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Is Cheap Broadband UnAmerican?
Reader Ant wrote to mention the article entitled Is Cheap Broadband UnAmerican? The author argues that media companies are systematically ruining the MuniWiFi efforts across the country, likening the community initiatives to a form of communism. From the article: "Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists to protect their Internet fiefdoms from these municipal internet initiatives, painting them as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise"
"coin-operated think tanks"
My gawd, that has to the the most brilliant, funny, and succinct turn-of-phrase I've read in a long time...
CO-OPs are designed to be businesses by the people, for the people, without engaging in the communist-like practice of merging everything under the government's umbrella.
Yeah, sure, right... I am under a co-op for my electricity. What does that mean for me? Expensive power, a box on my house that turns on and off my A/C at the whim of the grid, and the knowledge that while it's a co-op I have no other choice but to be a part of it.
I'm not saying that all co-ops are bad but they can become just as evil as the corporations. Just because they are setup "for the people by the people" and have members that are elected does NOT mean that they are the best things for an area.
COMPETITION IS GOOD and let's end this pay-off bullshit where corporations and co-ops get to determine what competition means.
If I don't own a car and only walk, and my taxes go to roads, is this unfair?
I'm sure this will be an unpopular statement for some, but I don't LIKE the idea of state and city run internet. Frankly, I'd rather pay a private company that I know is not going to limit my access to the internet, and is not going reveal my activity to other companies without my consent.
Thats something I will pay dearly for.
Most of the city-supported internet projects that I know of in Texas are public-private partnerships, where a private ISP provides the service. So your concern doesn't apply.
The bills prevent the government from any role whatsoever -- even to let a private ISP resell excess capacity on the city network, or to use a water tower in a rural area.
Many of the projects are in small rural towns that have no broadband at all. The incumbent phone companies are holding the local economy hostage. They're saying "if we don't want to supply broadband to the town, nobody should."
I'm involved with the fight against this legislation in Texas, at SaveMuniWireless.org
Welcome to the Georgenium! The one where people believe everything they see on TV and do no self-research into finding out what might be true and what might not be. Why should they form their own opinions? There are two sides to every story but the news media is fair and balanced right?
Realize that we have not only corporations funding false research and presenting it as true we have our own government doing the same thing. Sadly people fall for it and even want more of it!
You have hit the nail on the proverbial head. We are too comfortable in the United States but that is gradually changing.
It's old saw in the I.T. community that you can give something to people, but you cannot take it away without suffering major consequences. The same is true of government.
The U.S. is heading for a huge fall, sooner than most people think. I'll leave it to those who read this to do their own research and draw their own conclusions. But I predict we'll see at least one major bank failure in the next five years along with a major crash of the real estate market.
Why? Because the real estate market now is speculative, as is fuel and food. Once you put those necessities in a speculative position all hell breaks loose.
And the reason the parties are able to distract us with these non-issues such as gun control or gay marriage, is there is a force even stronger than selfishness in the American psyche: The desire to impress my arbitrary moral values on someone else.
Getting back on-topic: I have strong libertarian leanings, and am of the general belief that the government at any level is the least qualified entity to provide any service. If a private enterprise cannot compete against the demonstrably least efficient corporation in the history of the universe, then they truly deserve to fail. (This does make the rather polyanna assumption, that the government plays at least reasonably fair.)
I guess we can thank our lucky stars that the Professional Private Firefighter Association is not lobbying congress to pass laws against municipally operated fire brigades.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
Because I'm not always going to be at home.
And there is such a thing as cheap wifi. Sitting around a Buffalo Wild Wings in Vegas while eating less than 10 dollars worth of food.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
But isn't something like 90% of Canada's population within 100 miles of the Canadian/US border? If population density is averaged over the entire country for statistics, but then broadband penetration is measured as percentage of population with broadband accessability it wouldn't jive.
Of course, like most Slashdotters, I didn't read the article and I did no actual research.
This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
This isn't new, it is normal. Every time a new technology that shifts the economic landscape comes onto the scene in the US this same thing happens. Broadband is nothing compared to what was happening with the railroad robber barrons or with GM managing to trash otherwise perfectly good public transit systems in cities with their PR and campaigning.
The most instructive example for those of us involved with the nets is the early days of radio and how our public bandwidth became anything but. Early radio looked a lot like the internet. And under the guise of fixing a couple of real problems with the system, became a corporate-only playground regulated to specifically prevent low-barrier public entry in an astoundingly short period of time.
7. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
You do realize that the only thing keeping this country afloat for the past 3 years have been the extra low interest rates pushing a boom for the housing market right?
Steel, Copper, wood, have all tripled in price in the last two years. The moment the people can't affoard to build new houses, is the same time when this country goes down into a massive recission. If it is bad enough I fully expect Fanny-mae or one of the mortage programs like it to crash and burn within ten years.
I work in Electrical industry. All winters slow down. This past winter has hundreds of contractors still sitting at home. Last year most were busy for 40 hours a week all winter long.
Sure it's only one state, but it only takes one domino.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I don't think many people would have an argument with what you are saying.
Where people DO have a problem is when congressmen et al. pass resolutions that prevent what you are suggesting in the first place (competition).
You're not at all that off base from everyone else.
We have no unalienable right to postal mail either, but somehow our nation's founders decided that the most effective way to establish a reliable post would be to make it a government service. Glad we're all on the same page. So long as you feel that way, that one bullshit sentence from the article can be safely ignored. You still both agree in practice.Oh. Right. Doesn't matter if you agree in practice, because you're an ideologue. I assume you'd agree with that "line" when talking about inheritance. Because you have a right to everything that you own, for ever and ever, amen. Go promote slavery reparations or something.
If you'd called him "wrong" rather than "Communist" your post would be a little less loopy.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Welcome to the Georgenium! The one where people believe everything they see on TV and do no self-research into finding out what might be true and what might not be. Why should they form their own opinions? There are two sides to every story but the news media is fair and balanced right?
Careful, your rant-underpinnings are showing. The "Georgenium?" All of the things you're carping about - all of them - are the symptoms of one root problem: lack of critical thinking skills. This problem starts in elementary school (if not sooner), and is pretty much of a lost cause by the time a kid hits high school. Certainly by they time people vote (at the ballot box, or with their wallets), they are largely at the mercy of sleekly packaged entertainment that spins their expectations and perceptions of the world into a particularly clueless, though fairly productive while largely compliant nanny-state-citizen mode. That process has been in full swing since the Depression.
Implying that somehow, in the last 4 or 5 years, that Bush has magically robbed 25-to-45-year-olds (the engine of our economy) of their ability to think is rubbish. Those people, born in the 60s-80s, had those native skills largely squashed by the educations they (didn't) get. It's no mystery that the kids whose folks could afford to send them to rigorous private schools tend to turn out the kids that then wind up running things.
That being said, even the people who do think clearly aren't going to make too big a fuss over $20 vs $40 on their broadband bill. If I spent an hour a month being the "activist" you recommend, in order to find a way to strongarm enough competition into my local broadband market, I'd be losing the $100 I could have made during that hour helping out small businesses with their IT issues. It's just not that big a deal, and there aren't orders of magnitude (in the pricing) at stake.
WAPs everywhere that you can just hop on and surf from
You make it sound like these are trees that someone planted. They cost money! The backbone they're connected to has to be created and maintained by teams of people that can't make a living if they donate all of their time. On the other hand, if you were suggesting that muncipalities get into the communications game because somehow it's "competition" for existing players... why wouldn't you back that for government-owned telephone service? And newspapers? Excellent idea, comrade! No: better to let the market hash it out, and that includes lobbying for interests on all sides of the issue. The technology is going to continue to outpace the grasp that your average city council member will ever have on these issues, regardless.
free shit is still very American
Exactly, 100% wrong. Competitive shit is and always has been American. Having the government provide a communications service is opposite of that. Not to mention it's not free. I'm paying for it, you're paying for it. But if you're the only one using it, I'm the one getting screwed. But if it's pay-as-you-go, then the person consuming something gets to be the person paying for it: the most American idea ever.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Why? If I don't drive a car should I not still have to pay taxes that maintain the roads?
If I don't have kids, shouldn't I still pay taxes to support the schools?
If I don't drink tapwater, shouldn't I still have to pay for water treatment facilities?
These are services that, even if you don't personaly use them, make your community a better place to live. You benefit from them indirectly.
Roads provide the infrastructure to deliver goods to the stores you shop in. They make your city a place buisnesses will set up shop and provide you with jobs.
Schools educate people. This lowers crime rates, increases the median wage in your area, and contributes to overall economic prosperity.
Water supplies make a city's higher density possible. Even if your house can run on a spring in the back yard, your benefit by having the water system in place. Resturants, industrial firms, to say nothing of hospitals and office buildings require running water to function. Their function makes your life easier and better. Moreover, running water decreases disease rates, making your community safer.
Why is internet access any different? It encourages trade, encourages education, brings people closer together, and creates an incentive for high paying tech jobs in your area. These jobs in turn lower crime rates, raise average sallaries (unless you live in Beverly Hills) and promotes civic growth.
Even if you don't need muni-wifi, you benefit from it being there. Given that, why shouldn't you pay for it?
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
> You do realize that the only thing keeping this country afloat for the past 3 years have been the extra low interest rates pushing a boom for the housing market right?
:
I think there is another point : Asia financing USA to keep them afloat, because it serve their interests.
That's also why I think kilodelta is wrong
If USA's economy collapse, it's the whole "occidental" economy that will collapse, and nobody wants that.
So the fall will remain (artificially) progressive until a new economical model emerges, with America less central.
We're talking about Government putting together a wireless infrastructure because private industry can't do it or at least can't do it cheaper.
But there's no *Right* involved here... These cities are charging $20 or so a month to recoup their costs.
I don't see where you can justify the argument you are making.
I wholeheartedly disagree.
First, when it comes to implementation, it's not hard to set up the payment structure in such a way that it doesn't overburden the poor. For example, set the sticker price higher, but allow users to apply for income-based rebates. Since taxes will probably subsidize the cost, it's helpful to consider that most forms of taxes are disproportionately paid by the wealthy. So I don't think it's reasonable to try and turn people off the idea of municipal wifi using hand-waving about higher taxes hurting the poor.
I'm also a bit underwhelmed by your antagonistic attitude towards taxes. It's true that ultimately only the state can use force to collect debts, they are more than happy to take money "at gunpoint" in order to enforce private contracts. I don't see that as wrong, but given that this power is frequently invoked by private parties with the state acting as their agent, I think the "only the state can use force" argument has less rational appeal than emotional.
I take a much more pragmatic view of government intervention. In my mind, they should be allowed to intervene wherever the benefits of such intervention clearly outweigh the costs. In my mind, having cheap, ubiquitous Internet access is a public good. Better access to information leads to a more efficient economy, a better informed and better educated populace, and a higher standard of living for everyone. While there are ethical issues surrounding state-run programs that compete directly with private companies, I think that the benefits of a fully wired municipality outweigh them, and those benefits are going to be the greatest for the poor, not "gen-X yuppies".
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
And as always, it's not quite that simple. Pay scales, for instance. Let's compare registered nurses in London and NYC.
London midgrade RN salary - £21,605 ($40,859 at todays conversion rate)
NYC midrange RN salary - $59,102.
I'd say that numbers like those make up a LARGE portion of the difference in medical costs.
"Let me now... warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."
-- George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Developers: We can use your help.
Ten years for the collapse of one of the major finacial mortage houses like Fanny-mae. Greenspan has already sent out warnings on them.
.95~ euro's to the Dollar.
The Dollar sucks world wide. Very much so. A slightly depressed dollar is okay, but we went from 1 pound equalling a $.80 ish to 1 pound equalling $.50 in a year. Now a Euro is 1 to $.77 dollars. When bush took offive it was
I hadn't heard about OPEC. If they switch it will hurt this country a lot. Of course a swift kick in the ass would probably be good for the USA.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
This is why democracy is like two wolves and a sheep voting on who's for dinner.