Georgia Bill Would Prohibit Subsidies For Municpal Broadband

McGruber writes "The Associated Press has the news that Georgia State Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers is sponsoring a bill that 'would prevent public broadband providers from paying for communication networks with tax or government revenue.' Senator Rogers claims that 'The private sector is handling this exceptionally well.' Local government officials disagree. Georgia Municipal Association spokeswoman Amy Henderson says 'When cities were getting involved in broadband, it was because private industry would not come there. Without that technology, they were economically disadvantaged. We feel like it is an option cities should have.'"

Comments

Doublethink

[ClioCJS]

This is a corporate power bid to get public funds off their wires, so that they can claim the network as their own property, and no longer have to abide by [what is left of] the constitution. For example, laws governing privacy over publicly funded networks would cease to exist if no tax dollars went into something.

Most politics these days is something bad trying to be passed off as something good. It's important that we keep PUBLIC money invested in our infrastructure, so that nobody can make the claim of "the corporations made this possible, therefore we should let them run roughshod over us". They didn't make it possible. DARPA and our tax dollars made the internet happen when it did.

Re:Doublethink

[ISoldat53]

Can you say "Sell out?"

Re:Doublethink

[Grand Facade]

The other side of this coin is they don't have to get payed in moneys
There tax breaks, right of way access, perks and benefits.

However the limitations on the wires for basic phone service must be really chapping their hides because they can see the gouging that is happening in the Cellular industry and they want on that gravy train.

Re:Doublethink

[Githaron]

I don't know about you but the only way I would accept that they own 100% of the infrastructure is if they not only stopped accepting aid from the government but also paid back all previous government aid whether it was in subsidizing, perks, tax breaks, or otherwise. Somehow, I doubt that would ever happen.

Re:Doublethink

[Penguinisto]

There is a danger in doing that.

If they were successful in un-coupling themselves from any designation as a public entity, then claiming they and their equipment is purely private? They lose public rights-of-way for any stretch of their network that crosses private property (including easements in some cases). That means any property owner with a cable or fiber crossing his or her property can charge rent or cut the thing, and local governments can get real evil and charge massive rent to the private ISPs for easement

(e.g. "Dear Comcast: You recently lost public utility easement rights. You now owe me $3k/month rental fee. As an alternative, you have 90 days to re-route your cable and to repair any and all damages at your expense, and with proper approval and permits by all relevant city authorities. Failure to perform either act means that I rent a bobcat to dig up and dispose of the existing fiber found on my property for non-payment").

Re:Doublethink

[cpu6502]

>>>laws governing privacy over publicly funded networks would cease to exist if no tax dollars went into something.

That's not really true. States have power to regulate anything they wish inside their borders. Look at how they regulate private electric and natural-gas companies. They can do the same with Comcast, Verizon, et cetera.

Re:Doublethink

[cpu6502]

What limitations on wired phone service?

Re:Doublethink

[ClioCJS]

can != will

Re:Doublethink

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, we should keep public money in our infrastructure so that people can make the claim that "government made this possible, therefore we should let them run roughshod over us".

Re:Doublethink

[Desler]

Is this supposed to elicit sympathy. Oh no! They'll have to compensate people for using their land! Those poor things!

Re:Doublethink

[cpu6502]

Yeah right. The States regulate everything else: Power, water, natural gas, roads, car inspections, emission inspections, land use, ........ but for some strange reason they will not regulate internet companies. That is not a logical belief.

Re:Doublethink

[radtea]

It's important that we keep PUBLIC money invested in our infrastructure, so that nobody can make the claim of "the corporations made this possible, therefore we should let them run roughshod over us"

But this argument concedes far, far too much truth to the side of corporate lies.

Corporations may make something possible, but corporations are made possible only by government interference with free markets. Corporations exist solely because of the Companies Acts of the 1800's and their modern descendents. They are a pure product of that State for the purposes of generating particular types of public benefit, and as such may be regulated in any way required to best realize the benefits for which they were created.

But anyone who pretends that any good done by corporations is not also a public good, and fully claimable as such, is (inadvertently or otherwise) drinking the corporate kool-aid.

Re:Doublethink

[ClioCJS]

You are correct. When weighing corporations vs the public interest, governments always rule in favor of public interest.

Re:Doublethink

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's a bid by small local ISPs and LECs to keep the big boys, and the cable operators from swooping in with stimulus grants, matching funds from governments, etc. and stomping all over the locals. For example, Sprint/Xohm/Clearwire came into Statesboro on a Municipal Broadband Initiative stimulus grant, offering free WiMax service to the city and other local governments, in return for charging X dollars ( I think it was $60 or so) a month to consumers. The local ISPs raised hell at City Hall apparently. Maybe Verizon had something to with it too. At any rate it was stopped. This is just an attempt to do the same at the state level.

You can also see an attempt here to shield wired service from competion from VOIP. Or that's just another way of looking at it. At any rate entrenched local interests are at stake here, too. Georgia has a lot small locally-owned ILECS with powerful local political connections.

So far so good. Now if the legislature would see fit to regulate telecom properly, ie. require fiat utility monopolies to open up DSLAMs and tariff ATM and fiber loops sensibly- you know, remove the last mile issue, then you'd see the broadband, and more particularly, the much decried dearth of rural broadband, market, and small business, explode.

Don't hold your breath, however, with the vulture capital robber barons clamping down on IP and using govt to squelch all production but their own. No matter how they have to do it. Maybe tekrat is right, come to think of it. Incautious, but right. Don't have to like it, though.

Anonymous struggling small ISP operator in GA.

Re:Doublethink

[radtea]

If they were successful in un-coupling themselves from any designation as a public entity, then claiming they and their equipment is purely private?

Corporations are public entities whose very existence is made possible by government interference with free markets in the form of various Companies Acts. So any such claim as the one you posit would be incoherent at best.

Re:Doublethink

[darth dickinson]

And then triple your bill with a "recovery fee".

What, you thought they would just take the hit to their bottom line?

Re:Doublethink

[icebike]

If they were successful in un-coupling themselves from any designation as a public entity, then claiming they and their equipment is purely private? They lose public rights-of-way for any stretch of their network that crosses private property (including easements in some cases).

What world do you live in?

The easement for cable and telephones pre-dates your ownership of the property. There are usually zero conditions upon this easement, nor it it taxed.
Public entities are seldom the sole users of right of way corridors. Cable companies (TV Internet), phone companies, gas, electric and in some cases even water and steam lines from private providers pass under your lawn. The easement is written into your deed. Its unconditional. And god help you if they find oil or coal under your property.

Re:Doublethink

[hedwards]

Wired phone service is regulated under a different set of rules than cable, cellular and FiOS is. It's generally the most regulated of the bunch and receives UTF subsidies to expand service into rural areas as well.

Re:Doublethink

[icebike]

I don't discount anything you say, but bear in mind that as things stand today, Corporations are people too, and they own their property just as surely as you own yours. Look up the derivation of the word Corporation.

Re:Doublethink

[s73v3r]

Essentially, they have "Phone Neutrality". Meaning, when you call someone, they are required to connect that call, regardless of where the other person is, or what network they're on (exceptions for opt-in things like 900 blockers). And they cannot degrade the quality. A call to someone on a different network has to have the exact same priority as a call to someone on the same network.

Re:Doublethink

[s73v3r]

Agreed. Saying they own it without paying back all the benefits they received in the past would be like me financing a car, and saying I own it without paying back the loan.

Re:Doublethink

[s73v3r]

I fail to see the problem here. If they want to pretend they are purely private, and that they should have control over every bit that travels over the lines, then they should have to be treated accordingly.

Re:Doublethink

[s73v3r]

Yes, I can see just how well a state run by people like Scott Walker or Rick Perry would want to regulate an ISP.

Re:Doublethink

[Chris Burke]

What, you thought they would just take the hit to their bottom line?

You think they aren't charging what the market will bear today? They're happy with their current bottom line, and want no more?

Re:Doublethink

[khallow]

Most politics these days is something bad trying to be passed off as something good. It's important that we keep PUBLIC money invested in our infrastructure, so that nobody can make the claim of "the corporations made this possible, therefore we should let them run roughshod over us". They didn't make it possible. DARPA and our tax dollars made the internet happen when it did.

So let me get this right. You want to continue dumb and destructive government policies for some bullshit rhetorical advantage? How about we not do this and help save the future of the US? Even if it means that "corporations", otherwise known as that private world which employs roughly 75-80% of the employed people in the US, continue to make our society possible.

Re:Doublethink

[khallow]

But anyone who pretends that any good done by corporations is not also a public good

How about if we don't fake it and legitimately point out that private good done by corporations and other private entities is not a public good?

Re:Doublethink

[ClioCJS]

I suppose if you want to define "how things are currently done and always have been" as "dumb and destructive government policies", and pretend that the advantage I stated is purely rhetorical, then, by those 2 huge stretches, your statement is true.

Re:Doublethink

[Jaysyn]

There are usually zero conditions upon this easement, nor it it taxed.

That simply isn't true. When we (the company I work for) are designing networks we have to figure out cable footage for billing & tax purposes. I know for absolute certain that AT&T pays easement taxes in Florida. The cables even have a taxid in their fiber management systems.

Re:Doublethink

[khallow]

"how things are currently done and always have been"

Only if you ignore that there's been huge change in how much the US government has done and in what areas since after the First World War. For example, prior to the start of the Second World War, most US-based scientific research was private.

and pretend that the advantage I stated is purely rhetorical, then, by those 2 huge stretches, your statement is true.

I merely used your words. You should have given a legitimate reason instead. Having said that, I think it's bizarre to put a little government into every human endeavor and then claim that government was responsible for it all.

Let's consider the case of the internet. It's worth noting that Metcalf's Law and the application of email is the primary reason, not a few US government expenditures in the early days, that we have an internet instead of walled gardens. The transition from a collection of scattered networks such as ARPAnet, BITNET, FidoNET, etc to today's internet was virtually all accomplished by private groups.

And frankly, as I implied above, I think it would have happened anyway, even in the absence of government funding.

Re:Doublethink

[Anonymous Coward]

I rent a bobcat to dig up and dispose of the existing fiber found on my property for non-payment

at their expense. By the way, how are roads developed in the US and how does that work? If that works well they could apply the same model to this infrastructure as well.

Re:Doublethink

[ClioCJS]

But it didn't, and things would be much worse if it was purely corporate run. I hope you're not naive enough to think otherwise. There's a bounty of articles on slashdot over the past 15 yrs that I'd recommend in retort, if I cared enough.

p.s. My use of "always" was specific to the topic -- broadband -- which did not exist prior to WW2.

Re:Doublethink

[Daniel Dvorkin]

If they were successful in un-coupling themselves from any designation as a public entity, then claiming they and their equipment is purely private? They lose public rights-of-way for any stretch of their network that crosses private property (including easements in some cases). That means any property owner with a cable or fiber crossing his or her property can charge rent or cut the thing, and local governments can get real evil and charge massive rent to the private ISPs for easement

You have to know this isn't going to happen -- not to Comcast, at any rate, or Verizon, or Time-Warner, anyway. It might happen to local companies that are trying to provide good service at a reasonable price, of course, but the exact same companies that are buying laws like this will also buy themselves exemptions from any negative consequences of the laws.

It seems to be a fairly common reaction on /. to warn certain groups trying to do evil (giant corporations buying stupid laws, and religious fanatics tearing down the wall of separation between church and state, are the two most common examples I can think of off the top of my head) to beware of unintended consequences. "Well, if they do this, then such-and-such will happen, and they'll be sorry!" But that's not the way it works in the real world. Be assured, they've thought of these consequences already, and they've planned and budgeted for them.

Re:Doublethink

[icebike]

Your plant is taxed.
Your Easement is not.

You couldn't begin to pay market value for the land occupied by your cable plant. Its a gift to you from the city and state as their contribution to a valuable service.

Re:Doublethink

[geekoid]

also, pay me rent for running through my property.

Re:Doublethink

[ratboy666]

I have no problem with removal of government interference in broadband internet...

Wait. Yes I do. The incumbents (duopoly) providing broadband internet in my area can do so because government granted easements. Government grants radio spectrum as well (at least in my area -- not sure how these things work where you live).

IF THE PROVIDERS BECOME COMPLETELY PRIVATE, I WANT MY CUT.

Sorry, had to emphasize that. If I don't get paid out, I will resort to "backhoe politics". I'll even pay the nuisance fine (I think its around a hundred bucks now). Wait a minute -- there wouldn't be a nuisance fine, this would be private thing.

I would want to negotiate the continuing value of the use of my property. And, if we can't come to an understanding, the cable/fiber/whatever on my land becomes my salvage.

Welcome to the Private world. Somehow I don't think you would like it. Especially if you lived downstream from me.

Re:Doublethink

[Anonymous Coward]

The property will go right back to the people who actually own it if corporations evaporate overnight.

Re:Doublethink

[AmberBlackCat]

I would also need the government to get rid of any agreement that they can't have competing cable/internet companies. If you want the government to stay out of it, let them stay all the way out of it.

Re:Doublethink

[__aaltlg1547]

I prefer the word "corruption"

Re:Doublethink

[stdarg]

Odd, because Toyota doesn't pay the bill for inspections done on Toyota cars.

I think what you meant is "When weighing anything vs. their own power, governments always rule in favor of their own power."

Re:Doublethink

[ClioCJS]

And which {out of "government" and "corporations"} is supposed to {have the power}, again?

Re:Doublethink

[khallow]

There's a bounty of articles on slashdot over the past 15 yrs that I'd recommend in retort, if I cared enough.

I explained my side. You need more than a "bounty of articles", you need evidence to the contrary. The two are not equivalent.

p.s. My use of "always" was specific to the topic -- broadband -- which did not exist prior to WW2.

Broadband isn't well-defined now either.

Re:Doublethink

[khallow]

I would want to negotiate the continuing value of the use of my property. And, if we can't come to an understanding, the cable/fiber/whatever on my land becomes my salvage.

Welcome to the Private world. Somehow I don't think you would like it. Especially if you lived downstream from me.

Are you trying to make an argument for something? Why not dig out the backhoe anyway? Doesn't matter if it's private or public. Get your cut.

Re:Doublethink

[Anonymous Coward]

but corporations are made possible only by government interference with free markets. Corporations exist solely because of the Companies Acts of the 1800's and their modern descendents.

Doublethink indeed.

You might want to mention the fact that prior to the 1800's, instead of corporations having all the wealth it was individuals or families. And they had even more power and wealth than corporations do today, and were accountable to nobody.

Re:Doublethink

[hitmark]

And this they do in return for not being held liable when a criminal use their services to plan or perform a crime.

Re:Doublethink

[ratboy666]

Easements were granted to natural monopolies. In exchange for certain things.

Things like:

Universal access
Community access

A social contract. Business has a single motive; the Profit Motive. Very important, it's the first thing you learn about in Business School. Neither Universal or Community access will directly improve profit. But, as a social contract, they benefit me.

If this social agenda is eliminated (by privitization), my point is that I want fair dealing. What is a social contract worth?

My final point was that you too are dependent on certain social contracts.

Re:Doublethink

[khallow]

There's just as much of a "social contract" with the private company as the public government.

My final point was that you too are dependent on certain social contracts.

Sure. And if those contracts don't go exactly the way you want them to go, you advocate going to "backhoe politics".

This doesn't make logical sense.

[lorenlal]

I don't understand the purpose of something like this. The state is telling the counties and cities, "Hey, you're just not allowed to spend your share of tax revenues on X." I'd love to see the campaign donor list for this dude.

If the private sector is doing so well, why tell them that they have one less idea to compete against? If anything, that *discourages* private companies from making services better. Sounds like a perfect case of trying to fix something that doesn't appear to be broken.

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

I'd love to see the campaign donor list for this dude.

Here you go.

Oddly enough, I don't see Comcast or Verizon on there.

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Competing with theft? Modern day doublespeak at its finest.

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[AngryDeuce]

No PAC's associated with him? After all, they don't have to report their donations and can, themselves, donate directly to a candidate's campaign.

Here's Jon Stewart discussing Colbert's PAC, Americans For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow.

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[Penguinisto]

...not yet. They want the services rendered before they pay for it.

(and there is that $39k from "uncoded"...)

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[s73v3r]

Why is this marked troll? Why would any corporation give directly to someone's campaign now, when they can quietly and anonymously give to the candidate's PAC?

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[Aryden]

well shit, we know how he is going to vote on any healthcare bills...

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

He named his son "Reagan", to me this says he has his eyes on bigger offices.

The payoff will come later.

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[stephanruby]

You missed the #1 contributor to all of his campaigns. Rogers Communications, Inc

No, not the Canadian one. In this case, "Rogers Communications, Inc" is Chip Rogers own company: which used to consist of a former radio station and some real estate holdings.

According to his political opponent Thompson (the one who keeps on losing to him), Chip Rogers is not being open about what his company consists of. If anyone has access to Lexis Nexis, may be some of you can find out more.

If you're on the fence on this particular issue, do note that the Senator is also strongly against Net Neutrality.

Create a private company

[ubergeek65536]

Can't the city start a private company and be the sole customer? Are there laws preventing that?

Re:Create a private company

[Anonymous Coward]

Just give Chip a minute, I'm sure he'll come up with one...

Re:Create a private company

[vlm]

Can't the city start a private company and be the sole customer? Are there laws preventing that?

That private company wouldn't be much of a municipal public broadband provider, they'd merely be a really small ISP.

Re:Create a private company

[firex726]

That's the point.

The private company would own everything and lease it at cost to the town. It would technically be private but people would still get their internet where the existing private ones choose not to go.

Re:Create a private company

[Anonymous Coward]

I think if this were me, I'd just tell the companies to get off my lawn and find their own damn right of way

Re:Create a private company

[alexander_686]

No, but you are kind of missing the point.

I grew up in a town with a municipal liquor, phone and cable company (3 separate companies.) The last 2 being “natural monopolies” (less so today, but).

The phone company was well managed, the cable company less so. Both were for profit companies and paid corporate income tax, but kicked any dividends over the city. The phone company did a good job of reinvesting in equipment, the cable company did not. The cable company kind of imploded one day (a little mismangment, a little fraud) and was sold off to a large corporation.

The real question is how cities handle quasi natural monopolies. When there is limited completion the monopoly (or, in most cases, the duopoly) can squeeze hard. And since broadband is a critical component of most business infrastructure, cities want to make sure they lots of cheap broadband. (i.e. the economic profits should flow to the business owners, not the rent seeking broadband providers.).

I am generally a free market kind of person and I think the private market should provide these kind of services. However, this is a bazooka for municipalities. If they can’t get reasonable providers in (which can be the case where I grew up – low population density, very much a natural monopoly) then I think they should be able to play this card.

Re:Create a private company

[cayenne8]

I grew up in a town with a municipal liquor...

Municipal LIQUOR?!!?

That's an interesting concept....how does that work out?

Wow...here where I live, I just got to any grocery store, convenience store, etc...and to by my beer, wine and liquor.

So, the state/city owns and runs all the liquor stores there?

Re:Create a private company

[Anonymous Coward]

You've basically described a community development corporation. They are private companies started by cities with the purpose of growing the community by providing infrastructure and logistics. In Texas at least, they can be funded in part through a sales tax surcharge (though this would probably run afoul of Georgia's new law there).

Typically CDCs buy land, develop its roads and infrastructure, then find companies who want to buy the prepared sites to house their workforce. The city gets paying jobs and a tax base, and the company gets the CDC to do all the legwork preparing the site/zoning/codes to support them. Unless there's a specific law against it, I could see a CDC putting in a fiber network as well.

Anonymous because I've moderated in this thread.

Re:Create a private company

[cluedweasel]

Here in Oregon you can buy beer and wine from the grocery store, but anything harder has to come from state-controlled stores. However, we can buy liquor direct from local distilleries. As a Brit, it all seems pretty strange and contrived. Still can't pump our own gas either, but that's another story................

Re:Create a private company

[laird]

Can't the city start a private company and be the sole customer? Are there laws preventing that?

That private company wouldn't be much of a municipal public broadband provider, they'd merely be a really small ISP.

That's exactly what many cities have done. That is, rather then staffing up the municipal IT staff to run a small ISP, some cities contract with an ISP to provide the service to the city. It's more efficient because the ISP has one, big customer to manage instead of billing thousands of individuals, so much lower administrative overhead. So the people "win" because they get internet access provided as a service paid for by their taxes, at much lower cost than if they were individually billed.

Re:Create a private company

[cayenne8]

Seriously?

You can't pump your own gas? Are you saying you don't have self serve gas stations there, everything is full service?

Geez, I don't know that I've even SEEN a full service pump at a gas station in years.....

Re:Create a private company

[Mal-2]

Self-service is illegal in both Oregon and New Jersey. Everywhere else, it is pretty much the ONLY choice unless you are a special case (such as being in a wheelchair) in which case state law may require they send someone out to pump for you (usually without charge).

Re:Create a private company

[cayenne8]

Wow...just...wow.

What in the world is the justification for that??

you have got to be kidding.

[swschrad]

a locality has advantages over a corporation in placing broadband. they have no licensing fee or charter to seek. they have existing rights of way. they can line the sewers and pull fiber between the casing and the liner for free. they have bonding cost advantages. they can require franchised power and phone companies to give them free pole space because, well, they're the city. they can slip a little from general fund revenues and call it a public benefit... or create a telecom district like a water or sewer district and basically charge whatever it takes to run the place without hearings or competition.

a telco that wants to go to Poison Creek has to file for all these things, dance with lawyers all the way through, and is darn sure not going to do it if they can't make a profit over the cost of buildout, at a million to two million a mile.

this is frankly a "screw you" bill by somebody who's got a feud going with the telcos down there.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Hatta]

As well it should. Internet access should be a utility. Every place I'm aware of that has municipal internet access has a superior connection than neighboring areas without municipal internet. This is what municipal governments are for.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[bfandreas]

Utilities and telecommunication was publicly held in Europe for a very long time.

The way starting your own service when the private sector doesn't do it usually works like this:
-build stuff with tax money
-spin it out as a publicly held company
-sell it off with a profit

And this is the right thing to do. If telcos don't want to build up because actually doing buusiness instead of just selling stock is a bit of a hassle then you build it yourself. Towns don't want their folks wander off into the City. If nobody can be arsed to sell electricity, take care of the sewage, take away the trash, keep the taps from running dry and in the 21st century provide telco services then you do it yourself.

A mayor gets voted into office for taking care of the place. As is everybody else.
Companies only have to answer their stockholders who do not give a damn if people in Stinking Dead Rat Creek get teh internets delivered in a series of tubes.

Disallowing providing service to your citizens is that is just absurd. What's next? Not allowing the town to take care of the trash since nobody thinks there's not enough money in it?

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[cpu6502]

I wouldn't hold Europe as some great example of "how to do it right". I remember in the early days of the net (80s) my European colleagues complaining about high access charges applied to their modems, plus having to pay for local calling (therefore they couldn't make large multi-hour downloads).

Meanwhile in the U.S. we had private phone monopolies (regulated by government) that added no modem surcharges and no billing for local calling. We were better-off than the EU computer users.

I'm not saying I'm against government-built companies. Just pointing-out that, for a long time, the European government companies were more of a ripoff to users than a benefit.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[rbrander]

>a locality has advantages over a corporation in placing broadband.

And a large corporation has advantages over a small one. A smart one has advantages over a dumb one.

As a consumer, why should I want service from anybody except the provider with the most advantages?

Face it, there's some stuff that the public sphere does well.

Not everything; Wal-Mart has huge advantages over a municipal government in providing popular household purchases. Apple has huge advantages over a municipal government at inventing, manufacturing, and selling consumer electronics. Those advantages are reflected in who gets to do those jobs (not government).

I think you'd find that government has NO advantage over private companies at actually *running* an ISP. They might do well, or not. If not, it will be apparent from the price, and you'd find outraged consumers demanding the government contract out the maintenance and replacement of routers and so forth, or even sell off the wires. But if government can get the wires out there when the private firms were not getting the job done, consumers win.

Government is bad at the "agile" part of running a business; they're mostly good at doing stuff that never changes and where every customer gets the same service, and that's a feature. Policing and firefighting both used to be entirely private and society is better off (better served and more fairly served) by both going to the public sphere.

Water and Sewer utilities are mostly public, and where they are not, prices and service are not notably better (on the whole: worse as often as better), because again, those are very simple commodities. My Canadian province used to have public telephone, electric, and gas utilities, but sold those off as a wide variety of customer needs developed; telephone went soon after the Bell breakup in the States, and my city pushed the electric department out to arms-length, it now operates like a private company so as to be more agile.

If you're having trouble getting broadband in and government can do it, then do it that way - it's easy to put sunset provisions into the law so that putting it up for bid to private firms must occur after 10, or 5, or even 3 years.

Just sayin: it's worked for other utilities, and it's worked for Internet in other locations.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what municipal governments are for.

I would accept that argument for telephone service before I would accept it for broadband Internet.
I know we're all nerds around here and have been online since ARPANET, but most people still use dialup or nothing. And they're fine with that.
Government shouldn't be about taking money from everyone to pay for something a minority wants or uses.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Teun]

What I presently see here in Europe is towns building the physical fibre infrastructure and then making it available to private companies. The towns usually get into a contract with a cable or network builder to set up the hardware.
Once build you can select TV, telephone and internet services from one of several ISP's.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[bfandreas]

I agree with you there that monopolies are bad for customers. State held monopolies are even worse. Without the opening of the telco market in the 90ies the internet would never have taken off like it did in Germany.

But there is a difference between a monopoly enforced by law and a monopoly because, well, you are too small to be serviced in a way that pleases the shareholders.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

My city charged rate-payers nearly triple the going rate for water and sewer for about 10 years, under the guise of paying for expansion and capital improvement, then when pressed for results, got a USDA loan and a grant for the project, then jacked the rates up some more, again, as if everyone didn't remember the prior 10 years of overpaying, in order to "retire the loan."

Where did all that money go, you ask? Interesting question, that, but that's a side issue perhaps best left to the day we get a DA and a grand jury that isn't bought and paid for. Or in on the deal.

Look, these bastards let me come in here 20 years ago in the dial-up days, and (long story) sucked up, or helped someone else suck up, better than $100,000 of MY money in one fashion or another, sabotaged every attempt I made to provide reasonably priced-service, trashed my reputation, and generally PISSED ME THE FUCKING HELL OFF, and people want to me to forgive and forget, and to stand by and cheer while they whore out to COMCAST, the local telco, Verizon, and anyone else with deep pockets? Fuck them. If you think I want this gang of institutionally corrupt, larcenous, racketeering criminals providing my broadband service, OR if you want me to thank them for lining their own pockets through grant-seeking behavior, eminent domain, police powers, etc, well, you're just fucking nuts. If you ask me it's high time the whole notion of municipal charters was re-examined.

Hats off to Chip Rogers, anyway.

Anonymous struggling ISP operator in GA

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[bfandreas]

You know, I'm actually a huge fan of this. We build the tracks, we maintain them and you and your competitors run the actual train services. We lay cable(even the wireless one), we keep it in the ground, let no light escape it, take care of the last mile and you and your competitors own the switches.

If a company goes bust you can at least make sure the cable will not be dug up for scrap metal...which is kind of pointless when it comes to fibre.

Infrastructure is hard to build up from scratch, takes tons of maintenance and is far too important to be subject of the bottom line of a company. Allowing companies to provide services on this infrastructure just takes care of the extra headache the city council isn't particularly good at taking care of.

To me, that's win/win.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Anonymous Coward]

a locality has advantages over a corporation in placing broadband.

There's the rub. A government entity can claim advantages for itself while denying them to others. The central problem is that the municipality/city becomes both a player and the referee. Either

1. Allow municipal broadband, in competition with private enterprise, under a neutral set of rules and oversight which apply to all comers. The rules will cover regulations, easements, permitting, quality of service, financing, reporting, etc.
2. Give private enterprise all the advantages of public enterprise.

If 2. is implemented vigorously, there would be no need for city broadband. This is a simpler, and therefore better option.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[laird]

Historically, privatized services provide lower quality service at higher cost than the same services run by public utilities. This has happened thousands of times, all over the planet, with the same effect. The only good argument for privatizing public utilities is profit to a small number of people doing the deal, generated by extracting the money from the public. Not a good argument, IMO.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[s73v3r]

a locality has advantages over a corporation in placing broadband.

No, they don't. Especially if the corporation is already there.

they can line the sewers and pull fiber between the casing and the liner for free.

If by free, you mean for the actual costs of doing it, sure. The same costs a private corporation would have to pay.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[s73v3r]

No, I'm sorry, but you're full of shit. You bring up an example from the fucking 80s as a reason not to do it? Why can't you use today as an example? Is it because today, they are light years ahead of us, in both penetration and access costs?

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Aryden]

actually that hasn't been true for years. I don't have 2011's numbers, but in 2010 it was something like 55% broadband, 35% dialup.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Aryden]

we should talk.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Hatta]

I suppose you're against public libraries too then. Figures.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Formalin]

Yet today, Americans pay to receive calls on their mobile phones, and Europeans don't. Funny how that works, isn't it .

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[cpu6502]

>>>"You bring up an example from the fucking 80s as a reason not to do it?"

I know of no other way to predict the future and make wise decisions, than to look at the past.

Also you're wrong when you say European is lightyears ahead. The U.S. average speed 12 Megabit/s and the EU average is 11.5 Mbit/s. So basically we are neck-and-neck.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[s73v3r]

I know of no other way to predict the future and make wise decisions, than to look at the past.

So you decide to cherry pick one example from over 30 years ago, instead of going with the much more recent examples, which disprove you. Got it.

Obvious ....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's obvious that these clowns don't think you should spend any tax money on anything not directly related to corporate profits.

But when the almighty market proves to be imperfect, they can't see it that way ... it's communism!! We're all gonna die!!

Sure...

[milbournosphere]

If by "exceptionally well" you mean "locking up the market and raping (figuratively, of course) your customers with overpriced services."

Local governments should be able to make the decision as to whether or not they want to subsidize a public broadband option, as they will know their local markets better than the state ever would.

Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[girlintraining]

If your private businesses don't want to come into town and lay wire and such, so the local government has to step in to provide a service that many countries consider a fundamental human right to have... Don't pee down the back of the municipalities and then say it's raining. And guys, given that this is Georgia, why don't you just do a little bit of country justice on this guy... say with a large amount of tar, feathers, and a prompt adjustment of his attitude.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Whoever thinks that a service is a 'fundamental human right' is a fucking idiot.

A fundamental human right cannot be something that somebody must PROVIDE one with.

--

As to this bill - whatever, it's a locality business, really, it's a business of that municipality.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[alen]

most times it's not businesses not wanting to come to town but the town wanting the business to spend ridiculous amounts of money on yarn museums or something useless just to show that they aren't going to make money off the residents. or making them pay too much for the rights to lay wiring

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Is there any particular reason why that class of things would be necessarily excluded from the list?(I'm not saying that they are on it, just that there isn't any obvious reason why they couldn't conceivably be).

The notion of a 'fundamental human right' is really just a bit of emotional embellishment given to rights that the people discussing them feel particularly strongly about. The arguments that something is a 'fundamental human right' tend either to be pragmatic arguments about why it would be a good idea for everybody to have that right(with a touch of handwaving at the end, to justify the jump from 'pragmatically desireable human right' to the much nicer sounding 'fundamental human right'...) or simple bald assertions on no solid basis whatsoever("All men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights"..)

Given the rather sorry foundations of the field, it seems that just about anything could be asserted or denied to be a "fundamental right", subject to the restriction that some assertions or denials are likely to go better than others...

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom of Speech and Assembly ARE fundemental rights. In the *Modern* world being able to connect to the internet is essential for the practice of those liberties.

As for the *provide* statement I'm assuming you jest. Unless you consider a right to a fair trial, equal protection or protection from cruel punishment somtething that is not *provided* to you.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Freedom of speech does not mean that anybody must PROVIDE YOU WITH THE MEANS of speaking.

It's only that government cannot prevent you from expressing your views however you can and decide to do it.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

A fundamental right of a person cannot impose an obligation upon another person, that's all I need to say about this.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Nope, impossible, it's a temporary entitlement, not a right, it ends once the system is broke and it will go break with ideas like that.

There cannot be a right that puts an obligation on somebody to provide whoever has that 'right' with some product or service - impossible.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is power, clean water, and/or 911 service a fundamental human right? explain

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just forget it. These people don't want to see what you mean. They're being dense on purpose.
 
But I tell you what, the second one of these retards gets free internet access under the guise of 1st Amendment rights I'm going to be going to the same government agency and ask when they're going to hand me a gun.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

A fundamental right of a person cannot impose an obligation upon another person, that's all I need to say about this.

All rights do. If I have a right to life, for example, then you are obligated not to take my life.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Teun]

But no-one says it has to be supplied for free.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

That's nonsense and has nothing to do with somebody being forced to PROVIDE you with a product or a service.

Harming another person is not a right, that's been agreed upon for a long enough time on this planet for you to miss that.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, my neighbor can't impose an obligation on me not to kill him? Great!

And me killing him creates no obligations on either me or him. Me, I'm fine, no consequences. Him, he's dead, no problem.

In other words, that's silly. Fundamental rights necessarily impose obligations on others. Like, Freedom of speech means you have an obligation to refrain from unduly stifling speech. Freedom of religion means that there is an obligation placed upon citizens/government to respect/not stifle religious expression. If there were no required restraint of action, there would be no 'right.' A negative obligation usually means coming from a position of power, but it is an obligation just the same.

I think the idea you're looking for is more akin to what was said above. A 'right' cannot impose the mandatory public or private provision of a 'service.' What defines a service may involve debate, still...

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[P-niiice]

I'd say a fundamental human right is whatever the humans in power say it is.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Those are not rights, those are products and services that people need and create on their own without government.

For example health care is not something that government provides, it's something that people go into because they find it to be a good profession (being a doctor for example), and before government started meddling with health care by pouring money into monopolies and protecting those monopolies from competition, people were able to supply themselves with the health care.

I mean forget health care - the most basic of all necessities is food.

There is no basic human 'right' to food. That's a basic necessity that the market solves by simple demand/supply mechanisms, and the market allows food prices to come down while government involvement causes food prices to sky-rocket when government destroys money, puts mandates on production, bails out failing companies, subsidises any kind of farming activity and distorts the natural market in it, so wheat, corn, cotton, rice and soy are subsidised, so it's more profitable for farmers to grow those instead of other foods that people would want to buy, so prices for other foods rise, while prices for those subsidised cultures are low.

Then you find corn and wheat and soy in every product and eventually you find out that it's poison - government is poisoning you by subsidising corn.

There is no natural right for one person to demand that society subsidises his food, it doesn't matter if one farmer is forced to feed that subsidised person or if everybody is forced to give up their earnings through taxes, that they could use to do their own investment and instead food markets are subsidised and distorted.

There is no such right and the meddling that government involves itself into eventually ends up as part of the reason for the economic destruction due to the imbalances and mal-investments that this creates.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Well then it's a fundamental human right to have human slaves. Prove that this is wrong if enough people believe it and they hold power.

--

You are wrong of-course, fundamental human right is not something that a human needs to be given, it's something that a human has that government must not be allowed to take away by force - life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

No, power, clean water and 9/11 are not fundamental human rights, so why would I need to explain that they are?

Fundamental human right is something that human has fundamentally and something that government is not allowed to steal and destroy - life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

The entire concept of what a 'right' is of-course only is meaningful in the relation between an individual and the collective, not an individual and another individual, or individual and a business or a business and a business.

A human right is only what government cannot take away.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

You are so off the mark...

A right is not something that applies in a relationship between you and your neighbour, it's only a meaningful construct in relation of an individual and the collective. Individual has fundamental rights, and the government is not allowed to violate them, that's the purpose of the concept, not something that defines your relationship to any other equivalent to you entity.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[P-niiice]

Of course slavery is wrong, but it continues all over the world because authorities don't end it.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[P-niiice]

My point is, you have most nations on this earth saying that internet/healthcare/a good education is a right, but if your government doesn't give a damn, it isn't a right at all, functionally.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Sure, but we recognise that liberty is part of the fundamental human right and the fact that some governments support slavery just shows that those governments are not in support of human rights.

Also if you want to see an example of the first amendment right (and various other rights as well) being violated, watch this video.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Pahroza]

"Fundamental human right is something that human has fundamentally and something that government is not allowed to steal and destroy".

But that's exactly what imprisonment and the death penalty do, through the government.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

A fundamental human right cannot be something that somebody must PROVIDE one with.

Food, shelter and liberty clearly aren't fundamental human rights, then.

Chances are, you can't grow enough food for yourself to live for more than a month.

Shelter, did you buy your house?

And liberty, don't even get me fucking started.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Agree, and that's a violation of human rights in case of capital punishment. As to imprisonment - federal government is not even authorised to do it, it's a State issue in US, but it's perverted, especially with the racist drug war and racist wars around the globe.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Correct, food and shelter are never anything close to being a 'fundamental human right'. You got it.

As to liberty - it is.

People have to work, they have a fundamental right to 'pursue happiness' and that means they have the fundamental right not to have government stand in their way while they are looking for work or doing a business, growing their food, or whatever they do. Government must not be allowed to violate the fundamental human right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, and so while a person is earning an income and is using part of the money to pay for shelter, government cannot prevent that from happening.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear, there's no fundamental right to have a service provided to you. Sorry.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

Whatever you say, screwball.

There's still no reason why a municipal government should not be able to provide this to its citizens should the private market fail. And there are many, many, many documented cases of the private market failing.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

And most people would say you're wrong about that.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

That's nonsense and has nothing to do with somebody being forced to PROVIDE you with a product or a service.

Depends on your definition of "harm". If I'm dying, and you have the capability to save me, and you choose to not do so, many people would consider that harm.

Harming another person is not a right, that's been agreed upon for a long enough time on this planet for you to miss that.

Really? Most of you free market assholes tend to think differently. If you can take advantage of someone, then you shouldn't just do it, you are obligated to do so.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

That's nonsense and has nothing to do with somebody being forced to PROVIDE you with a product or a service.

Also, this is completely false. The Constitution actually contradicts this. I have the RIGHT to a jury trial, and the RIGHT to counsel in the aid of my defense. At least one, but if I'm poor enough, both of those rights can require other people to PROVIDE me with service. Either the service of legal counsel or the service of mediation.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

Those are not rights, those are products and services that people need and create on their own without government.

And in many places, government is the only actor with sufficient resources to actually provide it.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

I never indicated that they were fundamental human rights, and merely asked for an explanation of your opinion. Saying that I said anything to the effect of them being (or not being) fundamental human rights, is a basic failure of reading comprehension on your part.

That said, based on your statement : "A human right is only what government cannot take away."

There are approximately zero fundamental human rights, a government can:

1.) take away your ability to eat by either eliminating your line of work (safety/health/environmental problems cause your company to go out of business), removing your ability to own/purchase firearms (felony conviction), remove your ability to own bows/arrows/knives (felony and/or parole requirement among other options)

2.) Without work, you rely on the government for income (up to 2years with current unemployment pay) once that money dries up you can not by anything as you will soon run out of money, that means clean water is not much of an option (though you might find it in the occassional water fountain or homeless shelter)

3.) walk around unsupervised (prison/gitmo)

4.) walk around period (solitary confinement 3x3 cell)

5.) Life (death penalty, assassination, wrong place wrong time)

I think this covers at least most of what is considered necessary for human life (food, shelter, water)

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[shutdown -p now]

So if I murder you, I didn't violate your right to live?

Good to know! Sounds like lynch mobs are going to have a field day in that libertarian paradise of yours.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

The right there is your right to liberty etc., so before a government can take away your right and put you to jail, it requires that the people act on this situation, it's not the government that is taking your right to liberty, government is not allowed to do so - it's the people who can take your right away, but then the people must do so in court.

So once again, before your right to freedom and maybe right to property and right to life is about to be violated, it is not government that is going to violate it, it up to people to give government the permission to violate it or not, thus jury.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Correct, if one individual murders another individual, it's not the same situation as with government and individual.

It's not the 'right to life' that's violated, but it does not mean it's not a criminal offence - a contract between people, which may require punishment.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

All of the things you listed are a violation of human rights if they are done by government without people giving permission to the government to do so, that's why there are supposed to be jury in the court room - people judging people, not government judging people.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Government has no resources, none.

Government does not own any resources, it does not produce any resources, it does not process any resources, it's all people who do so. Wealth is not created by government, it's created by people.

Government can confiscate it, likely steal it and redistribute it according to whatever plan.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

Whatever you say, screwball.

- this is my last comment as a response to any of yours regardless of the topic.

There's still no reason why a municipal government should not be able to provide this to its citizens should the private market fail. And there are many, many, many documented cases of the private market failing.

First: I said it's a local matter in the original comment.

Second: there are no market failures, market never fails. The consequences of market FIXING a problem that government creates can be unpleasant or even terrible, but it's not a failure of a market, it's market at work.

Now, fuck off.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Teun]

You are an angry man and I'm glad not to be your neighbour.
The governement is us, it's ours. What the governement spends is ours and it stays ours because it is spend on us.

The concept of common resposibility seems to freighten you but one day you might need it...

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[roman_mir]

So do you find yourself responsible for all the killing that is done in your name with some of your money, when your government goes to fight whatever wars it chooses this week? All the people killed, do you have common responsibility?

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

there are no market failures, market never fails.

A statement like that can only be made by someone with a religious like faith in the market. Such a person has lost their objectivity regarding the market, and can no longer be taken seriously about it.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

That's a real fancy way of saying that people must be compelled to provide you with something as a RIGHT.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

I'm sorry, but the "government doesn't have anything, and anything they have is theft!" argument is complete and utter bullshit. There is nothing at all justifying this argument. It has absolutely no place in this, or any other discussion.

And again, as I said, there are many places where government is the only actor with access to enough resources to provide those services. In these areas, the private providers likely have decided they don't feel it's profitable to do so. In such an event, the only actor left to provide the services is government.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[s73v3r]

Just as much as you have. You have just as much ability to lobby your elected representatives as we do.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it can.

For freedom of religion, you are obligated not to interfere with me. For freedom of speech, you are obligated not to silence me. For right to a trial by jury, you can be obligated to serve on a jury. For property rights, I can be entitled to an easement.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually it does, in the context of a government entity. There's a reason why public meetings around here have an open session where everybody is entitled to speak. And yes, they do have to provide the microphones. Or the interpreter if it's a deaf person.

You're decidedly uninformed when it comes to the reality of interaction with the government and the provision of rights, you are focused entirely on your philosophical concepts to the point where you don't even realize why the way you are suggesting things is less the ideal.

Heck, go look at the right to a trial by jury. That is a right. It requires hundreds of thousands of people to be involved in it.

Are you planning to deny that right?

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Teun]

Indeed, I went voting and it's also my government that runs our defences.
Even when my preferred party is not in the government my voice is still spoken by the opposition.

Those that did not go voting share the same responsibility, after all would they have gone voting there might have been a different government...

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, it seems you've finally learned who roman_mir is.

I don't know if he's genuine. Somebody as fanatical as he appears to be may be a troll.

But yes, he has a religious faith in the philosophy he endorses, to the point where anything that doesn't fit is ignored by his fanatical mindset.

You can't argue with a guy like that. You can't even talk with them. They don't share a common reality with you. They're all in their own zip codes.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

I almost agreed with you. Then I remembered 3 good reasons not to.

1) The first amendment exists despite the prevalence of individuals who use printing presses created by someone else.

2) The second amendment applies despite the prevalence of individuals who did not make their own guns.

3) The third amendment applies despite the prevalence of individuals who did not build their own houses.

We, as individuals, have rights which occasionally entail obligations to others. A monopoly attempts to deny those obligations to the public.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government can quite easily kill you, stop you from speaking, make you sick, or take everything you "own". Humans don't have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness "fundamentally", and even if they did, why would that be special? And what makes the "collective" so special?

Where does the obligation of the "collective" come from to accept your supposed "rights"? Rights are social constructs. The universe doesn't care about them, nor does some 'god'. The state of nature is suffering, misery, death, and perpetual war.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[jahudabudy]

Wow. I mean, just real "Day is night" shit here. Killing someone doesn't violate their right to life? That is absurd on the face of it, and completely backwards from standing legal precedent. OJ Simpson being a prime example. Found not guilty of murder (the criminal offense), found liable in civil court for violating his victims' rights.

Re:Please beat this man until he's senseless.

[drsmithy]

The right there is your right to liberty etc., so before a government can take away your right and put you to jail, it requires that the people act on this situation, it's not the government that is taking your right to liberty, government is not allowed to do so - it's the people who can take your right away, but then the people must do so in court.

Funny how when you're being imprisoned it's the people who are doing it, but when you're being taxed it's the evil Government that's doing it.

An analog to the public option in healthcare...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an analog to the public option in healthcare. Even if no private firm wants to drop in a communications infrastructure, better to have nothing at all than the government do it.

And we wonder why US cities are so hostile to live in, and where people flee to the suburbs...

Oh, what a crock...

[AngryDeuce]

Go ask the people of Wilson, North Carolina how well private interests provided high speed to them.

Then ask the people of Monticello, Minnesota

These state-sponsored monopolies have gone on long enough. If the 'private market' market will not meet the demand, what else are people supposed to do? Just deal with shit-tier internet at exorbitant prices? Bullshit on that...the major ISPs are no worse than the MAFIAA or the Cartels.

Re:Oh, what a crock...

[AngryDeuce]

Monticello, Minnesota fight with TDS...

(Link fail Q.Q.)

Re:Oh, what a crock...

[cmdr_klarg]

Go ask the people of Wilson, North Carolina how well private interests provided high speed to them.

Then ask the people of Monticello, Minnesota

These state-sponsored monopolies have gone on long enough. If the 'private market' market will not meet the demand, what else are people supposed to do? Just deal with shit-tier internet at exorbitant prices? Bullshit on that...the major ISPs are no worse than the MAFIAA or the Cartels.

My older brother used to run an ISP in Monticello, and was doing quite well until TDS got the FCC to allow them to raise their tariffs. They squeezed him out of business by quadrupling the price for an T1.

Re:Oh, what a crock...

[dbreeze]

I contacted the offices of the E-NC initiative here in NC some 7-8 years ago concerning getting help starting an ISP due to no high speed availability in our rural area. The head of E-NC at the time told me they had funded 3 wifi start-ups after checking with the local telephone and cable providers to be sure there were no rollout plans in the works. As soon as E-NC released the funds Sprint(now Embarq in most areas) rolled out DSL to undercut 2 of the markets forcing the start-ups to fold.
Private industry must compete with a public option in all communal need services or these monopolistic abuses will remain the norm.
I'm tired of my country and the choices of my countrymen.

Zero-sum?

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep hearing from persons of a certain political persuasion that wealth creation is not a zero-sum game; that they want the "whole pie" to grow so that "we can all be wealthy." Why, then, do they keep proposing legislation that creates mandatory losers?

Re:Zero-sum?

[roman_mir]

Of-course it's not a zero-sum game, when iPhones were first created, they became a market in themselves, a market that didn't exist previously. Any new thing that people create where there was no such thing before is creation of new wealth, not extraction of existing wealth and redirection of it.

Re:Zero-sum?

[SecurityTheatre]

Arguably, the creation of the iPhone took a tiny fraction of sales from many things including newspapers, televisions, movie theatres, computers, game consoles.

I agree it's not necessarily zero-sum in the strict sense, but consumers did not "create" the cash used on iPhones out of nothing. They had to come out of a family's budget in other areas, usually things that provide comparable enjoyment or functionality... perhaps a monthly trip to a bowling alley, a premium TV channel, several movie rentals, and buying a second computer for the den.

There is SOME concept that iPhones might make people more "efficient" and increase the "size of the pie" but some small fraction of a percent. But it still reduces expenditures in other areas, on the whole.

Mistaking the fact that it is NOT "zero-sum", with the concept that the actual "net increase in sum" is a tiny fraction of the amount of funds diverted... is VERY VERY important.

The exact same argument applies in economics.

When the mythical "wealthy" take a larger portion... perhaps they do increase the "size of the pie", but not by nearly as much as the fraction they take. In other words, it's not zero sum, but it's not "equal share increase" either.

Frankly, both arguments "redistributed the limited share of the whole pie" and "we can all wealthy with a bigger pie" are both silly polemic on the far opposite ends of the spectrum and the truth is somewhere in the middle, as it usually is.

Re:Zero-sum?

[roman_mir]

Cash is completely irrelevant, only more production can pay for other increase in production.

When a consumer buys an iPhone, it either means he is going to under-consume elsewhere or he has to produce more of something else himself.

Every new business that creates new stuff adds more wealth, doesn't extract it from anything else.

Cash is only meaningful in the sense that it represents store of value, medium of exchange and unit of account and given a stable amount of it in the system, the prices for any new goods must fall, as they do when there is no inflation that is created mostly by the government.

Beware of AP

[Anonymous Coward]

If the associated press had the story then the government wants the story out.

The "private market" already took government money

[pavon]

The "private market" has already used millions of dollars of federal tax money to build out their networks. So basically what this law is saying is that it was okay for the incumbent operators to take tax money, but bar any new competition from doing the same.

That sounds more like a protection racket than a free market policy.

typo

[Anonymous Coward]

Municpal -> Municipal

Who to contact

[Bob the Super Hamste]

The bill is sponsored by the following Senators to the Georgia State Senate:
Rogers, Chip
Shafer, David
Unterman, Renee
Stoner, Doug

The bill is currently in the Regulated Industries and Utilities Committee so if you in Georgia and senator is on that committee I suggest contacting them with your thoughts.

That's capitalism.

[unity100]

Private minorities' profit interests versus the people's interests.

And again, private minorities who have stake in something readily attempt to block progress and keep the entire public under control - even if that means they wont be able to enjoy the amenities of 21st century.

And they only will be able to do it when some private interests think that they can make good money over them.

Attracting new jobs

[P-niiice]

What even worse is - a healthy Broadband implementation in a city can attract new jobs. Look at what Alpharetta has done.

It ends up being a boon doggle

[Shivetya]

I used to live in two of the cities mentioned.

It sounds nice, it sounds like "DUH, they should be able to get into municipal broad band" ...

but everyone forgets that one detail.

Government.

So what did we end up with, lots of money spent, crap service WHERE you could get it, and you end up with the same politicized process that governs road construction and maintenance in many small towns. Meaning, commissioner X gets the potholes filled on his street, to hell with you.

So, it might make sense; for cities who cannot get a broad band provider; but far too many times you end up with a plan that looks good on paper getting rewritten so many times post approval and having so many exceptions that no one gets the service expected, let alone when, and definitely not for the agreed upon price.

I can fire AT&T and Comcast, I cannot fire my city government, and no elections don't fix it.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[ColdWetDog]

That could well be true, however, why do you need a state law saying municipalities CAN'T do broadband (or whatever)? What Georgia needs is home rule legislation. Keep the state government out of things the local government can and should do.

As has been pointed out, it's rather unlikely that the legislation has been crafted 'in the best interests' of the cities. Who's the winner here?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[stanlyb]

Actually it is not true. You cannot fire the government, neither AT&T and Comcast. And as always, there is always 3rd solution. Free the market. Remove any if not all of the regulations. Let the local IT guy build the network, support it, and earn some decent money with his skill. At the end of the day, if you are not happy with his services, you could always cross the street and %$%$%$%$% him, unlike the government and the big monopoly.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Daniel_Staal]

I fail to see any difference between that and Comcast where I live. One bad bureaucracy is the same as another.

I'm for competition. If the only competition we are getting is between the local monopoly provider and the local government... Well, it's better than no competition.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[GrumpySteen]

So, let's see if I've got this straight...

Because a city you lived in screwed up their municipal internet project and provided "crap service", you'd rather have a law that would prevent even that so that everyone would have been left with no broadband service at all?

Are you Amish?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say it to you.

Governments aren't for profit, only the individuals working for the government are, and I suppose there might be the rare case of ideological politician.

Big corporations aren't any better than governments, they're full of politics, power play and all the crap that comes with it. It's quite baffling why you'd prefer these large companies that want to get all the money out of you and have the disadvantages of the government over a government that's primary purpose isn't to maximize profit.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[characterZer0]

So what did we end up with, lots of money spent, crap service WHERE you could get it

Hmm. Sounds just my like situation with private monopolies.

I can fire AT&T and Comcast

But you cannot hire somebody else.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[twotacocombo]

I can fire AT&T and Comcast

That may be harder than you think. We 'fired' AT&T for several reasons, and picked up a connection through Telepacific. Guess what? Every time the circuit goes down, we have to wait for AT&T to come fix it, because they own most of the copper from here to the moon. And let me tell you, you get even worse service from AT&T when you aren't paying them directly...

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

>>>What Georgia needs is home rule legislation. Keep the state government out of things the local government can and should do.

We ought to try this concept at the national level, instead of having Congress regulate every little thing, including what kind of lightbulb I can use (incandescents outlawed and replaced with Crap FLs). Yeah I'm a little annoyed by that last one. It made no logical sense. So I save a few pennies on electric but have to waste dollars driving to the landfill to dispose the mercury-laden bulbs. Grrrr.

ANYWAY

I agree it should be left to the cities to decide if they want to install government-run internet. A little competition against Comcast and Verizon would be a good thing

.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

>>>You cannot fire the government, neither AT&T and Comcast.

Say what?? I fired Comcast 5 years ago and haven't regretted it since. You're wrong when you say they can't be fired by the customer.

Now if only I could find a way to fire the government-run water company; I have to pay that stupid bill (flat rate) even though I'm not hooked up. Government uses their taxing power to make you pay for services you don't want or use.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[icebike]

Everyone also forgets the Tragedy of the Commons.

Public broadband (and worse yet public WIRELESS broadband) would quickly become unusable, for anything except fetching the weather report, due to massive over use by 2% of the user base. The over-grazers would just deplete the resource quickly.

Of course, municipalities could employ the same measures as private industry does to regulate usage, but just as with welfare programs once government is involved, multiple levels of consumer protection automatically attach (and rightly so, since its government), and you find out that you really can't get rid of the abusers.

And the mere existence of a government provider would prevent the situation ever improving because competition would be stonewalled. Private providers would have to fight the government for tower locations, right of way restrictions, licenses, etc. And the government, far from trying to facilitate (and thereby tax) these providers would have every incentive to block them at every turn.

No local government has any experience in running a large city wide network, and in the end the municipality would be forced to contract this out to the low-bidder. Budget constraints would prevent timely upgrades, (how can we spend one penny on broadband when children are going hungry?), and large sections of the service would fall into disrepair. Federal funds would be sought, state grants would be lobbied for, and in the end, everyone but the local citizens would be paying for that community's experiment in socialism.

The analogy to roadways bound to be raised but its not the same, and broadband is not essential any more than is TV service.

Lets face it, the allure of municipal broadband lies with the vision of free internet. Just like free public pasture land it never works out that way.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[nschubach]

Ideally, Municipal Internet would be a fiber connection to each taxpaying customer where the main trunk is then connected to a major node of the Internet, or the Municipality was a major node that other neighboring Municipals would connect to forming multiple redundant links to neighboring Municipals. You really couldn't do Municipal Internet with competition because there's no real good way to connect to the Municipal line, then connect through that to an ISP of your choosing. If you did Municipal Internet, you'd have to provide free, unlimited, and unrestricted Internet to each taxpaying home, business and apartment complex. Where/how they choose to split their connection would be up to them (the apartment could limit connections based on rent, the business could firewall their customers/employees to certain sites, etc.)

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[SecurityTheatre]

I've actually just replaced all my lights with LEDs.

The CFLs are terrible. They flickr and have an awful colour for the most part, but incandescents waste a ton of electricity on creating heat and burn out like twice a year.

The LED bulbs I got are comparable in color to the incandescent, run cool to the touch and use half the energy of the CFL.... and they last 25 years.

Sure you pay $20 each, but you save almost half that per bulb each year in electricity and... like i said, they last 25 years.

Try it!

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[fallen1]

I live in one of the cities mentioned. Actually, I live in the county and here is my take:

*** Fuck him with a large rubber duck Girl-with-a-Dragon-Tattoo style. ***

Until the city implemented a broadband plan with cable TV, we had ONE choice for cable TV and virtually NO high speed internet especially in the county (Bellsouth/AT&T DSL is a massive joke to anyone who lived in the county and so was high speed internet connections). Suddenly, when the city decided "We want to attract more business to the area and also supply all of our schools with high speed internet services..." then WHOA! the local cable company went into overdrive. They started expanding their high speed internet services much faster and pushed them out into the county. They offered better bundle rates AND dropped their cost for cable TV alone. The move by the city _incentivized_ the local cable MONOPOLY to get off their ass and start offering the services to both city and county that they had been promising for a while and to bring their price down to a more competitive level.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[stanlyb]

And when you "fired" Comcast, who else did you "hire"? AT&T? Different skin, the same wolf.....

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

What the people of this country need is a boot up their collective asses to vote out these corrupt politicians that support legislation that is entirely against their own best interests. I say if the people of Georgia want greedy corrupt officials then let them have 'em.

Home rule is a bandaid on a bullet wound and does nothing to prevent the underlying problem of why this legislation gets thrown about in the first place.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

You cannot fire AT&T and Comcast if they are the only show in town. This is what happens to major communities where comcast is the cable provider and the sole provider of broadband connectivity.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

I've thought about it but LED price is nuts, and I suspect they would die early since I frequently turn them on & off (as happens with CFLs). Why can't I just use incandescents? They aren't that much worse in efficiency (3% versus 8%).

And they work in any environment, from my freezer to my stove. Inside or outside. Open fixtures or enclosed (which kills CFLs/LEDs).

If Congress is really concerned about reducing energy usage, they should stop nitpicking the few pennies saved by outlawing incandescents, and focus on outlawing leaky homes (replace them all with Passive Houses). Loss of heat is the biggest energy loss (~100 dollars per home).

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

Another idea is to treat the Nets the same way the roads are treated

- Government owns and maintains the fiber (say 50 per bundle)
- Verizon, Apple, Microsoft, et cetera lease one fiber each
- The customer connects to whichever fiber/company they like best

It would be like a return to the old Dialup days when you could sign-on to whatever ISP you wanted.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Cutriss]

The light bulbs thing isn't about you saving money. It's about everyone making a very small change in their lives which results in a very large change for us all on this blue marble of ours. Making every single little government line item into "What does it do for me?" is part of how we got into this stupid mess in the first place.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[T-Bone-T]

You don't have to replace every light in your house, just the ones that are on for hours a day. It won't save you pennies, just tens of dollars per year. What I've seen so far, though, is that CFLs use only slightly more electricity than LEDs but cost significantly less so I'm not convinced to switch to LED from CFL. The switch to CFL was a no-brainer for me because the advantages are significant.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[swb]

The other alternative is what happened in Minneapolis -- about 5 years ago they got all excited about "MUNICIPAL WIFI" and trotted out all the usual reasons we "needed" it.

* Shelbyville and North Haverbrook have it, and they just sit in the park and develop content now instead working at real jobs.

* It's inexpensive, and the poor need an inexpensive way to go online. Presumably because the poor are all sitting in front of $1500 computers and just can't get online.

* There's no other way to get broadband, despite the entire city being served by Comcast ($69, 10/3 Biz Class w/29 static) or Qwest DSL (multiple ISP choices at varying price/service levels).

* We don't have it yet, and without it, we still won't have it until we get it.

Faced with the economic reality that no private business wanted to provide wifi throughout the city we find out that the city is now swapping out the cellular data driven communications in cop cars and other city vehicles for....a wifi-based system.

And lo and behold, the same company that agreed to provide the cop/city wifi has been given a franchise to build and operate a public citywide wifi network, complete with all kinds of discounts and access to city infrastructure for equipment mounting. I'm sure the city also used whatever power they had to give them free access to the utility poles, too.

So what I think really happened was the city granted a sweetheart deal to the wifi provider for their municipal network in order to subsidize (without actually subsidizing...) the public wifi network.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[michrech]

It's been my experience that most people that complain about the color of CFL's didn't pay attention to the color temperature of what bulbs they were purchasing. I, personally, prefer the 3500k bulbs. My mother loves those awful 5000k bulbs. Most people I know that like incandescents but hated CFL's didn't mind the CFL's I got them that were in the 2000k range (I forget the exact number) -- they give off the same 'yellow' light that their favorite bulbs do.

It's funny to go into someones house and see three different color temperature bulbs (sometimes in the same room!) because they didn't pay attention when they were buying them... heh

Also, to "cpu6502" -- few, if any, people have to 'drive to the dump' to dispose (properly) of CFL's. I know every Home Depot takes them for free, and I'd like to bet other stores do also.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Daniel_Staal]

An entirely sensible and logical approach, that could be good for everyone involved.

Which of course means it'll never happen in this country.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[michrech]

Wait -- what's stopping 'the local IT guy" from building his own network *now*? All he has to do is follow the same rules any other service provider does in order to string his cabling (and have the cash to do so)...

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Montezumaa]

I don't think you understand how governments work in the United States. The US Government is a sovereign, but the mutual agreement of the states. The states are also sovereigns, which gives me full control within their borders, baring constitutional and legislative limitations.

The cities and counties are not sovereigns. They can be dissolved by the state they happen to reside in(in Georgia, at least, and a few other states, too), if needed. While that rarely ever happens, it is possible. Cities and counties, at least in Georgia, do not enjoy any of the immunities that the states and/or the US Government enjoys(i.e. Sovereign Immunity). This is due to how powerful local government could become, and I am happy that things are they way they are.

Yes, the state governments can really cause people problems, but local government can cause the most harm, out of the other levels of governments, due to the pace of legislative-type powers reserved to local governments. So, no to the Home Rule function.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[michrech]

You really couldn't do Municipal Internet with competition because there's no real good way to connect to the Municipal line, then connect through that to an ISP of your choosing.

Why not? All of the individual customer connections have to terminate *somewhere*. Why can't *somewhere* be a nice big closet where each ISP can bring in their own data lines, then connect their customers endpoint to their network? The city can decide to add a small fee to the 3rd party ISP for maintenance of the endpoint-to-customer part of the line to help with costs (like POTS providers do to 3rd parties that wish to offer DSL services over their lines)...

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[stanlyb]

Have you ever tried to do it? I did not think so too. Why do you think we have "regulations", "licenses", "rules", "laws", etc.? Yes, you are right, their only purpose it to stop the little guy who for some strange reason does not have any "cash", unlike the big corporations, who are always "bailed-out", And just to give you some very simple example, try to build an underground fiber from your home to your neighbor across the street.....legally i mean, not illegally.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[0123456]

"Also, to "cpu6502" -- few, if any, people have to 'drive to the dump' to dispose (properly) of CFL's."

Indeed. 99% of people just thow them in the garbage.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[jedidiah]

That may be true. However, this is supposed to be a Red State we're talking about here. Therefore, there should be an implicit underlying assumption that any form of big government is bad and that problems should be solve in the most local terms possible. Generally, larger governments should not be interfering with smaller ones.

That is if the Red States and associated politicians were true to their political rhetoric.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[desdinova 216]

I see one problem with your idea, it is calm, well reasoned and rational. Therefore the Big media companies will never go for it

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[misexistentialist]

How is it possible for 2% of the users to saturate the entire network with each modem limited to a fixed speed?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[icebike]

Where have you been for the last 10 years?

Have you never heard of the universal practice of Overselling the bandwidth?.
What socket table saturation at routers by high numbers of bit torrent users behind a common router?
Any of these ringing any bells?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[laird]

"the mere existence of a government provider would prevent the situation ever improving"

Sure, because FedEx and Perrier don't exist, because it's impossible to compete with the Post Office and municipal water. If private industries are unable to provide competitive broadband services with municipal broadband, it's not clear to me that the right response is to outlaw their competition.

"broadband is not essential"

Sure, and roads aren't essential either, nor a standing army, firemen or police. Luckily, the people of the United States formed a government to provide for the common good, which is not limited to things that you think are "essential".

"the allure of municipal broadband lies with the vision of free internet. Just like free public pasture land it never works out that way"

If broadband were an absolutely limited resource, like a pasture, you might have the problem of it running out. Luckily you can expand capacity with no limit, so if people use more bandwidth you can grow capacity to suit.

You're right that some cities might contract broadband out to service providers, just as they do (for many cities) for water, power generation, telephony, etc., granting regulated monopolies.

Unlike pure competition, regulated companies are forced to provide quality service and invest in infrastructure, in return for a guaranteed return - if their service level is below requirements, they don't get paid. Of course, if you deregulate the companies, they are short sighted and strip their infrastructure to make short term profits. For example, look at how deregulated power companies stripped the safety margins from the US power grid, leading to failures and brownouts. The proper response, of course, is to restore proper regulations so that the US infrastructure is properly maintained.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Aryden]

That's something that bothers the hell out of me. I live in Georgia, the major metropolitan areas are blue areas, but because of the farm areas down south and the northern rednecks, the state end up voting red... kills me that rednecks in rural areas get to make the rules for those of us living in the metro area.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[SecurityTheatre]

To be fair, I found even the warmest of CFLs to have a green tint to them, providing slightly more pink to their orange.

But I also dislike the flickering, which apparently most people can't see, but bothers me to the point that after 4-5 hours I have trouble focusing on my computer screen. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with my eyes when, during a period of a few weeks, I kept having absurd headaches and trouble focusing after a few hours working, then I tried switching the lights around in my room and realized it only happened when it was a CFL that was on.

Neat!

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Shifty0x88]

Yup and all that mercury goes into land fills..... awesome!!!

I'm with cpu6502, why can't I just use incandescents??? It's my money and my house....

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Aryden]

The law... Yo can't due to regulations that you as a small business can't feasibly comply with. This is why all the smaller companies go with WiFi (Clear et al). Even if you do succeed, the big boys will just sue you over rights or have the government step in and shut you down for anti-competitive practices or pass legislation like North Carolina did on who you can and can't sell your service to. (re: Greenlight in Wilson, NC)

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Aryden]

That would constitute government interference and the ISP's wouldn't go for it. They own the last mile and they aren't going to give it up.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[s73v3r]

No. Your "one detail" bullshit doesn't give any evidence that local government would be any less efficient than an incumbent telco who's had no competition for a decade or more. Hell, look at all the success stories of municipal broadband.

And as for your stupid "I can fire AT&T and Comcast" remark, in most cases, no you can't. You can choose to not have service with them, but there's generally no one else to do business with. So either you give up internet entirely, or you bend over and take it from them.

I can have a say in how local government, and local utilities are run. I have absolutely no such say with AT&T and Comcast.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[s73v3r]

No. You are absolutely full of shit.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[s73v3r]

Money and money. The biggest hurdles to starting something like this. NOT the government.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Goaway]

They aren't that much worse in efficiency (3% versus 8%).

What the hell are you talking about?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[s73v3r]

Just about everywhere it's been done, people have gotten excellent service and better speeds than the incumbent telco for about the same price.

Why do you think the incumbent telcos are worried about this shit? If they were better, they wouldn't care.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[s73v3r]

Yup. The party of "Free Market Competition" and "choice" does it again.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[s73v3r]

No, this whole post is full of shit. There's nothing special about municipal internet that would cause this to happen there and prevent it from happening on private internet.

Private does not automatically mean better. In many cases it doesn't at all.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Khyber]

Your 3% vs 8% figure is way off. Newer LEDs use ceramic conversion, heavily boosting internal efficiency, and their current electrical efficiency is much better, which puts them at about 25% efficiency overall. Without CC, Cree has a plain white 350mA diode pushing 230+ lux/w in the labs, and there are 150+ lux/w efficiency diodes out right now (rivaling MH/HPS.)

Also, Enclosed, kill LED? Nope. I have plenty of enclosed modules that work just fine in hot or cold conditions (meant for use in freezers AND ovens.)

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Aryden]

* Shelbyville and North Haverbrook have it, and they just sit in the park and develop content now instead working at real jobs.

Any proof that even a majority use the wifi for just posting to facebook / twitter?

* It's inexpensive, and the poor need an inexpensive way to go online. Presumably because the poor are all sitting in front of $1500 computers and just can't get online.

Or they could be sitting in front of

* There's no other way to get broadband, despite the entire city being served by Comcast ($69, 10/3 Biz Class w/29 static) or Qwest DSL (multiple ISP choices at varying price/service levels).

This is limited by area within the city as well as physical infrastructure. I have a restaurant (in East Atlanta) that employees me to keep their network and systems up and running. They had to buy Clear because comcast wanted $2000 to run cable into the building and a minumum of $269 / month. AT&T DSL doesn't work as they are too far from the DSLAM that they are routed to.

Chattanooga has a nice system where each of the public transit buses broadcasts wifi as they travel around the city. It's supposed to be for riders of the bus, but you can easily access it while walking down the streets.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[icebrain]

Did it ever occur to you that those of us who don't live in the major metropolitan areas of Georgia don't want all the rules being made according to a bunch of city folk in Atlanta?

If you want a whole state full of "blue" city types, move up north.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[EntropyXP]

Something akin to this was started in Utah.... UTOPIA.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Telecommunication_Open_Infrastructure_Agency

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[shutdown -p now]

All this doesn't really matter. The point is not whether municipal broadband is successful or not. It's not even about broadband at all!

The point is whether municipalities can use regular democratic procedures - you know, all that stuff about electing representatives and all - to decide where their local taxes go and what they fund. And when state overrides them (or fed overrides state), especially on matters where such an override is clearly done in the interests of certain businesses, it is bad in and of itself, regardless of what the potential problems such tax-supported service would be. Problematic or not, it should be up to the tax-paying residents to decide if they want to keep it or nuke it.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they play by the same rules.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your problem with halogen incandescents? Old and inefficient tungsten filament incandescent bulbs have been banned. Halogen's still remain. Why keep the old when new technology just works better? You can also use LED bulbs. Their more expensive but last a hell of a lot longer and and a lot more energy efficient. You should recoup your investment. There are other options than CFL bulbs. The government isn't forcing you to use CFL bulbs.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[nschubach]

I guess the main problem I see is that large cities would pretty much require multiple "subnodes" of IDFs for different neighborhoods or sections of town that would connect to several "exit points" (like a large WAN.) If you ran fiber from every building in a city, the incoming bundle would be immense and unwieldy. I'm not an expert in large WANs, but I assume it would be like you and a neighbor connecting to the same switch with a backbone to other neighborhood switches that links you to the "Internet" (in quotes because you'd all be part of the Internet at that point) through the mesh of neighborhood nodes. The big limitation I see is addressing which would have to be handled by the "gateways" out of a city net.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[thetoadwarrior]

Yeah why turn to the government for shit service when the private sector will happily provide shit service. A lot of people don't have a choice in providers so by "firing" AT&T, they're giving up broadband. That's not a great choice.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[nschubach]

This idea is like the one below (if I understand) where all buildings in a city would connect to a central switching building? You wouldn't need 50 fiber lines to each building in that case because the ISP could just change the patch cable for your line to their network. I guess it's an option to have "neighborhood sub nodes" like apartment complexes do currently where phone/cable companies handle connections in a central box. You'd basically have a patch panel with all the houses in an area and the ISP could send someone out to connect your address to their network.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Cutting_Crew]

but to be fair the city did indeed launch their Greenlight FIOS service even though time warner cable tried to pass laws making it illegal as you stated.

the story here

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[icebike]

Agreed, for the most part.
But do remember, that we do not live in a pure democracy, the founding father went out of their way to avoid that. There are some pretty well generally accepted limits placed on the purpose and scope of government.

Taking broadband under the wing of government might not be the best solution economically, technically, or as a legal precedent.

Still, if a municipality votes to do so in an open election, I see no reason (other than a philosophical one) why they should be prevented from doing so.

If its paid for by a user fees, that's great. Even a bond issue, or a tax increase is fine if the people voted for it.

But as you well know, too often these decisions are made by a sinecure composed of a few elected representatives and their contractor buddies, and the voters get no actual say in the matter. And too often the city turns to the State for revenue for projects that should have been locally funded simply because the tax base is tapped out and the court house is falling to ruin, and the parks are not being maintained because the money is spent on projects that really are not the business of government.

And this again leaves the question of why you would want internet service from the government.

Would you want your newspaper from the government too? And if you were dumb and gullible enough to vote for a government newspaper with the ability to lock out competitive news papers, would it not be the proper place for a republican form of State or Federal government (small "r") to step in and say, no, that is not what government is for? Can a city really decide to go off on any tangent they want to?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

So.... you're saying.. meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

Cause, sure you can fire ATT or Comcast. But then what? Are you going to bike messenger your packets down the street and have them scanned and transmitted? Pigeon coops in the backyard are in these days, I hear, so that's an alternative.

But if you want a good alternative ... you'll probably be looking for awhile. Because even the best providers are utterly mediocre, when they're not being reprehensible, overbearing, or incompetent.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Cutting_Crew]

reading that wiki article it is fascinating and not surprising that Comcast refused an open invitation to join the network? That's because they want to sell their XFinity. Thats the problem with cable companies being ISPs. They want to be the cable provider, the wall gardened content provider and the internet service provider, home phone provider and everything in between. Either allow municipal broadband or require that cable companies cannot be ISP's which bring about too many conflicts of interests.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[shutdown -p now]

But do remember, that we do not live in a pure democracy, the founding father went out of their way to avoid that [wikipedia.org]. There are some pretty well generally accepted limits placed on the purpose and scope of government.

This all only pertains to federal government, and in some limited form to the states. There's no requirement that municipalities can't run a "pure democracy".

In any case, it's rather irrelevant, since the municipalities in question are representative democracies, so they are not really pure, and the scope of government there is limited. However, the generally accepted limits on the scope of government normally include tax spending on infrastructure.

Still, if a municipality votes to do so in an open election, I see no reason (other than a philosophical one) why they should be prevented from doing so.
If its paid for by a user fees, that's great. Even a bond issue, or a tax increase is fine if the people voted for it.

That's true. I guess at this point it boils down to whether the representatives that are backing these programs are elected or not. But it still seems to me that state govt trying to pre-emptively ban any such program unconditionally is out of the line.

And too often the city turns to the State for revenue for projects that should have been locally funded simply because the tax base is tapped out and the court house is falling to ruin, and the parks are not being maintained because the money is spent on projects that really are not the business of government.

At that point the state is within their rights to refuse. Or provide funding, but conditional on how it is spent (including, say, a clause on no municipal broadband).

And this again leaves the question of why you would want internet service from the government. Would you want your newspaper from the government too? And if you were dumb and gullible enough to vote for a government newspaper with the ability to lock out competitive news papers, would it not be the proper place for a republican form of State or Federal government (small "r") to step in and say, no, that is not what government is for? Can a city really decide to go off on any tangent they want to?

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the government publishing newspaper or owning a TV channel. Locking other, private providers of the same services out is a different thing, and no, I wouldn't want that.

In this case, though, the problem is that broadband market in U.S. is very cartel-like, and the regulation that would be needed to break it up have to be done on federal or state level. For individual municipalities that aren't willing to wait when and if that happens, rolling out their own is the next best option to have something working today.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[khallow]

The light bulbs thing isn't about you saving money. It's about everyone making a very small change in their lives which results in a very large change for us all on this blue marble of ours. Making every single little government line item into "What does it do for me?" is part of how we got into this stupid mess in the first place.

This stance also has deep flaws. "What does it do for me?" is easy to evaluate. What does it do for the blue marble is not. And it is all too easy to rationalize something that benefits me as being something that benefits the blue marble, even when it doesn't. For example, the ban on incandescent light bulbs benefited light bulb manufacturers not the blue marble.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Aryden]

I want something agreed upon, not something forced on one side or the other.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Hognoxious]

Big government refers to its functional scope (how much it does), not geographic (the area it covers).

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Aryden]

They did, NC still passed the laws but grandfather in the existing co-ops. They are still restricted in that they cannot sell their unused bandwidth and/or services to any other county.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Cutting_Crew]

what if a city like the one i live in actually encompasses two counties? how in the world would that work? Don't municipalities usually represent more than one county? like with power, water, etc..?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

Having 1000 separate lines (one per home) is more costly than having 50 wires that are shared by the whole village.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[arose]

There is a huge variation in CFL quality. I've had ones that are green an flicker as well as one's that just work. Though the recent Philips LED beat them all, they are more expensive but if I wanted to ignore lifetime costs I'd just stick to the most crappy incadescents.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[jonwil]

Do it like our Australian NBN where everyone gets a fiber link to their house then those fiber links go back to a central point of presence where ISPs can plug in.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

LED is fine by me, but CFLs don't work properly when it's cold outside. Try to use one as a porch light in the north, during winter, and you are wasting your time and dimes.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

It was agreed on. There are more of those rednecks than there are of you metros That's how it works.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[damiangerous]

I hired Netflix.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[electrosoccertux]

Yeah very large change. How about 300 million lightbulbs' worth of raw mercury making it into our water after being tossed into dumpsters every year because we 95% of your America doesn't have a proper recycling plan for these new bulbs.
Can you guess how many 2-liter bottles worth of mercury that is every year? As if pregnant women being advised against eating Tuna wasn't bad enough, your stupid laws have to make it even worse.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[stdarg]

But that's ignoring the developments that would happen if everybody has symmetric 1gbps (for instance) connections.

I bet you'd have local mirrors of a lot of content.

I bet http would be altered or new protocols would arise that were more bittorrent like to take advantage of nearby unused bandwidth.

In fact years ago I knew someone who lived in Russia whose town had super fast internet but fairly crappy international transfers. So their ISPs gave everybody FTP accounts and shared FTP spaces... and most of the "heavy users" who were pirating songs and movies got it locally. Problem solved.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Mal-2]

The mercury in the bulbs is far less than the mercury emitted by coal-fired plants providing electricity to drive conventional incandescent bulbs. For the moment at least, half the power we have is dirty power.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder the 99% can't have nice things.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it the whole idea?

Businesses dont provide services.
Goverment provides them.
2 possible scenarios:
1) business realises potential. Since goverment service sucks, people will turn over to business, who will provide infrastructure. Increase in competition.
2) Goverment service sucks, but business is not competing on the market. Users still have internet.

From prespective of potential user there - its a win-win situation.
Having shitty internetz is better on my list than not having one at all on any day of the week.

lol captcha: democrat

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[mrchaotica]

It's even worse than that: we subsidize the rural rednecks too. And what do we get in return? The answer is (for example with the Transportation Investment Act), we get to bend over and surrender control of our transit systems to the state (i.e. GRTA) just to be allowed to propose a tax on ourselves! It's absurd!

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[luther349]

what are you talking bought we had free internet all threw the 90s and some are still around. its just dial up was surpassed by broadband and the cable company and phone company's have a much bigger monopoly on it then dial-up. heck there was even a free dsl isp in the making but the phone company's got there way with crappy bills effectively killing it. the fcc is trying to restore it using the unused anlong spectrum.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Aryden]

Private companies have control of the power, water, phone and cable services. This negates the municipality issue. However, those companies have to be licensed in and pay taxes to each county they operate in. In most places, the borders of a town/city do not cross county lines and therefore would not be in 2 counties. A metropolitan area is different and encompasses areas that are not technically within a city's borders but still considered part of the city. For instance, Marietta, Stone Mountain, Decatur, Union City, Alpharetta, Norcross, Roswell etc are all metropolitan areas and you could in theory have mail addressed as 1234 street Atlanta GA 300xx and still get your mail even if you are in Douglasville.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

>>>It won't save you pennies, just tens of dollars per year.

Replacing a 40 with a 10 watt CFL is nothing in terms of savings. Let's say it's on the 4 hours after I get home from work (which is actually not correct because most of the time my only light is my TV and CRT)

4 * 30 == 120 watt hours saved/day * 365 == 43.8 kWh * 0.10

Between 4 and 5 dollars saved per year.
Minus the $3.33 cost of the bulb.
A mere 1 to 2 dollars saved.
Not impressed. Especially when I have to take that mercury-laden CFL and drive it to the landfill after it burns-out, thus wasting ~4 dollars in gasoline and spewing pollution into the air. (So net savings is actually a LOSS.) Just give me the damn incandescent bulb. :-)

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

Luminous efficiency. Look it up. Incandescents are 3% and CFLs are 8%. The rest of the energy is wasted as heat or invisible light (UV rays).

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

I've never seen those "designed for appliances" LEDs. All the bulbs I've seen resemble regular bulbs, but with huge cooling fans.

With CFLs my experience has been that if you use them in an enclosed fixture, or an upside ceiling fixture that traps heat, they die within just months (the electronics overheat). I have no reason to think the 60 watt-replacement LEDs would be any different.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

I used an antenna to get my TV for free.

And my internet comes through Verizon which is MUCH better than Comcast (no caps, no blocking of espn360, and 30 dollars cheaper). So yes there is a difference between a bad company and a good company.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

>>>"99% of people just thow the CFLs in the garbage."

Thus polluting the environment with mercury. Congress made things WORSE for our environment when they outlawed the old incandescents, not better. No wonder their approval rating is below 10%

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

>>>It's about everyone making a very small change in their lives which results in a very large change for us all

But the amount of energy saved (~1%) is so small as to be pointless. And the amount of additonal pollution generated by the CFLs (mercury and fumes from recycling trucks) actually HARMS the environment instead of helping it.

The biggest things in our homes that waste energy are Heat and A/C. It represents ~90% of total energy burned. This is what congress should have been regulating instead of counting the number of angels dancing on the head of a lightbulb (i.e. a pointless endeavor).

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Goaway]

That is basically not at all true. That's picking the highest you can possibly find for one, and the lowest for the other. It is entirely dishonest.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Khyber]

"I have no reason to think the 60 watt-replacement LEDs would be any different."

3w of heat from a 6w LED bulb isn't going to do much trapped in a small area.

http://i.imgur.com/IgTLH.png

There's a design meant for enclosed locations.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

While that stat is true, it ignores the amount of mercury being spewed by the Recycling trucks as they drive around* collecting the dead CFLs. Or the mercury spewed from the CFLs having to be transported from China (where they're built) and then back to China (where they get recycled). Replacing old incandescents with CFLs has generated MORE pollution not less.

This reminds me of the EV car debate. "EVs are perfectly clean" the proponents claim. Until someone like ACEEE.org well-to-junkyard study, and finds that EVs are not any cleaner than a Prius. (And more dirty than a CNG Civic or 70mpg Insight or 80mpg Lupo.) We need to look at the WHOLE picture when we make decisions like these, not just a shallow analysis.

*
*Or personal car - driving to a disposal area.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Daniel_Staal]

As far as I can tell, the rules are 'whatever we can convince the legislature the rules are'. No holds barred on how to do the convincing. By either side.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially when I have to take that mercury-laden CFL and drive it to the landfill after it burns-out

You don't have to go to the dump. You can just stop by a Home Depot and drop them off.

This has already been pointed out to you. True, they weren't replying directly to your last post which complained about needing to drive to the dump, but you did reply in that same thread, so surely you must have noticed it.

But still.. I suppose it is possible you glossed over that fact. However, given your former history, I trust you'll forgive my inability to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

But please don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to argue that CFLs are actually good. You do make good points, such as when you mention most people will just toss them in the garbage and cause bigger pollution problems that way. But by ignoring the content of other peoples posts that are trying to help correct your mis-information, and continuing to spread such mis-information, well, that's just trollish behavior.

And on a completely unrelated note, CAPTCHA is asbestos. Another material that should not just be tossed in the garbage with everything else.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[T-Bone-T]

Try it in a more typical use case where you aren't just replacing a single small bulb and throwing it away after a year. Try the math on replacing 5 60 watt bulbs and keeping them for at least 2 years.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

it ignores the amount of mercury being spewed by the Recycling trucks as they drive around [...] Or personal car - driving to a disposal area.

Gas-powered trucks and cars expel mercury? I'm not saying you're wrong, but given your history, citation needed.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[jedidiah]

It refers to both.

Don't be such an obvious apologist for hypocrites.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard residents in other states complain about how most of the state is Republican and it's just the Democrats in the cities that drag the state the wrong way.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[residieu]

Sorry, neither party knows how to negotiate any more.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[residieu]

Yeah, those damn laws that won't let me dig up the street to put my own cable in whenever I feel like it.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Aryden]

Or those damn laws that wont even let you bury it in the 5ft of YOUR property that the government reserves rights to.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Mal-2]

I don't know about you, but I don't drive to the disposal site every time I break or change a CFL. They sit on a shelf in a box, and when it's time to take other dead hardware to the collection site, the box goes too. The additional fuel used to do this is negligible as I'd be going there anyhow. The only downside is having to keep them on the shelf for months or years until I have enough junk hardware to want to make the trip.

Also, the LADWP has been leaving two CFLs on my doorstep every year or two for at least the last 10 years. I understand they want people to swap them out as regular bulbs die, but it seems to me that most people would have already replaced the most-used (therefore fastest-dying) bulbs in the house by now. Yet the two-per-cycle CFL allotment continues. Mind you, I do actually use them now that they've moved away from the green death colored CFLs to the warm ones, but I can only use so many at one time. They really should allow us to simply leave them where we find them, and pick them up a few days later when they hit another nearby neighborhood.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

>>>I can only use so many CFLs at one time.

Now that they've outlawed incandescents, you have no choice. When your old bulbs die you won't be able to replace them with anything but CFLs.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>I can only use so many CFLs at one time.

Now that they've outlawed incandescents, you have no choice.

Now you and I both know that that isn't what Mal-2 meant. You're slipping back into your former bad behavior, quote-mining people for lines that fit your preconceived notions.

You've already mentioned a couple good reasons why this mandated change to CFLs is bad. Why do you have to undermine your own position by quote-mining Mal-2 like that?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Mal-2]

Incandescents are still available, you just have to buy them as photographic supplies. There is no substitute for a continuous spectrum when it comes to rendering color accurately.

Re:The "private market" already took government mo

[Rockoon]

Two wrongs make a right then?

Campaign Contributions?

[MagikSlinger]

Can anyone find out if he received any recent campaign contributions and from whom? All I could find was for 2008.

Don't AT&T etc get goverment breaks already

[RichMan]

If this bill passes I would expect an immediately ordered audit of all current providers to prove that they in no way used any public money to fund their infrastrucure. If they did then the public should be asking for the money back.

--The "private market" has already used billions of dollars of federal tax money to build out their networks. So basically what this law is saying is that it was okay for the incumbent operators to take tax money, but bar any new competition from doing the same.--

So if the bill passes the current providers should be asked to pay it all back with interest.

Just get something along those lines added to the bill and watch it disappear real fast.

I would be fine with it if ...

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I would be fine with this bill if it also prohibited subsidies of any private business as well. Take away their special property taxes, tax increment finances, lowering their local corporate rates, right of ways, government backed loans, government bonding, ability to eminent domain, and any other such government provided benefit that gives them a business advantage over the free market.

Re:I would be fine with it if ...

[radtea]

Take away their special property taxes, tax increment finances, lowering their local corporate rates, right of ways, government backed loans, government bonding, ability to eminent domain, and any other such government provided benefit that gives them a business advantage over the free market.

Why not take away their liability limitation and other special privileges granted to them under statute by the corporate form of organization and let them compete in a genuinely free market?

Corporations do not exist in free markets: they are a legislatively defined and created form of collective organization. When I formed my company I filed forms with the government that gave me a special legal status. Without such legislative intervention to subvert the free market I'd be just a guy selling services, or a group of people selling services.

Forming a company was an act of legal coercion against my fellow humans, which protects me and my employees from certain types of court action. It was only possible because of government intervention in the free market.

For Some Odd Values of "Well"

[richg74]

Senator Rogers claims that 'The private sector is handling this exceptionally well.'

Someone should explain to this idiot that, if a competitive market is delivering a good service, then the private sector will do just fine without having some potential competitors excluded.

Rogers, eh?

[Ossifer]

Any relation to the Rogers family that has a monopoly on communications in Canada?

Re:Rogers, eh?

[SecurityTheatre]

Rogers sucks, eh?

Yeah, right! eh? :-)

Donor List for Chip Rogers (2010)

[Araes]

Note that there are also a number of "Friends for Chip Rogers" groups

http://www.followthemoney.org/database/StateGlance/candidate.phtml?c=124878

Haven't paid much attention to him before now, but I'd expect a lot of pro-private health care bills.

public funds are nice in theory

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live the city subsidized a "super fast" infrastructure and then leased it out to private companies. Both government and private companies fucked it up and now I am forced by the city to pay $10 per month extra on my city utilities bill to bailout the failed project (it was never available in my neighborhood).

Re:public funds are nice in theory

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon, AC, you will need to provide some citations and details to be considered credible.

This is Georgia Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

They're probably against municipal broadband because a Democrat, somewhere, at some time, was for it. These folks are driven out of pure spite.

+1

[Anonymous Coward]

See Parent

Municipal Last Mile

[Anonymous Coward]

Municipal Last Mile. That is all...

Competition?

[oneiros27]

It's amazing how efforts like this work ... if the telcon has the rights to build the network, but just can't get off their ass to actually build it out, they seem to like to wait until the municipality has paid for all of the up-front costs (telco gear, etc.), and then suddenly, the phone company is calling up everyone in the area, telling 'em they'll have their service in place really soon, and a month later, they've strung everything and are signing up customers, trying to undercut the municipality so they can show it as yet another case where 'municipal broadband didn't work'. (this was Frankfort, KY in the 1990s ... municipal was going to run fiber to the home, and suddenly Bell South is rolling out DSL)

It also happened with other non-municipal competition ... in my current town in Maryland, we were on the bottom of the list with Comcast to upgrade to fiber .... but we sign a franchise agreement with Verizon for TV service, and suddenly we're at the top of their list and they're installing weeks later (without notifying us that they were going to be blocking off streets for the work)

Re:Competition?

[RatherBeAnonymous]

The moral of the story is: A municipalities best move is to announce a big fiber network roll-out, make a big show of surveying out the fiber corridors and drawing up plans for facilities, draw out the process long enough for the local telco/cable company to get a judge to halt the project BEFORE breaking ground, then sit back and watch the incumbent service providers build the network. Stage 3: Profit!

Re:The "private market" already took government mo

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Yes it does in real life. When a gun is pointed at you, pointing your gun at them serves at as an equalizer even if your gun is only a pistol and their gun is a rifle. Being virtuous is only good if the wrong are actively fought against AND corrected. This is however is rarely the case in real life. The wrongs that are done, are rarely corrected afterwards. Not equalizing the situation will only pile on the wrongs slowly without any balance.

Not capitalism.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a case of government forbidding competition in a free market. That's not capitalism. And no, the fact that certain private entities benefit from it doesn't make it capitalism.

Re:Not capitalism.

[unity100]

government forbidding competition from government in a free market ?

Re:Not capitalism.

[s73v3r]

No, you're absolutely wrong. Private companies lobbying for shit like this is in fact a product of capitalism.

Re:Not capitalism.

[s73v3r]

Yes. In a free market, municipalities must be free to compete as well. Look at many of the municipal broadband success stories over the past few years. Their incumbent telco was slothful and had almost no competition, so they didn't see any reason to improve. This pissed off the citizens, so they got the municipality to start a network. Just the act of starting it caused the incumbents to try and improve, although in most cases the municipality still had better service at lower prices.

Blank Check

[alexander_686]

Because this class of rights is a blank check. It is very different to say that you can do something verse you must be provided with something.

In order to freedom of speech, religion, or to bear arms all I needs is a few federal judges and a few zealots (ACLU, Christian Right, NRA, etc.).

In order to provide medical care, education, or broadband access I have to start writing out big checks. Do I have to run fiber out the middle of nowhere for 1 guy? Is a 99% solution acceptable? A 80% solution?

Nothing wrong with this bill

[scamper_22]

From what I read, a municipality can still operate its own broadband. It just can't use tax money.

If a community wants to, it can raise funds in a non-profit manner and build out their own broadband. Too many people think only government or corporations can run anything.

In reality, non-profits, mutuals, small business, guilds... all have long histories.

I am against governments using tax money for broadband. It is just too easy for them to just use tax money for whatever. If they want to, they should get people on board, having the community invest in the non-profit entity...

Re:Nothing wrong with this bill

[shutdown -p now]

I am against governments using tax money for broadband. It is just too easy for them to just use tax money for whatever.

And, pray tell, who should be the one to decide what the municipality uses its tax money for, if not the municipality itself?

Re:Nothing wrong with this bill

[laird]

Keep in mind that it's far more efficient for a city to provide a universal service paid for by taxes than to waste a fortune building access controls and billing systems in order to keep people out until they pay. For example, look at telephony - the accounting and billing systems that control, track, and charge for the phone calls costs far, far more than the actual cost of providing the phone calls. Is it really that important to triple the cost of phone calls just to make sure that nobody gets free phone calls?

Stadiums, Cable TV and Enterprise Zones, not Wifi!

[mounthood]

Subsidies are for Stadiums, Cable TV and Enterprise Zones, not for public access to the internet! The internet can either survive on its own without government subsidies, or it doesn't deserve to exist!

Municipal Liquor

[alexander_686]

Selling liquor retail requires a liquor license, so the city/county only issues the license to themselves. It’s common in the small town / rural Midwest. Can’t say for anyplace else.

In my hometown, anybody can sell beer and other low point drinks, but only the city can sell the hard stuff. Partly it’s a money maker for the city. Partly it is a holdover from the temperance era. City employees are less like to sell the hard stuff to minors no matter what the profit margins are. I have seen some small towns where the only place to buy liquor (On or Off sale) is the City Bar.

I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[Montezumaa]

I live in an area, which is officially a part of the metro Atlanta Area, but we are severely undeserved by AT&T, Comcast, and any other companies that might(actually don't) offer services out here. AT&T refuses to extend DSL outside of the small towns in this county. Comcast refuses to offer broadband, at all; they only offer "digital cable". So, the great majority of this county is stuck with dial-up, satellite [dis]service, Verizon Wireless(AT&T had most of this county still covered in EDGE), or go without.

With AT&T, greater than 75% of this county's residences are not eligible to receive DSL, as the central offices are too far away. AT&T is willing to put us on some mythical "waiting list", but what the fuck does that do for us? Nothing. I know quite a lot of the county residences that I have talked to(many hundreds, if not a couple of thousands), are on this list.

Hell, my girlfriend, who works for AT&T and is required, by that shit-hole company, to have internet access, tried to talk to someone. Guess what? "[Fuck you!], waiting list." So, we have to pay AT&T competitor, Verizon Wireless, to provide us with slow, and severely capped mobile "broadband", so she can do her job for AT&T. We also do not get any sort of discount, or reimbursement. As much as it costs us, each month, it would almost be cheaper to pay for a DS1(T1, or whatever you want to call it) line to our home, at $357, or so, a month.

I am proud to live in Georgia. The problem is that there are too many idiots in our various governments. The local commissioners dodge citizens, unless you are one of the top contributors, and the state reps and senators usually don't give care about their constituents, once is office, actually, never, unless, again, you are one of their top contributors.

Chip Rogers, you can go fuck yourself. While you are at it, why don't you come out here and live with me for three months. I have a nice, rather new, and very clean home. I have a lot of property, so you will retain your privacy. The only catch is that you will have to work from here, and experience what we do, why trying to use just a few of the basic services found on the internet.

I will stand over your shoulder, watching the data meter. When you come close to the included allotment, I will proceed to beat the shit out of you. This will best help you understand how our wallets feel, each month, when we receive our bill from Verizon Wireless, on top of everything else we have to pay for.

Re:I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[frank_adrian314159]

I am proud to live in Georgia.

You're a brave man to admit that. Now you just have to go on to the other eleven steps and you'll be fine.

Re:I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[Montezumaa]

There is nothing wrong with my State. We have far more freedoms that some other states(New York, California, Massachusetts, and a few others). Outside of Atlanta, which is a bane on this state, and sucks up most of the tax money sent to the State, I could not be happier.

Atlanta really is not all that bad, save for the roads(both design and bad upkeep).

Re:I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[P-niiice]

Atlanta metro provides most of the tax revenue for the state, and should use more revenue - and *would* if the politicians in this state could govern worth a damn. As it is, Atlanta is nothing but a huge cash cow for GA.

Re:I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, a 'bane on this state'?

It's been consistently shown that the 10 county area that makes up the 'core' Atlanta metro area contributes 51% of state revenues and only receives 37% of state expenditures.

Even if we expanded it to the 28 'greater' atlanta area, it's 61% revenue and 47% expenditure.

16% of all gross income in the state is made in fulton, 10% in Cobb, 9% in Gwinnett, 8% in Dekalb. 90% of all revenue in the state is personal income and 43% of all personal income generated in the state are from residents of those 4 counties, many of whom work in Atlanta or rely on the beneficial economies of agglomeration for employment.

If 43% of all income (which is where 90% of all state revenue for Georgia is derived) in the state is from those 4 counties and a larger 10 county area only takes in about 37% of all state expenditures, it's pretty obvious that Atlanta doesn't come anywhere close to 'sucking up most of the tax money sent to the state' and contributes far more to the state's health than any other area in the state.

Re:I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

psst - it's because atlanta has black people

Re:I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[Montezumaa]

Riiight. Have you ever been to Atlanta, or are you just relaying what you have heard from people around you? Do you pay attention to what is occurring with Atlanta, and the rest of the State of Georgia?

Atlanta has been trying to take more and more water sources from the cities and counties all around Georgia, if they come the slightest bit close to the ever-expanding city limits, and causing many problems for all the cities that are not Atlanta. Beyond that, less than 500,000 people live within the Atlanta city limits, yet they are over 9.8 million Georgia residents. The math is easy.

Yeah, there may be 5.2 million people in the metro Atlanta Area, but check out how damned big that area is(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_metropolitan_area). This area is almost as big as some states, and it is actually bigger than a few. Yet, the money being pumped into Atlanta is not going to the entire metro area. In fact, the majority of the state is not receiving what Atlanta, alone, is receiving. Regardless, most can see how little that money is doing, in the current government's hands.

Atlanta also has a huge problem with crime. Just ask the students at Georgia Tech(more so) and Georgia State. That is the reason I never go further into metro Atlanta, without a proper assortment of small arms.

I am not saying that Atlanta should go without tax money; I am saying that the state coffers should be distributed across the entire state, appropriately. Instead, Atlanta takes the majority of the tax income, and spends it like there is no tomorrow.

Re:I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[P-niiice]

The metropolitan Atlanta region is defined in two ways for this analysis. The first definition is the ten county core area defined by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) planning district.2 We call this area the Metro10. The second is a 28 county area that the U.S. Census currently defines as the Atlanta metropolitan area.3 We call this area the Metro28. We find that the residents of the Metro10 area provided approximately 51 percent of Georgia state revenues and received approximately 37 percent of Georgia state expenditures. The residents of the Metro28 area accounted for approximately 61 percent of Georgia state revenue and received approximately 47 percent of Georgia state expenditures for fiscal year 2004. We next briefly discuss revenue and expenditure allocations as well as the robustness of our estimates.

Like I said, Atlanta is a bane that supplies the state with substantial amounts of money. Those numbers come from the State of Georgia office of planning and budget.

Re:I live in Georgia, and this is stupid.

[P-niiice]

The size of Atlanta metro is what it is, big. And it should be obvious that the rest of Georgia needs funds to keep up. Those funds come from Atlanta Metro - the state should recognize that (they choose not to) and at least try to allow investment to make it more attractive instead of limiting what local government can do.

Senator Rogers is a visionary

[Issarlk]

With all file sharing services blocked, there won't be any use for DSL. And you don't need Netflix or other such anti-american companies ; cable was good enough for your grandfather and it's good enough for you.

Re:Senator Rogers is a visionary

[Anonymous Coward]

Cable blows DSL out of the water. Coaxial cable will always be a superior signal conductor.

And my grandfather did not have cable.

And the internet ued to work just fine on dial-up, it still can - just clear the shit off it.

Anyone remember what HTTP stands for? Most web devs could not develop a site that works on dial-up even if their life depended on it. It is still possible. You only think you need giant pipes because they are clogged with shit. You said it yourself.

Watch how fast kids on iPhones can saturate a connection. It is bad enough that I suspect there is some kind of routing or QoS hacking app avaiable for these devices. A single iPhone can DoS every other user on the LAN.

Now get off my lawn!

Prohibit ...

[PPH]

... public subsidies for paved roads, sewers, electric power.
But then this is Georgia. Would anyone notice their absence?

I live in Georgia

[Aryden]

The infrastructure here is complete shit and ruled by comcast / charter. Take away the government money, bills go up to compensate. Let them continue with the government money, they will increase prices and not upgrade shit anyhow.

This state blows nuts. I'll be glad when I'm the hell out of here. This state is notorious for not siding or even giving a damn about it's people.

Remember, this is the same state that decided to test it's own version of math that didn't make any sense and caused thousands of students to fail exit exams.

Re:I live in Georgia

[Anonymous Coward]

The infrastructure here is complete shit and ruled by comcast / charter. Take away the government money, bills go up to compensate. Let them continue with the government money, they will increase prices and not upgrade shit anyhow.

This state blows nuts. I'll be glad when I'm the hell out of here. This state is notorious for not siding or even giving a damn about it's people.

Remember, this is the same state that decided to test it's own version of math that didn't make any sense and caused thousands of students to fail exit exams.

Replace the above instances of 'state' with 'country'.

Re:I live in Georgia

[volpe]

This state blows nuts. I'll be glad when I'm the hell out of here. This state is notorious for not siding or even giving a damn about it's people.

What did you expect? As Charlie Daniels famously observed, the devil had to go down to get to Georgia.

Re:I live in Georgia

[Aryden]

Twice apparently.

Those Conservatives don`t need

[__aavqan3009]

their constituents to have access to facts. That would only much up the works.

Rich anonymous donor.

[Ostracus]

"The Associated Press has the news that Georgia State Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers is sponsoring a bill that 'would prevent public broadband providers from paying for communication networks with tax or government revenue.'

How about if I just give them the money?

I know Slashdotters have a limited grasp...

[Xeranar]

of real politik and live in their own fundamentalist worlds of high society and truth in politics but do we really need to debate the free market every time a corrupt republican tries to stop government from doing its job? It's like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. The modern US conservative is essentially a pro-business social conservative who will undermine the government at every turn because that is their belief structure along with the huge economic support they get from massive corporations. It isn't as if this is something deep and well thought out it's simple corruption and bias support of pro-business agendas.

I feel like every time one of these articles comes up or really any sort of government related article comes up people want to get into the tenets of capitalism and democracy while ignoring the reality because for some odd reason a vocal minority of slashdotters are infatuated with being randian peons. It's not to say some of the ideas spouted about removal of public funds and such aren't valid in a discussion but they're unrealistic and the overuse of the slippery slope argument is so extreme I feel every time I read something it inevitably ends up at some sort of extreme philosophical end that nobody would let occur in reality.

So in short: I appreciate some of the interesting philosophical discussions abounding in here but sometimes we need to accept the real politik and realize this guy and his party are bought and sold by their pro-business interests.

municipal broadband needs the locals support

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

If the citizens desire a city wide nonprofit/municipal broadband network, a substantial percentage of the entire city population (~50%) should get together and be willing to put down a few thousand each to finance the construction of said municipal network. If the people of the city are not willing to do this, there should be no construction. All or nothing.

What if several arrogant people on the city council decide that they want municipal broadband, but screw the project up, and the city loses millions, or the people are already happy with cheap, shitty DSL connections? That can happen.

Re:municipal broadband needs the locals support

[shutdown -p now]

What if several arrogant people on the city council decide that they want municipal broadband, but screw the project up

They get voted out?

Seriously, you're basically asking a more specific version of "what if politician does stupid thing X?".

Re:The "private market" already took government mo

[s73v3r]

What the fuck are you talking about, "two wrongs"? If anything's a wrong, this proposal is.

Getting FAT off the "free market"

[ravyne]

This really ought to be simple -- A local municipal or co-op ought to be able to go into the business of providing a service on the same terms as private providers. Private providers should be free of discriminatory practices (e.g. a local govt. screwing them out of entering or expanding the market), but should *not* be free of competition from any and all comers, private or public. If a community desires better service than current offerings are providing, and are able to pay for it, then they shouldn't be prevented from effecting that change for themselves. Their ability to do so should not be restricted any more than any other public works.

If we had any pro-competitive notion of net neutrality (e.g. that the "last mile" and other support infrastructure should be available for use by any and all competitors in the market, and to new-comers, without undue burden) this problem would not exists. If that infrastructure was installed by private industry previously, then they ought to be able to charge a fair access fee to competitors to compensate themselves, while being low enough that competitors can provide a competitive pricing structure. That would be the true "free market" solution as far as customers (as opposed to providers) are concerned.

The fact that we don't have this in place does nothing more than protect the ability of those who hold this infrastructure to protect their locked-in consumer base from competition so that they are able to sell largely-worthless package "deals", and with artificial limitations, for insane profits.

The "free market" should mean one in which all comers are able to enter and compete on the merits of their offerings, not one in which the incumbent players are free from competition. Obviously the consumer prefers the former definition, while the incumbents and their political buddies get fat off the latter.

Squelching competition.

[nurb432]

All municipal operations are tax funded. That is the whole point of them. This is just a back door way to make sure there are no public funded alternatives, so they can keep their monopolies.

They should be fined at the least for even suggesting it.

Southern ignorance exemplified

[Anonymous Coward]

Georgia is a hotbed of ignorance.

They love being stupid.

The place is a shithole.

Don't believe me ? Go see for yourself.

And don't tell me how cool Atlanta is, if you think Atlanta is cool you are a hick.

a very BIG change

[Anonymous Coward]

If you suffer from migraines... or lupus... or any other serious medical condition which can be triggered or aggravated by CFLs.

Otherwise, a small but unpleasant change, which marginally reduces energy consumes operating the light (only marginally, since most incandescent "waste" energy is used as heat) but which consumes more energy in production, to no net benefit.

There is only one type of safe, affordable lightbulb - incandescent.

And no, I won't buy a car, drive to the dump or Home Depot or wherever, and "safely" dispose of something that inflicts most of its damage in operation. Nor would it help the environment if I did.

Re:The "private market" already took government mo

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck yes, it does.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is liberty a fundamental human right?

You can't work if you're starving, dead or unable to travel to find it.

Re:Why?

[roman_mir]

So? The most important thing to an individual is his liberty from the collective forcing itself upon him. Life doesn't matter without liberty at all.

Not the first example

[Sem_D_D]

This mechanism was very well documented in a businessweek article: Pssst .... Wanna buy a Law?
In a nutshell, the companies lobby and pre-fabricate heavily customized (for their own needs) bills for local governments` use, keep them in the drawer and present them whenever opportunity rears its ugly head. The article describes exactly this bill in action in Lafayette and the havoc it wreaks on the municipality's idea to build its own infrastructure. Very grimmm...

Complete bullshit

[Lanteran]

'The private sector is handling this exceptionally well.'

Complete bullshit. Since AT&T has regained its stranglehold of the bell south days, there's been no progress. My service is currently about 50$ a month for 8Mbit/512k ADSL. Not the worst of it. Broadband coverage is, in fact, receding in my area. Areas that used to have DSL available now no longer do. Entire regions are going dark permanently, with nothing faster than dailup available.