much the only game in town, but it still is the only communication lifeline for some elderly people who don't want a cell phone. Because of this, the local Ma Bell company is not allowed to close up shop, and that's why they're basically granted a monopoly to soak the customers the can soak so that the company can afford to give below-cost service to those who can't.
"And why should legislative bodies protect telecommunications monopolies?"
Campaign donations... It's all about money, if telco's are going to rollout fiber they want to be the only ones to use it. I thought the FCC already ruled on this, and was 'giving' telcos a monopoly nationwide? (Being that if they roll the fiber, they don't 'have' to sell it to competition?)
Regardless, these telcos have deeper pockets and connections then the **AA's do - with the US so far behind in the communications area, I think it has to become painfully obvious there is more at play then just the difficulty and expense of rolling out the glass. IMHO, the telcos are refusing to do it waiting on the government to pay for it AND let them control it. Telcos don't want glass everywhere because once things go digital they don't know how to play anymore. And God knows people are itching to drop telcos like a bad habbit. And after years and years of dog poor service (IE, got a problem? Call support, wait 2 hours on hold - get transferred twice with additional hour of wait time per transfer, then get disconnected. Rinse, repeat. - Then you switch to cable instead of DSL - have a problem - call support - on hold for 10 minutes...)
Lots of people are pointing out the obvious connection between money and politics. But there is a historical connection that needs to be pointed out.
Many moons ago, most places in the US didn't have power, or phone service. So the US made deals with private companies, wherein the utility company would provide a service (such as phone lines) in areas where building the infrastructure would ordinarily be cost prohibitive. In exchange, they got monopoly guarantees for long periods of time on those areas.
Telco's are used to getting their way (I worked for Bellsouth Internet for a few years). After all, BellSouth makes a profit even if you get Earthlink DSL in the South, because BellSouth has a monopoly on the network, provided by the federal government. There is a long history in the USA of enforcing monopolies for utility companies, that in many cases has far outlived it's consumer benefit
I'm not trying to sell anything here, but maybe some cities could look at what Frankfort Kentucky did as a case study. Cable Modems 128/128 at $14 per month. 256/128 at $18 and 512 at $24. (higher services available) VOIP telephone at something like $13 per month. Plus long distance calling at good rates. Plus they provide they provide electricity, water, cable tv, and security monitoring at good rates. Everything comes on one bill. Perfect? -NO. A monopoly? -pretty much. but a good service at comparatively low rates? absolutley. http://www.fewpb2.com (too lazy to do html. sorry)
What I don't understand is why can't a public utilities company provide a public utility if their rate payers want it?
Your terminology is a bit off. A public utility is a "company that performs a public service; subject to government regulation." It need not be owned by a gov't.
That said, there are examples of systems where distribution is owned by the gov't or by a local cooperative. Many communities, particulary small towns or rural areas in the US, have electrical coops that handle distribution of power to individual homes. I'm not sure why politicians believe internet service should not also be handled like this.
FreeSpeech.org
current "governments", "states", "regulators" etc haven't really built an even slightly more advanced society anywhere as far as I've seen. simple mechanisms to justify, legalize, formalize or otherwise protect the monopolies that their members profit from themselves. i can't recall many monopolies, big business or financial interests being broken down by new efforts the public organizes, in spite of technologies galore. It appears Microsoft might be the first one. We've seen how they keep trying to protect their interests, and it's far from over yet. The auto and oil industry, however, isn't going anywhere soon it seems, in spite of better altrenatives being around forever. All of these monopolies are going to put up real resistance when they see people organize and build their own alternative economies, as they largely did in Argentina, install their own communications infratructures, build their own vehicles and transportation systems, generate their own power, build their own electronics, plant and grow their own food, etc.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Say, if everybody just roll out the cable to their nearest 4 neighbours, wouldn't the grid be constructed by a cooperative effort?
:(
I don't know how it'd work though, does seem a bit too idealistic
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
C'mon....ADMIT IT. Please. Our government sold us out a long time ago. Our elected officials and high level bureaucrats can do whatever they want. You know it. I know it.
And of course, OF COURSE, there is money to be made by eliminating competition for corporations.
And protecting the corporations or the wealthy at the expense of the little guy is what America is all about. In fact America was basically built on slavery, which was an official part of the government. And slavery ended not that long ago. THere were people who were born slaves who died just a few decades ago. And of course we had indentured servants, too. And of course tenant farmers were extant until just recently. 16 tons, and whattaya get, indeed....
And if institutional slavery is not the perfect example of a government SPECIFICALLY BUILT for looking after the interests of the Big Guy at the expense of the Little Guy, then what the hell IS a good example of that type of government?
I will say it again: America was BUILT to EXPLOIT the Little Guy in order to BENEFIT the Big Guy (the wealthy, corporations, etc).
And how SHOCKING that we now see that our government is continually protecting large successful corporations from competition in order to extract higher fees from us, The Little Guy. What a shock; what a surprise!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Tuxter is right. The government shouldn't be rolling out our new communications lines unless they're going to be free (as in roads), maintained by the governmet...
I hate the goddamn monopolies in my area. I have a cable company (Cox) that blocks my school's (UF) football games on channels that I already pay for in order to put them on pay per view. People in nearby cities get all the games for free. I have a phone company that says 'all circuits are full' half the time I pick up my phone to dial out. My utilities company (power and water in one) charged me a $200 fee because I paid my bill late one month. They said they will give me back my $200 when I quit using their service.
Where competition opens up, rates go down. We need less legislation protecting monopolies. If a company cannot survive on its own, then it deserves to die. In the same way it's unnatural to keep a total human vegetable alive on life support for years, it's unnatural to prop a company that our laws treat as a person once it's already proven to be dying.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
Does anyone happen to have a link to the legislation (or at least some info on it, who's behind it, etc?) that's mentioned in the OP? I live in PA, and would like to take a look at it and send my congresscritters some feedback.
Thanks!
IANAL so the terms may be off, but some functions are a vital service that impacts general community health (i.e. water and sanitary services). In some areas power and telephones are considered vital services that are too important to trust to a private industry. For those areas, a public utility is the way to go.
Otherwise it turns into a government vs. industry situation and the gov't will always be able to legislate the industry out of the picture. For this reason, government operated services have to be declared a vital service where there are already market providers. I believe the rules are different where there is no existing market and no private entities have indicated a desire to enter the market.
The solution is to use a hybrid solution; the public co-op. The legal definition meanders about from place to place, but a co-op is generally a not-for-profit/non-profit organization that provides a service to its owners (i.e. the community). Not being a profit-focused organization, the local gov't can usually provide some form of special concessions to "stimulate" the local reinvestment of capital.
There are two problems from my experience is when a co-op (or any competitor) enters a market with an existing monopolist provider.
1) In things like telco, the first person on site spent a fortune to build the infrastructure; ordering them to share with their competitors tends to make them feel like a J.C. Penny's being ordered to allow Sears Roebuck to take over floor space for free. This really does have a sense of unfairness to it, though I agree that an entrenched carrier is in many cases taking advantage of public right-of-ways and thus is required to share.
2) The original service provider is a a real $**thead and is screaming "unfair competition" with no real basis. Where I live the local cable provider threatened lawsuits, failed to provide upgrades, and basically threw temper tantrums as long as the city did not give them an exclusive contract, excluding other carriers from using the right-of-ways even though those other carriers would be forced to build their own network.
Case number 1 is a real fairness issue. The groundbreaker could be taken advantage of by acruing massive debt his competitors don't have to deal with, alternately the system could be well amortized and the carrier just doesn't want competition. #2, IMO, deserves to be beaten with a big publicly-driven cluebat until rationality or cessation of bodily functions happens.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
SBC got really nasty and start bombing the postal mailboxes of all of the residents with FUD mailings about how the new initiative would cost every homeowner a fortune in new taxes. The only indication as to the source of the FUD mailings was "SBC" written in tiny six point font in the corner. There were plenty of similar mailings over the month before the referendum, and it failed (narrowly) in a non-presidential election year. Generally, these tend to be smaller turnouts with mostly older voters.
This year, they got it back on the ballot again, and I hope that it goes through, if not for the "fiber", at least to stick it to SBC. I'm voting for it again.
(Side note: we already have power over leased ComEd lines, but bought from nearby Wisconsin, and our electric rates are relatively low.)
Not that this is the case all the time, but the state does have an obligation to protect utilities from unfair competition. It has to do with the fact that corporations would only serve profitable areas if they had a choice.
Start with the consideration that utilities are regulated heavily to start with, and that this has always been the case.
States like PA have urban, suburban, and rural areas. If an unregulated company came in to provide a new service, it would only provide the service in areas where it would be profitable -- probably urban and suburban neighborhoods. People in the boondocks would be left without the service, or would have to pay much higher fees for the service.
But utilities, which can be considered more necessary than luxury, are offered statewide because the state has controls over the system.
It is a matter of the greater good... and if a corporation wants to offer a utility service in a state, then it agrees to be regulated by the state. If you don't want to be regulated so heavily, find another business.
Some people always consider regulation to be evil, and ignore the fact that there may be legitimate reasons for regulation. Besides, we do have a system where people can get regulations reduced -- it is called an election. Regulations aren't enacted in a vacuum - they are put in place by elected representatives.
Sure. Look at the ARPANET which evolved into the communications medium we are using right now. Look at the history of the Tennessee Valley Authority and rural electricification. Look at the Interstate Highway network.
Look at all the pissed off customers in areas where local governments are running fiber to the home, who are getting better and cheaper broadband Internet access and frequently, cable TV access than ever before.
How dare governments act against monopolies!
Fact is, there are some things the government frequently does do better than the private sector. We don't contract out the operation of our military to Microsoft.
The non-Libertarian fanatic simply figures that there are some things the government does best, some things best done by the private sector, and tries to make sure that each does what it does best.
Tech Public Policy stuff