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

That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the Land of The Free (i.e. Western Europe), we allow our local/community governments to do what the electorate want them to do.

Aren't we naive....

Re:That's funny

[gowen]

Preston, in England, has a public WiFi. It's not free, but neither are the one's under discussion here.

Re:That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, all of them? Just this morning I read an article which is still on the front page of Slashdot were someone directly mentions at least two public, free, WiFi networks in Brighton (England). I've heard of four or five in and around my home town of Bristol (England). They're everywhere.

Re:That's funny

[Phu5ion]

Yes, well here in the Home of the Brave (i.e. USA), we allow our local/state/federal government to do whatever the large corporations want.

Re:That's funny

[FinestLittleSpace]

yep, that was me, cross posting here...

In Brighton here in the UK, the wireless scene is pretty thriving. We have a few little orgs that provide totally free access. The first, http://wireless.looseconnection.com/ provides access in various cafes and pubs, and another, http://www.piertopier.net/ provides access all along the main part of the beach(!). There's also a few more places providing some in public gardens etc.

It's all free and very well maintained.

And yes, bristol has a great free W network going all the way down park street. I used to live there.

Re:That's funny

[MindStalker]

For now, few may use it, but as time goes on more and more people are using it. This is basically the same argument as public roads vs private roads with toll booths. I can understand the argument for allowing private roads to be built on private land, even the argument to shutting out government competition. But in areas of high traffic like downtown, where most traffic is government anyways, its absolutly essential that government be allowed to build roads that everyone can freely use.

What you say? Almost most roads nowadays are government controlled. What else you say, most broadband carriers are using lines that government granted money for in the first place?

Re:That's funny

[Rasta Prefect]

Yeah, and over here we don't ban personal expressions of religious identity. I agree that Europe does do some stuff better than the US, but this pro-Europe/anti-US sniping that comes up every time any US regulatory issue is on Slashdot is just another form of annoying zealotry. If we want to talk about unfair corporate/government interactions, lets discuss Airbus funding some time.

Re:That's funny

[BeeRockxs]

Yeah, let's discuss Airbus funding, because Boeing receives no government funds. Yeah, right.

Re:That's funny

[jspoon]

you'd be surprised at how easy it is to get the ear of your county commissioner, district attorney, or city councilman.

Which is why the corporations are trying, in this case, to circumvent the local governments by using the state legislature to overrule them. The state level is where the interface between people and politicians start to break down. It's still possible to get elected by going door to door shaking hands and explaining how you plan to do your job. I personally know a state rep who does this and his party hates him for this. But the easier and these days more travelled route is to spend a lot of money on advertising.

Re:That's funny

[jocknerd]

Here in the land of the free, we apparently DON'T like competition. We don't like choice. Its too confusing. If we liked competition, we wouldn't have just 1 cable company in an area.

Re:That's funny

[max born]

I understand your point. But the current telcoms haven't done such a could job of providing internet access.

Most of them are content to keep voice and internet seperate so the can bill us twice. There's little incentive to give consumers more bandwidth because then the internet may compete with cable television, a service that many ISPs provide for a seperate charge, read conflict-of-interest.

Many of us still pay $30/mo for DSL over 50+ year old copper wires that have been paid for thousands of times over.

The telcos have also been using consumer profits to run investment scams with airline and credit card companies that have nothing to do with telecommunications.

Remeber, one telco tried to buy Disney for $60 billion. Yeah, that's $60,000,000,000. So instead of investing money to give consumers more bandwidth the MBAs, who run the company are more interesting in investing on behalf of shareholders than customers.

So, though you make a good point about government involvement in internet access I think we need to see a lot of reforms before we entrust this to the current telcos.

Re:That's funny

[afidel]

Single cable networks are present in the majority of areas, but not all. I personally live in a municipality that saw fit back in the 80's to demand a two provider network. So when Adelphia told me they wouldn't install without major electical upgrades (my house has knob and tube two-wire wiring with no grounds in the old part of the house) I simply went to the alternate provider who had me up and running in a couple days. Not only were they more responsive, but they were also about $7/month less expensive with a less congested IP network. I like competition, and you are correct that monopoly utilities is anti-capatalist.

Re:That's funny

[h4rm0ny]

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

I'm not taking issue with the Europe vs. America stance, because I'm staying in the UK at the moment, and Blair is trying to force through new legislation that overturns the right to a trial. But you picked a bad example because most of Germany (which I must guess you are talking about) had no idea what was happening. Nor would they have been in favour of it. It was the exact opposite of the government doing what the people wanted.
Now back on-topic: what possible gloss are the corporations putting on these laws to spin them to the public. There must be something, however implausible.

Re:That's funny

[Ryan Amos]

It'd work that way, really, if the corporations didn't play both sides of the game. You're never gonna get elected without a large, large sum of money. Namely because if you don't have it, your opposition does. And unfortunately, money DOES buy political races. Nobody knows who most people running for office even are, so whoevers commercials do a better job getting their name out there (most people vote on name recognition alone) will usually win.

Don't think local politics is exempt from this; most local politicians aspire to higher offices. Local governments are often corrupt and short sighted, at least in large cities, and will put a few quick bucks ahead of any sort of long term progress, as they'll have a higher statewide office by the time anything bad comes of it. If they can show the corporations how much they care (as they did in Houston, by making it policy to ignore any and all environmental violations by the oil refineries; now Houston has the most polluted air in the country) then they can get some help when they want that next level of political power.

It may be just my experiences with it, but government basically is run by corporations. IMO corporate donations to political parties should be banned outright. Politics should be the domain of the people, personal contributions to campaigns ONLY. Of course, this will never happen, and I'll let you figure out why.

Re:That's funny

[twosmokes]

corporations and politicians only have as much power as the people give them.

Change that to "corporations and politicians only have as much power as they are able to take" and you've got it.

Business kills

[grub]

If there was as much money in building and running "Community Clubs" I'd wager the big corps would try taking over the basketball courts and hockey rinks. All so the locals have more choice, you know.

Re:Business kills

[Ayaress]

They do try. The Saginaw Spirit hocky team tried to buy exclusive use of our public ice rink a while back (not the rink itself, just wanted it closed to the public for the three months of the year that people occasionally go there so they can practice). Thankfully, they're even more broke than the city and couldn't afford it, since the city council just loves to sell public facilities. Dr. Shaheen (rich retired doctor who's into real estate in the area) has bought most of them. It's not always a bad thing when a businessman buys a public facility, though. All the ones Shaheen bought are still public facilities, it's just that they're clean now. That's more than can be said for the Court Theatre.

this is nothing new

[Lumpy]

Cable companies fought for and won laws that banned community run Cable TV type systems back in the early days of cable.

there used to be "community tv" or basically a neighborhood TV antenna setup. the would all get together and buy one large tower and good antennas as well as equipment to send the signal to the homes. these were made illegal in most places by cable tv companies in the area or coming into that area.

I know, my father used to set these up for smaller communities.

Re:this is nothing new

[Y2]

'S truth. CATV stood not for CAble TV, but for Community Antenna TV.

Re:this is nothing new

[corporatemutantninja]

I'm actually a little surpised to see Slashdotters so eager for the goverment to jump into this. Do we REALLY think the Government can do this better/more efficiently than private business? Forever? 'Cause that's what it will be.

I think what's going on is that we're fed up with the DSL/Cable duopoly, which is entirely understandable because they're doing a bad job with bad customer service at high prices. There are few companies I hate more passionately than Time Warner Cable. And, yes, I'm including Microsoft. But to then go running off to mommy and da....oops, I mean government officials...crying "Fix it! Fix it!" is a little short sighted.

Isn't what we really want just more competition? I guess I'd rather see government, whether local, state, or federal, offering various non-permanent subsidies to businesses that wanted to offer competing broadband capabilities. Perhaps only making those subsidies available in communities where current providers failed to meet certain service/price targets.

Re:this is nothing new

[revscat]

I'm actually a little surpised to see Slashdotters so eager for the goverment to jump into this. Do we REALLY think the Government can do this better/more efficiently than private business? Forever? 'Cause that's what it will be.

I don't think the differences are so significant as to be noteworthy, and the benefits for the community are great. I know it's trendy to believe "government is always bad", but it's not always true. I've worked in enough corporate environments to know how screwed up and inefficient they can be.

Isn't what we really want just more competition?

Sometimes. But competition isn't the end-all be-all. Sure, it works great. Most of the time. But not all of the time.

Re:this is nothing new

[fsmunoz]

I'm actually a little surpised to see Slashdotters so eager for the goverment to jump into this. Do we REALLY think the Government can do this better/more efficiently than private business? Forever?
Yes.

This recorrent myth that "private business" is always more efficient and beneficial for the user doesn't even stand a chance under a closer look. I find it hilarious that these great saviours, the "private businesses", need good old government interference to forbid any effort of providing a community and/or municipal WiFi network access. I private business is oh so much more efficient, why do they need these? Their obvious higher quality and pricing should be enough right? Except that they are there to maximize their profits, not primarily to provide a service. If they can (and they always can, with the power that big business has over the corrupt politicians) keep prices high and provide shitty service, they will. Only if the bottom line is affected is the behaviour changed, and even then, trough price fixing and other cartle like tactics, nothing substantial changes.

Internet access is becoming important enough to constitute a basic necessity (education wise, for example). As such the State should provide it. If private business can top the State offer, that's great! But, as the British pension fiasco showed, they seldom can.

I'm not from the USA though, so I lack that "Sheriff and a saloon and many guns!" kind of view on individual liberty as opposed to colective beneficts dispensed by the Government.

Re:this is nothing new

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Government frequently does the job better than private business.

A recent study (I heard it on NPR) showed that the government-run VA provided better health care than the private competition. Something about knowing the patients would come back, enabling them to focus more on long-term and preventitive care.

Social Security spends less on administration than most private retirement plans. And they provide expensive-to-manage disability insurance as well.

Medicare and Medicaid provide health services with far lower overhead than private insurance companies; IIRC, spending 3% of revenues on administrative expenses vs. 30%. And that's with "free market competition".

When the private supplier has a monopoly position, watch out. The suppliers are maximizing their profit, which means high prices and expensive service has to be justified by the revenue that it brings in (or the revenue that would be lost if they didn't).

"Government subsidies" are another name for corporate welfare. And you can claim they won't be permanent, but they will end up like copyright, renewed and extended every time they're about to expire.

Re:this is nothing new

[LaCosaNostradamus]

What really gets me is how they think they can really stop us.

Yes, they can. Why does the state think they can stop you from shooting up some heroin (or stop you from looking at kiddie porn (or stop you from copying music)), in the privacy of your own home?

What are they going to do?

Detect wireless networks and prosecute. They can simply issue fines on the basis of a triangulated detection on your residence. They can then advance this concept by issuing blanket search warrants, which leads to police knocking on your door and confiscating equipment.

Bust down my door and take my WIFI router away?

That's unlikely to occur. It's overall better to simply fine you. They may also knock, and demonstrate that their detection equipment shows that your home is the problem, hence they have probable cause, so please open the door, Sir, or we'll have to force entry. Chances are, the scared little White boy (the probable target population for wireless crime) is going to open the door, and he's going to get fined, lose his equipment, and maybe be arrested.

Throw me in prison for building a network?

Yes. It's more likely, however, that they'll fine you. Fines are nonviolent, bring in revenue, and avoid all that nasty uncertainty of actual court action (in which a jury might actually decide you are not morally guilty of committing a crime).

The government just loves to illegalize the things that people tend to do for themselves to bring pleasure and capability. In America, this is trending sharply upward, so we must now as a class consider our positions as constant criminals. I look forward to the magic day when cops will just say "ah, screw it" and routinely ignore things ... making it completely obvious that certain laws are illegitimate if they constantly make most of us criminals.

Re:this is nothing new

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Private business can frequently provide services at a lower cost _to_themselves_ than the government. Because they can always jettison the high-cost areas.

That has nothing to do with lowering the cost _to_consumers_. Competition does that. Which is why the local unregulated monopolies have to do anything in their power to stop competition.

Re:this is nothing new

[Shadow99_1]

I said thsi last time, but I'll say it again:

I trust my local government that I can talk to anytime I feel like it more than I trust a company that most likely doesn't even have a local office let alone someone I can talk to at a whim.

& except for the case of Philly most community broadband is setup by small area not getting serviced by the big companies. Which is exactly where I am. I live in a town of 5000, 6000 if you include the farmers til halfway to the next group of towns. I can see my mayor at my local grocery store or bar... Or even a step further I can visit him at his home. Same with any of the city council members.

Want to talk to Verizon (who 'owns' the local phoen lines and 'sometimes' offers DSL)? Well that's gonna be a 30 mile drive to the biggest city in the region. Then you can talk to a peon behind the billing desk, because no one else will talk to you...

So uh yeah when I can personally smack the mayor upside the head for being a dumbass or a company where I can't even talk to anyone above a receptionist... Well I'll take the local government thanks.

Re:this is nothing new

[Provos]

Even more than that, these are state laws preventing any municipalities from funding and operating information services.

Yes, when there is competition, the municipalities often can not compete, but there are places in my state where there is no way it would be cost efficient for a cableco or telco to operate a broadband service.

Take for example, Borden County, population 729 - for the whole county. At what point is there any busines motivation to build the infrastructure necessary to allow access to broadband. Even if all 729 people paid $50 a month, how long would it take, at $36k a month, to pay off the necessary build-out?

That is the point where municipalities need to get involved - not as competition to businesses providing a service, but in place of the businesses when there's no service to begin with, and none likely in the future.

The only way to get around that would be to mandate, at the state level, that if municipalities are not allowed to build their own infrastructure, that the businesses MUST provide it where requested.

Re:this is nothing new

[unixbugs]

That last point you make pretty much summarizes how I look at the big picture here. I'm to the point now where I believe that the less we do to fight this kind thing, the sooner there will be an end to it. Taking action, fighting all of these obscure and spurious laws will only stall the inevitable:

One day they will have such a tight grip that everyone in the country will be affected. Until that time comes there will be no rest. NO REST!

That is only to say that I'd just as soon vote for someone who would bring on even worse laws as I would for someone who might really try to change things because the whole idea of a modern 'democracy' is so twisted and convoluted that we will never see an elected official put into office that is not corrupted by the smell of money.

Furthermore I sincerely hope that we do reach a breaking point before another generation comes and goes and people have all but forgotten what it is like to be able to do whatever the hell you want without violating anothers rights, and just what those rights really are. It almost seems like laws get passed to encourage you to trample on your neighbor and not give a shit about the rest of the world rotting around us.

Re:this is nothing new

[flink]

This is more competition. Most municipal governments are smaller than any of these big cable or telecom companies and actually have less bureaucracy. The people running the service are vested in the community. If something fucks up with the mucicipal service, at least you can go to town meeting or your council member and air your complaints. Try doing that with the Verizon board.

Re:this is nothing new

[Shadow99_1]

Uh what other network? Maybe you don't live where I do, but I have exactly one choice for phone service (Verizon), one choice for cbale TV (Time Warner), heck I have one choice for grocery store! You damned Moron! For gods sake if it wasn't mandated by law I doubt anyone would bother to offer us phone service. Not even Verizon bothers to offer us cellphone service (neither do the two other local cell providers from that big town I mention) for all that we are 30 miles away!

You want to know why? Well tough no ones bothering to answer you as to why, it just is. Has been, maybe always will be.

In place were their are no choices your statement makes not one bit of sense. Who am I going to go to?!? Their is no one else normally. Moving isn't the option either.

I'm tired of people who don't understand the point that bussiness doesn't allways (or even some of the time) do what is best for the people and so when that happens it might (just might now) make sense to let the local government provide a solution! Instead you'd rather I not have any options aparently, by blocking my (& my neighbors) ability to leverage our local tax dollars and government to help ourselves! What gives you the right to do that exactly?

I know this will go over your head (it has any other time I've ever tried to point this out on slashdot), but government isn't allways bad, heck companies aren't allways bad... What matters is what works for the people in the end. And if nothign else having a municipal run broadband that was successful would spur companies otherwise uninsterested in an area that maybe (just maybe!) their is a market and therefore money to be made giving me chocies in the end.

Re:this is nothing new

[Omestes]

I find it hilarious that these great saviours, the "private businesses", need good old government interference to forbid any effort of providing a community and/or municipal WiFi network access.

Good point. And one that I would like the average Randian Libertarian /.er to explain. If they are so against the government regulating industry, why would they be for industry regulating government? And if corporations could do it cheaper, what is wrong with letting government do it, and then if they are correct the gov't won't be able to compete?

Though if we had community cable/broadband, and it cost a couple bucks more, I'd choose it over the telco or cable company, just to support my community. I doubt that most people would do this, though, caring more about their pocket books than the state of where they live. If my neighbor takes my money for service, I view that as a better situation than some rich ass living in New York or California taking it.

But then again I live is a rather small violently liberal community, one that passed a law to keep superwallmart out, and from undercutting the locally owned buisness.

Re:this is nothing new

[Omestes]

Right... And our corporate masters are looking out for our best interests... sure. I always just thought that they were looking for the best ways to sodomize us without us leaving? All you free market people rant about choice, and that is exactly the whole point behind DEMOCRACY, these are our elected officials. The government is evil because you voted them in. Rhetorical you, mind.

And the whole jist of this, is COMMUNITY, not government. Yes, I like my community. I'd pick it over free market, or a 5% price difference. Wanna know why? Because the money goes to community, and hence enriches MY enviroment, and my neighborhood. Seems like a better thing than making Ayn Rand or Adam Smith happy.

Remember, it is YOUR government if you voted. And if you didn't you have no right to open your mouth.

Re:this is nothing new

[valmont]

you said "what we need is more competition". How do you think this is going to happen?

Here's the problem: our country's broadband infrastructure is owned and operated by a couple of corporations who own all the pipes to people's homes. I don't have a problem with corporations building out infrastructure and seeking to make a very lucrative buck off of it. This is what they do. This is free enterprise. Free enterprise is a good thing. Making money is a good thing. However, and understandably enough, local governments just handed them out permits to dig in our streets to lay their pipes without any attempt to negotiate a future "pipe-sharing" plan with supporting infrastructure for competing businesses to offer content/services/data over those pipes, after they'd recouped their costs and made profits to the tune of $X amount, or after Y years of sole operation and ownership. At the time, we didn't really think in terms of data. Fair enough.

We are at a turning point in history, where we now have the ability to change this.

Contrary to what the incumbents would have us believe, municipality-driven broadband infrastructure would, in my opinion, become the ultimate enabler of free enterprise from the private sector in data, media, and communication SERVICES.

Municipality-driven WiFi is just ONE step in an overall encouraging direction.

Municipality-built broadband infrastructures, beyond providing the ability for said municipality to provide very basic connectivity for free or cheap to its constituents, also provides an opportunity to welcome the private sector to compete on an equal footing. The infrastructure must simply be allowed to evolve to allow for mostly automated ways to "share the pipe".

A WiFi system can be easily extended to enable such sharing. So could a fiber-optic network.

Consider today's "sharing" alternatives in the DSL field: it's bleak. My only real DSL alternative is my local Telco, Verizon. Thankfully, I'm able to get service from EarthLink at about the same price point as Verizon, and instead of getting mere connectivity with the insanely useless MSN premium package, i get stuff i actually find useful, such as Mac OS X Address Book synching with my earthlink online address book, which is tied into the challenge-response-based spam filtering. But here's the problem though, while EarthLink is competing on services, it can't compete with Verizon on speed, because they're only able to resell Verizon's DSL connectivity to me, and from what i've heard, we ain't looking at a big margin here.

I want hundreds of EarthLink's competing on both speed and services.

In the case of Muni WiFi, I could for example get free basic connectivity throttled at lower speeds from the City, with no-other services, and justify spending money with fine services such as knowspam.net to protect myself from spam, flickr.com for photo sharing, TypePad for blogging, Rojo.com for news reading, Prodigem.com for Torrents creating/seeding, .Mac for reliable WEBDAV hosting, some packaged-deal from EarthLink, and/or hundreds of cheap services which may be useful TO ME. There's a lot of innovation on the Internet, many of those innovators are struggling to find sustainable revenue models.

Such a broadband scene will also open the doors to triple-play packages: data, media, communications over a single pipe. Many competitors, the best few ones would win, the customer wins.

Right now, in my area, Verizon and Adelphia are the big winners. I, as a consumer, am not. As far as i'm concerned, these fsckers have no business offering internet services, what the fuck do they know abo

Re:this is nothing new

[DarkTempes]

you make a good point about community run services sometimes being a better way to go, especially with your small town scenario, but now i'll point out why.

for a buisness to roll out services to a small group of people (5000 is small to a large corporation), it has to be profitable. all those and all 5000 are not necessarily going to want or need said service, especially in a small town.

for example, the cell phone deal. those cell towers they will have to probably place multiple of cost ALOT of money. and they have to buy the land to put them on and run cable to them and upkeep them, etc. then maybe, 10%? of your town MIGHT decide to get service, well, 500 people is nothing. nothing. they make no profit there, they end up WAY in the hole.

but when it's community run, everyone in the community could add a local sales tax addition for example, then the town (on land it already owns) can roll out the services and everyone can receive them. maybe no the best quality, and definitely won't be fixed/repaired as fast or as good of customer service but it will be provided.

all in all i think it should be the local government/people's choice whether or not to go with community driven or corporate driven.

if they want corporate later on? that's fine, the cable is already laid and they can use that to bug the corporate people into just switching over their services.

Re:this is nothing new

[Shadow99_1]

Yeah I know that's a small market for them... It's an example I'm familiar with though and also an are where that choice was stolen from us by those big companies worried about loosing 'profits' to local government (aka the state of Pennsylvania). Hence why I got a tad biligerent with the person two levels up...

& yes cell towers would be a good community/local government project. To bad this is the US and the companies 'own' the bands used by cellphones making it a good idea that can't legally happen... Not to mention other problems involved in it. The funny thing is all those Verizon "Can you hear me now?" commercials... No, No I can't hear you how about adding a tower...? Though they are better than anyone else locally...

My point is that letting state (& I'm guessing eventually federal) government restrict what local governments can and can't do for their citizens is stupid. And anyone who can't see why this could be important needs to rethink the idea from a different point of view for awhile...

Best of both worlds

[Anonymous Coward]

A good compromise would be to ban municipal wireless internet access unless no provider has established a commercial wireless internet access within 2 years.

Re:Best of both worlds

[ckaminski]

No. That will only encourage corporations to do least cost implementations. You'll have killed any sort of competition a community could drum up, and enslaved them to the will of the corporation leaving them with spotting connections and outrageous prices. Nay, SCREW the corporation. They had their chance.

Re:Best of both worlds

[keyne9]

That's been the case in some of these affected areas for years. The companies keep telling the muni's that they'll either deploy (or that it isn't cost-effective to deploy, heh), then obviously do not. Then, they turn around and tell them "No, you can't do that! That would be taking our (non-existant) business (that we dont' want anyhow) away from us!"

I don't understand

[Nine Tenths of The W]

Why can't the communities register broadband companies and run them in a style similar to mutual societies or worker's co-operatives?

Re:I don't understand

[ArmchairGenius]

Good point. I also wonder how these laws are constitutional. It would seem to me there would be some sort of interstate commerce or equal protection type arguement. But I haven't seen any of the acts.

Re:I don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

That would make sense. There's plenty of precedent for this sort of thing like local electric cooperatives. And even with those, there are thriving electric companies. For example, Ameren operates here and even owns a nuclear plant in the county to the east of here, but there's also the Boone Electric Cooperative.

Re:I don't understand

[swb]

If a community really wanted to do municipal broadband and was barred by law from doing so, the thing to do would be to form a private, non-profit to sell IP/broadband services and then have the municipality favor it politically -- streamline approvals, dig permits, sweetheart deals on use of municipal property for towers/repeaters, switch the municipality over to this as their ISP.

And then do the oppposite for for-profit companies -- sandbag their requests and tie them up in red tape to make it difficult to gain any traction.

Re:I don't understand

[Fooby]

They could. But then they would have to get people to invest a lot of money to buy equipment and get started, which is difficult. And they would have to charge monthly fees, which in the long-term could be highly competetive with commercial providers. But they could not operate at a loss, or provide free service. Governments can. And subsidizing utilities makes sense in some situations.

Re:I don't understand

[OwnedByTwoCats]

Because the high-cost American CEOs would howl through the mass media (that they own and operate) that communities doing so would be Communism! And Communism is Bad. Unamerican. "Worker's co-operative".. that's Socialism! Which is tantamont to Terrorism! Off to gitmo for you...

Re:Like I have always known...

[TimeTraveler1884]

Yeah, this is bullshit. Why not pass a bill that forbids commercial broadband providers from cornering the market and disallowing startup competition.

Oh wait, that would fall under anti-trust territory and we all know that "utilities" are basically exempt from that.

Community or government?

[hcdejong]

From TFA: "A bill limiting Internet offerings by government entities is back for legislative consideration..."

Re:Community or government?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article and the linked bills, they are all banning government-run broadband, NOT community-run. Bad wording on Free Press's part.

Re:Community or government?

[C10H14N2]

Communities form local governments to collect taxes and perform various and sundry duties for the community. If the community can run a fscking library, school, water works, police department, or any other services, why the hell shouldn't they provide a telcom service?

This only seems non-obvious looking at cities like Los Angeles or New York. Go out to Tumbleweed, Idaho and suddenly the relationship to local government is pretty friggen obvious when your cousin is the judge, your neighbor is the mayor and aslo the gas station attendent. In that sense, community and government are utterly synonymous.

And it don't stop, and it won't stop,...

[dnoyeb]

No rest for the weary. Even if its voted down, it will just come back at the next opportunity. That is why we don't get tired or frustrated, we stand strong and casually vote this crap down as many times as we have to.

Obviously community internet will lead to community controlled media eventually squeezeing out cable/phone and every other communication medium. I don't blame the companies one bit. But I will blame the government if they let this happen.

Re:And it don't stop, and it won't stop,...

[rsax]

Obviously community internet will lead to community controlled media eventually squeezeing out cable/phone and every other communication medium. I don't blame the companies one bit. But I will blame the government if they let this happen.

Hehehehehe he said if . This is the government we're talking about remember? Nothing personal, it's just bidness.

Don't worry, America...

[Anonymous Coward]

Community-backed broadband isn't the way we want to go. That sort of stuff is basically anti-capitalist at heart. Really. These companies might look like they're in it for the money, but really, they have our best interests at heart. Seriously. I promise.

Oh, and Saddam really did have all those weapons. Honest. I swear.

Re:Don't worry, America...

[Aceto3for5]

I realize this is a joke, BUT...

I supported/support the war in Iraq, and voted for Bush twice. (Once in each election, just so people dont start screaming about diebold).

That being said, I think his and most every other politician's stand on intellectual freedom issues is wrong. They don't understand the issues, not many citizens do either. They look at it from a short term economic standpoint. They see how free wifi hurts companies short term, but fail to see how a connected society helps long term.

I would love for there to be a unified opposition to this, without dragging all the rest of politics into it. It really is a purple issue (Red and Blue combined... im so savy, I should be a news analyst)

I don't think governments should be competing...

[Anita Coney]

but on the other hand, I don't like rules that forbid a municipality from doing something which could benefit its citizens.

While in the vast majority of instances, it might be appropriate to ban a city from setting up its own ISP, there might be a few towns which are being ignored.

We have towns like that in my northern state. My father lives in a town with no broadband, heck, with NO local dial-up! To say that city can't set up its own ISP is ludicrous. The private sector has had decades to set up something but they've failed to even take notice. The city should be able to take action "for the common good" to set up its own.

This must be what they mean by "free market"

[LMCBoy]

Ah, yes. The free-market system, unfettered from legislative "regulations". Behold its efficiency! Marvel at its ability to out-compete any misguided "Big government" attempts to duplicate that which the market can provide!

Re:This must be what they mean by "free market"

[byronmiller]

I like how we restrict the choice of communities based upon supporting government funded monopolies. You know all of those companies used some public funds to build the infrastructure they rely upon.. Good to support corporations but bad to support community? Didn't these corporations think for one second they could make money off providing the back-end services to these community service providers? Offer consulting & management fees and whatever else they could do? Bad business

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

[eno2001]

Do you call this good? While I'm not 100% in support of community run networks (mostly due to the fact that there aren't enough smart people to run them securely in most communities), I think this illustrate the point quite well that governements no longer have power, the businesses do. After all, who has the most money? Your governments (state local and federal) or businesses? Considering the huge debt at the federal level and the deficits at state and local levels, my money (hehehe) is on the businesses controlling the most funds. And they say we have "big government", hah! It seems that during the past decade, as the tech sector has grown tremendously and gained the most wealth in a short time, more and more "laws and legal decisions" have been bought by them. We are headed rapidly for the corporate feudal system with our governments being democracies only in name. Wake up... we're only a few steps from complete fascism.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point.

The Netherlands had pretty good privacy laws in place, where privacy protection was a fundamental civil right.

Unfortunately, US lobbies, political, but mostly again ECONOMICAL pressure has really damaged our privacy laws.

The US simply demands we give them all the information that even our own government was not able to collect in that fashion without good suspicion. The US threatened to sanction, refuse import, refuse planes, or simply make our lives miserable if we did not comply.. because of economic demendency, we pissed butt and the Dutch govt. usually offers an extra blow job voluntarily on top of it.

So even our laws and constitution will not be safe under capitalist pressures.

Can't have winners without losers.. power and wealth are all a form of energy, and within an enclosed phsyical system such as earth, you can't make something out of nothing, it's about distributing available energy, wealth, control.

For me to have more, others must have less, if we all have more, we're exploiting nature.. it's not sustainable. Depleting natural resources, and those who control (are winners) can only remain in control, by supression.

Think of corporations as the drug lords, and we're the addicts..

Commerce does not benefit our higher conciousness, but promote lower conciousness.. they play on our lust, and politics plays in on our fears, .. government, individualism and democracy, are all tools controlled by corporations, while making us believe they give us control.. It only justifies corporations to continue their unethical practices, because, you're claimed to be "free to choose", as such, they can waive off any responsibility in your misery.. There's a serious fundamental flaw most people haven't figured out yet.
All they see is how 'good' we have it under capitalism..

But only slowly are they seeing that this is not sustainable, because capitalism in respect to natural resources and exploitation of poor countries, is like you spending all of your live's savings in 1 week, and have the time of your life, telling the world if they would spend all their money in 1 week too, they too will have a good life (while it lasts).

When other countries start doign better by the same rules, they will become a threat to other capitalist nations, because rich countries depend on 1) cheap labour in poor countries 2) a big share of the natural resources.

Not capitalism, but distribution is the answer.. not equal distribution, but according to how well you serve others. Primary motivation should not be addiction to drugs, money or religion, things that give others control over you, but conciousness, leading to good sense of morality, ethics, meaning and purpose.

Re:Like I have always known...

[JustDisGuy]

...it's all about the MONEY!

Nope - it's not about the money. It's about control. This would make my open WiFi node illegal, closing one of the few remaining anonymity gaps on the 'net.

Anti competitive

[FidelCatsro]

.. correct me if im wrong , but isnt bringing anti competitive legislation to stop competition (even if it is run by local gouverments) anti competitive in of itself. Yes reading that makes my head sping too. If the city wants to provide free or cheap broadband to its citizens then what is wrong with that , if the companys wish to compete they should have to offer something which the competition doth not. I would far rather have a state run monopoly on services , as atleast then i do have some say over the board of directors via a vote. Aslong as the gouvernment plays fair there is no reason why they should be disalowed to compete

Re:Anti competitive

[An Onerous Coward]

They do have a point, in that governments are allowed to run systems at a loss, indefinitely. No private enterprise can compete with the right of governments to levy taxes.

I think the best way to go is akin to Utah's Utopia Project. The state takes out some municipal bonds, lays out vast swaths of fiber optic cable, connecting a lot of the cities in Utah. Then it pays the bonds back as private service providers rent the lines and compete for customers. The best thing about it is, rather than having to hope that good provider X will get to your area so you can stop using sucky provider Y, they both have to compete for your dollars because changing services is as simple as making a couple of phone calls.

It would be similar to government laying the roads, providing private taxi companies with a forum for competition, rather than having each company build out its own roads over an area. With the latter approach, there is a natural inclination towards unhealthy regional monopolies.

rather strong legislation for Texas

[freakasor]

The bill in the works for Texas would kill not only municipal internet service but could be used to shut down municipal web sites, information channels, etc. "Information" services is a large amount of stuff to block with a single piece of legislation.
http://www.freepress.net/communityinternet/=TXbill
Under the bill, municipalities and municipal electric utilities would be prohibited from providing, directly or indirectly, alone or in partnership with other service providers, either "telecommunications" or "information" services as those terms are defined under federal law.

libertarian arguments against government works

[victorvodka]

These laws make about as much sense as a law that prohibits a government from maintaining a highway system. A government, with its existing rights of way and networks, is in a prime position to build out computer networks, particulary in places where corporations don't feel they can make a profit. I'm really really tired of libertarian arguments that don't take into account all the hidden and structural subsidies that alter the landscape of the supposedly Utopian Adam Smithian Capitalist Marketplace that they claim to want to protect. True capitalism of this sort means that only the strong survive - your next door neighbor with a gun. So it's not communism when a government decides to do something - we're a community, we live together, and if our governments want to build infrastructure that benefits everyone, let them!

Greed

[matth1jd]

It's sad that basically these companies are trying to preserve their virtual monopolies on broadband service instead of attempting to work with communities to develop large scale community wide broad band solutions.

A company such as SBC should really be playing both sides here as they could still charge for a fat pipe to be run a town. The difference being that a municipality has the money to subsidize the pipe and basically sell the bandwith to residents at a loss. SBC makes it's money albeit slightly less than if they were to provide service to each household but money none the less.

We'll see what happens, but I'm seriously considering asking some of my neighbors to get together to lease a line from SBC and then set up a community router. It will save all of us money and I'll finally be able to get a decent connection without interference from the 8 other routers my laptop can connect to.

This isn't stopping Communities!!!

[tommck]

GOD.. R... T... F... A...!!!

It's stopping local governments from doing it!

Re:This isn't stopping Communities!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn politics. The local government is the orginised expression of the community. The whole purpose of the local government is to reprisent the comunity and take care of issues related to the community. If the local governement can do it cheaper than business, then so be it. Business better learn to compete.

By the way, the lack of cheap Internet access stalls the local economy. So it's in the best interest of community businesses to support community networks

Re:I don't think governments should be competing..

[gowen]

All your plan would lead to is socialism, then to communism and then where would we be?

Why, we'd be right at the bottom of that Slippery Slope.

Re:Like I have always known...

[digitalchinky]

So why not make it commercial and charge 1 cent for 1 year. If the law sucks, flex it.

My experience with municipal broadband

[Mr_Perl]

In my small town of Spencer, IA we have a municipal provider of electricity, cable TV, phone, and broadband.

Phone costs $10.50/mo per line.
Basic Cable costs $5.00/mo
3Mbit/sec broadband costs $27.50/mo.

Not to mention some of the lowest electric rates in the state.

The reason we did this was because the local cable company had spent decades gouging on the prices on cable and having crappy service and we finally had enough of it and built our own system.

Mediacom still is around, but now charging fair prices. This municipal effort INCREASED COMPETITION, breaking the monopoly the phone and cable companies enjoyed for so many years.

I'm a firm believer in Municipal Utilities, if you have the chance to write a letter to your congresspeople by all means do it now.

Re:My experience with municipal broadband

[Monkelectric]

My god thats great... Let me go over the bills in my house:

Single phone line: $40 (verizon)

Basic Digital TV Package: 80$/m (adeplhia...)

3/256 Cable Modem: 50$/m.

There's simply no other choices in my community.

Re:My experience with municipal broadband

[SamNmaX]

Mediacom still is around, but now charging fair prices. This municipal effort INCREASED COMPETITION, breaking the monopoly the phone and cable companies enjoyed for so many years.

This is a big problem with how capitalism has been going. When there is competition it's a win, but when there is little competition we end up with oliopolies and monopolies, and they will charge as much as they can get away with to maximize their profit. I'd argue that having a single company control a business is much worse than having the government control it, as at least theoritically the government can provide the service at a fair price, whereas without competition the business will not.

I do have some qualms about government going into business's that are handled by the private sector, besides the big brother issue. The main issue is that the if the government wants to allow there to continue to be a private market, they have to ensure they don't charge less than what it costs to provide the service. In the case the parent post provides, it appears they have not run out the competition, which is a good thing. What I'd like to see is for industries such as this where the government wants to do something about unfair prices, the government help setup co-ops that would be self-sufficient after x number of years. As long as there is a rule of (at minimum) self-sufficiency, private enterprise should still be able to thrive.

well

[palad1]

That would be socialism, and that would be double-plus ungood.

(Same thing happened 2 years ago in France, a wireless operator in the south got its ass sued into oblivion by France Telecom because it set up a simple wireless network for small villages)

Exposes the lies to cost claims?

[Stephen Samuel]

If the commercial companies claim that it costs $70/month to serve customers in an area, but a community group manages to do it for $30, what does this mean about the $50/month service that they're 'providing' in the high-profit areas?

It's not just that they don't want municipalities competing against them -- they don't want groups competing against them who have open books.

Re:Exposes the lies to cost claims?

[fatboy]

If the commercial companies claim that it costs $70/month to serve customers in an area, but a community group manages to do it for $30, what does this mean about the $50/month service that they're 'providing' in the high-profit areas?

These laws are not about "Community Groups" providing access. This is about the local government spending taxpayer money to compete with commercial providers for Internet access.

Build a Broadband Co-Op! Just don't make the taxpayer pay for it.

Re:Exposes the lies to cost claims?

[Stephen Samuel]

Build a Broadband Co-Op! Just don't make the taxpayer pay for it.

For the most part, it takes something the size of a municipality to put together something that size. Most of these companies already have government-mandated control of our communication -- that's really not too far from tax capability.

Adam Smith considered big business to be roughly the same as big government... Both result in centralized planning, local market inflexibility and sucking capital out of the local market.

A municipal communicatins corporation provides local control of communications capability.

I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta. Ever since the dawn of the Telephone era, they had a municipal telephon company -- once again started because the big players didn't consider a small town in the middle of the praries (early 1900's) worth investing in. The company ran at a profit, and helped to lower Edmonton's taxes.
Now it's owned by Telus -- a multi-provincial conglomerate partly owned by MCI. I really don't see much of an advantage in the new setup.

Some people seem to think that large corporations have some sort of constitutional right to profit -- they don't. The original purpose of corprations was to pool community resources to provide a service to the community. Whether those pooled resources come from Bill Gate's Windows Tax, or a municipal levy doesn't make much of a difference to my pocket book -- either way the money's gonna be coming out of my pocket. With a municipal company, at least most of the profit and control is going to stay local.

If a company feels that my community is worth investing in, then they should do it -- now. If they're not willing to do so, then they shouldn't be getting in the way of anybody else providing the service that they're not willing to -- governmental or otherwise.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Come on, where are the tinfoil hats?

[bs_02_06_02]

I don't get the dreamy types who want the government to run something technical? Most people on /. are bloody paranoid about government abuse of power, spying, etc. Why on EARTH would you want the government building a muni network?

Personally, I think muni networks stifle innovation. Sure, there are the exceptions, but on the whole, most muni networks are a day late and a dollar short. Who wants their local network run by a committee that hasn't ANY CLUE about technology? Worse, they'll hire some crooked contractor to administer the thing, and offer incentive-based pay to keep costs as low as possible. I've seen government contracts like these, and they frequently accomplish the opposite of what they were intended, and the politicians who are responsible are long gone by the time the full effects are felt.

Which would you rather have? 3 or 4 companies vying to offer broadband? A little competition, different features, upgrades every few years? Or a local government that bought a white elephant from the lowest bidder? And then have it governed by a group of politicians who are non-technical glory hounds, probably bought off by the white elephant equipment vendor?
Hmmm. Tough choice.

Do you really want your next door neighbors telling the city that they don't want anymore upgrades because they don't care? Or would you rather vote with your pocketbook and choose from a selection of providers?

Does anyone else out there

[Phleg]

...have a problem with government controlling access to the Internet? Anyone at all?

I know this is Slashdot and we're supposed to hate big buisiness and everything, but isn't government-provided Internet access just a bad idea? First off we have the fact that government can always undercut the opponent and hide the costs in taxes; few will ever complain. So clearly there's the risk that in the end we'll end up paying even more for broadband than we used to. Second, once government is involved, this throws the door wide open for "concerned mothers" to start lobbying for state-, county-, or city-wide controls on the content. You know how draconian those content filters are at government-run schools? In all likelihood these will go on municipal broadband offerings, too.

If it's like any other government service, it will be poorly and insecurely run, slow to respond (for instance, blocking ports to stem the spread of viruses), and twice as expensive as anything else. And by the time it's in, we'll be stuck with it for the rest of eternity (Amtrak, anyone?).

Re:Does anyone else out there

[jeff4747]

Does anyone else out there have a problem with government controlling access to the Internet? Anyone at all?

Not at all.

Government is bound by the constitution, and the first and fourth amendments should be easy to leverage into stopping those 'concerned mothers'. (Filters are legal in schools and libraries, because minors have very limited constitutional rights. Adults can ask the librarian/teacher to disable the filtering while they use the computer.)

Private companies, OTOH, have no such restrictions. Your local cable monopoly could decide to respond to those 'concerned mothers' and slap on a filter, and there would be nothing you could do about it. In theory you could switch to another provider, but in most places there's a monopoly on broadband.

If it's like any other government service, it will be poorly and insecurely run, slow to respond, and twice as expensive as anything else

Take a look at the history of municipal utilites that were privatized. The municipal service offered water, sewer and electric power for less than for-profit companies that replaced them. And they did operate in the black while doing it, and service was as reliable as private companies.

In a completely free market, I'd agree that government is bad, but in the case of utilites there is no free market.

Re:Does anyone else out there

[PMuse]

government can always undercut the opponent and hide the costs in taxes; few will ever complain.

Those books are open. And, in my experience, there is never any lack of picky people complaining. Private corps, by comparison, can hide any level of profit, gouging, or executive largess behind their closed books. And they can ignore any complaints.

If it's like any other government service, it will be poorly and insecurely run, slow to respond (for instance, blocking ports to stem the spread of viruses), and twice as expensive as anything else. (Amtrak, anyone?)
If Amtrak tickets are more expensive than other modes, perhaps this is because there are fewer hidden tax dollars funding it.
2004 U.S. Department of Transportation 54.5 billion
Aviation 13.8 billion (25%)
Highways 33.9 billion (62%)
Railroad 1.45 billion (2.7%)
Other 5.35 (10%)
This doesn't even begin to address the local and state monies that go into roads and airports.

Where governments have actually done broadband, the results have been good. All the reasons given to stop govts doing this smell of FUD.

Trading one monopoly for another?

[mjh]

I don't really understand the hue and cry from folks on this forum to have their broadband run by the a local government. Aren't you just trading one monopoly (the telco's and cable company) for another (the municipality)? In the latter case, it strikes me that you don't have the choice not to pay the government, where as if the telco and/or cable company sucks, you can decide not to pay them, which gives them an incentive to at least make sure that there service doesn't suck too bad. But with the gov't I don't see what incentive they'll have to provide good services. You're legally required to pay your taxes whether the service is good or bad.

Personally, where I live, I wouldn't mind seeing the gov't reeled in a bit. That way that can't force my neighbor (who is happy as a clam w/out broadband) to subsidize my broadband. If my broadband provider starts to suck, I'd like the option of not subsidizing someone else's broadband. I don't see any way to do this latter part if it's run by a gov't.

For a group of people strongly opposed to monopolies (e.g. micorosft), I don't really understand why you'd prefer to have some other monopoly (e.g. the local gov't) running your lives.

Is there something obvious that I'm missing?

Re:Trading one monopoly for another?

[farquharsoncraig]

It's not a monopoly. The community government provides the infrastructure, but then that's a whole different potential quagmire the likes of which we see with the current telcos' stagnation, who are apathetic when in profit. With the govenrment owning and maintaining the fiber right up to your back yard, you would be able to subscribe to any ISP available.

Please don't do that

[essreenim]

I'm happy about the E.U commisioners decision to restart the patent law process etc. but I'm tired of all this Europe with rivers of gold bs. That's just cock. I've been in a good few European countries now and I live in Europe. There is no limit to the amount of corruption and negativity in this (formerly the most war ravaged region on Earth) continent. Having vistied the US, there are allot of things about it that are better than here. If it wasn't for the fact that there are so many marginalised people and so many excessively rich (inequlity in other words) , I would move there. I could even tolerate the gun ownership, provided it would be much more strictly regulated.

..blah...blah.

Re:Like I have always known...

[eno2001]

4) Looking up who talked to little sally online the night before he was raped and killed reasons.

Urggh? "Little Sally" must be one tough little girl. And you left out:

5) Profit!!!

Had this been applied to electricity...

[Colonel Panic]

What if back in the 1920's laws were passed to ensure that public electrical projects couldn't be setup to compete with private industry?

We wouldn't have had the TVA, BPA and Rural electrification. Many rural areas would probably still be without electricity.

Interestingly enough, the Bush admin wants to get rid of the BPA (Bonneville Power Admin) that runs the dams in the Northwest. Doing so will amount to a 30% rate increase for electric customers in the Northwest. So much for the free market...

Larry says...

[tooloftheoligarchy]

1.) This legislation is despicable.

2.) Don't take my word for it. Listen to Prof. Lessig's first podcast for a thoroughly considered explanation of why this is not in our best interest.

Who owns the highways?

[CompSci101]

Oh, that's right. The government.

Who maintains them? Oh, that's right, the taxpayers.

Who makes money off them? Well, lessee: there's UPS and FedEX and the USPS and many small shipping companies and Greyhound and...

Who makes money off the cable network? Oh, that's right: Comcast and a few others.

Who makes money off the phone network? Oh, that's right: Verizon and a few others.

Why am I being so pedantic? Because the lies are such that they can be seen through by a 5-year-old if you just have the will to open your eyes and stop jabbering about how any government involvement in the economy is socialist/communist and, ultimately, a Bad Thing(tm). The above examples are probably proof enough that an open system is better for capitalism in the end -- i.e., the overall size of the market, not just the vast fortunes a few greedy bastards in control of fundamental networks can hold the system ransom for.

Didn't taxpayers pay to lay some of these networks to begin with, anyway?

C

Municipal Cable and Internet Parallels

[Gallenod]

Current initiatives for municipal broadband have a lot in common with previous attempts to set up municipal cable systems, not the least of which is that the same companies (Cox, Viacom, Adelphia, etc.) are involved.

Municipal cable TV proposals aren't completely dead, they've just gone out of style. However, The city of Burlington, Vermont, is petitioning the state public service board (http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?A ID=/20050214/NEWS/502140334/1003/NEWS02) for permission to set up its own cable television service. The difference between this and the broadband proposals is that Adelphia is claiming that establishing a municipal cable network would be "overbuild," while with the broadband they're claiming that allowing a municipality to set up a broadband network would then prevent commercial companies from entering the market.

What do they want? If it's open markets, they should be willing to compete with municipal projects on a level playing field (i.e. one where the city can't subsidise their system through tax revenues).

If they champion "first-to-post" efficiency, then whoever builds the network first should be able to reap the benefits. Given government's alleged inefficiencies, that may mean that even if a city builds a cable or wireless network, they'd eventually have to sell it to a commercial provider if it becomes a liability to the city.

All it will take is one state allowing this before it becomes a national issue with a fight in Congress. The big cable companies are fighting this state to state at the moment, but Vermont is a very independent-minded state. IF they let Burlington proceed it wouldn't be the first time they've told an industry co-op to buzz off and set a precedent for any city that wants to do something similar either with cable or IP. I expect Adelphia to pull out every weapon they can find to stop them, but I'm hoping, as with the sign restriction laws, land development rules, and the non-returnable bottle ban, that Vermont holds its ground and lets Burlington take Adelphia on head to head.

They may ultimately fail, but I'd rather see them go down in a fair fight than see the project get bound, gagged, and tossed in Lake Champlain before it can get to the arena.

I live in Tallahassee, we already have Canopy.

[newdamage]

Currently in Tallahassee you can get free wireless internet both downtown and at the airport. It's called Canopy, and it basically requires you to access a website first and then it connects you. It's quite convienent in the airport while you're waiting for a plane, I haven't had a chance to use it much downtown yet.

Also, just for reference: Comcast highspeed internet without cable, $55/month. Gotta love monopolies fighting tooth and nail to hang on to their huge profits.

Community Standards.

[rednip]

When I first heard of these 'full profit for telecomm companies' acts, I thought, WOW, how completely self serving of those corporations. While I still think that the legislation is too giving to those companies, I decided to think of what could happen if government controlled Internet access. The community clubs which you speak of carry many restrictions about use, would you like your Internet to work the same way?

I can imagine that in smaller communities and perhaps larger ones, that 'local decency groups' would force local elected officials to censor objectionable content. Since they would be you ISP it would be easy to administer community standards. I can imagine that political hacks in charge of the network creating 'routing problems' which block opposition candidates, or the local rumor mill. Heck the local police could check on your email, or see which sites you visit. While larger communities might have good separation, smaller ones might even have the police dispatcher as the overnight server support!

I think that these laws should be written to include 'fair access' in the same way that local telephone companies are starting to open their own access, sort of a carrot and stick approach.

Since Adam Smith, the balance has changed

[panurge]

We are still working on the outdated idea that government is big and we need to be protected from it, while business is small and needs free access to markets to flourish. This may be true still in a few places in the world, but increasingly the big government we need to be protected from is large companies.

Case in point: in our town, Walmart wanted to build on a green field site. By the time they got around to it zoning rules had changed, but guess what? Our small municipality could not afford the legal fees to take on Walmart. Big corporate crushing small government.

And this is the same thing again. The fact is, if small municipalities can afford to provide broadband at reasonable rates, the private suppliers should easily be able to match them. Because private enterprise is so much more efficient than public enterprise, isn't it?

Well, pardon me while I beg to differ. Why should private enterprise, with its private airplanes, hugely overpaid execs, vast corporate dick-swinging-contest headquarters, and layers of management, be so much more efficient than small community efforts where the management overhead is minimal and the project manager isn't spending most of his or her time trying to do down the internal competition for the coveted corner office job?

Private enterprise is very good at delivering capital goods cheaply, but actually not always terribly good at delivering services cheaply.

It is hard to understand on what basis private companies have the right to prevent citizens banding together to co-operate on projects, whether it be putting up a community hall or a local broadband service. Perhaps a constitutional lawyer could explain it, but an expert on the cash flow of lobby companies might do better.

Freedom

[famazza]

Individuals have all the same rights. But companies have more rights then individuals.

That's the so called democracy in the United States.

Re:Freedom

[dodongo]

And don't forget the ever-important subclassificaion of "individuals", in which all individuals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Touchdown!

[UES]

As we all know, Privately owned things can always deliver better service.

As evidence, I offer the fact that the Privately owned Cincinnati Bengals ALWAYS defeat the Community owned Green Bay Packers.

They could ...

[pavon]

but then they couldn't fund it using tax-payer dollars. That is half of the appeal of municipal internet access - it is "cheap" or "free" because it is being subsidized by people who don't use it (those without computers), or who use it and are paying a disproportionate amount of the costs (the wealthy). The local telcos and cable companies are definately not providing the best bang-per-buck possible, mostly because there is not enough competition. But a small coop has it's own inefficiencies, and I would not expect them to be able to do much better than the existing broadband services on price - without sweetheart price-setting legislation forcing the hardline owners to offer their lines to the coop at whatever the politicians think is a "fair" price.

That said, even though I would not support government broadband in my community, I do not like these laws. I am a pragmatic liberterian but I also believe in democracy formost. If these comunities want thier towns to provide broadband, that is their decision to make. The federal government has no place telling the states what services they can and can't offer, and the states have no place telling the counties/towns what services they can and can't offer. Besides, the fact that there is such demand from the comunity for these services shows that the existing monopolies are not serving the people well, and creating legisation to enshrine them further is not the answer.

Re:They could ...

[DavidTC]

I agree with you, but I think there's something you aren't considering:

With public wifi, the costs are an internet connection, and various adapters. (Don't have to pay for locations, businesses love having a free wifi connection in their business.)

With for pay, you added 'billing', and 'keeping track of who paid their bill', and all sorts of crap.

Sticking up a public network might cost, oh, 300 dollars a month, with a startup cost of 5000 dollars. (Probably need a system admin, but, then again, they probably already have an IT guy for the government. Or just have the local high school students volunter to run it.) This is trivially within reach of any town over 200 people.

Now add billing, and someone to keep track of it. Well, you could do that with income tax, except people don't pay local income tax. There are going to have to be bills sent.

Now add the fact that keeping track of the people on the network is now a full time job...you need to keep track of MAC addresses or logins or something, and match those up with the billing.

I mean, you've at least tripled the cost. You've probably added another full-time staff, and you've turned it into a business.

I mean, imagine the street in front of your house, and all those people who don't use it. Imagine all the streets that you don't use, and how you pay for them. Now imagine that the government could keep track of who used what streets, at least statistically, and just billed everyone for their existimated useage...that would cost a lot more than just having the streets.

Sometimes, just doing things for everyone is a hell of a lot cheaper than billing people for them. Yes, people without computers will pay for people who have them, but people in cities paied for phone lines in the country, and people without cars pay for roads, people without children pay for schools, etc, etc. A wifi broadband connection is peanuts compared to one road being built on the other side of the state, which you pay for all the time.

OTOH, my local touristy city has an open wifi network on the square that I think was setup by the Chamber of Commerce. Or just three or four businesses on the square working together. (Of course, I'm talking about a football field worth of coverage here, not a city.)

Re:Like I have always known...

[krgallagher]

"This would make my open WiFi node illegal, closing one of the few remaining anonymity gaps on the 'net."

Actually it would not. These are laws preventing governments from providing internet. This is about telcoms and cable providers not wanting to compete with governments for customers.

I kind of have mixed feelings about this. I am not sure I want to subsidise internet service on the government level. On the other hand, the information gap for low income people is a huge disadvantage in seeking employment. Also I take advantage of free WiFi at airports and libraries when I travel. Technically that would be considered government provided internet. I would not want to lose that service. Maybe the answer is a tax incentive to providers to subsidse low income families' service. I am of the opinion that free enterprise can always provide a service cheper than a government bureaucracy.

Oregon Municipal Broadband

[Mike626]

In Oregon, where the Personal Telco Project has been slowly stitching together a free wifi network in Downtown Portland, the threat to municipal broadband comes in the form of HB 2445.

This pending bill places some crippling roadblocks in the way of municipal broadband for Oregon. It would require municipalities to have a majority vote in a referendum before providing any such service and would subject the proposed municipal communications providers to open records and open meetings requirements that do not apply to private-sector providers.

Requirements like those are just the Oregon way. I've lived in many places, and Oregon by far has the most politically active citizenry. While on the surface such requirements may seem appealing in order to protect Oregonians, they might just be the sugar coating a poison pill for municipal wifi.

The bill also calls for a cost-benefit analysis to be done at the end of three years. Three years is a very short time to see a return on investment. And the process detailed by HB 2445 would need to be repeated for each municipality as the network expands. This sounds like a long and tedious process. By the time anything can be done, the technology to disseminate network connectivity will have changed multiple times.

Mike.
http://injoke.org

Shouldn't it be my choice?

[tkrotchko]

"How can you sit back and trust your local or state government to deliver this service?"

Whether I do or don't is immaterial.

The real question is:

As a resident, as a citizen, isn't it my right to empower my local government to deliver WiFi/Broadband if I desires?

Perhaps I think my local government does do a good job delivering services.

To me, the argument about essential versus non-essential services is interesting, but not at all relevant to the discussion here.

It's Time for Civil Disobedience

[blacklily8]

Okay. Enough is enough. I think it's time we stopped being complacent here and started demanding better representation for the public interest from our elected officials. It's really painful and embarrassing for someone like me, who values the freedoms and honorable intentions of our U.S. Constitution, to read about affronts like this. What's even more unnerving is how many people are willing simply to rollover and play dead. We have a clear example of here of taxation without representation. Yes, it's in a different form than a Stamp Act, but it's the same principle--I say it's time for a new tea party in Boston.

Thoreau, where are you now? We need you to show Americans how a good man can stand up for justice and refuse to allow himself to be dominated by a government that prefers to give the public empty rhetoric rather than the freedoms to be good people and decent neighbors.

There is more at stake here than having to pay higher prices for broadband. What we have here is the government moving in to protect private interests who want to CONTROL the Internet; to inhibit free speech and deny users access to the single greatest resource we possess for enabling and maintaining a true global democracy. Do you really want AOL/Time Warner and Verizon dictating the terms we can access the Internet? Of course our well-bribed officials are siding with the multinationals; they know which side their bread is buttered on. It's time to show them what happens in America when the public gets fed up with corruption and a so-called elective system of government that offers taxation without representation.

I'd like to see them start arresting communities in masse and try to justify that to their electorate. Good luck! If people would just stand up for their rights, we wouldn't have to worry about crap like this.

Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers DIED for our freedom. Are we willing to go to jail for it?

Re:I'm not sure if I'll ever understand this

[jeff4747]

Try to name three things the Government does good

1. Water
2. Power (electric)
3. Sewer

There's a long history of goverment doing each of these cheaper and more reliable than the for-profit companies that take over when these utilities are privatized.

Anti-americanism

[bagofbeans]

I posit that current anti-americanism is not a "hate America" or "hate Americans" posture, but "hate the imperialist behaviour of the current American government" in the name of the American people. I think Blair is being a dickhead too, but I don't translate that into a blanket anti-British feeling.

If the big boys aren't interested...

[rkhalloran]

I'm in Jacksonville FL; the city gov't has set up a large neighborhood hotspot for one of the 'developing' neighborhoods. The article says this sort of thing would be exempted, but the phrase you HAVE to add to something like this is "for how long?"

If the cable/DSL duopoly isn't interested in serving an area, why should they get to whine when the local government steps in to fill the need? The demand is clearly present, or the city fathers wouldn't bother either.

Then add the provisions that apparently hinder public websites for city/county/state government, and you REALLY have to start wondering.

GOVERNMENT DOESN'T HAVE OWN MONEY

[dunc78]

You do realize that the government doesn't have their own money right? Ultimately, in the end, we are going to have to pay whatever it costs to provide the service in taxes. So if it costs X to provide the service and they charge Y to users, the other X - Y is just going to be made up in taxes. So people who don't even know what WiFi is will be subsidizing our browsing (not to say we don't subsidize things all the time that we don't use). The real question is can the government really provide this service cheaper than private business and how do we determine exactly how much the goverment is spending to provide the service. That is the problem with private businesses trying to compete against the goverment.

The problem here is two-fold

[jocknerd]

The local governments are wanting to provide Wi-Fi because the telecom monopolies are sitting on their asses and not providing it because of various reasons.

The second issue is in the areas where the telecom monopolies are providing it, they are the only choice and are charging too much. If the government wants to get involved, contract out the data infrastructure. Don't leave it in the hands of a Verizon to control everything.

Which scenario is better?
Scenario A: Verizon runs fiber to my house. Verizon is my only choice of ISP. If I want another ISP, they have to run a separate fiber line to my house. Nuts!

Scenario B: Gov't awards job to contractor to run fiber to my house. I can choose from multiple ISP's for my service over this fiber.

Re:I'm not sure if I'll ever understand this

[the phantom]

1) Yes, I can drink the water. Tap water in the US is some of the best in the world. I can drink it without getting parisites, large doses of heavy metals, or other nasties. Most tap water contamination in the country comes not from the municipalities, but from old lead pipes in people's houses.

2) What? Mix ups? No. Corruption, yes. I would hardly call Enron a 'mix up'.

3) Yes, taxpayers are paying for sewer. But they are paying less in property tax than they would to a private corporation (at least, this is the point of the parent).

Let me add a forth item (one with which I am intimately familier, but which you probably don't know or care much about):

Historic and cultural preservation. Before the government will give money or land to any project (i.e. mining, foresting, &c.), the leaders of that project must ensure that they are not adversly impacting the environment (or, that if they are, they mitigate the effects of their project -- i.e. mine reclaimation). Part of this is ensuring that our cultural heritage is not lost (i.e. protecting archaeological sites, old buildings, &c.).

I have worked for the government, and have seen what it costs the government to do the work. There is some overhead, but because there are many people working on many projects at any one time, the overhead devoted to historic preservation is fairly low. Furthermore, the government pays less in wages than private contractors. I have seen the contracts, and the feds can do this kind of work much more cheaply than private industry. However, government regulation requires that a certain amount of the work is contracted out. To the lowest bidder.

Come on, where are the responsible citizens?

[Miaowara_Tomokato]

I don't get the dreamy types who view the government as some huge outside force that is imposed on them.

We are the government. We hold the power (responsibility?) to change things. If the government was considering building a municipal network in your area, as a technologically adept citizen, what would stop you from getting ahold of the people responsible, and having a sit-down talk with them about the proper way to do it? What would stop you from volunteering to administer or advise this project? What's stopping YOU from being the contractor that runs it?

Instead all I can see in this post is three paragraphs of complaints modded insightful, with not one solution proposed. That makes the parent only half a post.

Everything breaks down when everyone expects everyone else to deal with problems. So, now that the paranoid flag-waving is out of the way, I look forward to reading the solutions you propose to the problems you outlined above.

Or maybe someone else will do it for you.

Re:I'm not sure if I'll ever understand this

[jeff4747]

Can you actually drink your tap water?

Yep. There's nothing unhealthy in it. It sometimes has a metallic taste, so I'll run it through a filter on my end, since _ANYONE_ sending water through miles of metal pipes will result in water with a metallic taste.

Please actually do some long term research rather than just pointing at messed up transitions pains.

I have. Have you? Muncipial power companies in CA were forced to privatize their serves. They're still paying tons more per KWh. So how many years will this 'transition period' last? Oh, btw, in other countries were the power grid was privatized as much as 20 years ago, they still pay a ton more per KWh (even taking inflation in to account).

Just because you don't see the $100 a month to pay for something doesn't mean it isn't there.

Well, as a municipal utility you get to see the books. If you want to know how much of your taxes are going to subsidize it, you can simply read their annual reports.

Every municipal utility I'm aware of cover their day-to-day expenses from their service fees. Some do get government funding to help for captial improvements, but many private utilties also get government funding for captial improvements.

Re:Like I have always known...

[d34thm0nk3y]

I am of the opinion that free enterprise can always provide a service cheper than a government bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, in the majority of these markets it is not "free" enterprise, it is basically a monopoly. If the market can provide the cheaper/faster access people will choose it over the muni access.

let's go all the way

[zogger]

You pretty much got it. And the US still has huge areas that are offered zero broadband, nor are they going to be offered broadband from the private concerns anytime soon. It seems it's OK to have government run and regulated roads, so that the stuff we get from the non broadband served areas can get into the cities, but the stuff from the cities out, run over much cheaper wires, seems to be "controversial" and "it wouldn't pay" and is "too expensive". We can have "broadband" government run water pipes into the cities, but not broadband data pipes out. Hmm, isn't that special. Perhaps the people not served with broadband in the rural areas should shut their water that they have been getting ripped off for for generations down to a trickle (analogous to dialup) going into the cities and see how everyone there liked that. And when they complained direct them to the data pipe monopolists for a solution. A pipe is a pipe, they both serve a purpose and having "enough" beyond a marginal intermittent trickle is sure a good thing. And privatise it and really make a huge profit on it, no local government involved. Oh, joe big city wants more water and have it cheap because it's useful? Well, no problem, build your own pipelines then, or pay the fee like it should be. Without tax money. Purchase each individual right of way from each rural land owner that the pipeline crosses. Let's do it with natural gas as well. See what it costs the end user in the cities for water and heating gas then. Oh, they like electricity? Swell, let them start their own coalmines inside the cities, and build their own genplants, all private run, but inside the cities only. Any coal from outside has to pay each individual landowner a fee for crossing his property on his stretch of private road, or his stretch of private train tracks. Let's let the rural folks who's lands the powerlines cost all individually negotiate the fee for allowing those electrons to slide on by on their property. Would make for some interesting cost increases then. The rural folks would have enough money to pay for their own fat data pipes then, but now? Nope, they get ripped off for critical products, forced by law to "share" what they own so that the huge dense population areas can have cheap and plentiful. Food? No problem, they got all them big buildings downtown, maybe Verizon and Bellsouth HQ rooftops can have gardens on them to supply their "profitable" broadband customers with food too.

The FCC "allows" 50,000 watt commercial stations, and industry cookie-cutter "content" monopolisation, yet joe schmoo little local guy out in the sticks can hardly get "permission" to run a 10 watt community station without the licensing fees costing more than the hardware, and don't even think about it being a commercial venture. Now they want to disallow any attempt at all to even have a chance at broadband when it has become obvious that the big guys just will *not* move it to places it's not at already? And the only bone they can throw is 802.11x with that pitiful range, and even that wouldn't be "allowed" for a community to run itself?

Nuts. Large corporate run government, gotta love it.

Enumerated:

[lysium]

Whatever the poster's motives, it represents a lot of very dangerous thinking where people are willing trade their freedom for a little free service from the government.

Would that be the freedom to photograph bridges and subways without being harassed by police, or the freedom to enter the country without fingerprinting? Perhaps you meant the freedom to grow and ingest psychoactive plants? Lest I forget, the freedom that comes with puritanical views on sex?

Oh. You meant the freedom to make lots of money without having to pay onerous taxes. How....visionary.

Re:Like I have always known...

[yog]

Your hesitation about bureaucracy is understandable, but we already rely on publicly built and subsidized physical networks such as roads, highways, bridges, and subway and commuter trains. If only private enterprises were allowed to build these things, they would probably all be for-fee services that would cost considerably more. A public toll road is a form of regressive taxation, since the poor and working class have to use the same facilities as the middle and upper income classes.

I would argue that municipal internet as an optional service would be great; it would create a level playing field for all sorts of services ranging from banking to entertainment to traffic updates. It would be a lowest common denominator for communications. If service providers paid a fee for space on the network, it would probably help to pay for itself and without the need for a profit. I would take that over a monopoly any time.

Regarding reliability and efficiency, it's hard to imagine a government-run internet access service being much worse than Verizon DSL, which seems to have outages and interruptions several times a week, and whose level-1 technical support staff are totally script-driven and lacking in any real technical training. It's always annoying when there's an outage and their first question is, "What version of Windows are you running?" "Fedora who? We don't support that."

Re:Taking things a little too far...

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Doesn't that all depend upon how broadly or vaguely the law is worded? The laws against government-community networks can be worded to also illegalize individual-community networks. I think we've seen government test the waters on this already, with various state attempts to tax private networks. The threat is always out there ... since governments and corporations partnered together find individual freedom to be completely incompatible with their plans for total economic domination.

...and your head is in the clouds.

[lysium]

Which would you rather have? 3 or 4 companies vying to offer broadband?

You have 3 or 4 sets of DSL and cable wires running into your house? That sounds great. There are parts of New York City that totally lack DSL and cable. In 2005. I wonder why, after so many years? Surely the free market would not let such a need go unfilled!

Re:Like I have always known...

[Doomdark]

I am of the opinion that free enterprise can always provide a service cheper than a government bureaucracy.

I disagree with your opinion. :-)
But at least opinions can be changed with facts... it'd be worse if you blindly "believed" it, like many here do.

Thing is, there are areas where non-profit organizations (governments included) can and do provide cheaper (better, more efficient, more complete) service. These are mostly in areas of health care, education and infrastructure. For example, most other western countries are what many rightist politicans would consider "socialistic" health care: such systems provide for better coverage (everyone gets treated, no medical bankruptcy if you get cancer etc. etc.), at about half the price (per-capita health care spending ratio between US and other industrialized countries). Same applies to education (interestingly enough, even the cost ratio is about the same: 2-to-1 in favour of society-sponsored system). And in the infrastructure area (where municipal networks woudl be), even US has government run entities like US Post Office... so there has to be something good in there.

Re:I'm not sure if I'll ever understand this

[Jeremi]

All the curruption and greed in the private sector is 10 fold in government.

But through the miracle of competition, the private sector has shrunk this ratio to only 4-fold. At this rate we'll have parity by 2010.

Re:I'm not sure if I'll ever understand this

[Tergenev]

I've lived in two locales, the greater Cleveland area and the greater Tampa area, and in both locations the municipal water was of very good quality. I and my family do drink the water "from the faucet". And I'll tell you a secret, most of that bottled water that people buy from those commercial entities are simply taking water from some municipal supply or another, or from a community resource such as the crystal springs here in Florida, and bottling them WITHOUT ANY ADDITIONAL treatment.
Not that I think that I can convince an anti-government zealots such as yourself, but I'll give you a couple more examples of activities that probably should not be in the hands of private corporations:
The CDC - Do you really want the entity that is trying to watch out for and react to an Asian bird-flu pandemic to be a for-profit enterprise? I certainly don't. Some activities MUST be done in the public good WITHOUT the impact of market forces.
The Federal Highway Agency- The U.S. federal highway system is the envy of the world (well, except for maybe Germany) precisely because it is open, free, well-designed, and (at least until recently) well maintained.
Protection of the food supply - Let me let you in on a little secret, before the FDA was set up, the only forces in place to protect public health were market forces. And corporations proved themselves well capable of selling the public anything they wanted to if they could get them to buy it. This included spoiled meat, poison pills, tainted baby-food, and all kinds of quack medicines. And the recent drug scandals just prove what happens when a public agency charged with protecting the public gets too cozy with the industry they are charged with regulating.
Commercial entities are good for many things. But not everything. Government has a role to play. The important thing, though, is that WE maintain control over our own government.
When companies are setting public policy that is contrary to the public good, it simply proves that the people have to pay more attention to what's happening in their own governments. And the fact that my mother, living in a rural area right in the middle of the highly industrialized section of northeast Ohio STILL does not have access to cable television or broadband service proves that there are gaps in the corporate coverage of these services. Shouldn't government then step in to make sure that services are available, even in sparsely populated areas? If you say no, realize that most of Tennessee would still not have telephone service if the opposite case had not been in force in the 1930s. It isn't a question of capability. Despite what you may argue, both government agencies and corporate entities have been both good and bad at what they do. If the organizations are put together well and populated with talented people, often times they work. Nope. It's a question of motivation. Occasionally. . . we do not want the motivation to be money.

Write your state reps

[Militant Apathy]

If you live in a state where these laws are in preparation (Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, and Texas), there is something constructive you can do: find out who your state reps are, write them a letter, and FAX it to their office (e-mail is not so effective, the loon barrier is too low).

I'm in Illinois, on the danger list. Here's what I wrote to my State Senator. Feel free to use any part of this text if you wish.

Dear Senator Raoul:

I am writing to request that you take action on the amendment concerning municipal provision of communications services to Senate Bill 499. It is very important that this amendment be prevented from becoming law. The offensive text of the amendment reads as follows:

(c) No political subdivision of this State shall provide or offer for sale, either to the public or to a telecommunications provider, a telecommunications service or telecommunications facility used to provide a telecommunications service for which a Certificate of Service Authority is required pursuant to this Section.

This amendment represents a spectacular example of public corruption, in which the public interest is sacrificed to curry favor with large telecommunications companies. These companies are determined to stamp out municipal provision of broadband services so as to preserve the near-monopolies they so notoriously abuse, and apparently are prepared to lavishly endow with campaign contributions any legislators who are willing to assist them.

Note that this draconian legislative proposal would prevent municipalities from constructing their own broadband networks even in poor and rural areas that are under-served by the telecom industry, and that might obtain substantial economic benefits by investing in their own network infrastructure.

Note also that since there are currently several other states that have passed, or are in the process of passing similar legislation at the behest of the telecom industry, a competitive advantage will likely flow from those states to states that do not hog-tie their own citizens to prevent them from building their own high-tech infrastructure at the expense of their own tax dollars.

This piece of legislation is a scandal and an outrage. It is as if a waste management company had bribed legislators to forbid municipalities from building their own sewers or operating their own garbage trucks. I intend to track this issue very closely indeed, as it is a very high priority for me. I am certain that there are many other technology-savvy voters in this district who feel the same way.

Best Regards etc.

Re:you lose

[rho]

This isn't a debate rule anywhere. It's a USENET axiom. You lose for manufacturing facts out of moonbeams.

When the argument revolves around the benevolence and socially progresssive thinking of Europeans, when a significant portion of recent history was dominated by actual Nazi Europeans (Germany) or de facto collaborators (France), Godwin's Law doesn't apply.

In other words, it's not a strawman argument when it actually is a man's suit stuffed with straw and tied to a pole.

Your examples

[beakburke]

I'm not going to disagree with your first example, because frankly, I think it's at least close to the truth. See my earlier posts about how US healthcare is NOT freemarket. Your Social Security vs. Private Pensions argument isn't comparing apples to apples however. Social security operates nothing like a pension plan. If it were a pension plan, it would have to carry diverse assets in reserve in proportion to the present value of estimated future benefits. Basically, everyone running it would be in jail if it were a private pension. It's cheep to run because it doesn't have assets to manage, it's nothing more than a transfer payment from one generation to the next. Medicare and Medicaid (which are VERY different programs with very different structures I might add) would have a massive increase in overhead if they suddenly covered everyone because they base their pricing off of what the private insurers pay. They also define their administive costs different than we define overhead for insurance companies (which isn't really insurance, if you go to that post I was talking about to start with). So again, apples to oranges comparison.

Re:Like I have always known...

[Skjellifetti]

That's what people said about coaxial cable, too...

Adding a new set of wires to the poles behind my house is a trivial expense compared to the cost of digging up my street and laying new water pipes. The pole behind my house has two cables for two companies and there are only limited barriers to adding new cables. Water distribution is a classic example of a natural monopoly. The monopoly exists because of the cost structure of providing the good, not because of government regulations. In fact, the opposite is true: government ownership and/or regulation are designed to prevent the natural monopolist from earning more than the normal profit they would otherwise earn if they had put their capital into a competetive industry instead of the monopoly.

but when government regulations restricted the ability to compete directly between cable companies for individual consumers, a few media companies went to the trouble and expense of launching satelites into geo-stationary orbit for a work-around.

Satellites were not a workaround to cable regulations. They are a technology that drastically reduced the cost of shipping television signals to consumers. One satellite can cover an area that would take (thousands?, millions?, a whole lot!) miles of cable to cover.

We have no way of knowing how much better (or worse) our water service would be if it were open to the free market. I'm making an educated guess that it would be quite a bit better.

That's not an educated guess. It only demonstrates that you never took microeconomics 101.