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

[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]

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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

[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.

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.

[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.

[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.

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.

[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.

[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]

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]

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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...

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.

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.

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.