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Broadband War & an Interactive Municipal Map
Ant writes "Broadband Reports mentions a CNET News.com story on the U.S.'s growing debate over municipal broadband. Across the country, acrimonious conflicts have erupted as local governments attempt to create publicly funded broadband services with faster connections and cheaper rates for all citizens, narrowing the so-called digital divide. The Bells and cable companies, for their part, argue that government intervention in their business is not justified and say they are far better equipped to operate complex and far-flung data networks.
There is also an interactive municipal broadband legislative map that details the major battlegrounds on the issue. At stake is the fate of high-speed Internet access for millions of Americans, hinging on a fundamental question of civics and economics--whether the government or private industries should take the leading role in building out what's considered this generation's critical infrastructure challenge. Its map shows a breakdown of muni-projects in each state, which have or are developing fiber or Wi-Fi projects, and are facing (existing or pending) legal barriers to doing business."
Actually it happened in the town i live (Not US). I have a much better service and speed than the 'regular' users of my ISP, because our town created a non-profit organization to act as a 'legal proxy' towards the isp. Yay for me.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
We in Lafayette, Louisiana have been fighting this for some time now. We have given both BellSouth and Cox commmunications several years to start working on a plan for fiber. Neither company has even started on it yet. The second that LUS (Lafayette Utility Systems) starts to run fiber, both monopolies cry foul and bring in the courts. I say let LUS do its job that the monopolies didnt want to. For more info check out http://lafayetteprofiber.com/
No, you theoretically have to return the book to the library. Further, the selection in a library may not be up to par (especially in rural areas). If you want a particular good quality book guaranteed to have the last chapter still intact, you would probably choose to buy the book.
How this relates to municipal broadband? The systems being proposed would be as good, if not better than existing DSL systems in rural areas and a boat-load better than the dial-up most of the current bell customers are stuck with (unlike the sometimes inferior library product).
All of the baby bells want one thing only. They would like the municipalities to build out the fiber, then hand it over for the bells to run and make a profit from. Laying fiber is no cheap endeavour. One of the most costly aspects of it is the Rights of Way (RoW) in the U.S. If the government who is to grant the RoW is the one building, it significantly reduces the cost of the build and makes serving rural communities that much easier and more profitable.
What they don't want is the municipalities selling directly to the consumers, then buying the upstream from the national and global carriers, bypassing the baby bells and cable companies all together.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification _Act_Amendments
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain