LA City Votes For Municipal Fiber Network

An anonymous reader writes "On Saturday, Lafayette, Louisiana voters gave BellSouth and Cox the collective finger and approved a municipal FTTH network by a 62% to 38% margin. The Daily Advertiser has coverage of the vote and possible repercussions. The hotly-contested vote was prompted by a lawsuit by BellSouth and Cox Communications, who bitterly opposed the plan. BellSouth threatened to close a Cingular call center if the plan passed, and the companies employed push polling, including statements that a city-run cable system might ration TV programming and block religious channels."

Comments

The cities have a right

[gbulmash]

The phone companies have long enjoyed local monopolies that were only recently (last decade or so) broken down with requirements that they have to share their copper. The cable companies on the other hand won a recent FCC ruling that they don't have to share their coax.

The fact is that these companies are rolling out fiber to the home on their own phased schedules, the timelines of which do not sit well with a lot of bandwidth-starved consumers, particularly those in markets that are far down the roadmaps. So it's not surprising that the municipalities are trying to accelerate this rollout with a DIY philosophy. The municipal governments are doing what they really should be doing, which is serving their residents. You don't see the cities implementing municipal-run ISPs to compete with existing, viable solutions from the cable and telephone companies. The municipal-run ISPs are being constructed precisely because they're filling a gap the big communications corporations are voluntarily leaving.

The sad thing is that the cable companies and telephone companies are trying to protect these markets by suing the cities rather than rolling out the services that they want. Their philosophy is "you'll get it when we get around to you, and if your government tries to provide services in the meantime (or invite in alternative service providers), we'll try to prevent it". This is wrong and arrogant. It treats consumers like a resource these companies have some sort of divine right to exploit, rather than a market which can and should be able to vote with its ballots and pocketbooks.

In a free market, if you ignore a market segment, you should not have a legal way to prevent others from coming in and serving it. While I can understand the desire of the big communication companies to protect their markets, they should protect them by serving them, not by suing those who would fill the gaps they're leaving.

We are in a world where broadband is synoonymous with prosperity, or close to it. The availability of broadband is an economic growth factor and an economic indicator. No single corporation should have the power to determine the timeline when such a powerful tool comes to a community. - G

Re:The cities have a right

[Hungus]

I see it from the other angle. This is about infrastructure, and that is one of the reasons taxes are paid. I see no issue with Govt. providing that infrastructure, but I do take issue with govt. providing the services passed with the infrastructure.

Example: Govt. should build roads, not cars.

That said Govt. should build water mains, waste lines and electrical connections, but I don't necessarily want to see private industry providing water to individuals or processing sewage. I do not mind private electrical generation or a mixed public/private electrical co-op. What is the difference between these though?

Perhaps it is because given a stable grid power is power there is no difference in electrons at the level of the home user. A unit of water on the other hand can be fundamentally different coming from different processing facilities, but since it would be carried in a single medium there is no differentiation except for local.

Anybody else's thoughts on the matter?

Re:The cities have a right

[geekee]

"The sad thing is that the cable companies and telephone companies are trying to protect these markets by suing the cities rather than rolling out the services that they want. Their philosophy is "you'll get it when we get around to you, and if your government tries to provide services in the meantime (or invite in alternative service providers), we'll try to prevent it". This is wrong and arrogant. It treats consumers like a resource these companies have some sort of divine right to exploit, rather than a market which can and should be able to vote with its ballots and pocketbooks."

No, companies treat customers like a market. They no fiber is too expensive and no one would pay for it in a market where cable and twisted pair are available. So now everyone's forced to pay for something that will be of real benefit to only a small minority in the near term.

"In a free market, if you ignore a market segment, you should not have a legal way to prevent others from coming in and serving it."

Govt. is not a market force. Govt. intervention means, by definition, that the market is not free.

"The availability of broadband is an economic growth factor and an economic indicator. No single corporation should have the power to determine the timeline when such a powerful tool comes to a community. "

It is local govt. who have set this artificial monopoly. No local govt. just lets anyone string cable, fiber, etc. Companies are at the mercy of govt. regulation, not the other way around.

Re:The cities have a right

[Dark Paladin]

Considering that it was the will of the voters, which could said to be the equal footing of, say, voters in a corporation, and it was over 70% of the voters who said "yes", I'd say this is a form of market force - only here the "corporation" is also called the "city council", and the voting is "one person, one vote" not "they who own the most shares get the most votes".

Re:The cities have a right

[ctr2sprt]

*shrug*

The government is the biggest, baddest monopoly of all. It's also an insidious one because there is no direct correlation between its fees (taxes) and its expenditures. If your cell phone company, for example, charges you a ruinous rate, you can see exactly how ruinous it is. You can then decide whether their cell service is really that important to you, and if it's not, you can cancel and take your money elsewhere. If it's your government providing your service, not only can you not take your money elsewhere except by moving (which can have very high costs), you also have no idea how much of your yearly "bill" is actually going to the service. It's like paying your rent, electric, water, sewer, garbage, telephone, Internet, and cable bills all at once, with no idea how much goes to each. Your rent may be $500/mo or it may be $5000/mo. And of course, if you don't want telephone service - maybe you have a cell phone - you have no way of saying "Don't bill me for this, because I'm not using it." You're paying for it whether you use it or not.

So those are some of the reasons why governments providing services is usually a very bad thing. Now for what I think would be the right way to handle broadband, and yes, it does include government intervention.

Basically, the government would own the fiber and some of the supporting hardware (routers etc). It would buy it all at first and pay for it via loans or bonds or whatever else (but not taxes). It would then turn around and lease the fiber to private companies at cost, plus some more to pay off the initial investment in, say, five or ten years. Obviously companies could lease part of the network - for example a high-speed link between two offices - or some of the bandwidth of the entire network (an ISP). All maintenance and upgrade costs would be split up among the interested lessees. The government would be involved in this only as an arbiter and guarantor of quality of service (i.e. it ensures a base level of maintenance and that there is enough bandwidth for everyone who wants it).

(One important part is that this has to be leased at cost. No more, no less. If the government makes a profit, it will dump it into other projects: see Social Security. If it loses money regularly, it will try to raise it via taxes or by diverting funds from other projects. It's really critical that this be a self-sufficient, not-for-profit program. Obviously with floating costs, lessee turnover, etc., some years this will turn a profit and some years it will take a loss. But with good planning this should be manageable, and it goes without saying that any profits should be set aside to cover future losses or, hell, refunded directly. As long as the program isn't running an annual loss, most lessees would be content to pay the remainder at the end of the year if they were given refunds years when it made money. If you are running in the red every year, then you need to consider the possibility that people in your area really don't find this a valuable service and settle for providing high-speed Internet access just in libraries or other centralized areas.)

The neat part is that this really opens up the market to small area businesses by knocking out the enormous initial investments. It also allows the fiber to be "multi-use" through multiple providers: you can get Internet, phone, and cable TV over the same fiber from three different companies.

Of course, this will never happen. Either it will be blocked by the big companies or it will become yet another socialist pork project (because we really need more of those). But Slashdot is the forum for subjunctive dreaming!

Re:The cities have a right

[Big Jojo]

... but I do take issue with govt. providing the services passed with the infrastructure. Example: Govt. should build roads, not cars.

Neither road nor car is a "service". They're both objects.

Policing roads ... service. Cleaning them, snowplowing, maintaining ... service.

Your position is clearly bogus!

One way to look at this is historically. And in the historical sense, community infrastructure has only very recently come to be seen as something that governments "should" stay out of ... you know, because if they were to offer service near cost, then more money would stay in the hands of citizens; there wouldn't be as many ways the corporate oligarchies could rip them off.

Notice by the way that your example of a "stable grid" for electricity assumes artificial scarcity. No reason that we couldn't be using lots of local energy sources -- methane from recycling, wind, solar, a factory's off-hour capacity -- and have an economy that's not so readily gamed by the Enrons of this world.

Re:The cities have a right

[penix1]

"If your cell phone company, for example, charges you a ruinous rate, you can see exactly how ruinous it is. You can then decide whether their cell service is really that important to you, and if it's not, you can cancel and take your money elsewhere."

Therein lies the problem. There is no "elsewhere" to take it in most rural areas. Cable & phone companies are government sanctioned monopolies. I'm sure you have cable in your area. Let's say it is Cox. Try taking your cable business to Charter and see what answer you get.

Governments provide services like these when corporate entities can't or won't. That is one of the jobs of government.

B.

Los Angeles

[Tablespork]

Anybody else think that title could have been worded better to avoid confusion with the more common LA?

Re:Los Angeles

[Rickler]

"LA city" usually means a city. Not a city in a state.

Would you write "NY city" and expect people to think your talking about Buffalo and not the city of New York? :rolleyes:

When the free market is subjected to harm..

[CyricZ]

.. the government is the one to step in. In this case it is the city-level goverment. Indeed, that is what the government is there to do: provide what the free market cannot. The free market has been obstructed in this instance due to the monopolistic practices of the cable and phone companies. So it's more than acceptable for the people to unite, in the form of the city government, against the monopolistic forces that are obstructing the free market.

Some simple-minded individuals like to cry "communism" or "socialism" at this point. But anyone with any economic knowledge knows that you sometimes need the government to intervene in order to maximize the benefit and potential of the capitalistic free market for all of society (not just a few cable and phone companies).

Business and Religion

[fm6]

...a city-run cable system might ... block religious channels.

That's an ironic claim. There used to be a lot more religious channels on commercial cable than there are now. What happened to them? Providers needed their bandwidth for all those useless "bundles" that they're forced to buy. Viewers complained, but business is business.

In a free market

[vlad_petric]

In a free market, if you ignore a market segment, you should not have a legal way to prevent others from coming in and serving it.

Let's not forget that the free market is nothing but an idealized abstraction. This case is yet another example of market forces being incapable of driving the services/products in the right direction. Sure, it's generally much better when market forces alone take care of the situation, but this doesn't mean that when it can't we should do nothing and invoke the free market dogma.

More idiocy on broadband...

[suitepotato]

...this is the same /. that is generally leery of statist anything and so pro-personal rights, right?

But as soon as municipal broadband is broached, people who'd usually don a tinfoil hat with regard to any government involvement start drooling like idiots if they think they're going to get higher speeds at lower costs, and screw it if the big bad government is doing it. Suddenly they aren't so bad.

The point about the government not being there to make cars, just the roads is applicable. Heck, they can't even maintain the roads under the cars. Some places are under perpetual construction. And mostly, it is because of incompetence and venal attitude. Hey, we can draw it out as a permanent taxation reason.

It's far from paranoia to suggest that government would do the same with this. Nor is it paranoia to suggest that once they had total coverage that they'd abuse their power to force private companies to sell their services at a dead loss until they went out of business or at least stopped serving those places.

Do you want the same US government that has given us interstate fights over segregation, womens' rights, gay marriage, the Meese Porn Report, etc., etc., ad nauseum, to be controlling your information pipe?

Since George W. Bush took office the first time, we've heard nothing but paranoid anti-American ravings of vitriol aimed at him and his admin. Yes, let's suddenly forget our stance about government taking our Internet away and censoring everything and lying to us and suddenly act as though we never said any of that. As long as you get gigabit pr0n and sub 5ms ping times to frag your friends, right? As long as you get to thumb your nose at the cable company, right?

Wake up and smell the contradictions here people. The same government that can't keep a shuttle from blowing up every few years and launch the remaining one it has without turning into nervous piles of drool... The same government that drops trousers and bends over for the MPAA/RIAA and nods like a bunch of doofuses at the mention of requiring DRM... The same governments that can't manage their cities, can't get along with their suburbs, can't respect the freedom of their citizens nor understand that the government manages at the leisure of the citizenry and that the citizenry aren't free at the leisure of the government... These are the people you want running your Internet and tv entertainment pipes.

I don't think so.

Right

[mcc]

Because everything the government does has to be either all good or all bad.

There's no way that government could be something with both positive and negative aspects, or a necessary evil with potentially useful functions. There's no way you can view referendum-based local democracy and a national governmental bureaucracy run by termed elected representatives as somehow different. There's no way that you can consider the removal of checks balances and constitutional limitations on law enforcement to be bad, while considering taxing the public and providing public services in return to be potentially good.

Nope, either you fully approve of all potential uses of governments from bombing randomly selected foreign countries to city-level arts funding, and approve equally of all government leaders regardless of the rightness of their specific actions or level of public support they're acting with, or you're an anarchocapitalist.

There's black, and there's white. Anything in between is just hypocrisy.

Re:Dirty Cox

[maxpublic]

you do seem a little touchy when someone starts to use the freedom of speech to promote freedom of religion

Mainly because the people so bloody interested in "freedom of religion" refuse to acknowledge that this also means "freedom FROM religion".

Max