Wisconsin Public Internet Struggles Against Telecom, Legislature

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Ars Technica: "The University of Wisconsin's Internet technology division and a crucial provider of 'Net access for Wisconsin's educational system are under attack from that state's legislature and from a local telecommunications association. At issue is the WiscNet educational cooperative. The non-profit provides affordable network access to the state's schools and libraries, although its useful days may be numbered unless the picture changes soon. Under a proposed new law, the University of Wisconsin system could be forced to return millions of dollars in federal broadband grants that it has already won, spend far more money on network services, and perhaps even withdraw from the Internet2 project."

Comments

WTF is it with these Telcos?

[advocate_one]

can't they stand ANY competition?

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[SETIGuy]

I'm somewhat surprised that the "R-word" is mentioned so little. The programs being dismantled were put in place by Democrats. Republicans think that alone is reason to get rid of them. And, of course, anything that benefits the public must be bad.

The Republicans are in charge now, and they don't have a lot of time before the voters kick them out. So they're working as quickly as they can to dismantle the University of Wisconsin system. They'd like to pseudo-privatize the big school in Madison. "Flexibility" is the buzzword there, and it means less public funds, higher tuitions, and fewer in-state students.

In the telecom area, I think the next step will be to force areas that have a telephone cooperatives for phone and internet to sell to a commercial for profit entity and well below the infrastructure value. "Cooperatives are communistic, don't cha know, but AT&T is competitive, and that brings down prices." Rural communities with cooperatives in WI have better internet access (fiber) than I do in the city in CA (cable).

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[dgatwood]

Actually, there is no evidence that a free market will help. In every non-urban area I've seen that has allowed additional telcos or cable companies to provide service, the result has been the same: the incumbent carrier, whose lines are long since paid for, undercuts the new carrier to the point that they cannot make any money. The new carrier goes under and sells their lines in a bankruptcy sale to the incumbent carrier, the backers of the new company get screwed, and the incumbent carrier gets a free infrastructure upgrade. Then, they raise rates above where they were before.

Last-mile infrastructure is expensive. Except for large cities, it isn't feasible for anyone other than the government to roll it out. This is why the government provides grants and tax breaks to subsidize the construction of last-mile infrastructure. The only feasible alternative to this that has actually been shown to work is government construction and maintenance of the relevant wire infrastructure. In places where the government owns and maintains the wires, free market competition tends to work very well among the various ISPs that lease access. Those ISPs need only provide blocks of IPs, routing infrastructure, and upstream connectivity from a central office. This makes competition much more feasible than having hundreds of companies trenching your yard and laying cables.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people who realize that there is too much government intervention for the free market to operate are also the same people who oppose any government-run wire infrastructure projects (because that would be increasing government interference in their minds) and thus actively thwart the one solution that would actually allow the free market to operate in any useful way. As a result, with the exception of a few very rare, forward-thinking communities, telecom in the United States is a train wreck in slow motion, with emphasis on "slow".

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Moryath]

There IS such a thing as right and wrong.

Wisconsin built up a wonderful public infrastructure during the years the Democrats - and even to a lesser extent, moderate Republicans (we'll never see the likes of Tommy Thompson again sadly: the Tea Tardier fringe will make sure no sane moderate ever survives the primaries) - were running the state. Solid public utilities. Lots of PUBLIC infrastructure in the form of parks, public pools, public recreation tracks. Things that the ENTIRE public, rather than just an elite few, get to enjoy. The Milwaukee river and other river systems, troubled by decades of runoff from irresponsible asshole factories, actually were getting cleaned up.

What's been happening lately? The Republican Party's old "GOP" initials seem to stand for Greed Over People. "Tax cuts" and "tax incentives" that go to nobody but billionaire robber barons time and again. Dismantling the ability for unions to form, let alone maintain a balanced negotiating stance. They want to throw environmental regulations - you know, those things that go towards clean air, clean water, having your kids able to play in a local park that isn't a totally fucking contaminated waste dump - out the window.

The ridiculous notion spread around that people who are below, at, or barely above the poverty line should "pay their fair share" (what the fuck is "their fair share" anyways?) for things that go to the public good overall, like vaccinations. The constant push to "spread the pain" by converting public goods (like roads) into revenue streams that always, ALWAYS disproportionately affect the middle and lower class more than the higher, selling off public utilities into "private company" hands... and always, like we see with Shithead Walker in WI, coming back around as bribes and kickbacks to the involved politicians.

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Re:WTF is it with these Telcos?

[Moryath]

Go further: there is ample evidence (100% of historical record) that a "totally free market", absent regulation, devolves into monopolist rape of the population.

You have to have regulation, or you can't have a competitive market (which is vastly different from a "free market"). Free Markets = Fuck the Consumers. Competitive Markets are what most "conservatives" think they get out of "eliminate regulation" cries... right until some asshole buys out their company and ships the factory to India, China, or somewhere similar.

Just like Abraham said

[Dyinobal]

"and that government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations shall not perish from the earth."

Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[olsmeister]

The provision was inserted at the 11th hour by Republicans after lobbying by companies such as AT&T, claiming that these types of services should be provided by private companies. http://wistechnology.com/articles/8648/ http://wistechnology.com/articles/8665/

Re:Courtesy of Republicans and AT&T lobbyists

[Moryath]

Quite frankly I'm sickened that \. has started leaning so far to the left these days. People here used to understand the free market. They used to believe in competition. They used to believe in freedom.

Then the reality of what right-wingers like you actually meant by "free market", e.g. rape of the middle class for the profit of the robber barons, came to pass.

You know. The raiding of pension funds. The fucking-over of everyone's 401k and other retirement accounts, which were your "replacement" for pensions - a few assholes from Wall Street laughed their way to the bank while the grandparents of the nation got fucked in the ass, thanks the the Retardican Party.

The constant tax cuts to billionaire robber barons while constantly increasing government "fees" on everyday necessities like auto registration, to fuck the middle and lower class every step of the way.

Do I think "total socialism" is the way to go? Of course not. But the laissez-faire, "no regulation", "every man for himself" crap that you assholes push sure as fuck isn't the way to go either.

Well you see...

[GlobalMind]

AT&T won't provide the services or will do so at triple the prices paid now. This is also a very convenient way of shorting the school system what they need, and thus have more ammo to go after them for not providing what our kids need. Thus making schools the root of all evil again. Most voters will go along with it, and the GOP in Wisconsin gets more of what it wants.

Campaign donations

[Anonymous Coward]

THis makes perfect sense when you figure that ATT is set to profit big time from this legislation and they were/are a huge campaign contributor to Scott (I'm a Douche Bag) Walker. For those of you following along, this is the second time he has done this, the first was a 23m Fed giveback that would have replaced the sub par Badgernet service.

An unfortunate glimpse of what's to come

[macwhizkid]

This is a very nicely written and researched article, which, unfortunately, only shows in detail one horrific case study of what could soon be a widespread occurrence if the big telecom corps get what they want: to go after the government/educational market (now that the consumer market is completely saturated) and offer them half the service at twice the price.

Organizations like WiscNet provide a fantastic public service, and the notion of dismantling them for private industry to make a buck is just reprehensible. I'm from Michigan, not Wisconsin, but I could very easily see this happening here, as we have the same issues in play: Merit Network, a non-profit co-op founded for the same reasons as WiscNet, provides Internet access to almost all the schools in the state. It would be a huge loss for our corrupt legislature to squeeze them out (never underestimate the evil of the Michigan Legislature, look up the Michigan "promise scholarship" if you don't believe me). I'm sure other states are in similar situations.

My dad's a public school teacher, and my Internet access growing up was through Merit's dialup, which they offered free to teachers at the time. Unlike most commercial offerings back in the mid-90s (or even now) there was no monthly time allotment or bandwidth cap. I shudder to think how my experiences building web sites and learning to code would have changed had AT&T run that system. I do biomed research now, and I'm posting this from a Merit network connection that we use to collaborate with other labs across the country. Try doing that on a 250GB monthly cap.

Hey Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association: Go to hell, and take your bandwidth caps with you.

So when are the ISPs going to pay up?

[king neckbeard]

the University of Wisconsin system could be forced to return millions of dollars in federal broadband grants that it has already won,

So, does that mean the telecoms are going to return the BILLIONS in subsidies and tax cuts they've received?

Re:Presidential Posturing from Wisconsin Gov ...

[MozeeToby]

His union-busting went well enough for his purposes

If WI laws allowed it, he'd be facing a recall vote along with the 6 Republican senators that are already being recalled. And I'd be shocked if he doesn't face a recall when he becomes eligible for one in January. He pissed a lot of people off and if his goal was to weaken support for the unions he failed miserably. A lot of people who started out against the unions watched the unions agree to a pay cut, a benefits cut, and even a temporary moratorium on collective bargaining. There are people angry with the Democratic senators for their walk out, but even that anger isn't directed at the Unions. In the end, it was the unions who looked reasonable; while the Democrats looked petty and weak and the Republicans looked like card carrying villains.

I think he'd be hard pressed to explain his behavior on a national stage to anyone other than anti-union Republicans. Not to mention that there are about 100k people in WI that have shown themselves ready and willing to take time off from work to stand in the literally freezing rain just to show their displeasure for him. Sometimes the "Would never vote for" column is just as important as the "Would vote for" column in polling, because it shows how active and engaged people would be to someone who is opposing him.

Re:The GOP's bright idea

[bzipitidoo]

Not quite.

Privatize the gains, socialize the losses.

That's the 2008 Financial Crisis in a nutshell. Then hold the mess up as an example of how bankrupt, stupid, and evil government and socialist organizations such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are. Blame it all on the policies of the Clinton and Carter administrations. Mock GM for now being "Government Motors". Crow about how great private enterprise is. Brazenly ignore the boatload of implicit contradictions, omissions, and lies in such statements.

WiscNet was second target

[white_owl]

The real target here was the federal stimulus money (NTIA, BTOP) that was being used to create coops in Wisconsin. The Building Community Capacity through Broadband project which would have connected together anchor institutions (city and county governments, libraries, schools, hospitals) and allow them to buy bandwidth wholesale rather than retail. That did not sit too well with some telecom folks and in the press they are saying that the University should not compete with the private sector. Well the University has to get bandwith in most of the state anyway to feed the various Univ of Wisc campuses. So including some school systems in the process makes sense if you believe in efficiency and cost savings. Gov Walker is "open for business" so he does not believe in government efficiency.

WiscNet was, as I understand it a secondary concern, although the telecoms have wanted it to die for a decades. It is the same pattern of schools banding together and riding together on common infrastructure. ATT would like that to go away with WiscNet in favor of Badgernet which they run or even better, from their point of view, to sell everyone T-1 lines retail.

This is the second effort for this. The first successful effort (from ATT's perspective) was to give back $37 million of the same stimulus money (NTIA, BTOP) for a different state run project. The spin there was that the Feds did not want to give the money to a private company. But insiders tell me that it was not the feds but ATT. ( wisconsins-stimulus-rejection-too-many-strings-or-too-much-scrutiny)

Re:Competitive?

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Taking tax dollars from 49 states and using it to undercut local providers isn't competition.

Nice spin. You're implying that the telecommunications grant isn't available to the other 49 states and somehow the rest of the country is being shortchanged. You also overlooked the purpose of these grants. Without them private entities would not expand their broadband offering to rural areas. If there was truly a free market telecommunication market then people in rural areas would still be paying too much for POTS (plain old telephone system) and would only have dial up access to their ISP.

I can't help but notice that the republican party advocates cutting subsidies to non-profits because of "free market" concerns, yet is amazingly quiet about government subsidies going to profitable industries (eg. oil).