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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."
Can anyone explain how in the hell the Baby Bells etc. are actually managing to push bills preserving their effective monopolies through state governments?
(Hint: saying 'bribery' might be true, but it ain't the kind of answer I'm after!)
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They appear to be suggesting that the municipal will compete unfairly; in truth, they simply fear a large buyer with the clout to get a better deal from them for the end consumer.
Wikileaks, no DNS
This will eventually (hopefully) be tested at the Supreme Court level. Cities that want to provide this service, as they do any other utility, ought to be allowed to do so.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I mean, look what that's gotten us so far.
We could do it ourselves if we really wanted to.
Wouldnt the philosophical analogous argument be that libraries are publicly funded, and provide free information and entertainment to anyone and everyone?
Bookstores still thrive, book publishers still thrive even though probably almost everyone in the United States could get through life never having to buy a book personally.
The idea of public broadband has always been an attractive one for slashdotters, the incursion into this arena by Grant County PUD in central Washington State stands as an example of why we don't want bureaucrats meddling in business.
In this state the PUDs are treated as municipalities under the law and are given a set of rules under which they can operate. Broadband and electrical power are different services so it took an act of the Legislature to allow them to enter the market. The legislature, under some pressure from the big telecoms who were afraid that the PUDs would "cherry pick" the larger communities and leave the rural people to fend for themselves, allowed the PUDs to be "wholesale" only. The first thing Grant County PUD did was ignore that law.
Grant County PUD had first partnered up with two local ISPs which charged $20 to $25 per month for the broadband servoces back at the inception of the project in 1999. But at the same time the Manager of that PUD was trying to attract an outside competitor, also a utility provider, to enter the market in this county at a subsidized rate of $8 per month.
The PUD did attract that utility but only by entering into secret (and illegal) agreements to subsidize the program at cost plus 10%. So the new provider would risk nothing and could make 10% on the rate-payer's money even if they gave away their services for free. Then the PUD employees threw as many of the new customers to this new competitor as possible while their managers used their position as investors to pressure prices to a point where the commercial ISPs could no longer compete profitably.
It was only after the PUD had spent several million dollars propping up this outside provider that the story became known. Meanwhile, the PUD had raised the electrical rates to cover the $100 Million cost of fibering only 1/3 of the County but lied when asked about it. The Commissioners and Managers claimed that the rate increases were due to other factors. However their own emails, obtained under the State's public disclosure act, showed this to be untrue.
Agricultural interests were incensed because they use a lot of that electrical power. A large farm might have a $500k yearly power bill for their irrigation pumps. While 4% isn't much for my house, it's a chunk of money on a half-million dollars.
It took almost a year after the discovery of the secret contracts and a State Auditor's report which also found illegal and improper actions, to rid ourselves of the management team that led us into this debacle. The largest ISPs in the area, including the first two to partner up with the PUD, went out of business and were gobbled up by another outside competitor; costing jobs and an economic drain on the communities' resources. The Commissioners who were supposed to keep a rein on the PUD managers are now up for re-election and facing some tough questions.
The problem with bureaucrats going into business is that, essentially, they don't understand profit and loss. It's all other people's money and if they make a mistake they just raise the rates to cover it. We could have fibered this County up for the money they spent, had they spent that money wisely. Instead they created a NOC they thought they could make profitable (not at $3 million a year to operate they couldn't), they installed fiber to the areas where their managers lived regardless of population density (it turns out the telecoms fears of "cherry picking" were well-founded, but the managers weren't smart enough to do it that way), and they drove jobs and money out of the area.
Had they simply created the infrastructure for the product instead of getting involved in creating subsidies for favored businesses we would have been ok. But that's the problem. Bureaucrats don't make good business people.
So if you don't want to see jobs go away, money disappear and your power rates rise, treat the entrance of government into business with caution. These things are run by politicians, not business people. And it's not their money.
Well if the The Bells and cable companies are better equipped to roll-out cheap broadband for everybody, when the hell are they going to do so.
What you say is simply not possible.
Wikileaks, no DNS
What's wrong with the local governments by the people, for the people, deciding how to spend their dollars in a democratic and free way?
For me, this (and any other subject of public services) is not a problem of government vs businesses. It's a matter of small, economically efficient distributed units providing goods required by their clients, versus bloated and highly centralized institutions.
If the efficient providers are managed by a transparent and public process instead of the power of the dollars in a few hands, so better for them.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Why not allow private companies and governments both to setup wireless networks? Whichever one can do it more efficiently and effectively will win the business. I do not agree that everyone will automatically flock to the "free" wireless networks provided by municipalities, which are just paid for with taxes or even by charging fees. Most people are very willing to pay for superior services, and this kind of competition would only drive the offering of such services.
To me, it sounds like the private companies want to repeat the cable scenario. Namely, they want to be granted an effective monopoly in a municipality to avoid any competition whatsoever. The difference now being that the capital investment of implementing a wireless network is getting cheaper and cheaper, thereby eliminating the high cost of entry (and capital investment) that has been such a barrier in other network access methods. Competition, therefore, has less obstacles on the technical and business side. It seems that the only obstacle left to build up is a governmental restriction.
In some European countries, one may receive cheap services and products from the municipality if it proves the income is lower then a certain limit.
Why not apply the same for internet access? These days, having access to global knowledge is as much as important as food and shelter.
Don't be confused by the companies saying that this is government interference in their business. Local governments passing statutes regulating their activity would be government interference. This, on the other hand, is outright fair competition -- providing more and cheaper access to people who want it -- and the broadband companies just can't take it. They should stop whining and improve their services and prices before the end gets near.
The mistake that everyone seems to be making is conflating the telecom giants with the free market. This is absurd. The reason telecom giants exist is because the telecom industry is heavily regulated. As the industry deregulates, we will see more competition. For instance, isn't it great that Vonage and Skype are now competing with AT&T and Verizon? If we saw increased regulation of VOIP, these nimble, innovative companies might die out and AT&T and Verizon would become further entrenched.
It is apparent that many people here are disappointed with the quality of ISP services provided by market at this time. They think the government could provide better service. That may be true. But I am certain that government could not provide better service than a truly free, dynamic market in telecommunications, and that is what we geeks and nerds should push for.
I believe in private sector competition. However, the government should be allowed to compete (fairly) when the private sector are slackers.
Why should citizens have to suffer because the phone companies are slackers with an un-serviceable amount of debt?
Some of the cities here in Utah have 100 megabit service to their residents for dirt cheap...
The government funds libraries, the government should fund high-speed internet. Make people get an internet card the way they get a library card, pay for high usage the way they pay for late fees, seems fairly straight-forward to me. Libraries are closing due to lack of interest- shut down five real libraries to open one lower-cost digital library.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
In all these areas where Verizon, SBC, etc... haven't rolled out high-speed service, or are cost-prohibitive, etc... and the government wants to set up municipal WiFi:
Step 1: Have a vote in the municipality that wants to set up such a service, to determine that it is in line with the public interest.
Step 2: Let the companies in question have a crack at it. Find out how long it would take the government to roll it out, and how much it would cost, and give the companies that much time to get it rolled out at that price. If they won't or can't, tough noogies, let the local government do its job and perform the will of its people.