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)."

Comments

Municipal WiFi is not free.

[cowboy76Spain]

I do not understand how people can be so cinnic. They do believe municipal WiFi is free? If the city town spends money on it, then it will have to recover them from somewhere else (maybe raising the taxes to all the population, maybe giving less funding to an area that may be more important, or maybe by charging the users -as any company-). It can't just assume its costs and get in red for that.

I think the true reason /.ers like it is because, beeing usually more computer savvy -and having all of them internet- they want their neighbours that do not connect to share the connection costs.

BTW, a previous topic did state that europeans are switching from a public telephonic network to a private one because it is better... nothing more far from reality. Companies that provide social services (Postal, Communications) were often owned by the states(that granted them the monopoly) to ensure that they did provide their service to everyone, even if it was not economical (for example, providing postal service for remote small towns, where the cost of going and check if there is something to send is always bigger than any expected revenue). The reason of privatizing them now has been to allow more competence and to avoid that a state locks its country for other EU companies, and now to get the same social benefits the prefered way is for the state to sponsor them (and I can tell that some of the canges have been for worse; because the greed of the companies to win a contract and earn money often can be noted in the QoS).

Re:relevant section: 54.202

[Bent Mind]

Umm, wouldn't this ban Internet in public schools? Or are schools state owned and not run by a municipality?

Re:State-run telco services have failed everywhere

[mvdwege]

Speaking as someone who lived through the transition from state-owned telco to private-owned telco, I can tell you one thing: you are talking out of your rear end.

After privatisation, the costs have gone up, the service has detoriated, and any kind of competition that even tries to arise is ruthlessly squashed.

The only ones who profited are the shareholders and the telco management. Give me a state-owned infrastructure over a rapacious bunch of MBAs anytime. I'd much prefer a communally-owned system, but for some reason the Powers That Be seem to want to squash that at all costs, no matter if the PTB are The Government or The Corporation, so I'll have to settle for the lesser of two evils for the moment.

Mart

And SBC corporate headquarters is located in...?

[Eternal Vigilance]

Oh, that's right - San Antonio, Texas. What a coincidence!

Looks like SBC's employees in Austin are hard at work.

Having Read The Fine Amendment (the bill amends the existing Utilities Code), here are a few salient quotes:

"...all public policy must be driven by free-market principles..."

"Sec.A54.202. PROHIBITED MUNICIPAL SERVICES. A municipality or municipally owned utility may not, directly or indirectly, on its own or with another entity, offer to the public:
(1) a service for which a certificate is required;
(2) a service as a network provider; or
(3) any telecommunications or information service, without regard to the technology platform used to provide the service."

And removed from the existing code:
"It is the policy of this state to ensure that customers in all regions of this state, including low-income customers and customers in rural and high cost areas, have access to telecommunications and information services, including interexchange services, cable services, wireless services, and advanced telecommunications and information services, that are reasonably comparable to those services provided in urban areas and that are available at prices that are reasonably comparable to prices charged for similar services in urban areas."

Roughly translated:

1. Government exists to maximize corporate profits. (When we talk about "free-market" consumers, understand we mean it in the same sense as "free-range" chickens.)

2. Citizens are prevented from organizing and offering any telecommunications service that would allow them to use their economies of scale to threaten corporate profits.

3. You'll pay whatever we want to charge you for whatever service we feel like providing, and you'll like it, since you're prevented from defending yourselves by organizing your own public service to compete with us when we ream you.

If someone wants to abide by "free-market" principles, they might start by acknowledging that a group of citizens who agree to cooperate to provide a service for the public good are a part of the market.

Any truly free and fair market should allow for a balance of both public and private participation.

Government promotion of business interests over public interests has a name: fascism. (But calling it that tends to upset the chickens, so the less-upsetting alternative used these days is "reform.")

If the communications companies (SBC alone has $40B in annual revenues, $100B in assets, and over 150,00 employees) can't compete against the residents of Plano, or Amarillo, or even Dallas, well, the real free market is tough. Compete fairly and provide a better service or find another line of work.

(And we chickens better do something about this sort of "reform" other than just post to /., or our only place in the "free market" will be plucked and hanging upside down.)