Slashdot Mirror
Telecoms Suing Municipalities That Plan Broadband Access
Law.com has up a review of ongoing and historical cases of telecoms suing municipalities that plan broadband networks. In many cases those same telecoms have spent years ignoring as potential customers the cities and towns now undertaking Net infrastructure projects, only to turn around and sue them. One lawyer who has defended many municipalities in this position says, "This is similar to electrification a century ago when small towns and rural areas were left behind, so they formed their own authorities." Bob Frankston has been writing for years about the financial model of artificial scarcity that underlies the telecoms businss plans. This post gives some of the background to the telecoms' fear of abundance.
And is there any way we can post the plans for the wiring of their top execs offices and homes online so all the world can assist them in not having broadband?
After all, it's for the public good - the USA is near the bottom for high speed Net access among first world nations ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Then get the fuck off it and stop clogging our tubes, Ebeneezer!
Caveat Utilitor
'Internet access is not "necessary infrastructure".' So true. Things were so much simple and we were so much more prosperous before these newfangled computamacalits started tromping around on my lawn.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Don't forget the sewers!
I'm sure we all remember the Google TiSP Project. A shame that never took off, I had it for a while and was very impressed.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Last time I checked, lawsuits are not typically the way one cuts deals.
I was in the trial program for Google TiSP.
Long story short: the speed was crap.
The word you were looking for is "retarded".
As in "Writing retarted instead of retarded is retarded".
HTH. HAND.
Municipalities want to pay for fiber to connect them to the metropolis? Fine. But that fiber has to be open for everyone. They don't get to play favorites with the telcos.
Maybe you're confused.
Municipalities want to build out broadband networks and make them the 5th utility, alongside natural gas, heating oil, water, and electricity. The Telcos are suing to prevent Municipalities from doing this.
This is how it should work (not the suing, the municipal fiber) If its a government service, funded by tax dollars we wont see bullshit like throttling, instead they will simply add more capacity, and since its a government service, providing the service will be the top priority rather than making a profit (though given the ease of generating profit from a braodband network its likely municipalities will use the opportunity to raise more revenues for other projects anyway. For instance the roads in my city are so bad people here are actually in favour of a tax increase if its to fix the roads.)
Regardless, it will do something very important, break the effective monopoly the telcos enjoy currently.