Anti-Muni Broadband Bills Country Wide

Ant writes "Broadband Reports says that 14 and possibly more states that have or will pass(ed) bills banning community-run broadband. Free Pass shows a map breakdown of the states while Tallahassee.com takes a look at a newly proposed bill in Florida, backed by Sprint, BellSouth, Verizon, and Comcast, designed to bog down the muni-development process."

Comments

Like I have always known...

[bogaboga]

...it's all about the MONEY!

So your willing to trust government to deliver?

[Shivetya]

This is what I don't understand. How can you sit back and trust your local or state government to deliver this service? They cannot even administer the e-rate program without lots of expensive fraud, usually due to corruption. In most cases the e-rate contract winners have a connection (usually relatives) with the local city/county administator.

While I think the telcoms are annoying and some really set out to block competition I find the idea of a government run wireless repugnant. If your lucky it might be good for a year. However someone will start digging and we will see all sorts of wasted money, nepotism, and rules that just crank the costs up quickly. Suddenly this low cost solution starts to cost more, but only for those of certain income brackets.

Wireless IS NOT REQUIRED TO LIVE. Sewer, Electricity, and Phone are. Cell, cable, broadband, and similar are not.

Who is going to pay for the access granted for free to designated "depressed / disenfranchised groups"? Who is going to provide them equiment? Who is going to manage it?

Sorry, at least with the businesses I have a choice. With a government entity there is usually no accountability. A government will fine and penalize an abusive corporation but they will NEVER do that to themselves.

Get over your selfishness, you do not deserve free broadband, especially when it has to come from someone else's income.

Re:And they say profit motive is a good thing...

[The0retical]

The reason businesses can do things the way that they do is because there are no constitutional protections for the people against large businesses because the constitution was designed to protect the people against the government. If you really want a solution there should be several privacy amendments. You can find the exact same problem with private investigators or that whole national ID system.

Libertarians are a funny lot

[CaptainZapp]

OK, just so I get this straight:

Libertarians want no government intervention for nothing and as little as possible laws as possible.

At the same time they rely on the government to make laws, which prohibits the public to act in its best interest.

Maybe I'm unclear about the concept, but this sounds like a bunch of fucking hypocrites to me.

Yurp

[essreenim]

Thanks. Looks like an interesting read. I look forwards to reading it in more detail after I cool my erm processor.

p.s. I am really annoyed by Wuropean attitudes. I can give you an example. There is an Italian guy I know that is happy to knock anything American on the grounds that it's well. American - from the US - the country of guns and cowboys. Yet he works for anAmerican company and has done for many years. He really is a infuriating. I also know many other people like this. They are just the most ignorant people. Sometimes I wish Michael Moore never wrote so many books or created so many documentaries. (Ignorant) people then make the tragic mistake of assuming that things would be better under Kerry or Gore for exmaple. Both of those muppetsw are also corrupt. Most people in Europe are happy to tell Americans who to vote for even though they never even heard of Ralph Nader for example. They have no idea how it really is. I'm tired of hiding behind my satiracal comments all the time...but actually that's what I'm goona continue to do..

Come to Yurp, my Yankee friends, land with valleys of golden flowers and blue lakes, and great pron!!

Fuck Yurp

Re:Yurp

[essreenim]

Europe has some ignorant kneejerk anti-Americans. The US has equally many ignorant anti-French. (And at least the French can point out that they were right about the WMD).

Wake up. The French had allot of vested intesrests in keeping Saddam in power - weapons contracts???

Did it not strike you as strange that China, Russia, and France all opposed invasion and all had money owed to them by Saddam.

If you think the French have some moral high ground you are wrong. That country is full of racists too I might add. Germany is the only large country in Europe which behaved ethically on the matter.

The worst part is meeting the ignorant French who think as you do that they are somehow on a higher moral ground than Americans. If anything the French position is worse. It is more deceitful.

Re:That's funny

[rho]

we allow our local/community governments to do what the electorate want them to do.

Even if that means killing all the Jews! How enlightened you are!

Seriously--can we have one Slashdot story that doesn't have 300 comments from Canadians/EUians that say "Oh, we're so much better because we have foo. Gosh, Americans are stupid! LOL!" It's not relevent; it does not move the discussion forward; it's a pant-load of self-justification.

Re:That's funny

[Reality Master 101]

Here in the land of the free (the US), we don't like the government putting people out of business by setting up inefficient systems paid by tax dollars that will cost the taxpayer two or three times what they would pay from private infrastructure.

Here in the land of the free, we like competition, which means infrastructure will be upgraded. Why will a government monopology bother to upgrade it?

Here in the land of the free, we recognize why we have the strongest economy in the world. It's called Capitalism.