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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.'"
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.
Time to offend someone
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.
Technoli
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.
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!
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.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
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.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
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.
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.