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Verizon-Pushed WiFi Bill Becomes Law in PA
Cryofan writes "A Wall Street Journal article (via freepress) tells the sad tale of how legislation barring PA municipalities from offering paid telecom services was signed into law. 'Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell said late Tuesday night that he had signed into law a large telecommunications bill placing severe restrictions on the ability of cities and towns to offer telecommunications services, an item that was heavily lobbied by Verizon Communications Inc. and other big telephone companies in similar legislation across the country.'" (Also mentioned last week.)
How does Governor Ed Rendell spin this bill on behalf of his Pennsylvania constutents? Since he anticipates Verizon waiving its right to stop local competition, and likes a "lucrative provision giving phone companies like Verizon large incentives to promise to modernize their networks", he'll just tell Pennsylvanians that if they bribed him as well as Verizon, they might get him to answer their calls, too.
--
make install -not war
This is an another example of the best laws that money can buy. The I-CAN-SPAM act is another example -- I wonder how much money was paid to the Washington scum to pass that law.
Fight Spammers!
This kind of ban should come with the obligation for commercial services to provide service. If, after the municipality has announced plans to provide paid wireless internet access, no commercial provider has started offering their services in the same area after at most 6 months, the ban should be lifted.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If a municipal wireless ISP were so inefficient compared to the private sector why would Verizon have lobbied so hard to ban it? Discuss among yourselves...
Ok, before you fly off the handle about why this law was passed....consider this:
Do you really want your government running any kind of telecom infrastructure? I mean, I am all for "services for the people" and all that jazz but on the other side, I am also for smaller government.
WiFi *could* be used as just one more reason to take more of my hard earned money. This bill assures that won't happen.
(p.s. I am against this bill but I am just playing the devil's advocate because issues are rarely black and white. More like lukewarm grey.)
Oh my God you are so right!
I can't believe the government is funding public libraries, they're taking money from commercial bookstores. Like, OmiGod! And the streets! Woah, they should let go of city maintenance and allow the commercial road surfacing companies to fill in the potholes on the street... But wait, there's more! Why is the police allowed to operate, don't they know that they're taking money away from commercial security providers? Heck why do we have cities to begin with, we could just outsource everything to India...
Wait...
I'm dashing off to the patent office with a big grin on my face...
"Piter, too, is dead."
I can hear the conversation now:
..etc...
VZ: Wi-Fi for every citizen, what a great Idea!
PA: Yeah, we're going to give it away to attract
a modern crowd.
VZ: Oh, yeah, the billions in infrastructure that
we put into your state, the jobs, tax revenue,
all that stuff, you still want that don't you?
It's not necessarily 'selling out', or 'paid off politicians', just legit local politics. States and towns have been whoring to business forever, in various incarnations. In the poli minds, it's better to have positive corporate presence than a few towns with wi-fi. Especially since the assets will be trash in 10 years, as wireless high-speed internet supplants it, delivered by none other than VZ.
Although this looks like Verizon just trying to monopolize broadband Internet access it's actually a good thing. The government shouldn't be a commercial enterprise making money that should be going to actual businesses. I work for a WISP in PA which owns licensed band all over the state. If the city of Philadelphia were ot put in city wide unlicensed wireless Internet access not only would it take away customers from Verizon but customers from other smaller mom-and-pop companies too. What the government should be doing is making it easier for entrepenuers to start businesses instead of taking away their potential customers. But just in case you don't know, Pennsylvania has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country so why start creating jobs now.
Is there even a reason we vote anymore. I think I am about to become a principled non-voter based on the fact that our government is now so corrupt we only help legitimize it by voting. I think I will start a public ad drive next election cycle to encourage people not to vote with the goal of keeping the voting population below 50% and therefore keep our government illegitimate.
Its not so much like this is a bad law so much as corporations really have taken over (in place of the big churches) because they pay almost no taxes (because they know how to work the system) and they are both considered persons under the law regarding free expression but also act as a shield by their owners and executives through which great personal wealth can be created with no personal responsibility.
Lets face it. The BOD of Verizon or Haliburton could order me killed tommorrow and they would probably never even be charged. So much for a system of laws.
"So a motivated group of citizens can still create a city wide wireless network, it's just the local governments that can't. (I wonder if the govt. can give grants to the citizens... that'd be a nice work-around)"
That's quite fair (especially from a libertarian standpoint). Why should a government institution under threat of the gun dictate that my money go to WiFi?
...please RTFA. This does not affect FREE city-provided WiFi. This only affects PAID city-provided WiFi.
I happen to agree with this move. The government should not be in the business of providing non-essential services. Government-run businesses do not have to make a profit, and actually don't even have to break even. Private companies on the other hand, have to make a profit to survive. It would be unfair competition.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
...lobby the government to outlaw competition!
You mean just keep on giving Verizon my tax dollars in the form of gov't subsidies so that they can continue not delivering on their promises of expanding broadband coverage in Pennsyvania and just pocket my money in the end anyway. Thanks but I've seen Verizon in action...
What does it fucking matter?
I mean, the trend is leaning more and more corporate every year. When is voting going to become a show when what really matters is corporate backing? Oh wait, its half way there already.
Don't like what your customers are doing with your products? Write a law against them, push it through the court. Soon, your opposition is arrested or forced to stop doing what you don't like.
Don't like another business? Write a law against them, push it through the court. Soon, your opposition is arrested or forced out of business.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
"It's not fair for the gov't to compete with private industry" On the flip side--WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN THE LAST 4 YEARS?!@#! One word: Halliburton (it IS the gov't?)....
The city of Philadelphia made a deal with Verizon to let them break new PA communication laws?
Can I make a deal with Smith & Wesson to legally shoot the people who made those laws?
More seriously - if this is a law generally governing how the government can (or can't) compete with commercial wireless services, how the hell can one company give the city the OK to break the law? If the law is actually written to prevent competition with Verizon specifically, how can PA citizens not be rebelling?
So if GM builds crappy cars... the govt should step in and "make good ones" so that people don't have to drive a crappy car?
Bottom line; if Verizon did such a terrible job, and there was actual *demand* for the service, competitors like Cingular, SBC, etc would simply step in and compete.
We have those sorts of community wireless projects out here in the bay area already in some places, but it isn't ubiquitous enough yet. That said, there are only a couple of places in downtown Santa Cruz where I can't see an open wireless connection from someone. (There's one at Borders, one at the apartment above Book Shop SC, one at 99 bottles, and one at the apartments above the Acapulco, or somewhere near there.)
Once Wi-Fi becomes ubiquitous in downtown areas, the benefits the telcos get from overcharging for their wireless internet via cell phones will plummet and they'll be forced to rethink their strategy and make it something more acceptble (read "flat-rate"). If that happens, no one will really care whether the telcos or the government runs it.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Fairly standard issue.
Comes up whenever the government wants to do something like build housing and other "public works" that the private sector also provides. Government doesn't provide telephone service, for example.
However, I don't see anything wrong with a fairly low level service that is free, and the private sector provides higher speed, secure service. Problem right now is that 802.11b is pretty darn good for general use, so its hard to segment out a role for the private sector if this is free. I hope this wouldn't block a private, non-profit from these services, though.
Sleep is for the Weak
This bill would stop municipalties from getting into the wireless internet access business with tax dollars. It does not mean only Verizon can step in to provide the services. If the community wants it, nothing is stopping them from starting a business and doing it. Lots of cities give out small business loans and so forth, if they believe the city needs such a business, nothing is stopping them. Wireless equipment is not that expensive, and there are lots of small isps across the country, so with a cooperative government it should not be difficult. They could then collect fees from people who actually use the service, instead of charging everyone whether they like it or not. Verizon is in the right when they say a private company (who can only charge their users) can not compete with a tax supported utility that charges everyone through taxes. If verizon can not manage it, someone else will.
It probably isn't cost efficient to run a strip club in B.F.E. Kansas or run an anime shop in B.F.E. Oklahoma either...
So should the government step in and provide these services with govt employees and offices? (undoubtedly we could find people who would appreciate them)
It would be a much better solution to let the market sort things out; when demand reaches a certain level, innovation comes in. Like using lasers to transmit data far away and on the cheap.
So the moral of the story is, don't cry, get to work! Build a space-based laser platform ISP and become rich!
What government takeover are you referring to? I missed the part of the PA proposal where they were going to use eminent domain to take over Verizon's infrastructure. From the reading, this is a new market and the people wish to insure that a certain level of service is provided. Apparently, the people of this municipality feel that this is a more efficient means of providing a certain level of service as opposed to waiting till Verizon felt the market would bear it.
I see this legislation as anti-competitive. Verizon now has no viable competition. Mom & Pops aren't going to roll out a municipal wide network like this, they haven't the resources. They might have had a chance to bid on parts of the municipal contracts in various cities in PA, but now they won't. Given that much of municipal work goes to small businesses based in local communities, I fail to see how this is in any way helpful to Mom & Pop operations in PA. Do you have any idea what it's like to be a Mom & Pop who actually has the nerve to compete with Verizon? I've known a few and the results weren't pretty, kind of like a small child's bike in a head on collision with an SUV.
Your theoretical rambling is short-sighted and not based in the realities of the market. As for new and innovative services offered by the government, perhaps I can direct you to the New Deal or the Internet. Your anti-government stance is illogical and rooted in fallacies and mythology. Your assumptions that the government would dot all the i's and cross all the t's of these services, or that no other service would be allowed to compete is unfounded.
Please go back to econ theory 102, cause you seem to need more detail than they provided in 101. Your idea that private business is innovative at creating new infrastructure or universal infrastructure is laughable on it's face. There is no historical or even modern example of this, all of our utility infrastructures were public/private partnerships at best. Private business is only good at innovating on existing infrastructure. I'll stop here cause beating your dogma anymore would border on ideological cruelty.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
How exactly do you compete against the government?
The same way FedEx and UPS compete with the USPS.
When was the last time you heard of the government offering new, innovative services?
Interstates, police, military, courts - all those are socialist services provided by the US, state, and local governments. And they are more efficient as public services than as private services. Capitalism is great, but there are some things at which it is not as efficient as socialism - things which the US currently uses and which work pretty darned well. We have a socialist military - it's funded by the people through taxation, and is provided equally to all. We have socialist police, roads, and courts.
Now, I'm not saying that a socialist WiFi infrastructure necessarily is one of the things which is more efficient if run socialistically than capitalistically, but the US definitely has both capitalist and socialist institutions, and has examples of both that work well and examples of both that work poorly.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
There are areas where the government can do at least a semicompetent job of providing services. This is especially true of items that everybody has to have no matter how low the qaulity is, such as education (including libraries) and policing. There are also areas where the government cannot do a semicompent job of providing services. One of these is technology - ask anyone who had to wait several months to get a phone under a communist government. You think municipal broadband is cute and wonderful until the municipality has driven out all private industry with its subsidies- and then decides it's more important to fund a new sewage project or a new football stadium than its telecom monopoly, and suddenly you can't get service or, if you do, it takes six months, costs a fortune, and uses outdated equipment. In other words, the same 'public' quality as 'public toilets'.
I honestly believe that our democracy is an illusion, and we're taught to vote in our schools in order to make us complacent. Voting makes people feel as if they have "ownership" of the system, though our government is evidently owned by corporations.
We're all taught to legitimize the government. That way, when our government commits atrocities, it's with the implicit agreement of the American people. The myth that every man (or woman) can become president is taught to children, whether the sons of the wealthy (who do stand a chance of being president), and the child in the inner city (who basically has a tiny chance of even escaping poverty). Our Congress is made of millionaires, to a lesser extent our judiciary. Don't even think about getting a good executive branch political appointment without having donated a fortune to whomever is in power at the time.
We do have a system of laws, however. Those laws exist primarily to protect private property. At times I think our freedoms - what remain after four years of Bush II - exist only to let us vent of steam, and never get angry enought to overthrow those who control our destinies.
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
and other areas like it.
,government managed X means...
Why?
Simple, because they are not looking to serve people. They are looking to buy votes and a place to put cronies who need good jobs.
People here seem to think its evil to allow a corporate interest to make a buck. For some stupid reason they blithely believe the government agency will be better.
FACT IS: IT WILL NOT.
They are rarely accountable to the public in any meaningful way. Investigations get stifled, polios turn the other way, and when pressed they scream racism or "its for the children".
Sure Verizon is getting something they want and I am glad. We already have to deal with city managed airports (jobs programs, places to put bad cops, crony ville), rotten public schools, and overstaffed agencies AND YA'LL WANT THEM TO DO WHAT?
Oh great
it starts out being "Y"
it ends up be "Z"
as we get stories that group A needs it free or discounted. We then need to insure "kids" have it, and then, oh yeah, all government employess must have access for nothing. That gets tabled and the weasel in teachers or something they can tug heart strings with. Suddenly it morphs into adminstrators, then police, then fire, then suddenly everyone in government gets it free.
Well it isn't free for you. Your taxes are being wasted to pay for things that are only being used to buy votes. If the service is shitty do you think a government agency is going to care? Obviously if you do you haven't dealt with many of them.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Do you really want the government in total control of every bit you pass back and forth via the Internet?
That's not an appealing thought for many people
Which is exactly why the government should not be in the utility business, water or otherwise.
The public water systems should all be auctioned off to the highest bidders, like the FCC does with the public airwaves. Then companies like Coca-Cola could buy the public water systems and deliver products like Disanti directly to the tap. Now that's the kind of innovative service that govenments don't provide!