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Telco Sues City For Plan To Roll Out Own Broadband
Syngularity writes 'MaximumPC is featuring an article about one broadband provider's decision to sue the city of Monticello, Minnesota after residents passed a referendum to roll out their own fiber optic system. TDS Telecommunications had earlier denied the city's request for the company to provide fiber optic service. During the ensuing legal battle, which prevented the citizens from following through with their plans, TDS Telecommunications took the opportunity to roll out a fiber system.'
The Citizens of Monticello request several times to TDS Telecommunications that they upgrade the cities connection. They kept saying "Soon, we'll get to it" That is when the citizens, not the government, passed a referendum to install a city run fiber network.
It was only after the city started installing that TDS Telecommunications sued the city and tied them up in a prolong court battle, which prevented them from continuing their install. During that time they started laying fiber of their own, by the time the city won the law suit TDS Telecommunications had completed their project and now offer 50mb to every household there for about 50$ a month.
I guess this just shows if you want your ISP to upgrade your connection, pass a law to get the city to do it and force their hand.
I used to live in a Tri-City area outside of Chicago. The three towns were going to go in on a municipal internet system that would have provided TV, Phone, Internet, over fiber-optic.
Comcast did a massive advertisement campaign against the system and how if it failed we would foot the bill. They also had techncians out for three weeks straight installing new lines across the town. When it came to vote in my city of the three city's it failed 6000 votes to like 7500 votes, the funny part is, if the 6000 people who voted yes bought into the system and the system lasted for 5 years it would have paid itself and would have become self-sustaining.
has had a municipal fiber-to-the-premises system for the past two years. I doubt I would have been alive long enough to see FIOS rolled out, particularly since the outfit that Verizon dumped^H^H^H^H^H^H sold their landline infrastructure to, Fairpoint, has just filed bankruptcy. Comcast, the only other game in town, has been howling to the state regulators about the sheer UNFAIRNESS of a publically-owned body actually implementing something that they had no intention of providing (in their neverending quest at maximizing shareholder value). Most recently, certain parties (first two guesses don't count) have been agitating to have the city shut down Burlington Telecom over perceived financial malfeasance. After all, it's downright UN-AMERICAN to have such an important piece of infrastructure exist without money flowing into corporate coffers!
Easier said then done..
Outside of large metro areas where we might be lucky if we have 2 options, most smaller areas are outright monopolies. I personally do not consider DSL broadband anymore, then again I have FIOS :) ....
I believe that the municipalities should put in the backbone connecting all the housing and business infrastructures of an area with their choice of networking, then lease that to the telcos and ISPs, that way, anyone who wants entry into the market just has to provide the infrastructure up to the municipal peering locations.
That would provide competition.. and easier entry for non incumbents...
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
... on what grounds TDS sued the town? This is not explained in the article.
False. The amount of money collected from gasoline/diesel taxes *far exceed* the amount spent on annual maintenance. Where does the excess go? I don't about your state, but in mine the gas taxes are used to subsizde the Light Rail trains. I've sat in the State House and seen the vote for myself - money taken from the road fund and used to build a new rail line from Tysons Corner to Towson.
The senior minority leader had a fit, saying it was a misappropriation of funds, but of course he was unable to stop it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
So, they're not friends of competition, are they?
50-100 years ago we had this collective dream of free markets, capitalism, solving our problems.
Then, corporations found out that the actual free market is bad for profit margins. Once they grew powerful enough, they started changing the game.
Events like this should have the capitalists and free market supporters up in arms. But it doesn't. Why?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Well if killing were always wrong, you'd have a point, but there are times where its justified.
Personally, I think its a great way to deal with the dregs of society; eliminate the ones causing problems, and you'll only be left with people who aren't causing problems.
There's a chapter about this in "Freakonomics" by Dubner and Levitt, where they run the numbers and point out that legalizing abortion and putting more cops on the streets has done more to lower the crime rate than any number of executions per year ever will.
--Obyron
I could tell you about American Alarm in Orange County, CA who writes contracts seemingly with 1 length filled into a blank on the front but then a blanket 5 year term overriding on the back.
They have this fat, ugly, semi-female "non-lawyer" (I wrote that for her benefit since she routinely scours the internet looking for negative news about American Alarm so that she can bully sites into cleaning it up... Hi, you ugly piece of crap that was obviously raped as a child to do what you do and look like you look!)
Anyway, she sits at small claims court all day every day suing all their customers to get money for service they never provided and obtained through fraudulent means and the court backs them up, all day, every day in a complete travesty of justice...
How's that?
You don't have to imagine what the country would look like - there's actually a neat historical example in Germany for this. At the end of the 18th century, Germany was splintered into many local city states, and had approximately 1800 customs barriers. The impact on traffic and goods was so blatantly obvious to everyone that the states voluntarily abandoned their individual independence and formed toll coalitions.
The people who argue for privatization of everything are merely ignorant of history. Most of their ideas have been tried already, and abandoned because of their catastrophic impact.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.