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."

Comments

It's a Good Thing.

[Pantero Blanco]

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".

Re:It's a Good Thing.

[keraneuology]

Basically, if an ISP can make good money off providing broadband service, why will it let a community body run such projects for free or cheap?

They are fighting tooth and nail to prevent the cities from providing this service: they don't want to provide the service themselves, but they don't want anybody else to provide the service, either. While the various companies involved aren't actually declaring a goal of ensuring that certain groups of people don't have broadband access, this is indeed the de facto result.

In many communities the local cable franchise has a codified monopoly for wired TV delivery systems, with the cables almost always running across public land for which they pay anywhere from nothing to a pittance. The cities explicitly exclude any other cable company from running cables across that same land which guarantees a monopoly for the cable company. In some areas a similar arrangement exists with landlines for the POTS: where I currently reside there is one and only one wired telephone service available because of an exclusive contract signed with the municipality. Apples to apples competition is excluded by law and the POTS company charges appropriately and refuses to upgrade their system in terms of quality or features - after 8 years they still flatly and explicitly refuse to provide DSL service here and "have no plans" to ever do so in the future.

When the county announced plans for a municipal wifi solution for all residents the POTSco (which also happens to be a major wireless carrier) quickly muttered something about how this is unfair because at some point in the future they may want to consider wireless broadband for the area (but they still "have no plans" to actually introduce the service here) and are fighting tooth and nail against the county's plan.

What is even more annoying is that within 10 miles of my current address they are actively engaged in the construction of various subdivisions that are collectively worth somewhere between .75 - 1.25 billion dollars. If the county had listened to people who knew better 10 years ago they would have require any new subdivision to bring fiber to the entry, then 1/3 of one of the largest counties of the state would have had fiber by now because if fiber is available across the street then it is trivial to make it available for you as well.

Welfare for techies

[Arandir]

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.

Re:Welfare for techies

[jcnnghm]

a) Infrastructure is traditionally a public expense (see the road system) or a few people build a ton of it, lock the rest out, and charge every few miles.

b) We are rapidly going to an IP based market for all services. My phones now run over IP, in the next couple of years I'm sure we'll see a good IPTV offering when the Internet speeds get high enough. Intrusion would be allowing one company to own the line to your house, and only provide their TV, Phone, and Voice services without competition (i.e. Only providing QoS on their products).

c) I do not care about the poor. There, I said it. I don't care if the poor can't buy a laptop. I don't care if the poor don't need wireless internet. I do not care. And here is why. If you base all of your decisions on "will this be good for the poor" then you don't get anywhere. Building and maintaining roads isn't good for the poor, but I'm pretty sure we need those. More importantly, the poor aren't going to be the ones paying for it anyway, they're poor. Government spending doesn't always have to focus on the lowest common denominator. Everybody pays taxes, everyone should benefit equally (welfare does nothing for me, anybody in my family, or anyone I know for instance, but that doesn't mean we should eliminate it totally).

d) The government already monitors the Internet. Ever heard of Carnivore and its replacement project? What about the Patriot Act? What do you think the NSA uses all of those supercomputers for? (this is all idle speculation, but they really can't do anything more with government owned infrastructure than without)

Just because the government pays for and builds the infrastructure does not mean that free enterprise is eliminated. On the contrary, if they mandate certain things (QoS for VoIP, IPTV), they can allow private companies (say a Baby Bell, they do have a lot of experience) to maintain the network (just for Internet) with short term contracts (1-5 years) so that if they are doing a bad job, they can be replaced with a competitor (say through a, I don't know, Democratic vote), because the government owns all the infrastructure. Further, the other services that the Internet provides (TV, Phone) can be sold by ANYONE, ANYWHERE because of the built in QoS. Of course, the Comcast's of the world have a leg up because they are established and have buying power, but because they don't own the line, they're not the only game in town.

In short, the government builds it and pays for it, private enterprise runs it to spec, or is replaced. Any company can provide any IP based service with assured quality.

Screw the local telecoms

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Question

[scavok]

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?

Municipal Services or Co-op

[Trailwalker]

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.

Welcome to look at our 1 Gbps...

[tomas.bjornerback]

Hi!

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). /Tomas