Slashdot Mirror
Municipal Broadband Projects Spread Across U.S.
Mediacitizen writes "Media rights group Free Press has just unveiled an online broadband map showing the vast extent to which publicly supported 'Community Internet' projects have overtaken towns across the country. Hundreds of communities now have municipal broadband systems on the drawing board, despite aggressive lobbying efforts by big telephone and cable companies to derail these projects. The national map shows Community Internet is spreading like a prairie fire."
I'm tired reading of another solution for the poor urban that can afford a laptop and wireless. How about us sad 48K dialup bastards in the dark zone of rural internet.
This is how broadband was introduced to the mid-sized towns (10k-30k population) in my region a few years back. Service has been much better than I've heard delivered from the big ISPs; I've only had one or two downtimes and they only lasted a few minutes...Though I did end up having to show the cable guy how to configure a network connection properly. All he knew was "ipconfig".
F/OSS software is the only truly free market of which I am aware, and the methodology of building and sharing one's own has spread into other arena well--beauty!
Markets work on info, and the telcos/cable unreasonable rates have been "taxing" small business and consultants (such as myself) at highly excessive rates.
These communities, one or another "get it"--their economies will enefit in sooooo many ways from this (relatively) minor investments.
I love it.
That's nice and all, but for most states it is at most 4 or 5 municipalities. How many thousands are in the US total? Plus, what is the impact on local taxes of providing "free" broadband. Personally, I'd rather have some free market competition to drive prices down.
"As you say - certain behaviors minimize the HIV risk and writing Slashdot tripe on Friday night is by far the most secu
Move to Saskatchewan:0 4_news_releases/sasktel_announces_communitynet_dep loyment_schedule.html
http://www.sasktel.com/about_sasktel/news_room/20
With the spread of Community Net II wireless land based line-of-sight internet access in rural Saskatchewan, I wonder how long until more communities set up their own podcasts here. All I'm aware of so far is an independent TV station out of Indian Head, SK. I'll try to look it up and give a link for that later.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
"They are coming captain!! They are everywhere! We can't stop them!!"
"Hold your position!! Reinforcement will arrive soon!!"
"We can't hold the line much long-"NO CARRIER
It's nice to see John McCain doing some good for the country -- as one of the few bipartisan senators -- and not actually giving in to corporate interests, despite several computer-related comapanies contributing to his 2004 campagin. It's too bad that there are so many bad nuts that counteract him, especially in this case (e.g. Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act, Preserving Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005).
If you're reading this, stop it.
Anyone who has followed John McCain over the years on the Internet probably knows that he is not only intelligent, but his heart is in the right spot. The republican party has disgusted me so much over the last several elections that I thought I would never vote for a republican. But so has the democratic party. I'm registered as a Libertarian, but my personal beliefs are more in line with the Green party.
;) PPS: It's Slasdot's fault that I keep adding to this comment, because I have nothing better to do on a Friday night than to wait until I can submit a post.
I'm not represented by any party as far as I'm concerned, but I wish I could vote for McCain in the next presidental election.
PS. I wish I didn't have to wait 20+ minutes between posts to Slashdot. This is ridiculous. If I wasn't so confused by the meaning of "fascist" I might call Slashdot fascists
I'm sad my city voted down Utopia. Qwest sent every one of their lobbyists out to stop this plan of FTTH for every home and business in the city. They argued it would fail and cost the cities money. But if it failed, then the fiber plan would go out to the highest bidder. Obviously, Qwest could have afforded it had they known it would fail....but they knew it wouldn't fail. So they had to stop it.
Luckily other cities voted for it. Already some are offering cheap plans for 15MB down and up, with businesses getting 30 MB down and up.
. . . is hereby proven to not always be a bad thing. Historic biases not withstanding.
I love it. Maybe If I'm lucky, MY community will get broadband and I will be able to drop my dial-up. It's too bad their map is in flash, because I just spent an hour downloading Firefox and I'm not going to get flash just for them.
"Hundreds of communities now have municipal broadband systems on the drawing board, despite aggressive lobbying efforts by big telephone and cable companies to derail these projects."
Well that's all well and good, but I'll let you in on a secret. The internet is composed of linked smaller networks. Municipal broadband to be truely useful, needs to be linked to other networks. Guess who owns those links? That's right, telephone and cable. It's one thing to be insular and say "I don't need you". It's another to realize that you are just spiting your face.
"The national map shows Community Internet is spreading like a prairie fire.""
Ms O'Leary's cow will be glad to hear that.
The subject of this submission clearly states "Broadband" and yet nothing in the body, nor the links therein have anything to do with broadband, merely wireless. WTF?
that this causes existing providers to lower their rates.
The internet is to the modern age what books were to those who came before. In the past, you could be intelligent and educated if your family could afford a fairly large, private library, stocked with the expected classics. Or if you had access to one somehow, usually through a university.
The advent of public libraries allowed common people access to the educational tools and knowledge base once held only by the social elite. This lies at the heart of the American Dream - people who labor for little or nothing can raise children who, through public education and public libraries, know a more prosperous life as their inborn potential allows. The social and financial potential of their parents no longer truly mattered.
Today, almost anything you could want to learn exists on the internet, from home repairs to getting a foundation in some of the most advanced scientific research mankind does. Not having this access leaves you at a serious disadvantage to those who do have it. A modern city of any signifigance does not exist without a public library at its center somewhere, and, if society acts with the same wisdom as before, ways will be found to bring the internet readily to the masses. Civic access to the internet is, in this context, the only truly logical way to go.
Besides, Orson Scott Card predicted civic net access in Ender's Game. You wanna argue against the guy?
How about DSL verses cable verses wireless verses satellite verses dialup verses powerline verses...you get the point.
There's competition out there, and there would be even more if those who whined about there being no competition got off their asses and did something about it. There's already one slashdot poster that jumps to mind that put words into action and started his own wireless ISP. So what's everyone elses excuse?
BTW If it's cowardice to basically do nothing about "authority"? Then what kind of coward does nothing about the broadband situation except complain?
I cannot understand why people think this is a good policy. It's welfare for techies. Who is going to be using these new taxpayer funded networks? The very people most able to afford broadband access! Do you really think the poor are going to be flocking down to BestBuy to pick up laptops so they can take advantage of this "free" service? Hah! This is a giveaway to the rich! If this is truly for the poor and needy, then why not give them $20 a month to go shop for online access?
But beyond that, I can't understand why *slashdot* readers are creaming their pants over this topic. If it were anything else they would be bitching at government intrusion into our lives. We're worried about the government snooping on our networks, yet we're clamouring for government owned networks? There's a whole section on Slashot called "YRO", yet no one seems to realize that government operated wifi networks are a huge threat to your rights online.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Municipal Broadband Projects Spread Across U.S.
So do anti-evolutionists, fundementalists, and AIDS, but you don't hear me cheering about it.
"The internet is to the modern age what books were to those who came before."*
Not quite. At least with libraries and books there is both a tradition and an effort towards quality. With the internet there's no such thing. It's every man for themselves. Quality be damned. With libraries a card catalog was for finding relevent information, amoungst useful information. With the internet a search engine is for locating "useful" information amidst the swill that tries to pass for imformation. I think our forefathers got the better deal.
*Ignoring the implication that libraries are no longer relevent to the modern age.
God I hope this stuff continues.
I'm forced to accept the local monopoly for DSL. I'm at 68% of the bandwidth I had just 6 months ago. They are adding customers before upgrading thier capacity.
I told them I'd be filing an antitrust initiative with local/federal government. So tired of this shit.
"I cannot understand why people think this is a good policy."
:>
Simple human nature. Who doesn't like it when someone else foots the bill for our thrills? Free movies, music, games, and books. Free broadband. Free sex.
It would be better to say that broadband is welfare for techies, while dialup is welfare for everyone else.
"If this is truly for the poor and needy, then why not give them $20 a month to go shop for online access?"
The "poor and needy" already get "free" access. Sometimes it's either via the school they're going to, or the public library. Some social programs offer internet access as part of their rehab programs. And lets not forget those on either SSI, welfare, or social security.
Those who want it can get it. Those who want broadband can afford it be it their expense, or their boss is paying for it. No need to saddle the taxpayers with another "non-opt-out".
" no, they only own the ports onto the net, not the net itself."
We're not talking about owning the entire internet. What I'm talking about is the interlinks that make the internet, "The Internet".
http://navigators.com/isp.html
"27.9% - UUNET/WorldCom/MCI
10.0% - AT&T
6.5% - Sprint
6.3% - Genuity (level 3)
4.1% - PSINet (cogent)
3.5% - Cable & Wireless
2.8% - XO Communications
2.6% - Verio
1.5% - Qwest
1.3% - Global Crossing"
The first three carry the lion's share of the communications, and are all...the phone company.
"i'd gladly cut off my nose if i could be sure that by doing so, they and other greedy scumbags would cease to exist."
We all are "greedy scumbags". Some just hide it better than others.
How is this causing cable and telecommunications companies to lose money? The cities and states aren't getting free bandwith. It's costing taxpayers money. Where is that money going if it's not to the Qwests and Comcasts who own and maintain the internet infrastructure in cities?
The Flash map itself if powered by my DIY Map tool. It's free (as in beer) for personal and non-profit use. You can download it at http://backspace.com/mapapp/.
From the reference:
"Upon completion of this approximate $34 million initiative, SaskTel will have invested approximately $173 million to bring a high quality, price-competitive high speed internet service to Saskatchewan residents and businesses."
$173 million! If that were US dollars, it would be just under 25 hours of
the $5bn/month we spend on Iraq. Since it's Canadian dollars, we could
more than pay for that kind of project daily using the Iraq budget.
Where I live in Wyandotte, Michigan, we've had municipal broadband for years. Its not free, but "competitively priced" as if a company provided the service. I pay ~$50 for 4Mb/512k cable service. The city contracted a Canadian provider, ParaSun Technologies, to be the ISP. The city owns the cable network, so they can provide whatever services they want. Of course, the city also owns their own power plant and water treatment facilities. The only services provided by public utility companies is natural gas and telephone.
What?
Basic services are often provided by municipalities. Water, sewerage, police, roads, et al.
An alternative to municipal or state provision of services is the co-op. Co-ops brought electricity to vast areas when private electric companies/monopolies would not make the investment in infrastructure to make electricity available.
Internet access is rapidly becoming a necessity. If private business will not service a market, then local government or a co-op can do this. Which of the two is a matter of local circumstance.
The co-op seems to be an overlooked option.
"Internet access is rapidly becoming a necessity."*
Some people feel the same way about TV. The perception that Internet access (excluding those were it's a job requirement) is a necessity is similiar to the way drug addicts feel.
And even if one wishes to entertain the idea that it's a necessity? Broadband is still a luxury, and should be considered that way.
*Plus a co-op more accurately represents the will of all it's contributors. Any system that one can't opt-out of. e.g. taxes doesn't represent the will of the people, but tyranny of the masses. At least with the "free market" one can vote with one's dollars, and preserve ones ability to opt-out.
...with the big telecoms is any indication that they "get" sharing and open source yet. Example, we have the two polar opposites, community supported wifi, and then 'the other way" where joe big company does all of it. I wonder why we can't have a blend? Like, if the local telco wanted to get broadband out here, yet not go through the expense of running all brand new cables, they could offer people deals to setup APs at their homes. Using the existing poles as antenna mount points leading to a mesh network. something like that. Have community volunteers who would offer to maintain them in exchange for better service, etc. They could still sell bandwith, and sub out to volunteers a lot of the work.
"scumbag is when you have no morals/ethics and don't care a whit about consequences in regards to others."
Like when people regularly violate copyrights? Or when they hog the broadband pipe regardless of it's effect on others on the network? Like I said, we all are scumbags. Some of us just hide it better.
I read people saying this is so great and all, but they should stop and think about it for a second. The problem with communications lies at the FCC, this is why the evil greedy communications giants are ALBE to be evil greedy and stupid and still be around for so long.
The FCC , and Gov't in general, is nothing more than a public face to a cartel of elites who throw a few bones to the populists out there and blather on about the needs of the communities while they raise the barrier of entry thru regulation so high that in the end, only mega bucks players can compete.
A perfect relevant example is VOIP being but on hold, obstensibly for 911, but really to raise the hurdles of entry and to allow the moribund elites to repackage their old school programs with a new buzzword.
REAL community broadband, started and maintained by volunteers, would be an awesome thing, but the local Gov't directly owning your internet connection?
Thats wrong on so many levels.
And the gov't doing something is not competition, its a naked take over, which in this country, they prefer to merely leech off the elites that they ride like fleas
If they're so "poor" they can't afford a 200$ computer, odds are pretty good they collect welfare themselves already, and aren't paying a lick of taxes anyways, so I doubt they really give a shit what the rest of the community wants to pay for.
One of my coworkers communities is on that map, they have community wireless. What did it do? It meant that qwest and comcast had to start charging 30$ a month (the price to access the wireless in chaska) to try and compete instead of 50$ a month. They're still in the market, offering all the same services, and still doing just fine financially, they just aren't allowed to gouge the market any longer.
The one thing that gets me about the Telcos is that at least here in Minneapolis, Cingular (at the time AT&T) forced the move. All of the cities police squads use CDPD to talk back to the HQ (for which AT&T gladly charged them) then a few years ago they stated that they were going to drop all CDPD in favor of GPRS. My company (which uses it for other reasons) was not to happy, but the city had just invested all that hard earned tax payer dollars into the radio system. So, now they are looking at WiFi.
:) But other things like parking meters, street lights, etc. all could save the city time and money if they could tell the city themselves that they needed fixing. It's not replacing jobs, it's letting people with city jobs spend their time providing the services that we pay them to do as opposed to spending time *looking* for something to do. :)
My understanding is that here in Minneapolis, the city is going to give a thrid party right of way to deloy the WiFi and cap the amount that they can charge the city for use. To make things more profitable they are allowing that same company to offer the WiFi to the public (most likely here for a fee)
The one point here is that even if it's not *free* WiFi there is a legitimate use for city wide WiFi. Police cars are the first. But if it is free and the cost of the embedded WiFi devices goes down, there are many other things the city could use the net for. Reading meters is one. I canned my POTS line a while back (no point for it anymore, waste of cash and only telemarketers called the line) only to find several months later that all of the water meters in the city dial in via a modem to the city! So now I have all my bill estimated.
Hi!
/Tomas
Welcome to look at our 1 Gbps/100 Mbps project. It has been online since 1999 and just got upgraded to 1 Gbps uplink to the Internet.
http://www.bjornerback.com/tomas/mattgrand (currently 77 845 visitors since 1999).
And yes, my server WILL be able to handle a Slashdotting! (I guess quite a lot of you guys already have seen the page, but it got updated with pictures of the 1 Gbps equipment a few days ago).
I have 1 Gbps Internet access@home
Look at America, it sucks, whole country is forced to use low bandwidth crappy internet connections and censoring and shit.
Here in sweden, almost everyone can get 10 mbit/s (up and down!) for cheap price like 32. You can also get 100 mbit/s for slightly more.
America and its corporate controlled corrupt goverment sucks.
*PLEASE* stop writing shitty flash interfaces that are *COMPLETELY UNINTUITIVE*.
Thank you.
health care, and education. What electric power and telephones were to
the 20th Century, broadband access will be to the 21st. Towns that
don't have affordable broadband lose jobs. Their children suffer a
serious disadvantage in college or in the workforce, where fluency
with computers and the Internet is increasingly assumed as a matter of
course. Communities without broadband cannot take advantage of new
breakthroughs in tel-medicine or the economic opportunities created by
telecommuting. Even in crowded urban areas, the availability of
broadband can vary from one neighborhood to another, stranding one
neighborhood on the wrong side of the "digital divide" while two,
three or even four broadband providers serve their neighbors.
Municipalities have a valuable role to play in filing this gap.
Municipalities have a long history of providing necessary services for
citizens and stimulating local businesses. In the 20th century,
municipalities built power plants and telephone lines when private
services did not move fast enough. Our competitive power and telecoms
industries today demonstrate that these services by municipalities
complement private industry rather than compete with it. In addition,
municipalities have a long history of spending money to benefit their
citizens and encourage business development. They should have the same
opportunity to offer public hot spots and broadband access.
From 2001- 2004 the United States dropped from 4th to 13th place in
global rankings of broadband Internet usage. Today, most U.S. homes
can access only 'basic' broadband, among the slowest, most expensive
and least reliable in the developed world. Nearly all Japanese have
access to 'high-speed' broadband, with an average connection time 16
times faster than in the United States - for only about $22 a month.
South Korea, which has the world's greatest percentage of broadband
users, and urban China, which last year surpassed the U.S. in the
number of broadband users.
The solution is not to protect the baby bells and cable companies from
competition; it is instead to encourage more competition. Communities
across the country are experimenting with ways to supplement private
service. And these
experiments are producing unexpected economic returns. Some are
discovering that free wireless access increases the value of public
spaces just as, well, street lamps do. And just as street lamps don't
make other types of lighting obsolete, free wireless access in public
spaces won't kill demand for access in private spaces. Yet we will
never recognize these externalities unless municipalities are free to
experiment.
"
When a mosquito sucks your blood it is not feeding. It's a reproductive act."
But it is feeding. I eat before sex too. It would be a reproductive act if while feeding, she were laying eggs in the bloodstream of a new host [which malaria kinda is I suppose].
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I hope that this is huge, that this reshapes American ISP landscapes, that more and more muni's get involved in this, that pricing is set by someone other than a lobbysit for Qworst or one of the other failing/failed/corrupt TELCO's. If each muni' owned the wires & had whomever won their bid every 4 years (or whatever), I think we would see better & faster improvements.
In Oregon, the PUC has to sue Qworst every couple of years to get them to budge.
The mosquito, however, is not eating. She is sucking your blood in order to develop and lay fertile eggs, not for personal nourishment. No blood, no eggs. It is a necessary componant of the mosquito reproductive process. It's a sex act from the mosquito's point of view. She's getting off, not getting fed. When a female moquito copulates with a male she stores the sperm and then goes looking for blood in order to complete the act. An interspecies manage a trois. Males do not suck blood because males are not females. No eggs.
Conversely when a parasitic wasp lays it's eggs in you it is no more a sex act than a chicken laying an egg is a sex act.
Adult mosquitos are sugar eaters, like bees.
KFG
Interesting, I'd not put 2 and 2 together until you mentioned of course the fact that male mosquitoes don't drink blood. I'd always been under the wrong impression that the female got nourishment for herself too from biting.
So now you know that when you start to itch that's your mosquito sex orgasm. Try not to be too creeped out by the idea. :)
KFG
An interesting fact about mosquito sucking. It is not sucking per se, since mosquito uses the difference of blood pressure in human (or whoever they are getting the blood from) body, and their own, to get pumped with blood.
If their... um... trunk(?) gets stuck (for example by carefully moving the pierced skin with a finger), they explode.
Same for vampire bats and Masai, except for the making them explode part. From our point of view it's called "bleeding."
KFG
Well, making them explode part is perhaps a) very messy, b) we don't have enough blood and/or pressure to do that.
Scale difference issue...