Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Seeks To Nix Fee-Based Municipal Wireless Grids
millermp writes "It looks like Verizon has succeeded in banning municipal WiFi networks in Pennsylvania. Since Verizon is looking to broadband service to fuel its growth, it calls municipal WiFi 'unfair competition.' This bill is following similar legislation earlier this year in Utah, Louisiana, and Florida." The bill has yet to be signed by Pennsylvania's governor, and as the story says, does not ban municipal wireless per se, but would place great restrictions on how it could be funded.
I failed to see how this Bill, if passed, can help Verizon.
If the intention is to help poor residents to gain internet access as stated, the city may just offer the service for free, and makes up the costs from potential economic growth, maybe?
Otherwise, if this service is privatized, Verizon may face even more aggressive competition from the new WiFi operator, whose interest won't not be confined to just poorer neighborhoods and less densely populated ones.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
How can they possibly seek to stop a community funded effort to set up a wireless network on public property? This seems absurd, even for Verizon.
Cemil.
Fine, then there should be a section in the law to *mandate* competetion rather than sweetheart deals to allow local monopolies like they have with phone service.
That the criteria for whether or not to do wifi, would be:
"does this help the residents of the state recieve a service they desire, without asking too much of them in tax".
Instead of:
"does this hurt a crappy regional monopoly wring more cash from customer's wallet, or does it hurt that holy quest for profit".
Then again, I'm not a politician.
before the book publishers and other media producers successfully lobby to have public funding for libraries choked off?
Is it fascism yet?
I don't see any reason why the government should take a bunch of money out of my pocket to do a lousy job at providing a service that private industry could do.
In the long run, if there's competition in the market, service qualities will go up and prices will go down. A government monopoly funded by tax dollars will give government style service with no incentive to keep costs down.
Politicians have a responsibility to the people they represent, not to making some CEO wealthy.
So, if my small town decides they want to use their collective purchase power and set up a wi-fi, then Verizon feels threatened? Unfair competition? How? Verison could lower their fee and be more competitive.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
That one single person (because that's what corporations are under the law) can have so much power because they have money.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
As if we needed another example of how corporations like innovation only when they are profiting from it, and will not stand in its way only if it does not interfere with their business model. It is especially a shame to see that this is Verizon, who I almost had some respect for after they stood up for their subscribers' privacy against the RIAA.
I've seen claims that the government-offered service would be inferior and too costly. If that's the case, Verizon has nothing to worry about-people will flock to them, and the government will kill off the project for lack of interest.
On the other hand, if it is possible to set up an inexpensive, or free, wireless network, across a whole city, publicly funded or otherwise, this is an interesting idea which needs to be explored, not stifled to grant a favor to a massive corporation. If it's a bad idea, it'll die off quite nicely on its own.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
It's not free. They are going to tax everyone to provide a service to a few. Thus we arrive at the inherit problem with government.
A pity you can't get a '+5 depressing' mod, 'cause that's what that really is.
I may be a little removed from my high school civics class, but a bill sitting on the governor's desk does not equal signed into law. Then, if Philly wants to, they can alweays challenge in the courts. One thing muinicipalities seem to have a lot of is government attorneys.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Verizon is claiming that a project, namely the one in PA, but also similar low income community bandwidth projects, is competition?
We are talking about areas,that mostly don't have high speed internet infrastructure. Why not? Because telecos haven't invested in poor urban neighborhoods. Why? No market.
We are talking about communities of people who already *don't pay* for internet, Verizon and most other ISPs recognize that.
I don't see how you can say there is no market for paid internet services, and then say that free interent services are competing.
One more thing, try to use your overpriced verizon wireless in a poor urban neighborhood, like those in Philadelphia, you think it will work?
I would say no. Verizon is trying to clamp down on the idea of free bandwidth. They are hiding behind the market making this a competition issue.
Free and For Sale are indeed two different things.
Perhaps it is time for another program akin to the Rural Electrification Program in the country. The Federal Government will aid in providing broad band access in areas where it is not currently available. The arguments being made by Verizon were made back in the 1930's as well by the electrical companies. http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva10.htm
I don't have any kids. Many of my neighbors don't either. Yet my property taxes pay for the local schools.
Taxing all to give to a few is not a new phenomenon, nor is it necessarily a bad thing.
I didn't, and you're right. That means this is more like a new football or baseball stadium. It's taxpayer subsidized but the profits belong exclusively to the company...
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Of course, that means it is subsidised by the taxpayers. And as such, it stands far more chance of being regulated. The local equivalent of the FCC might be doing the filtering.
Your right,everyone should only get what they can afford.Health care? Not my problem. Schools? Let the kids learn on their own. Fire? Call some friends to put it out. Another country invading you? Hire someone to help who is bigger.
Governments WORK. Over 4000 years of history laugh at you for suggesting otherwise. You think it is pure CHANCE that governments tend to get bigger? Revolution is just another form of evolution.
The question in this case is not about what is wrong with governments but where should governments spend the money they have. To me,building an infrastructure such as a completely wifi covered city, is something that has unknown future value but seems could very quickly end up benefiting a HUGE percentage of the population. But then I don't live in Philadelphia so what I like matters even less on how they spend their money.
What do you say to the man that has nothing? Cast it away!!
The problem with privately owned networks is that it is often impractical at best, or very wasteful at worst to roll out two networks. This means that if the network is privatised, there exists either small pockets of monopolies, with one company having exclusive control over a section of network, or wasteful duplication in profitable areas, at the expense of less profitable areas, such as has happened in many cities with broadband available from both cable and adsl, yet poorer/more distant areas remain out of range for either service.
Physical infrastructure for networks should always be publicly owned. This isn't to say that the services running on them should be publicly owned.
Eg. Roads. It is much more efficient for roads to be in the hands of a public entity that maintains them for the use of all services that run on them. In the case of roads, you can have both privately owned and publicly owned "services" running on them - for example, busses and cars can be privately owned for both personal use and to provide services such as fedex, public transport and emergency services. In the case of roads, if they were privatised, it would be extremly impractical for a competitor to start up a new road network that serviced the same area as an existing road network - apart from the cost, it would be very wasteful of resources.
Ideally, I think that TCP/IP networks should be the same as roads. The fundamental infrastructure, ie. the wires/airwaves should be in the hands of public non-profit entities, with private companies running their services on top of that, and paying a fee for usage in much the same way that you pay registration fees/fuel tax to pay for roads. Note that it is the actual transport medium I am refering to that should be in public hands - not those other neccesary components to complete the system. The roads and stoplights if you will, not the vehicles and petrol stations.
This would mean that the basic infrastructure is not monopolised by any one company, and in the case of wireless technologies, there is no wasteful competition for the limited spectrum.
The public body that maintains the network should also have a mandate to provide the network to all areas according to need, rather than profitablility, in much the same way roads are.
This is the most efficient way to get good broadband to all, and keep a healthy level of competition in the market. If the physical network is privatised, competition effectively comes to a halt.
Actually, this bill outlaws providing the service *for a fee*. So the net effect of the bill will be to *increase* the amount of tax money going to set the wireless up.
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
Surely Verizion isn't arguing that they are incapable of coming up with good reasons and competitive alternatives to this. Frankly I'm not going to completely trust an open wi-fi network for all I do.
Expect 4 more years of this type of shit.
I also got a ticket for crossing the median, although the car was upside down when i crossed it.
That was totaly off topic, but my point was that anyone without health insurance would be bankrupt in an accident like that. I would much rather see my taxes go to fund more public health efforts and lost cost interent than to subsidize big corporations.
Governemnt is a nessecary evil. no cou.ld never get a private compnay to build higways or any other public infastructure without the price being prohibitve for most people.
sorry 'bout the mess...
So you sit and wait. Verizon will ultimately get to your area, but they want to make sure that your local community doesn't beat them to it and start offering you broadband before Verizon is good and ready. Sure, you suffer, but they don't care, as long as you're still there, salivating at the thought of broadband, until that installer shows up to connect your Verizon service.
What a completely cynnical look at community based wifi. In your scenario there is no chance or even possibility that community wifi could succeed. You'd rather be screwed by a corporation than allow your local government to attempt to help its poorest citizens? If community run wifi runs amock, it is your duty and right as a citizen to lobby to correct the problem. You have avenues to correct the problems you see in the system. Instead, you'd rather a private corporation have an utter monopoly over a municipalty's internet access because you assume it just can't work. And you'll have absolutely no control of what the corporation does. How is this better than citizens controlling their own services?
What is wrong with special interest groups demanding free access? Isn't that the point of free wifi: to help certain disenfranchised groups? Why do you assume these groups would impose their ideas on each other?
Furthermore, isn't it really up to the local people anyways and not you? If they want all sort of restrictions on their internet access, why do you care? It is their city and their wifi network, I think they should be able to do as they please.
Your entire post is based upon assumptions that lack any substance.
They are hardly taxing everyone. They are taxing the people local to their area. It benefits the tax payers to provide this service to its poorest citizens because it enables those citizens an opporunity to be on an equal playing field with their richer neighbors. The community will become more equal, educated, and technologically knowledgeable.
I guess you don't drive on any roads, nor do you rely on any sort of fire, police, or EMS protection whatsoever. People like you should be flogged whenever you do require city or federal services for being ungrateful, short-sighted louts!
And there appears to be nothing we can do about it. They can start wars, strip us of worker protections, our social safety net, our higher education funding, anything they want.
Why? Because of the power of propagnda. They have most of America in the grip of propaganda-based belief systems. Many young males are in the grip of the free-market-as-deity belief system. Others are in the grip of country-and-constitution-worship belief system.
In the aggregate, these Americans can be manipulated by pressing the right buttons during poltical campaigns, especially primary elections. By the time the general election rolls around, both candidates are always Corporatist shills, at least in the presidential election.
Really, I have to think that it is not only profit that keeps broadband from being reasonably priced in America. It may be that there is fear among the top of the corporatist hierarchy that once a critical mass of Americans can download video quickly over the Net, alternative distribution and creation systems may open up the path for leftist counter-propaganda. I think that if most Americans could just view a good video documentary series on the history of political propaganda in America, the grip of the corporatists could be shaken.
Here is a good book on the history of political propaganda in America.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I can see your point of view, and while it's true for a great many services and products, does it really apply to ubiquitous wifi network access?
I mean, it doesn't apply to roads, most people (though not some libertarians) agree that we should all be taxed as fairly as possible, and that the state and local governments should take care of building and maintaining roads. Roads can't be the only thing that should fall into that category, so it's only a matter of where the line is drawn.
Until you finally have yet another government program sucking dollars out of your pocket to buy votes
Corporations may not have your intrest in mind but at least they are an equal opportunity screw
After reading this and seeing similar comments on many different issues over the last year or so, I feel compelled to ask a question.
Let me frame this by stating that I'm Canadian and thus see nothing wrong with government taking initiative to dump money into new industries to at least start it off and have government in control of (i.e. running or heavily regulating) essential services.
The question is this... Why is it that in America, the private sector is placed on such a high pedastal?
I figure that looking to find the least common denominator of methods to provide a service or product for the population amounts to only an "equal opportunity screw" just seems totally cynical, wrong and scary to me.
I was reading someone else's take about the American mentality on health care and saw it summed up as something that individuals feel personally responsible for and would feel intruded if it became the government's domain. A friend from school was telling of a guy she dated from SC who felt that public transit was a government handout for the poor and lazy.
Is this just survival of the fittest in action? And if so, why do people let private industry run to the government for protection from such things like a community based wi-fi network? It might as well be SCO/MS/etc getting legislators to slap a tax on Linux/BSD and all OSS to 'even the playing field.'...
Some states have rules saying what cities can and cannot do in terms of "competing with private enterprise."
Although not tested with respect to Wi-Fi, telcos could use those laws to threaten to tie cities up in court. The mere threat of multi-year litigation may be enough to discourage cities from starting such projects, particularly if the city views it as a "nice to have" thing but not worth spending lots of money on lawyer over.
Smaller towns or those with budget problems may have no choice but to withdraw their plans in the face of a court fight.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's a fallacy to think that, just because one doesn't own a car that one doesn't benefit from the highway system. Unless, of course, you live out in the boonies and are completely self-sufficient and would never buy or use anything that was shipped by road or had any raw materials that were shipped by road.
Same with the Internet. We all benefit by the Internet and what it has done to business efficiency, whether we personally have Internet access in our homes, or not.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I currently have 3 choices for "broadband" internet to my home and possibly 3 more on the way.
You don't need to have a dozen players in the market -- nobody would argue that the soda market isn't competitive, despite there only being a few major players, or that home improvement stores (2 major players in the US -- Home Depot and Lowes) aren't fiercely competitive.
Presuming for a second that poor people need high speed internet in the same way that they need say food or shelter (a dubious proposition at best), covering an entire city with a wifi network is a horribly expensive way of doing it -- why not just set up public terminals in libraries?
My highspeed access runs about US$ 50/month, about what a second line and dial-up service would cost. I'd love for it to be less, but it's not really that expensive, either.
Roads make sense for a government monopoly just because having multiple road networks is infeasible. But, most homes already have 3 networks connected that can carry internet (power,phone,cableTV) plus large chunks of the electromagnetic spectrum, so that's clearly feasible.
There are really two factors that help explain this phenomenon.
I think you're missing a third factor. The current generation in power was raised in the belief that if the Communists did it, then America should do the opposite. Americans (in general) have an attitude that everything is black and white. Middle ground is not an option because there is no middle ground.
What's next ? Evian complaining that the Public Water Works is "unfair competition" ? Or The Orkin Man complaining that City Health Depts or the CDC has no right to spray for mosquitoes because it unfairly competes with their insect control business ?
Whether or not it is actually a good idea for a city gov't to provide public Internet access (many pros and cons), Verizon's claim of "unfair competition" is absurd. Verizon et al has no guaranteed right to market any particular product free from overlap with any service that the government deems is in the public interest to provide as a gov't sponsored function. Will P.I.'s and security companies complain that the police force is unfair competition for its security and investigatory services ? Nope, no such right to assume a wide-open market exclusively for the commercial sector...
Categorizing broadband access a need so fundamental that governments must provide it to their citizens, implies that many more critical things also should be provided by government to all citizens. A short list might be:
c are
defense
shelter
water
food
clothing
health
electricity
heating / cooling
transportation
education
There's certainly enough whining out here about defense, so I'll skip that one. Do we have the shelter issue covered? In rural PA? How about Pittsburg? Are you sure?
The real poor need a lot more before they care about WiFi. If we're interested in really helping poor people, we need to focus our resources on them, instead of on feel-good policies that only help us feel good about ourselves.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Well, that, and there are a fair amount of us who have an honest, well-thought-out and principled opinion that government has no businesses poking into most areas of life. For every program government supports, it has to take cash from the governed - and many of us feel its abusive for the soveriegn power, the people with the guns and the jails, to play robbin hood like that. We don't want to pay toward programs we don't support, and don't want other people paying toward programs THEY don't support.
I, personally, worry about how effectively and economically government can run certain services. But even when it's the cheaper alternative, I'm concerned about the impact on liberty and property rights necessary to make the goverment successful in its endeavors. I think many, many goverment programs are well-intentioned and even do a great deal of good - welfare, arts support, etc - but I'd feel more comfortable if they were funded voluntarily through the generosity of a public that has cash to toss around because the goverment didn't just take 40 percent of its paycheck.
I acknowledge many, many people WOULDN'T fund those sorts of programs on their own, unfortunately. But if that's the case, how democratic is it to forcibly take those funds from them?