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?
Community : Please Verizon roll out your high speed internet services for us. .... Well .... Because!
Verizon : I'm sorry . Your current community doesn't have a sufficient return on investment for us to build a high speed network in your area.
Community : Fine . Then we will have a community funded wireless network which is easily available with today's technology.
Verizon : No, you cannot do this!
Community : Why not ? You said you didn't want to invest in infrastructure in our community or that it would take 7-10 years even if you decide to do something.
Verizon : Well
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.
It's not fair that the government provides us free police force and firemen. The private companies can't compete and its killing the economy.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
Just about any service offered by a government is going to put some private enterprise in a pinch by undercutting the private company's prices. Doesn't this show that the government can, in some rare cases, beat the market in pricing? How much more is Verizon planning on gouging customers than the market can bear?
It sounds more like Verizon can't beat the competition with market prices, so they seek to put the competition out of business. Of course, the competition is actually the government, so Verizon is going to have a hell of a time trying to beat them.
At the Federal level, the government should be responsible for very little. Protection of citizens, regulation of interstate/international commerce/etc. But on the local level, it is nice to have the community band together to solve local problems. Go Pennsylvania!
It is a sad world to live in where you can get sued for giving away stuff for free.
...oh wait! Shit like that already happens everywhere everyday.
Whats next? Microsoft suing [insert favorite Linux distro here] because their free operating system is unfair competition to MS? Pharmaceutical companies suing a charity that gives away free vaccines to babies because then the people won't buy as many of the competing brand vaccines?
Cheers,
Adolfo
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.
Meh, I'll just get verizon's fiber to the home service. Then setup a Less Networks node, roll my own NoCat Auth AP or join one of the great Area Wide Wireless networks.
Verizon is just a 500lb gorilla that can't see more than 2inches infront of its face!
What could possibly go wrong?
I love the idea of a town saying we want to provide this service, and we can do it for a fraction of the cost. It reminds me of my college housing, where the collective purchase power of all the apartments was leveraged by the owner of the property to get us satelite tv for a few bucks a month, something like 80% off the normal price.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
45mbit connection to my house that the state of PA gave major tax breaks to Verizon(then Bell Atlantic) for?
Verizon screws PA and yet the legislative branch is still willing to bend over backwards for them.
It's pretty clear that government subsidized services like this do compete with the private sector, and there are good arguments that this sort of situation is anti competitive in ways that would never be allowed in the private sector (unless you are Microsoft or one of their friends). It will always seem cheaper and more consumer friendly to be able to get connectivity from your local telecom or power coop, but of course it still costs in the form of taxes. So, question: If big mega-corporations priced their services more competitively, rather than playing price-fixing games with each other, could we get the telecom and power companies out of the hair of the big commercials? Second question: Or on the other hand, fuck the for-profits (by the way, coops generally are supposed to have positive cash flow also), government is there to serve the public, and fiber to the door serves the public?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
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
Maybe Verizon should channel the energy and money from this crybaby hissy fit into research and development to provide a product that enough people will be suckered into.
See publications by Capitalist Adam Smith.
Over the years, as Internet use has become ubiquidous, I have the erie sense of deja vu as I recall learing about how, in 1800's, the city of London was supplied by several different private water utilities. In 1849, Dr. John Snow published a landmark theory that implicated contaminated water supplies as the source of frequent cholera outbreaks. In hindsight, we can say the reason London (as well as other metro areas of the world at the time) was ravaged by epidemics like this has as much do to with the lack of public oversight over a public consumable as with medical/sanitation ignorance. To return to the subject at hand, how many problems would we solve by turning internet access into a public utility? I suppose some would chaf at such a thing out of concerns for privacy or freedom. But wouldn't it be great if *all* spammers and other net abusers are hit with penalties and fines as they would be if municipal laws are violated?
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
They probably wouldn't seek to ban it if it worked to their advantage.
If ever there was a law that should be repealed preemptively, it's this one. As things are the law will go into effect, it will never be repealed, and wifi networks will cost easily 10x what they should, even considering gov't bloat and favoritism in contract bidding models.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
For those of you who didn't RTFA and got right to the misinforming posts, this is about fee-based services. To subscribe to the wireless service in Philly the article states that it will cost you $15-20 a month, which puts the issue in a different perspective.
You gotta find first gear in your giant robot car
Nowhere does it prevent municipalities from offering public networks such as the one already deployed in Altoona, PA.
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.
The problem I have with city, county, or state provided wireless is that not everyone needs the service.
Combine this with the fact that with a government group running it you will run afoul of all sorts of special groups demanding free access let alone those imposing their views on what is and what is not acceptable.
Don't think so, its not hard to shop for courts that favor one view or another.
Think about it, the first whine will be "Its for the children", then comes "they are a disenfranchised group", followed by "well of course group X should get a free ride". 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. I don't need another "airport" - as in - lets stick all of our cronies into that service to draw fat checks and provide no work other than being a crony.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I realise that this is probably going to get me beaten up, but why the hell is the city government planning on offering this service anyway? Surely the provision of broadband internet services for a fee is a job for a private company, not a job for the government.
What the Pennsylvania state legislature should do is look for ways to provide incentives for private citizens to create private sector competition. With this plan you aren't getting "crappy monopoly versus cheap municipal wifi" perse. What you are getting is "crappy corporate monopoly versus probably very crappy, restricted state monopoly." You are basically getting two large entities which really don't have your interests at heart to fight it out, in the end it'll probably be the government that wins and you'll just end up with AmTrak-level QoS for your WiFi.
Personally I like the fact that in my small town in Virginia, I am able to go into many of the new stores and get either free wireless or very, very low cost wireless. As efficient as our state government is, I wouldn't trust the government for my internet access.
A better solution would be to encourage businesses to provide free wireless connectivity to their customers in exchange for lower or non-existant taxes. Not only do you get cheaper WiFi, but you also get a healthier local economy.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
... broadband is only in 20 percent of US households. Companies, in the pursuit of ever increasing profits for their CEO's and shareholders, are trying to keep customers paying through the nose for their products. Of course free wireless access would be unfair competition... from their perspective.
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
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.
You sunk my business model! Send in the lobbiest
Verizon SUCKS. I have ordered and prequalified for DSL 7 times, yet I am unable to get it because Verizon has almost halted the DSL rollout in Texas.
Thank you for the perfect example of why government sucks. You only think those services are free and provided by the government because you don't pay the taxes that cover the cost!
You're also implying that all police forces are government-based. False.
Next you'll tell me the government provides us with free schooling. Ignore that I pay for it with my property taxes, and that I have no children attending those schools.
Then you'll be telling me that government provides us with the ambulances that get you to the hospital. In most areas, this is false, those are actually run by private companies, who then bill the hospitals, who then bill you. Seems to work out OK. How many lives do ambulances/paramedics save every year? Shit, and they're not even run by the government. How can that be?
The private companies can compete with the police forces and the firemen, because there are areas of the country that have private police and fire forces.
Read.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
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.
Sometimes you just have to say no to the big evil corporations.
That's why I get my internet access from Comcast.
Oh, wait...
Drat. I guess this won't happen.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
If the problem is one of the network being an official municipal structure, then let's make it not so official.
Set up a non-profit group to actually run the shindig and have some large anonomous donations get the ball rolling.
If the cable modem provider in the area is a local group, they could just hand out Wi-Fi routers and leave them all unlocked for access while running a cut-throat "give up your DSL" promotion that never seems to end. Eventually the market penetration will cause the routers to overlap all over the city.
(Yeah, I know, there's some interfereance and signal hopping issues to work out here).
This is just brainstorming, so don't accept it as a well thought out idea.
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.
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.
The /. editors are trying to slip secret *nix references into the stories now!
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
Broadband is not a freemarket model. You can't shop around for it since there are virtual monopolies. Do you want everyone digging up the streets every day and breaking water pipes ? How can anyone compare broadband to soup at the grocery store? You are not going to see the price drop enough for the poor to afford.
Broadband is a communications network just like our government builds networks of roads that no private business would take on. Broadband and the internet should be public utilities.
By the way , our utilities are great and don't gouge us like the CRIMINAL broadband robber barrons.
Give the government full control over my internet access?
Two words come to mind buddy first one starts with an F and the second starts with a T.
They have full control over the road to your front door, don't they? At any rate, they can tap your telephone when they want, and subphoena your ISP too, for that matter.
I am not saying they should neccesarily be your ISP - that could still be in the hands of private companies.
Eg. In Australia, Telstra owns the phone network - the physical lines etc. Telstra is also the largest Broadband provider. There are many other broadband providers who compete with Telstra, but they have to buy their last mole connection from Telstra.
The problem is, Telstra used to be government owned, but is now half privatised. Because Telstra are also competing in the broadbnand market, and are being forced to allow other ISPs to use their network, they still have a tendancy to screw over the other ISPs where possible. (See this site for many discussions)
My argument is that the actual physical network - particularly the last mile, should be in public hands, so all the private ISPs can compete fairly.
they have to buy their last mole connection from Telstra.
:)
*sigh* of course that should be last MILE.
Proof that spell checking doesn't save you from all evil
We must act. We must organize and protest. I don't urge vandalism but Verizon is being obstructionist and trying to prevent the poor from getting broadband.
It is unbelievable to me that there are so many fucking idiots on this board that think that we have to have private companies run everything and gouge everyone.
Have you people forgetten about vaccine shortage and how american companies don't try to make it because there is no profit incentive for them. That is why we need the government to run critical projects like the military and important utilities(nuclear plants,electric,water and roads) Who the hell wants to pay superinflated prices that a private road would cost ?
Where is the integrity of these cities ? The poor don't donate these city governments tons of money for their incumbent politicians campaigns , so will disenfranchise them.
Why not just tell the truth to the public and tell them we "We spit on you".
They own an unlimited backbone. Rural WISP's and Free WIFI hotspots are a single T1, Fractional or have lots of AP running off one T1. You get what you pay for when you get free. If Verizon sold UNIX they would want a cease and desist on every distribution of Linux and BSD!
Your Average Joe
Well, I hate libertarians, so we're even. I think you guys are naive as fuck. Nothing personal, that's just my opinion. :)
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
Did anyone else read that as "Verizon seeks a Unix Free-BSD Municipal Wireless Grid"?
Boy I'm tired.
Do away with stupid socialist projects like schools and public utilities and the military .
And lets remember the internet was formed by corporations that want to help break the barriers of lower communication fees.
I agree with you. Verizon is a noble company that we can NOT live without.
Isn't bribing the government into submission wonderful.
We have a wonderful country !
Long live Enron !
We're familiar with that type of game here in the Fox Valley area west of Chicago. We had three communities try to pull together to get municipal broadband through and it was fought tooth and nail by SBC. It is pretty pathetic that we are still waiting for complete broadband services out here given that Fermilab is in Batavia (one of the three cities). SBC resorted to scary, misleading ads and other dirty tricks and managed to keep the plan suppressed.
Why shouldn't i ? Why the hell are you so surprised ?
,water and electricity.
The internet is government created project.
I scratch my head when i hear idiots like you always put a right rush limbaugh slant on everything.
Providing internet access for the poor is so lame.
We should also cut off their welfare,schools, police
Why do we need to create jobs for those stinking governments !
The best way to get community broadband rolling is to show folks what can be done, either before such legislation is passed or after the fact, since any law can be repealed.
So, let's say that you live in a state that has severely restricted muni broadband. Is there a way around that? Sure. Just because a city can't build its own network, this isn't stopping a private, nonprofit organization from doing it.
Here's what I'd do:
1. It helps if you live in a small town because it'll be cheaper to cover it. A college town is best because you have a larger group of computer-savvy people to help you.
2. Set up your organization and get it tightly organized. Yes, working with free-thinking, forward-looking people can be like herding cats, but having an organization that runs like a well-oiled machine is key when you get to the later stages of the plan.
3. Decide what you want this proposed network to do. Will it deliver anything besides Internet traffic? Will it offer television? Phone service? What can your organization reasonably do without overextending itself? Think in terms of what you'll be able to afford to do, and keep thinking about the money as you move along.
4. Design your local network topology. Will you use Wi-Fi, mesh, fiber, dry copper? Affordability is key, but it does have to scale. Set a deadline to make the decision and stick to it. No religious wars, either. Get the damn thing designed.
5. Now comes the fun part: finding money. Donations are certainly a good idea, and they sure as hell worked for Firefox. Now, here's where you also get a little sneaky. Make friends with your local city officials and at least one good lawyer. Your city may be barred from building its own muni network, but get your city official and lawyer friends to figure out whether the city can fund you through a grant. There are many ways to get to money, so you need to find a way to skirt the offending law. If you have your city's government on your side, they'll likely figure out a way.
6. Build it. Be thorough, efficient, and, most of all, visible. Make damn sure that local residents not involved in the project know who you are when you're crawling all over the city setting up equipment. Printing up t-shirts for everyone to wear may sound frivolous, but people will notice them, they'll ask questions, and they'll get excited.
7. Assuming all this goes as planned, and you end up with a working network that's gaining users, other communities will notice, and they may decide they like what you did and want to emulate it. The big telecom companies will also notice and try every trick in the book to smear you. That's where publicity comes in...
One of the key aspects of what you do needs to be publicity. There are many groups out there who no one has heard of because they don't advertise. Conversely, the Firefox project shows just how much you can accomplish with some positive promotion. Your organization needs at least one PR person whose job it is to make damn sure that your message gets out and the FUD that will be churned out by the telecoms will be quickly rebuffed. This person will be the one who gets on the local news, speaks to the Chamber of Commerce, and tells the local church groups why this network won't spread porn any more than any other network.
If this effort succeeds in more than a few places, then orfinary people in other areas will start getting jealous, wondering why they can't do the same thing. And your response should be that you worked extremely hard to overcome the hurdles the big telecoms and their political allies have put in place, and doing this sort of thing will be so much easier if those unfair laws were repealed.
My point in this whole rambling post is that community-operated broadband networks are purely hypothetical to most people. They've never seen one or maybe not even heard of one, so it's easy for companies like Verizon, Cox, etc. to negatively portray them. If you can build
You guys need to grab your balls and kick all of your state legislature's collective asses.
Are you not the state that levied a tax and paid Verizon 58 Billion dollars for a all fiber optic network and there is not one mile of fiber to anyone's homes in the state.
Now the come with your money and bitch that it would be unfair becuase cities that know they were ripped off were now forced to make their own provisions to provide network access to the general public.
That's okay your 58 billion went to installing the Fiber in my neighborhood in Texas and other neighborhoods in Florida, Ny, California. We were never taxed at all for it.
Next thing we'll see up there are toll roads that pay for road construction in other states.
Sheesh
If you think there is so much competition for broadband why aren't the prices coming down ? How many years has it been since we have all been dickin around with 56k modems.
,you don't understand that broadband is not free market economics. You can't pick and choose from a vast quantaties of providers like you do when you go to the grocery store.
First of all
The internet is a GOVERNMENT PROJECT !
The phone companies HATED the internet. It killed the revenue incomes. They tried to block internet phone calls. If they had it their fucking way there would be NO internet.
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
It's propoganda by corporate 'criminal 'robber barrons. I kept track of that project. Too bad you have some uneducated stupid voters in your community. It's their loss.
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.'...
Perhaps this is a way for Verizon to force themselves into the wireless throughput game? Perhaps it prevents WISPs from forming.
Here in Pittsburgh, there ain't much going on, 'cept at CMU, and one of the local mom and pop shops. There are a few players, but none who talkabout it -- it's taboo here, most people are happy with their dialup (Ugh!).
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
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.
Verizon is affraid, and anything they can do to force their ancient unshielded untwisted pair everywhere. People here in Pittsburgh would totally use Wi-Fi for Internet access, especially if it were priced competitively. Most of the people here are happy with dialup, and that's just how it is -- they just don't understand. If anything, that bill should push Comcast further into the broadband market.
People are affraid of new things, and especially Verizon.
DSL is NOT broadband
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Ooh, poor verizon employees. If there's one thing we need, is a BIGGER Verizon -- Dialup for Everyone!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Why is it that in America, the private sector is placed on such a high pedastal?
There are really two factors that help explain this phenomenon. One is the 'Horatio Alger Myth' which posits that in America anyone can strike it rich if they combine a strong work ethic with a frugal lifestyle. This demonstrably false belief permeates our society, and gives rise to a school of thought where wealth is equal to morality (If you're rich you must have worked hard and spent your money wisely)
The second factor is that lobbyists are fantastically powerful here, pulling more weight with politicians than voters tend to.
So you have a society that by-and-large venerates wealth and the ability to generate it, coupled with a system that allows wealthy individuals to directly influence local and national politics.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
I was thinking of suggesting that geeks protest -- shut down those networks, power stations, communications relays, water pipes, and other utilities. This brings everything to a halt.
Reading Frank Herbert's Dune, we need to have it all shut down before the problems are realized, the festering scab is ripped off, before the fresh new clean skin can be revealed.
As we'll see over the next Four More Years, things will get to a point where the system will fail, and correct itself. This requires action on the parts, to keep together towards the right goals, and not any particular jesus or Almighty (Dollar).
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
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.
>liberals tend to want to give the government more and more money via taxes.
and modern day conservatives since reagan want the government to borrow more and more money.
>it is that the government (the Congress) has been abusing their power to write laws that abridge our freedoms.
like the patriot act, definetly supported more by the right then the left.
>you seem to be anti-corporation, and that is generally from that side of the spectrum.
anti-corp is neither liberal nor conservative, but it tends to be anti-aristocratic.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
Discounting that Verizon's objectives are most likely to merely protect market share, as opposed to neat things like more choices for the consumer, I don't think it's a good idea to make Internet access a municipal city-wide service.
I like the roads analogy, and have felt strongly that if the $city thinks broadband should be available to all, it should make the infrastructure available to fill with traffic to any player with the expertise and desire to compete on a non-monopoly playing field. The courts, however seem to disagree.
This is a tough discussion. On one hand, we'd like to more broadband options for more customers, since our local telco routinely and blatently offers services and prices that are in violation of tariffs, but we also don't feel the municipal government should offer a service (infrastructure plus Internet) that would potentially put us out to pasture. Sure, a person could argue that without innovation (cue Microsoft jokes) we don't deserve to thrive, but we're stuck between an evil telco actively working to put us out of businsess, and the prospect of free or artificially low-priced alternatives. Somewhere in the middle would be nice.
I'm taking a big gamble here, and hoping you're just not trolling for a cheap argument...
Why is it that in America, the private sector is placed on such a high pedastal?
It's not that the private sector is placed on a high pedestal, it's that the government isn't there either. The US started out as a rejection of large centralized government. Though it's now become one, that ethos is still there. We don't trust the government. I'm not talking about not trusting Clinton or not trusting Bush, I'm talking about not trusting the system itself. We don't trust congress and we don't trust the bureaucracies. The only government we do trust is local government, and that we only trust to a point.
There is a strong libertarian streak in the US psyche. It doesn't matter if you're conservative or liberal here, you believe in small government. Even the Green Party, which is very European in character, wants to reduce corporate welfare. We are all agreed that we want government to spend less and do less, we just disagree in the areas to spend and do less in.
Another reason is that the US is very pro business. That does NOT mean pro-corporation, as very few businesses are corporations. We are a nation of shopkeepers. We start businesses at a drop of a hat. "Mainstreet USA" refers to family businesses, not corporate franchises. Consequently, we're not automatically hostile to business, not even big business.
Because we have so many small businesses, we tend to understand business somewhat. Pretty much all of us know people who have started their own business from scratch. Many of us know people who have been very successful at it. Thus, when business is characterized as an amorphous corporate evil, we know better.
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?
In other words, why do people look to government to protect them from the ravages of government? Because there's no one else out there. It's the government with the cops and courts. It's sucks having to compete against tax funded wifi networks, but who else are you going to turn to to cry "foul"? If there were some organized crime mob going about time extorting protection money from Verizon customers, then Verizon could go to the police. But what do you do if it's the government doing the extortion?
This is a tax funded government network, and no amount of euphemistic "community based" terminology can change that fact.
With regards to municipal networks, most Americans won't have a problem with keeping it private. *NOT* because we want to screw the poor, but simply because we don't think it's the purview of the government. We don't want them doing it for the same reason we don't want them creating municipal hotdog stands. It's not their role in society. Every time the government has financed an industry's infrastructure we've ended up with monopolies.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
PDX just today rolled out free, public Wi-Fi access covering 70% of the terminal.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
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...
Lots of smart folks on slashdot. Some maybe even run their own start-ups. So what does this mean?
If you wake up one night, with an epiphany that solves the cheaper/faster/more reliable distributed broadband problem, you can do a lot of things with it. But if rural towns or entire states start to adopt these policies, one of the things you *CAN'T* do can't is become a provider. Not without competing directly with local governments...
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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.
See...? This is a perfect example of what we can expect to see more of when wifi connections blanket all cities. More ACs oozing this filth as they troll through the message boards. This isn't about security. This is about the quality of the signal on the network.
No. Pass a federal law to ban integrated wifi networks altogether. If there's a chance that we can keep more people like this from getting on the network then I will be much happier.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
Coke is seeking to ban drinking fountains, as their business plan seeks to sell more Dasani bottled water...
> Why should that company that invested all the time and resources into laying those lines just roll over and let somebody else piggy back off of their investment? It is not a matter of monopoly but a matter of a high cost and high risk investment sane business people are not willing to make. Unless you are willing to pay for extra lines and enjoy the sight of them you might want to check your facts and shat up till then.
Verizon invested a lot in cables, and have been overtaken by technology. Too fucking bad for them, that is the risk of doing business, they should have kep thteir eyes open and offer what their customers wanted.
When the government jumps in to bar competition to a company while that company simply failed to adapt, that government helps in the creation of a monopoly and a bad one for that.
> I'm taking a big gamble here, and hoping you're just not trolling for a cheap argument...
I can't talk for the grantparent of course, but the questions put up there are ones that occur to many outside observers with regards to the USA, so I doubt grantparent was trolling. Thanks for your view on this btw. It helps to at least understand what is happening.
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?
About where Brisbane would be if you overlaid the East Coast of Australia and that of the US. I spent 20 years in Philadelphia, and 4 months in Brisbane. Brisbane is nicer.
can't talk for the grantparent of course, but the questions put up there are ones that occur to many outside observers with regards to the USA, so I doubt grantparent was trolling
Indeed.
I was at my grandmother's funeral 2 years ago down in NYC. One of my cousin's boyfriend was present at a dinner and is a student at a naturopathy school. For some reason, I assumed and equated that with a pro medicare view.
Boy was I ever wrong and the next few minutes were a bit torturous until the subject changed.
While I don't believe that government should have their hands in a particular industry forever, I'm for the idea that government money/involvement should somehow be involved in the startup of new industries and businesses in existing industries with a set time line to an exit for them.
I'm an on-site computer tech that does freelance work and got my start after getting laid off from one of the telcos in 2001.
I went to file my claim for employment insurance and saw a sign calling for people who want to be their own boss and start their own businesses.
Based on the strength of their ideas and a barrage of interviews, they take in 1/4 who apply and provide a year's worth of mentoring and financial hand holding to get people up and on their feet.
Granted our taxes here are significantly higher and I will freely admit that I do go against the system every now and again with cash under the table jobs. However, I feel that I'd be in a much different boat had it not been for this gov't funded program.
And with regard to healthcare, that cousin mentioned earlier was talking to me earlier this year about how her dad was going in for radiotherapy for a tumour and how there was some concern about the insurance not working well in their favour.
Contrasting this at the same time as my dad was dieing of liver failure due to Hep. B., number of trips to the ER, stays at the hospital and palliative assistance at home, it was nice not to have to worry about financial payouts during that time.
Anyhow, that's just my experience and I guess that this all has to do with what we're used to and the comfort zone that we've grown accustomed to.
Although easier to start a flame war and leave, message boards are also great for getting well thought out answers and viewpoints without too much heated emotional bashing.
The McCarthyites have won. Your Government has been reduced to assuring corporate profit OVER delivering services to its citizens.
This is amazing.
First, the $5000 hospital bill should have been submitted to your auto insurance company. Most states require insurance (or they pull your license.) I won't pursue the "driving without a license is bad" rant, as it's not pretinent.
... oh, I don't know ... $5k or more? Probably. Did that sudden >$5000 debt plunge you into bankruptcy? No, there's a magical financial instrument to help you out of your situation ... it's called "a loan." Yes, it might take a while to pay off, but you can certainly shoulder the burden (especially if you can afford to putter around in a vehicle in the first place.) Hell, I've been carrying around over $100k in debt since 1991 ... it's called "a mortgage." I'm 10 years into the 30-year loan (refinanced in '94), and I haven't become bankrupt yet. Imagine that!
Second, how much did you pay for said vehicle that your placed on it's lid? Did you pay
I agree with Verizon, the government should not be competing with private interests. For everyone who thinks the government should implement and sell broadband, do you also think the government should implement and sell fast food, automobiles, and clothes?! Heck, should the government go into the DVD rental business?!
Why should tax payer dollars be spent on a product and/or service that the private sector can perform?
Let the flaming begin!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm a bit concerned for smaller providers, particularly those in rural areas that cost-effectively deploy wireless broadband networks where traditional broadband cannot be obtained. My concern is only because, IMHO, Verizon's using the law to back them up simply because they cannot deploy fast enough and, if they can't, no one else should be able to. It's been said that Verizon has spent $8.5 billion over the past 10 years in Pennsylvania. I live in Pennsylvania and see more fiber from the local telcos than I do from Verizon. I also see WISPs deploying networks much more quickly and offering simple 128kbps service for under $20 per month. I've been told my servicing CO doesn't even have DSL capability (yep, it's a Verizon CO) and that Verizon has no interest in throwing DSLAMs in there because the "market isn't there."
:)
Perhaps the law will side with the "little guys" and crush Verizon.
Regards,
Kory
The problem I see is that when government gets into things like this, there is always controversy. Now that the government is providing wireless to the people, isn't it their responsibility to prevent children from seeing bad things? Up go the content filters. And it's their responsibility to protect us from viruses. Expensive site licenses are bought for antivirus programs, and the cost goes up. Now a paedophile was caught using the network to lure children. They'd better start monitoring all traffic. Well, there's a fee for it, but obviously the poor can't pay for it. It's government's role to provide services to them that they can't afford themselves. So waive the fee for the poor, and just pay for the extra burden through taxes.
You may think these things won't happen, but they will: simply because government is involved. And even worse, since government can undercut any competition, nobody else atttempts to provide service in the area. You're stuck with them or noone. Remember about government schools in Georgia, which recently became forced to teach creationism next to evolution. Look at airports, which are now massive hotbeds for corruption and government cronyism. It doesn't work, guys. Don't be seduced by the low or absent costs of the initial estimate. It will go over budget by an insane factor, moral and ethical questions will be raised, and in the end we'll all be stuck with a service that is expensive, too entrenched to be repealed, with tons of restrictions, and no alternate choices.
No comment.
Although Verizon is a monopolist in telephone service its other businesses are neither monopoly nor protected by government frachise provisions. I do not like any monopolies for commercial services. It doesn't matter if its a government-owned monopoly (local Water Department) or a government-sanctioned monopoly (local cable company). The results are the same. Higher prices and less choice. Also, with a government-owned monopoly there is usually even more free-loading by select interest groups, more contracts awards based on politics, and less consumer rights available. The government should be in the business of governing: doing things that only the government is able to do. Everything else should be left to the private-sector. Otherwise you end up with the skewwing of economics. Let's look at some examples of how the government changes the economy by offering non-vital services for "free" or "cheap": public school system - how bad are they! why? because they have a near monopoly hold, always cry for more money, and spend it on select interest groups. this results in people relying on the government to pay for and to be responsible for their childrens' education. Also, select interest groups are always at work trying to change the curriculum to their liking. (Ban evolution, hand out condoms!, yay!!) Obviously, the education of children is a key priority for all of society, but going with a one-size fits all solution isn't! Imagine a public network owned by the government. It will be like the public libraries. Some books are burned; some web-sites are blocked or government-sanctioning Denial of Service attacks against the truly perverted sites (just like their books are burned). Some board in a little town will be doing this. Just like your friendly board of education. With a private solution the consumer has choices. Free to buy or not to buy. Price competition with power competition. No one company should be powerful enough to impose its view on society and also prices should be changing, just like they do with gas. With a government solution you are screwed twice: once to pay taxes which you are forced to, then to either "enjoy" free, but crappy services, or to pay again (think of a toll road). Perhaps rural and outlying areas can't economically support a network. Just like these areas were the last to usually have access to wireless telepphones and cable tv. Do you, in an urban area, want to subsidize that? Doesn't that further skew the market? Think about "urban sprawl" aren't you encouraging that? Well, maybe the correct density of subscribing customers is 25 per square mile or maybe its 75 subscribers per square mile, but if something is offered at a loss -- someone needs to pay for that? If it's a private sector company they'll go under -- but if it's government they'll just increase your taxes (the easier solution in their view then to just shutdown, which is what the market indicates). The government ought not to expand or provide more crappy services. Also, I believe the government should stop offering all non-essential services. This to me includes public schools, roads, and health-care. Obviously these are important items to society so the government should help poor people buy these services by giving them money. Tuition money to help people go to the school of their choice, tax credit to offset toll road fees, and many other items. Give people power, choice, and they will be fine. It's certainly better than giving money to some giant government group that seldom has any clue what people want or care about -- they just see the people that make the most noise!
my Linksys when they can pry them from my cold dead hands !!!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Wonderfully insightful! Thank you for sharing that as it highlights what the internet should be about; i.e. facilitating understanding.
Cheers
I think you guys are naive as fuck.
If you want to hear about naivety, listen to this.
There are these people that give the government more and more of their money, and then are surprised each time when the government finds new and stupid ways to waste it.
These people give the government more power every day, and then turn around and complain because that power is not used in ways they wish. They keep doing this over and over and expect a different result -- insanity.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
and modern day conservatives since reagan want the government to borrow more and more money.
Absolutely. Good thing I'm not a conservative, I'm a libertarian.
like the patriot act, definetly supported more by the right then the left.
Absolutely.
anti-corp is neither liberal nor conservative, but it tends to be anti-aristocratic.
I disagree. Take a look at all the political parties. The ones that tend to be anti-corporation and anti-business are on the left. If you care to refute this, please point out a right-leaning party that is either anti-business or anti-corporation.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
This analogy is bad.
If you read my post, I am neither blaming the gun nor the ones pulling the trigger. Rather, I am saying let's replace the gun with a toothpick.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
> Absolutely. Good thing I'm not a conservative, I'm a libertarian.
The problem with libertarians is that they assume wealth happens in a vacuum.
I just don't see the parties on the left as being anti-corporation. I don't think there is an anti-corporate politician.
It has been statistically shown that helmets increase the risk of head injury.
Did you hear me say government was a perfect institution? Is any institution perfect? Fuck no. Democratic governments have flaws, yes. But it is far better than the alternative of letting the lesser, greedier, malicious people fuck over everyone else because no one can keep them in check. And that's exactly what you'd get without government.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
You seem to disagree with this statement, but the percentage of first-generation millionaires in US is very high. According to the book "The Millionaire Next Door", by former professor of business at Georgia State:
Industry and frugality, people... However boring.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I recall that President Andrew Jackson vetoed a federal highway bill that would have been the first inter-state highway in the United States. He felt that such a highway would favor one State over the others and he also felt that a federal expenditure to construct a highway was unconstitutional.
What the public expects out of our government has expanded considerably since then. We expect our local governments to install, if not maintain, community sewage systems to handle rainwater during floods and to treat wastewater so that we do not pollute the environment. These kinds of systems were built by localities when the public was apprised of the health benefits of decreasing the number of pools of still water (mosquito breeding grounds) around municipalities and preventing outbreaks of disease from raw sewage. They have not always done these things and there seems to be some evidence that many of the waterworks of Roman cities were not necessarily public works.
To make a certain quality of Internet access free to all sets a standard within a community above which other service providers, like Verizon, would have to provide in order to sell their service. A publically-funded WiFi service is the kind of thing that could attract more high-tech industry and could increase the level of education within a municipality. Were voters to decide to pay for the taxes necessary to install and maintain that kind of a service, I'd see it as the kind of expansion of what government does (like trash pickup) that is not necessarily vital to the community but an "added perk" that makes living in that municipality more preferrable than other, surrounding communities.
For Verizon to try to limit what the public may choose to pay their taxes to support is another example of how corporations are attempting to place themselves in charge; to govern by fiat. Voters should consider the bedfellows of those representatives they vote for more than anything else. It was felt by the framers of our Constitution in the US that religion ought to be seperated from politics. Increasingly, our arguments need to be turned toward the Corporate interests. Campaign finance reform was one such argument. I predict, as time goes on, these discussions of corporate interests versus the interests of the common man (as a voting bloc) will become sharper.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
The left wing talks about how how everyone else is brainwashed at the hands of corporatists, that, your side is right if we could only "know the whole story". You people talk like you are in a cult. The left wing IS propaganda without logic. You are the worst kind of kooks!
For example, look at the debate over the Alaska refuge. It's in the ARCTIC, nobody in their right mind would live there, and your side is crying over a few deer getting killed in order to stop 500 billion buckazoids from rolling into the USA. Now you want to tear down all of the dams in the USA to protect a few fish, you want to shut down all the power plants to protect the air, and I guess, yeah, at the end of the day, you really just want to tear down everything.
And you call us thick fingered corporate vulgarians crazy? The American people are making their choice - choose your point of view and freeze to death naked in the winter and have nothing because possessions and buildings disrupt the environment, or, have a shot a giant house with a Pontiac GTO parked in the driveway, capable of going 0-60 in 5.4 seconds, sporting 350bhp.
Our side wins, every time, because we promise better and deliver more.
Hello left wing, Americans do not want to live in caves to commune with mother nature. Nature sucks and must be conquered and kept tame at all times.
This is my sig.