Slashdot Mirror
Why Is Connectivity So Cheap In Stockholm?
lpress writes "Symmetric, 100 Mbps service in Stockholm, costs $11/month. Conditions in every city are different, but part of the explanation for the low cost is that the city owns a municipal fiber network reaching every block. They lease network access to anyone who would like to offer service. The ISPs, including incumbent telephone and cable companies, compete on an equal footing."
Why Is Connectivity So Cheap In Stockholm?
Because their taxes are so high, it had better be cheap!
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I'm not a big fan of a huge federal government, but at the local level, cities and towns should have been building out the last mile of service instead of granting local monopolies. If building that infrastructure IS so expensive that no business would do it without the monopoly status, then it probably is something best left to local governments to fund/build and then lease out to whomever wants to offer services to the residents.
My Dad has this problem. He has the choice between the sucky local phone monopoly for DSL or the sucky local cable monopoly for cable.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Lafayette, LA, Cox Cable $140 5 50
Capitalism working for the consumer as usual.
How much of the operating expense is subsidized by revenue not generated through subscriber fees?
Any cost element that's not accounted for in the price calculation that subscribers pay directly makes the apparent benefit of such an arrangement apparent only... not real.
I read a study on plasitic recycling that did something similar; they wanted to show how much more economically sound it was to recycle, so they compared costs (including some estimated) of the recycling processes (transport, processing, etc.) with just plain dumping. And part of their rationale was that dumping fees were really high. But they didn't account for artifical elements in the fees (government environmental impact taxes and fees, etc. designed to make dumping more expensive) and the fact that significant portions of those fees went to subsidize recycling activities (a double whammy in terms of the study dollar per dollar there). This made to whole thing silly, but it looked good if you didn't ask the questions.
This low pricing sounds like it could be suffering from the same sorts of distortions.
yeah, Sweden is socialist country in many areas and for many decades, but it kinda works so well that free-market evangelists never mention anything about it, they prefer talking about Cuba.
839*929
Dragging the fiber can't be that expensive. I mean, compared to water or sewer pipes (which they can even be bunded with).
What's wrong here in the US is a strong public distrust of having the government do anything, because the government may screw you over. So instead people prefer to give important tasks to businesses, who will screw you over.
It's the lack of profiteering that keeps the price down.
If you see communications as a service to be provided to your community; rather than something to be exploited for profit then the dynamics change drastically.
This is a prime example of the mistake people of any nation state thinking that any company, particularly one that's granted a local monopoly will in any way, shape or form act in the consumer's best interest.
yeah, Sweden is socialist country in many areas and for many decades, but it kinda works so well that free-market evangelists never mention anything about it, they prefer talking about Cuba.
Both Sweden and the US are mixed economies. The word socialism is completely taboo in Sweden as much as it is in the US. Even when you discuss systems where there clearly is socialism, such as the public road system.
If you're Swedish, get a fact check, the word that is taboo in Sweden is capitalism.
Say that you're doing anything capitalistic, and people will see you as someone who wants to attack our welfare.
-Socialist liberal Swedish guy.
lol they've still better conditions than the USA
Internet access is slowly becoming another "must have" commodity. And as with water, electricity, telephones (the landline type), mail, public transport, etc. They are simply best left to the government to finance. Or subside.
If running water, electricity, or mail would be left only for big corporations to run, citizens of smaller (sub 10,000 people) cities would barely have running water.
Consider mail. Do you really think the post office wants to deliver mail to everyone? If the recipient lives in an urban area and the postman gets an average of at least 5 letters per mile, then it isn't bad. But when someone lives in the middle of nowhere and the postman needs to travel five miles per letter, then it simply isn't profitable. Yet people would rebel if suddenly half of the country wouldn't be able to receive mail or have electricity.
And they got something for it in return, fuck Rand-bots and that bathtub drowning retard (what's his face again?)
Imagine what would happen if all roads were owned by private companies. Would we ever seen an end to toll roads? Doubt it.
Some things, especially utilities, simply work better when public owned. Electric, water and yes, even telephone. And internet access isn't too far removed from a telephone utility.
I think the next time we hear about a communications company suing a municipality over their intention to install their own fiber in their city, I think the case of Stockholm needs to be cited as the reason why they don't want it and the reason the people should have it.
Yes, the fear of government and of Government regulation can be quite misplaced.
It is well known that in some markets regulation is the only thing that keeps the market even remotely resembling a free market, rather than an oligarchy.
Now regulation can have its issues too. N o doubt that some government regulation is actively harmful. Some of it is well intention regulation that goes sour, which is pretty common considering that macro-scale economics is not a science by any means. Other harmful regulation is that which is supported by the major players in the regulated industry. In general that indicates that the regulation dictates what they would be doing anyway, yet makes it more difficult for competitors to enter the market, or compete with the big players.
In a similar way, having the government perform some function may be very helpful, or may be quite harmful.
Look at the United States Postal Service. People complain about them, but they function pretty well all things considered. The pricing on first class mail is definitely very competitive despite the complete lack of competitors. If the market were opened do you really think UPS, FedEx, or DHL could offer first class mail services at a significantly lower price? Probably not. Perhaps a few cents lower, but not much. The USPS does tend to be slightly more expensive than the alternatives when shipping packages, but that does not really matter, because they have competition there.
Overall the USPS works well. Why does it work well? Perhaps the most important thing to notice is that it is well insulated from the elected politicians. They can't continually mess with it, making changes all the time. It is not profit driven. The apparent goal is to net exactly zero profit, with income covering all the expenses, and employee salaries, upkeep etc, thus requiring no treasury funding. It does reasonably well at that, although they almost never actually reach that goal.
That goes to show that a government institution can work effectively. One that owns last mile infrastructure could also work well, if set up well, such that the politicians have little influence over it, it is set up such that it must price fairly (be this some sort of per endpoint, or bandwidth based pricing scheme, the important thing is that Ma Bell gets no better deal than Joe's DSL Shack), and be set up so that the net profit is zero (the all income covers infrastructure, maintenance, and upgrades).
But alas, the average American is to scared of the government to allow such a thing, and don't see the absurd television, phone, and internet pricing as a real issue.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Stokolab, the last mile operator in question, is communally owned. That's pretty socialist right there.
It just goes to show the importance of moderation in all things. Moderation in regulation. Moderation in privatization.
like the "idealogical barrier" that prevents the Postal Service from doing an efficient job at anything.
When I was a child, my father often spoke proudly about the U.S. Postal Service, bragging about how a first-class letter could get to just about anywhere in the United States in just 2 days, for the cost of a 7 cent stamp.
Today, it costs 6 times as much, and as often as not takes 6 times as long. What is wrong with this picture?
Name something governments do well, aside perhaps from national defense.
National Defense.
Police.
Fire Supression.
National Resource management. (National Parks).
Airspace management.
Worker/Business relations. (When was the last time you heard of employees rioting and fighting in the streets. Used to be common before the government stepped in.)
Airwaves regulation and leasing.
Autmobile safety regulation. (Airbags, Seat belts, Padded stearing columns etc..)
National Highway system.
Airports.
Bank Deposit Insurance. (FDIC).
Public Libraries.
Driving Regulations. (Standardized safe driving practices and enforcement).
Street Parking Management. (Much cheaper than a parking lot most of the time and super easy).
Science Grant Writing.
Medical Grant Writing.
Drug Testing and Approval.
Food Safety Oversight. (The last few years was a great example of what happens when they lose funding.)
City planning. (Go to Bankok and try getting anywhere. This one is huge.)
Public Transportation.
Baseline Medical Insurance for impoverished children.
A social safety net so that to some degree the poorest in our population can feel free to change jobs and not let the economy completely devolve into a slave/endentured servitude in practice.
Unemployment insurance.
Tobacco taxation. (Reduces smoking use while not banning cigarettes.)
The FBI. If your child is kidnapped or a bank robbed you want these people on your side.
The National Weather Service.
Air Traffic Controllers.
The Public School system. It takes in EVERYBODY unlike a private school. Unlike my school (Private school) they don't expell students who fail a class or get caught with a beer. (shock and amaze, when you expell all the kids who fail classes your overall test scores go up!). They also accept vegetables and make their best effort to get them to an employable state at Burger King or stocking shelves. This saves the government a lot of money from having dependent adults who can't contribute to society.
The US Coast Guard. (If your boat flips you want these people to be well funded.)
I apologize for the other million other government employees who also do a great job every day. I only have so much time to stand up for them.
Socialism taboo? Above post is confusing wishful thinking with reality.
he said things the government does well!
Out of your list, I would keep maybe Food Safety, Air Traffic Control and the National Weather Service (NOAA).
It might be argued that our government does well at national defense, but if you are talking about a per-dollar value, then most of this list is absolutely pathetic.
This is exactly what I've been saying - to anyone that would listen, including the California Public Utilities Commission - should have happened in the United States. What sets the described situation completely apart from anything here is that the "people" collectively own the telecom infrastructure: the companies that built it were paid ad CONTRACTORS and not allowed to retain ownership of that common infrastructure.
The sad thing is that there are other examples of that here in the U.S., like out public highway system; we paid the construction companies (through taxes) to build the roads, but the ownership remains in public hands.
That is what SHOULD have happened with our entire telecom infrastructure, but we screwed up way back in the Eighteen Hundreds; we allowed American Telephone & Telegraph - remember them? - to build telegraph and telephone systems but keep ownership of it. That misperception is perhaps solely responsible for getting us in the mess we're in now here in the U.S. We actually had a chance to rectify this during the anti-trust proceedings against AT&T in the 1970s: we could have reclaimed the wires or forced the monopoly to become "nonprofit" similar to the USPS. What we did instead was to slice and dice the beast but let all the parts keep control of the wires in their new little fiefdoms.
Forget all the breathless FUD about "socialism": common shared infrastructure SHOULD be publicly owned. The fact that Sweden is a nation with a marginally socialist economy is quite possibly irrelevent; what is relevant is that Sweden observed and learned a bit from our mistake.
Actually here in the US, anything that isn't 100% rabid capitalism or 100% ridiculous and ill-conceived regulation is evil.
I'm not sure we've ever tried being reasonable about it. The public may get angry enough that regulation becomes necessary, at which point private interests ensure that it is constructed to fail its goal, either by shifting the evil around, or by making it so incredibly inefficient and silly that it becomes an eyesore.
Ikea, Volvo, Ericcson, H&M,etc,etc
It is well known that in some markets regulation is the only thing that keeps the market even remotely resembling a free market, rather than an oligarchy.
This is not in some markets. This is absolutely true in every market. A "Free Market" can't possibly ever exist in reality. Approaching that theoretical ideal is the best we will ever be able to do in that arena. A completely unregulated market will always be far away from a free market.
This is easy to prove absolutely.
Want to win in a market without being the best? Murder your competition. What's that, you'll go to prison? Wow, market regulation, It's everywhere and it is an essential requirement of a functioning market.
Over regulation is also bad, but the most commonly deluded types are the ones who not only believe that free markets are real, but they think unregulated markets and free markets are the same thing.
So tell me this then: What major technological inventions happened in the US during the last 59 years?