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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.'"
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.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
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.
Can't the city start a private company and be the sole customer? Are there laws preventing that?
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.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
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.
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.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
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.
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.
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.
You can't handle the truth.
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
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.
Read radical news here
What even worse is - a healthy Broadband implementation in a city can attract new jobs. Look at what Alpharetta has done.
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Two wrongs make a right then?
"His name was James Damore."
Can anyone find out if he received any recent campaign contributions and from whom? All I could find was for 2008.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
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 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.
Time to offend someone
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.
Any relation to the Rogers family that has a monopoly on communications in Canada?
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.
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)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
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.
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?
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...
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.
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 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.
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.
But then this is Georgia. Would anyone notice their absence?
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
their constituents to have access to facts. That would only much up the works.
"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?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
government forbidding competition from government in a free market ?
Read radical news here
What the fuck are you talking about, "two wrongs"? If anything's a wrong, this proposal is.
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?".
No, you're absolutely wrong. Private companies lobbying for shit like this is in fact a product of capitalism.
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.
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.
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.
You can't handle the truth.
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
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.
You can't handle the truth.
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...
Now, Make Your WISE Move...
'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.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.