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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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
Did anyone else read that as "Verizon seeks a Unix Free-BSD Municipal Wireless Grid"?
Boy I'm tired.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
You're right, it's normally (with Qwest and Verizon) an ATM...
Broadband... woo--fuckin--hoo, technology sharing spectrum.
I'll stick with my 1.5Mb Up 7Mb Down that I can pull 24x7 (and have pulled for over 24x3!)...
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.
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?