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Municipal Wi-Fi Battle Moves to Texas
Cryofan writes "The fight in Texas is heating up over municipal wireless. Texas House Bill 789, under consideration in Texas, would impose one of the most extreme bans on municipal involvement in any form of communications--free or otherwise (the bill could ban free library access)."
This should be kept in mind when cheering for municipal wi-fi access.
If find it amusing that in a country that preaches freedom, it only applies to personal freedoms. You could set up your own network, but if you do something for a bunch of other people and deprive companies of income - boom - no freedom whatsoever...
I suppose the theory is that competition dies if it's competing against a free solution, and to keep companies happy, people need to pay for stuff. Ah well...
Incidentally, is there anything in the US stopping a bunch of people forming an ad hoc company to give things like WiFi service for free?
A town just down the street here is running fiber optics to every house/business. Isn't that just cool? Its going to atract a lot of business, and be light years ahead of the surrounding towns. I'm already looking into moving there :) Why shouldn't that be allowed? So some company can make money off outdated infrastructure? No company has a *right* to profit.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
In the long run, it doesn't matter. As America regulates and scams itself into technical obscurity, more innovative and--dare I say--democratic societies will have competitive advantages and eventually eclipse her. Mostly reminds me of the 20-year stall on FM radio because the big old boys were perfectly happy with the profits they were making on AM. Eventually FM won out (of course), because it was technically superior.
As an American, I am of course sad to see it coming, but any country where rougly half want Dubya as a leader should expect repercussions.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
It does seem to ban municipalities from offering any kind of telecommunication or network services.
Another section that caught my attention was the description of "Political Subdivisions" to include any community with over 275 access lines. People often speak about government as if it's some detached body that's unnecessary and useless, but maybe it's good to remember that government at its best is really just a bunch of neighbours working together to achieve some goal.
This bill is government at it's worst, creating unnecessary limits to protect the interests of corporations. I know Texas is pretty far gone, but this can't possibly pass with those sections can it? Is there any real benefit to taking those options away from communities?
Maybe. That's the thing about infrastructure though - the cost / benefit thing isn't quite so clear cut. Perhaps the government shouldn't be responsible for roads. After all, not everyone uses them, and so people could just pay for the ones they use. Except that having decent roads makes it easier for people to get around, which has a knock-on benefit on all businesses in the area. Since these businesses have a greater turn-over, they can pay more taxes.
Ubiquitous internet access is the modern equivalent of an efficient rail system. Without it, it is very difficult for an area to be competitive - both businesses and wealthy individuals will move away.
And speaking for the UK, privatisation has been a get-rich-quick scheme for the government. Selling off capital infrastructure has been used to make up for budget shortfalls. This delayed tax increases (yay! More votes). A prime example of this was British Rail, which was sold off under the last Conservative government. Since then, service has got far worse - in the last 5 years I have not been on a single train journey in this country that has arrived on time, my last trip took 5 hours (and was supposed to take 3) - and the taxpayer is still paying for it. Every year, the government allots several hundred million pounds to shoring up the infrastructure, while investors in the rail companies receive dividends.
Any service which is essential to a nation (or municipality) remaining competitive should be accountable to the people of that nation. As a parting thought, I will leave you with the following quote from the BSD fortune file:
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
One thing about the neo-cons, multinational corporations, and megopolists that run this country - they don't want the government to interfere with their "business plans", but are damn quick to seek a government handout in the form of tax credits, specially created tax loopholes, or outright grants & subsidies to their
businesses.
The telecos have been quick to complain about local government (Philadelphia comes to mind here) competeing with their "markets", but have not been willing to spend their money to provide the level of services requested by those same localities. Since the breakup of "Ma Bell", the regional "Baby Bells" have been under more relaxed Federal regulations, as well as some level of regulation by the states. The state regulatory boards have not been doing a very good job of making certain that the regional telcos have been providing a uniform level of service to their citizens. OTOH, most counties have enough regulatory power over the cable companies by granting temporary county monopolies that DTV and broadband Internet access has flourished. A temporary grant of monopoly status along with specific goals and guidelines for improved digital service seems to work well with the cable companies.
That being said, Dubya and his neo-cons, as well as the WTO and World Bank, have used other countries debt service as a means of forcing the
opening of their public utilities to foreign/multinational corporate competition. The provision of clean potable water has become a new "profit center" for the World Bank's corporate allies. Invariably, the quality of service has gone down, municipal workers layed off, and the
price of clean water has gone through the roof.
Some services, such as potable water, should be deemed too important a "human right" to turn over to a foreign multinational corporation for profit.
You'd think that they would want to attract tourists and tech-savvy residents, who just happen to be the people who would be most attracted to municipal wireless. I guess not. Well, their loss. The only people to blame are the Texans who elected a group of people who want to reward telcos and cable companies at the expense of the residents. I should say that I all of my utilities are provided by my municipality and the rates and service are great.
I know of no law preventing someone from giving away what is theirs. The point of this bill is to prevent municipalities from taxing citizens to pay for a service most people will never use. The service isn't "free", it is forced on all of the citizens who have to pay for it. In addition, no private company can compete with a solution that is funded with stolen money and then graciously provided as "free" by the politicians. This bill is depriving no one of personal freedom, but is trying to do precisely the opposite and protect the personal freedom of citizens to choose how to spend their own money.
Seriously, if Wi-fi is important enough to enough people then it will get built. I would love to see wi-fi access in my community, but I don't want to have it paid for by a bunch of extra taxes--in response to another poster: how exactly is robbing others in your community to pay for your addiction to good wifi (hey, I'm addicted too) being "neighborly"? Do you people consider the thousands in these communites who don't even own a computer and who will derive absolutely no benefit from this government-mandated service? No one is going to turn down an opportunity for profits and if the telco won't build it, then maybe some enterprising individual will. Perhaps it will take the form of a co-operative where participants provide access by connecting a public AP to their broadband in exchange for access to the network. That's fine, so long as it isn't being treated as another "government" benefit.
This is from the crowd that (rightfully, IMHO) won't trust the FBI/CIA/NSA to read their e-mail but expects the government to provide magically free wireless that comes with no strings attached? One more thing that you seem to miss is that with higher-speed wireless with much wider range on the horizon, a wifi network with hundreds of nodes might be a million dollar waste in 3 years time. Corporations tend to be more careful with money that is their own than governments do with their budgets and maybe the telcos see no point in investing billions across the nation in networks that are being made obsolete as we speak.
I have come here to chew memory and kick ass... and malloc() is returning a null pointer.
SBC the people who brought you: /.
The web patent WRT frames previously written about on
The 'no muni fiber' law in Wisconsin.
Check the pockets of the 'elected' State officials and you'll find 'em lined with money from SBC.
What if a city wants to put up 5 or 6 wireless access points in areas that are frequented by tourists and business travelers? Let's say that they could do it for a few thousand dollars a year. That may be worth it if it makes the city more attractive to visitors. Those visitors spend money and pay hotel taxes. The city is happy and the visitors are happy. But, this bill would prohibit the city from doing this, even though municipal wireless system like this makes a lot of sense. I just think that you haven't considered just how broad this bill is. It bans a city from providing network services. Period. There are some ideas for municipal wireless systems which are probably not good ideas. But why can't they let the municipalities make those decisions?
I buy my electricity from my town. I buy my gas from my town. I buy my water from my town. I buy my sewer service from my town. I buy my phone service from my town. The prices and service are great. My water is delicious.
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. I believe you mean "taxpayer funded".
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Ya know while to some extent I agree with you, I do have a few points I need to counteract...
First the state government shouldn't restrict local government from being able to build any sort of communications network (which this does). Heck they shouldn't even stop them from being an ISP if that's what the people want... Maybe you don't really deal with local government much, but I have... Local government is a meeting of all concerned citizens and (normally) everyone gets their say ya or nay... If everyone does agree they want free wifi or say broadband service why shouldn't they be able to build it through the local government?
Second the 'f Wi-fi is important enough to enough people then it will get built' is funny. I see thsi all the time with broadband. Markets of over five thousand people which are ignored by phone and cable providers and who can't realistically use Satelite services (want to sometimes play a game online or do some other similiar activity). Business could care less about them. Their best option is to create their own, but they are much better off getting municipal broadband started then creating their own business (or attempting to at least). Not everyone has the skills to do that sort of business or the right knowledge to do it correctly. The local government in those cases makes far more sense as a facilitator than having to start a bussiness to create such services does...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
language that is intended to prevent power utilities from getting into the ISP business. I don't think it will have any substantial impact on urban areas. I think it is intended more to prevent rural power coops from becoming ISPs - using the power lines in rural areas would be the most cost effective way to push high-speed access out into rural areas that are a 50+ miles from any major urban center.
And just how many times does a word have to be mentioned in a bill before it becomes meaningful? Actually the bill appears to ban municipalities from offering network services of any kind, including wireless.
You are obviously very familiar with the bill, and it's hard not to conlcude that you have an interest in misleading people about what it will do. Do you?
But that's not the issue here. The issue is whether the state government should prohibit municipal governments from supplying such access. There is no possible way that could be a good idea. If you don't like government-WiFi, just vote against it at your town meeting. Your municipal government is closer to you than your state government--for the state to choose private corporations over town meetings seems like a huge blow to the culture participatory democracy our government was founded on.
If the world is really heading into a direction where people interact with their goverment/municipal offices through electronic channels, then those channels must be available to all citizens. The only was to guarantee that access is not only the privilege of the rich is to allow municipals to build networks -- if they think this is the only way to ensure that all citizens can equally access their services.
:-). If there is a problem with municipals unnecesarily building expensive networks from taxpayer dollars, then, and only then should a bill like that be considered. And even then, the bill should address the _source_ of the problem, and not some superset of the problem's source.
It may even be cheaper for the taxpayers to keep up the network and offer governemnt services through this network than to keep up the conventional offices.
Also as a sidenote: a law never gives you more freedoms than you had before that law (well maybe if the new law is weakening a previous one
Fine. Then the law should be reworded to say exactly that, as opposed to singling out WiFi.
I pay for expensive sports stadiums that I never enter, for pampered, overpaid teams that I don't like. To add insult to injury, I have to pay again if I choose to view the welfare jocks in action.
A municipal WiFi implementation is probably the least obtrusive use of tax dollars - you don't have to sieze someone's land using 'eminent domain' to provide the service. It allows people to make use of the public radio spectrum without carving it out and selling it to the highest bidder.
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
I agree, although I might not have put it that way!
A lot of people are of the incorrect opinion that "If I don't use it, why should I pay for it?" It's not as simple as that.
Everyone has to contribute to society as a whole, whether you personally make use of something or not. It's our responsibility as citizens if we want to live in a civilized society.
Roads are always a good example. Just because I never drive on 90% of the roads, why should I pay for that 90%? Because it would be too expensive for only people that use the roads to pay for them. Do you want to live in a city where all the roads are dirt?
Schools? I don't have any kids but some of my tax money goes to schools. Well, once upon a time I DID go to school, and it wasn't cheap putting me through it I'm sure. One day my kids will go through school if I have them. If only parents with kids had to pay school taxes, nobody would be able to afford to put their kids through school. Do you want to live in a society where no kids are getting even a basic education?
The same can be applied to Internet connectivity. The internet is quickly becoming a basic communications tool, and more important for doing business and staying competitive both on a business and individual level. If no internet provider is willing to provide access for your town or area, why shouldn't local government be allowed to provide this? It's for the better of the society, just like roads and education. Just because Joe Shmoe might never use it, a lot of people will, and it will improve the area's productivity in so many ways.
But you can't tell this to some people, they apparently don't have the capability to think past their own $5 in their pocket.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
"The point of this bill is to prevent municipalities from taxing citizens to pay for a service most people will never use."
Like...Ambulance and Fire?
Or did you mean something else?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
You think this is just happening in Texas?
Jon Lebkowsky jonl@polycot.com http://www.polycot.com