Hundreds of Cities Wired With Fiber, But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unusable

Jason Koebler writes: 'In light of the ongoing net neutrality battle, many people have begun looking to Google and its promise of high-speed fiber as a potential saving grace from companies that want to create an "internet fast lane." Well, even without Google, many communities and cities throughout the country are already wired with fiber — they just don't let their residents use it. Companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, and Verizon have signed agreements with cities that prohibit local governments from becoming internet service providers and prohibit municipalities from selling or leasing their fiber to local startups who would compete with these huge corporations.'

Comments

Allow Virtual ISPs or Last Mile

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be an end-run around those restrictions. The city/locality owns the fiber, but sells access to companies who sell it to end users. (I'm not sure if this counts as "leasing". The locality maintains control of the fiber.)

Re:Allow Virtual ISPs or Last Mile

[avelyn]

Yeah, selling access to it would be leasing. I see what you mean with the retention of control, but unless these provisions were really terribly drafted selling access to it is going to be leasing activity, since it would be trading use of the asset for the rent, even if the use isn't exclusive and the control remains with the municipality.

Re: Allow Virtual ISPs or Last Mile

[TheScorpion420]

I lived in Indianola Iowa and the city owns the fiber ran next to their totally underground power network. They lease access to Mahaska Communications Group out of Oskaloosa Iowa who then sells Internet access at ridiculously good rates. I paid $50/month for 100/100 with a 10ms ping and NO cap.

Re:speaking of FCC

[geekoid]

crap. linked to my g+. Sorry, my bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Annoying.

[khasim]

The core issue is whether a government should be providing a service. But that should not be an issue.

The government should provide the pipes (fibre or copper or whatever) to the houses that it covers. Paid for by taxes.

The pipes terminate at a government facility that the government leases space at to ANY AND ALL companies that want to provide ISP services over those pipes. As cheap as possible but without allowing one company to lease ALL the space.

Then switching between ISP's should be as simple as moving a patch cord.

Your taxes pay for the pipes and their maintenance and the facility and its maintenance (minus the lease revenue).

Re:Annoying.

[burne]

The core issue is whether a government should be providing a service.

Is a road, street lighting or waste disposal a 'service'?

Is intarwebs a service?

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government needs to enforce a Quality of Service (QoS) like they did on telephones (5 minutes max downtime per year), so that we can have a stable infrastructure that expands and progresses. However, the current government is unable to escape their corruption, so I doubt we will pursue having decent infrastructure with the current US government (since regulations increase business costs and the government officials are bought and paid for, to avoid raising costs and instead impede competition).

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, for starters, they could try using the billions they've been giving to providers to upgrade their damn equipment even though they never do...

Re:Annoying.

[DigiShaman]

I love the idea, until those patch cables get moved over to a black MITM box with the NSA logo all over it. No sir, I don't like it after all.

Re:Annoying.

[tomhath]

The core issue is whether a government should be providing a service. But that should not be an issue.

It's not an issue because providing whatever internet connection is popular this year is not what government is for.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the government going to come up with the billions of dollars to buy out the investors in those companies?

Who gives a shit? It's not the government's responsibility to coddle obsolete industries and their investors. Or at least, it SHOULDN'T be the government's responsibility.

Re:Annoying.

[khasim]

So in effect you want to nationalize the internet backbone and put all backbone providers out of business.

I think you are a little bit confused on what the "backbone" is. It is not the same as the "last mile" which is what I am discussing.

In my suggestion, each of the ISP's that were leasing space would also need a connection to an "upstream" provider. Whether that was one of the backbones or an intermediary would be up to each company.

All the government does is provide access to the pipes from the government site to the houses.

Re:Annoying.

[Lumpy]

"Where is the government going to come up with the billions of dollars to buy out the investors in those companies?"

We found more than that to fund killing people in the middle east for more than 10 years... It would not be hard at all to find the funds to buy up all the backbone companies.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

>he thinks the NSA doesn't already have black boxes in private datacenters already.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

So in effect you want to nationalize the internet backbone and put all backbone providers out of business.

Actually, there's probably enough demand in the backbone market to support competition. The real issue is the last mile where there is a natural monopoly on the physical lines.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is almost a word-for-word description of how it's done in Sweden. It's not always the government that owns the fiber, it might be a private investor or land lord that owns it and charges a small fee from tenants/users for installation and maintenance.

In my rental apartment building the land lord recently installed fiber-to-the-home for every apartment, raised rent by about US $11 per month and now I have a choice of about 8 ISPs starting at US $13 per month for unlimited 10/10 mbps and ending at unlimited gigabit in both directions at an obscene US $90 a month. Historically prices for the top-tier bandwidth has gone down quite rapidly.

Re:Annoying.

[anagama]

"Nationalize" ... whatever.

How is it what we have all that different from nationalized net access when 99% of users are locked into one of three major providers who then use that money to buy legislation and ordinances which favor them making even more money.

In the choice between a monopoly or nationalization, nationalization is a no brainer, because out of it might spring real competition as a GP poster pointed out, by leasing the pipes to any and all ISP wannabes. In contrast, monopolization leads to fat profits at users' expense, poor service, and crappy laws and it can never ever get better. Obviously, a free market would be better than either the other two, but we have a free market in net services like N. Korea has a free and open society.

Secondly -- exactly who invested in the network? I know I saw a recent article about cable companies taking Federal money to build out their networks and then claiming those lines aren't covered by common carrier rules --- a corollary to "socialize losses, privatize profits" would thus be "socialize expenses, privatize profits." I did find this about Comcast using $40m of public funds to build itself an office building Philly:

http://newslanc.com/2014/01/16...

Also how these assholes are making competition illegal: http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Or what about the fact that to lay all this wire, they are using public utility rights of way. If they aren't going to be a public utility they should have no right to use that right of way -- it's a kind of robbery of the commons -- a robbery of every American.

Until these monopolies start actually using their own money for stuff, the whole cry for the investors shit is just that, fetid stinking steaming shit. Cry a river of it. Then go swimming.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

So in effect you want to nationalize the internet backbone and put all backbone providers out of business

Nice hyperventilating Mr. Libertarian, but that's not it at all. Please explain how a city building infrastructure is nationalizing the internet backbone. Yeah, didn't think so. The job of government is to provide citizens with the services that the private sector can't or won't. I think this is a clear cut case of "won't".

Re:Annoying.

[currently_awake]

Yes, I think the government should nationalize the internet pipes, last mile right up to long haul. And then run it like it runs the national highway system. They would run the entire internet super-highway, but not the traffic on it, just like they run the highways but not the trucks and cars that use it.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see new home builders do this too. Run fiber throughout the neighborhood and run it all to one central location for connection.

Re:Annoying.

[anagama]

Here's another example.

1. Claim common carrier status
2. Get access to public rights of way
3. Raise rates
4. Say you aren't a common carrier
5. Profit.

there is no ?

http://www.theverge.com/2014/5...

Today New York's Public Utility Law Project (PULP) published a report, authored by New Networks, which contains previously unseen documents. It demonstrates how Verizon deliberately moves back and forth between regulatory regimes, classifying its infrastructure either like a heavily regulated telephone network or a deregulated information service depending on its needs. The chicanery has allowed Verizon to raise telephone rates, all the while missing commitments for high-speed internet deployment.

It's a mess -- and, by all appearances, it's completely legal.

* * *

First, Title II designation gives carriers broad power to compel other utilities -- power, water, and so on -- to give them access to existing infrastructure for a federally controlled price, which makes it simpler and more cost-effective for cables to be run. And that infrastructure adds up: poles, ducts, conduits running beneath roads, the list goes on. Second, Title II gave Verizon a unique opportunity to justify boosting telephone rates in discussions with regulators, arguing that these phone calls would run over the same fiber used by FiOS, Verizon's home internet service. According to PULP's report, Verizon raised traditional wired telephone rates in New York some 84 percent between 2006 and 2009, blessed by regulators in return for its "massive investment in fiber optics."

Re:Annoying.

[currently_awake]

Are you actually suggesting the current situation is different? We already know all our traffic is being fed to the NSA.

Re:Annoying.

[currently_awake]

Are you also suggesting government get out of the police and military business? Because after all they can't do anything right, so clearly it would be better if private enterprise handled those jobs.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. The last mile is prone to natural monopoly. It doesn't make sense to install multiple fibers.

So the core decision is preference between handing the last-mile monopoly over to a private company, or to the government. A pretty good case can be made for the government solution. I'd sure like more than one choice (aka no choice) in provider for my cable Internet.

Re:Annoying.

[Ichijo]

The government should provide the pipes (fibre or copper or whatever) to the houses that it covers. Paid for by taxes.

Why taxes? My water bill pays for the pipes, my phone bill pays for the phone line, my electric bill pays for the electric wires, and my cable ISP pays for the coax. Should someone who doesn't use the service be forced to help pay for it through their taxes?

No, just require that anyone who provides the pipes has to allow third party ISPs to provide service over them and charge them a fair price. Better yet, prohibit the company that owns the wires from being the ISP.

Re:Annoying.

[anagama]

I'm SOOO glad that AT&T operates room 641A and not the city of San Francisco. That makes it all so much better. Plus it costs more! Another bonus (for somebody).

Re:Annoying.

[OdinOdin_]

Very similar to how it works in the UK.

A business called "BT Wholesale / aka OpenReach" operates as a corporate entity in its own right, that the government regulates. They more of less have last mile monopoly over the old British Telecom (which used to be the incumbent single telephone operator that was originally a public entity). So this was made private maybe 20 years ago but with certain caveats.

Such as a uniform pricing policy to all other telecom operators wishing to buy their wholesale services. Think like FRAND, as opposed to scheming and back office deals to maintain pricing.

Such as not offering the full package, i.e. only offering wholesale services. A regular home or business consumer never buys directly anything from the wholesale division. The end customer buys from the many (more than 500 in our little island) brand names, who in turn pay the wholesale rental fees out of your subscription.

Such as allowing politicians to have influence (through regulation) over certain aspects of governance. This is a good thing when there is a last mile monopoly, there is at least some kind of elected accountability. Especially when the government paid for the original construction of the network.

There is of course a parallel cable network now, that also have their own independent last mile. So in almost all urban/suburban locations another option exists, but BTs copper POTS network has a much higher coverage.

There also exists some areas (such as Kingston and Hull) which ended up with their own last mile services that operate their own telecoms independently.

Here in the UK now (with BT wholesale) the whole country is getting more street side cabinets (to within of 100 meters of every urban and suburban location) and fibre optics installed to those cabinets back to the local exchange site. The last 100 meters is still largely delivered over copper but at speeds around 80MBit/20Mbit, but I'm sure further speed increases will take places like ADSL/ADSL2/ADSL2+ in the future. This national roll out is over half way through and I'm sure within the next 3 years the original plan will be complete.

There are still issues with many rural locations being on dialup quality, hopefully as cellular like technology improves this could be utilized as back haul for rural locations. Rural in the UK might mean just being 8 miles out of town.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

universal SLIC

Forcing phone companies to upgrade them to digital SLICs would do more to speed up Internet access as a percentage of current capacity than any other thing the government could do.

For those that don't know, SLIC stands for Subscriber Line Interface Circuit, and they are typically used to take a few POTS (plain old telephone service, a standard analog phone line) lines from a CO (central office) and multiplex them to all of the homes in a neighborhood. This allows the phone monopolies to sell many more phone lines than they actually have. For example, my old neighborhood in Seattle had only nine incoming POTS lines, but Qwest could support more than forty houses. We just couldn't make or receive calls for a few hours a day because all of the circuits were busy. The problem with universal SLICs is the extra conversion of the analog signal from your house to a digital one in the SLIC then the conversion back to an analog to the CO. That prevents 56k from working. Typically, you are limited to 26,400 bps with this sort of system. If the phone monopolies were required to upgrade the SLICs so that instead of using analog, they were digital to the CO then we would be able to have a chance at a much faster 56k connection to the Internet. For places like Seattle where you still have a lot of people that don't have DSL or cable as an option, getting rid of the universal SLICs would almost double the connection speeds for many people. I know my friends where would love a chance to get a 56k connection.

Re:Annoying.

[geekoid]

Please, it was no worse then any equally scaled effort by anyone, private or public.

The government runs a lot of services very well.

Re:Annoying.

[Hamsterdan]

You are aware of course that about every ISP already has those capabilities, right?

(legal or otherwise).

Re:Annoying.

[geekoid]

Because with taxes it will be cheaper, the people will have a larger say, and it is beneficial to all people.

Interesting anecdote:

I worked for a Water Bureau. The number clearly show that taxing people instead of having a water bill would be substantially cheaper for everyone.
I mean 20% cheaper, if not more.

But if you mention it to the public, when they hear 'taxes', the well off scream bloody murder when though it would also be cheaper for them as well.
With taxes, you no longer need a billing system. So you loose the expense of that, the infrastructures for that, the expense of maintaining PCI compliance, accountants, taking people to court who don't pay there bills, cut down on meter reading, paper.

" Should someone who doesn't use the service be forced to help pay for it through their taxes?"
you mean like the taxes used as subsidies for you phone infrastructure?

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Even if you are talking last mile there still is a lot of investment in that last mile. Who will pay the investors?

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Different budgets different objectives. National defense is a much better sell than nationalizing companies.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

If they aren't going to be a public utility they should have no right to use that right of way

Is cable TV a public utility? They use those right of ways. There are many companies that use public right of ways and are not publicly owned. Tell me the city you live in and I can probably give you examples.

Until these monopolies start actually using their own money for stuff,

So the cables, switches, maintenance, power etc to run the infrastructure cost nothing?

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Are you willing to pay for it in higher taxes?

Re:Annoying.

[Ichijo]

I worked for a Water Bureau. The number clearly show that taxing people instead of having a water bill would be substantially cheaper for everyone.
I mean 20% cheaper, if not more.

That's what wealthy people often claim when they advocate for regressive taxes. Anyway, would I be correct in guessing that water was not very scarce in that area?

With taxes, you no longer need a billing system.

If you are correct that taxes collect themselves, then why couldn't billing use the same technology?

Re:Annoying.

[Pulzar]

If you are correct that taxes collect themselves, then why couldn't billing use the same technology?

I think the point is that there is a tax collection system in place already. Adding a line item on the form to cover water is not going to increase the cost and complexity of the system.

Re:Annoying.

[rtb61]

Talk about a goofy assed response. Companies own those assets because they generate an income that justifies their capital value. Hence it is no different for the government to own those assets and generate an income from them, of course people like you would complain, as oh no the government is taxing us. Which leads to another question, are privatised corporations simply elements of the government privatised and those fees including those inflated profits, simply privatised taxes, especially with regard to monopoly and cartel services.

At least when the government charges for a service, that income goes into general revenue and reduces tax burdens. So any essential service when government owned, helps to minimise additional non-service taxes. The only reason to privatise is because insatiably greedy psychopaths want to insert themselves as middlemen and suck up profit to line their own pockets. Not only charging us more but forcing us to pay additional non service based taxes to cover those government income losses. Fucking filthy bastards.

Sorry but ultimately it is all part of government, whether actual government or privatised by psychopathic greed elements of government, including all essential services.

Re:Annoying.

[NormalVisual]

I am. I already pay $800 or so per year for connectivity, so what difference does it make whether it's to AT&T or to the government, especially if I end up getting far better service as a result?

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the last mile needs to be government run, but with minimum standards, so that yes it is mostly a matter of moving a patch cord, save you should not even have to do that. For the most part the providers equipment should just be on fast links to the rest of the system and everything configured in software. You would also include a satelite link that provides emergency service should the primary links be down. Emergency service might be a basic news site with some cached video/audio along with a way to send and receive text messages of some kind and 911 calling.

Put another way suppose that you put fiber in every home. That would be expensive to start with, but it would be a one time cost likely sufficient for the next generation with reasonable planning. Sure some of the equipment may change, but that last run of fiber likely won't need to very often, if at all. [One presumed you would also run enough spare fiber to deal with any issues that may arise.] At any rate, once that one time sunk cost is done then its mostly just about picking an ISP. Better yet you would have logical places for places like netflix to add their equipment, since nothing says you have to get all of your data through one ISP. A caching server could supply much of it.

Also with regards to coddling obsolete industries I fully agree. The government is supposed to serve the people and if it can do a better job in this case, because it is not so determined to be quite as evil, then it should do it. Just because the legal fiction exists where corporations are treated as people, doesn't mean we should ignore the wishes of _actual_ people. AT&T for one has flat out ignored a great deal of customers who would love to be able to get plain old DSL, because they are not required to give a damn and don't, if it won't make them an immediate profit. So yes, I for one would love to put out of business all the last mile providers, although to be fair I have had decent luck with Charter...

Re:Annoying.

[Mike_Theory]

$90 a month is obscene? That's not much more than what we pay for comcast cable here in california (rated at something like 50mbps with a real max of 12mbps and an average of around 2mbps)

Re:Annoying.

[anagama]

Compared to tunnels, poles, and especially land, yeah, those things cost absolutely nothing.

Secondly, as to your first point, see this link: http://www.theverge.com/2014/5...

It explains how these companies claim to be common carriers to get access to those rights of way ... until they start providing services and then they claim they aren't.

Re:Annoying.

[silas_moeckel]

Fiber, because CDWM is cheap and lets multiple ISP's connect to everybody at the same time. Hell it lets the muni potentially deliver a shared layer 2 to allow multiple ISP's to provide services with just a single connections to the muni. Businesses and people could mesh together allowing for new innovation. A default L3 network could let people reach the muni, schools, libraries, each other and local businesses.

Re:Annoying.

[silas_moeckel]

No the backbone stays intact were talking about the last mile. This is where we dot not want many parallel wiring plants as it's inefficient, ugly, and provides no value while using public space.

Re:Annoying.

[silas_moeckel]

I would say you have a far better chance of your local government standing up to the NSA goons. It's a states rights vs fed rights pissing match. Your local government has it's own goons with guns (and lately a token APC), so you have a far better chance of things getting worked out by the courts than guys with guns. Elected officials often have shield laws protecting them from incarceration/civil suit for doing what they were elected to do. They have big pockets by way of taxes to fight in the courts. AT&T likes black boxes they get paid a lot for each one, they get legal cover from the feds as well as PR cover of they made us do and and not tell you there is no real downside to a domestic only carrier.

Re:Annoying.

[Enigma2175]

The core issue is whether a government should be providing a service. But that should not be an issue.

The government should provide the pipes (fibre or copper or whatever) to the houses that it covers. Paid for by taxes.

The pipes terminate at a government facility that the government leases space at to ANY AND ALL companies that want to provide ISP services over those pipes. As cheap as possible but without allowing one company to lease ALL the space.

Then switching between ISP's should be as simple as moving a patch cord.

Your taxes pay for the pipes and their maintenance and the facility and its maintenance (minus the lease revenue).

This is how my fiber network is operated. The 15 member cities contributed to the network and their residents are seeing the benefits. I can choose what ISP I want (but I would probably never change because I LOVE my ISP) and any ISP, telephone or TV provider can provide service over the network. If my ISP starts any Comcast-style extortion shenanigans with service providers then I can simply switch, there aren't constraints on who owns the wire like private cable/telco networks.

If course Comcast and US West/Qwest/Century Link fought tooth and nail against the network and they are fighting it still. I think the last tactic was getting a bill introduced in the state legislature to prohibit the Utopia network from selling any network service in cities that border Utopia cities. This is just a long line in bills written by the cable lobbyists but so far the cities have resisted [crosses fingers].

So if 15 cities can get something like this done in Republican dominated, pro-business Utah then what's your city's excuse? It's not that hard to get something done on a city level if you can get a few voters on board. The Internet has quickly become an almost indispensible part of life and a majority of a person's day-to-day business (paying bills, communicating with friends, scheduling appointments, etc.) is conducted over the network. It has become important enough that cities should treat it like the utility that it is. Put pressure on your local elected officials to get your own network and bypass the attempted takeover of the Internet by Comcast.

Re: Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since 1996 the united states government (and by extension taxpayers) have already shelled out over 200 billion dollars in tax breaks and other incentives to telcos and cable companies for infrastructure improvements. However, they've just pocketed the money...

Re:Annoying.

[swillden]

If you are correct that taxes collect themselves, then why couldn't billing use the same technology?

I think the point is that there is a tax collection system in place already. Adding a line item on the form to cover water is not going to increase the cost and complexity of the system.

Does that tax collection system meter water usage and adjust the tax bill accordingly? It's the metering and allocation of costs to individual households that's the expensive part, regardless of whether you do it on the tax form or via another billing system.

Note that I don't object to municipal fiber, but this argument about water via taxes rather than monthly billing is silly.

Re:Annoying.

[Enigma2175]

Um after the healthcare.gov disaster you want a government organization to provide your local internet. I will pass on the bright idea.

Just because the government owns the network doesn't mean that it runs it. My city has a municipal fiber network and I couldn't be happier. Fast speeds, low price and good service from my (local) ISP. Any ISP/Phone/TV provider is welcome to provide service on it.

Right now, the network is run by the Utah Infrastructure Agency which is a quasi-government company, but the cities are currently considering a proposal by a private company to manage the network and complete the buildout to every home in the member cities. The proposal sounds like a pretty good one -- everyone in the city gets a 3 MB symmetrical connection for free (included in taxes, anyway), a little extra will get you whatever speed you want. My current connection is 30 Mb symmetrical but you can get 1 Gb if you want. So the government (which technically is the people) own the network but a private company will operate and market it. Open access, any company can provide services and they seem to be able to pull it off for less money than Comcast charges so what's the problem?

Your imagination tells you a government-owned network would be a bad thing but I am actually experiencing it and it is good. I don't want the feds to own my network but I am just fine with my city government owning it, at least there is a LITTLE accountability there. (BTW if anyone is in a Utopia city watch for public meetings for the proposed Macquarie Capital deal, Orem, Murray and Centerville are having them tomorrow. Let your voice be heard!)

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

At least when the government charges for a service, that income goes into general revenue and reduces tax burdens

Unless government inefficiencies and disincentives to making money cause the business to lose money. Then it becomes a net drain on general revenue and can increase tax burden

You also miss the main point. Right now individuals, through shares in the companies, own those assets. Who will pay them for their loss? Do you really want millions of 401Ks to lose value because the government took their assets. There are millions of average american whos retirement depends on those assets..

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

I do not work for Comcast or any other internet provider. Whether something is positive or negative is a point if view and I view government getting into businesses as generally a bad idea. I also see governments nationalizing existing businesses as a very bad idea.

Re:Annoying.

[TheGratefulNet]

here's how modern america works:

goverment works with big business.

TO CONTROL, MONITOR AND DENY US SERVICES.

that's pretty much it, in a nutshell. if you are in a position of power, you're good. if you are a citizen, oh boy, watch out because you have no rights and no one looks out for your needs or interests anymore.

yes, we're fucked.

I can't see any light at the end of the tunnel, either. things continue to get worse for us, the people.

so sad that we lost our country. this is not even close to the america that my parents were born in. they would not recognize this country in its current state.

Re:Annoying.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also true of carrier backbone networks. If you're building or upgrading a highway, and you have the common sense to require fiber ducts be installed during the upgrade, the incremental cost will not even raise the price of the work by 0.1%.

(Large) fiberoptic ducts cost less than $2/meter, a highway typically costs over $10k/meter. And you have to install duct work for overlighting and storm water anyway. If you have traffic telemetry (cameras and induction loops) you need to install fiber optic systems anyway.

The idea that they should do all this duct work, but not make it available for public and private usage, because it might step on the toes of private fiber operators is ludicrous. Governments supply other civic services like sewage, public toilets, water and in many cases electricity, even though in theory these all step on the toes of portable toilet companies, private sewage transporters, private water delivery services and private electricity networks.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Compared to tunnels, poles, and especially land, yeah, those things cost absolutely nothing.

If they cost nothing then why don't you just create your own last mile network?

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

There are still plenty of assets in the last mile. Much of which are owned by 401ks. Who will pay the investors?

Re:Annoying.

[rtb61]

History has proven that privatisation universally results in increase of charges to the individual and major reductions in the provisions of services. It is logical, governments attempts to provide the maximum possible service for the least possible charge. Private industry attempts to provide the least possible service for the maximum possible charge, for fuck sake they publicly brag about, it's called profit (except when privatisation is being discussed then they pay PR=B$ types to run around spreading the delusion that corporations love you, the really, really do).

Re:Annoying.

[Solandri]

Those are services, but the means to provide them are pretty clear and straightforward. That wasn't the case with Internet service. Nobody was really sure what was the best way to provide Internet: ISDN/DSL over phone lines? Cable modems? Satellite? Fiber?

In cases like this with unclear optimal solutions, the government gets out of the way and lets private industry pick the horses. The government provides the easement for placing the lines, but responsibility for constructing and maintaining the lines rests with the private companies. That way a wide variety of solutions are tried, not on the government's dime, and over time it becomes clear which solutions are superior.

At this point though, it's pretty clear that fiber to the home is the future. There's still some uncertainty about exactly the type of fiber interfaces, but for the most part changing those won't require burying completely new cable. So while I think it was necessary to have the intermediate step where private companies offered different types of Internet service, I can also agree with now having the government provide Internet service over fiber lines. (Well, provide the fiber lines. The service itself along with any peering agreements should be offered by private companies, since it's not at all clear what arrangement of peering agreements is optimal.)

Re:Annoying.

[Enigma2175]

Being someone who is in a city who built a municipal fiber network, that is nowhere near the actual cost per resident. The network was paid for with bonds and the bonds have been serviced by a portion of sales tax revenue in member cities as well as subscriber revenue. Residents are not paying $2000 per year for it. I get internet over the network and it is much faster and much cheaper than when I used Comcast. Yes, I pay sales tax in my city so I am also indirectly paying for it elsewhere but it is nowhere near as expensive as you think it is to build a very fast network, especially if you don't have to pay your shareholders every quarter.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

History has proven that privatisation universally results in increase of charges

Look how well things went when Russia took over all private companies. Government takeover of private companies has not worked well in the past.

It is logical, governments attempts to provide the maximum possible service for the least possible charge.

That would be nice but it is closer to "governments attempts to provide the maximum possible service to meet their budgets," With no profit motive there is no reason to cut costs or be efficient.

Re:Annoying.

[klui]

Heard good things about xmission.

Re:Annoying.

[TitusC3v5]

Yes.

Re:Annoying.

[spiritplumber]

The issue is, should private monopolies exist. I am OK with the government (that, at least nominally, I can help steer through voting, sitting on a jury, etc) having a monopoly on some things, like policing, or even road construction. I am not OK with another entity having a sanctioned monopoly.

Re:Annoying.

[unitron]

I do not work for Comcast or any other internet provider. Whether something is positive or negative is a point if view and I view government getting into businesses as generally a bad idea. I also see governments nationalizing existing businesses as a very bad idea.

But apparently you're just fine with the consumer getting charged as much as possible while receiving as little as possible.

Re:Annoying.

[Cyberdyne]

A business called "BT Wholesale / aka OpenReach"

Actually, BT Wholesale is a separate unit from Openreach. Openreach manages the 'final mile' services: all the copper wire, the local exchange buildings, and some but not all of the equipment in there. A few UK ISPs build their services on top of Openreach's products directly: TalkTalk and Sky, for example, went and installed their own DSLAMs in those exchange buildings, paying Openreach to connect the copper wires to them. BT Wholesale also takes those Openreach products, adds in their own national backbone and offers a service to other ISPs: they'll install a fast fibre backbone link to the ISP's premises/facilities, and connect the customers through that to the ISP.

This can cause problems; my own ISP is a BT Wholesale customer, so when I had a fault earlier this year they had to report it to BT Wholesale, who passed it on to Openreach to deal with. Openreach came out and tested their bit - my phone line, and the VDSL equipment on each end - and found nothing wrong there, so closed the fault. After six visits, BT Wholesale (or rather, BT TSOps and the Adhara Ops team at Adastral Park, where the fault got escalated to in the end) eventually found the problem was on their own backbone (a faulty router was corrupting traffic between certain IP addresses - one of which happened to be a core router at my ISP).

I agree with the overall approach, though, having a separate and regulated entity run just the local loop portion. (In practice, Openreach is still a part of BT - hence I got a sales pitch from at least one of the six Openreach engineers about BT Retail being a better option. Against all the rules - Openreach are officially supposed to be neutral - but could that ever really happen in practice while they're still the same company?)

Re:Annoying.

[evilviper]

The number clearly show that taxing people instead of having a water bill would be substantially cheaper for everyone.
I mean 20% cheaper

Unmetered flat billing is usually cheaper, until you realize it incentivizes excessive consumption, and that 20% is gone in an instant, with people going nuts watering lawns and other waste.

With taxes, you no longer need a billing system. So you loose the expense of that, the infrastructures for that, the expense of maintaining PCI compliance, accountants, taking people to court who don't pay there bills, cut down on meter reading, paper.

If the billing is such a huge expense, you should do like many other utilities, and COMBINE billing for all the municipal-provided utilities (water, sewer, trash, and possibly more), into a single bill. you don't eliminate the costs of billing and meter readers, but you cut it, across the board, by at least 1/3rd.

Actually, you COULDN'T cut down on meter reading, because people MOVE, and won't necessarily notify you when they did so. You'll have to go back and figure out exactly how much they owe, versus the new residents, and somebody is going to dispute the number...

And you aren't cutting-down on "taking people to court" at all... You're just shifting the burden of doing so, on to your state's District Attorney's office. And you'd have a bigger problem out of it, as "gas bill" avoidance and loopholes are non-existent, but not so for taxes.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

You seem to be fine with government agencies spending as much money as their budget will allow while doing as little work as possible.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Sorry but most people are not.

Re:Annoying.

[dave420]

You see governments nationalising existing businesses as a very bad idea, yet somehow don't seem to take issue with businesses privatising government through creating their own monopolies or leveraging natural monopolies, and then lobbying the ever-loving hell out of government to get precisely what they want, all at the expense of the tax payer and most definitely the subscriber. Genius. Even when faced with evidence from other developed countries that sharing a common last-mile between different countries helps boost competition, which keeps companies on their toes and provides much better service at a lower price to the subscriber. You're a strange one.

Re:Annoying.

[L4t3r4lu5]

I'm hijacking your comment.

This is not about making consumer broadband faster; We already have fast lanes. This is about making the internet slower for everyone, and then charging to take the speed restriction away.

Don't think for one Planck Time that they are going to upgrade your service with this "fast lane" option; All they'll do is strop dropping packets from external services.

Come on, America. As a Brit, I'm eager for you to shoot this down. If it succeeds, we're next.

Re:Annoying.

[dave420]

That can be figured out. Leaving the current system broken because some unnamed mystery people might want some ambiguous amount of money seems ridiculously short-sighted.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

I really wanted to moderate but this bullshit changed my mind.

When the companies are openly bribing politicians to create monopolies and regulating the possible competition out of business it has become the responsiblity of government to step in. The situation we have with Cox, Comcast, AT&T, and Time Warner as ISPs easily constitutes a larger set of monopolies than ever existed when AT&T telco was broken up. There is no competition in San Diego, where I live. The choices you have are screw you and bend over. Cox acknowledges they can't even provide the contracted business services I paid for but their answer isn't to meet the contract, it's OFW. Cox is the only high-speed choice I have in my area, period, in my Chula Vista suburb, population 252,422. You sir, are full of crap and these ISPs should all be broken into competitive zones. If this happens I only hope Virgin Media moves into my suburb as they are outstanding at the flat in England I'm staying in at the moment.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

Too funny! $15 minimum wage from DINOs. LOL Morons

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

What I'm fine with is having competition instead of the current situation where some local official gets $20K in his reelection fund and we pay $100,000,000 in "fair compensation" to the monopolies.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

Already paying higher taxes because of the tax breaks for ISPs and the higher fees they simply kill us with because there is no competition.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

Just checked. High speed internet is cheaper in Moscow, Russia than in San Diego, CA.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

I pay more than that for 80 Mbps in San Diego with Cox while receiving maybe 32 Mbps when I check every week for my speed log I'll be presenting to the next city council meeting for San Diego and Chula Vista.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Breaking up the big companies may be a viable solution and is very different that the government taking over.

By the way, AT&T seems to also service Chula Vista.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

You see governments nationalising existing businesses as a very bad idea, yet somehow don't seem to take issue with businesses privatising government through creating their own monopolies or leveraging natural monopolies

I never said any such thing. You don't fix a broken system by breaking it further.

Even when faced with evidence from other developed countries that sharing a common last-mile between different countries helps boost competition

You can do that without the government taking over. It is called regulations.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

unnamed mystery people might want some ambiguous amount of money

I am sure those people close to retirement who would have their investments wiped out would say something very different.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

citation needed. What $100M?

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

How often does it work and how many people can actually get it? Moscow is also the capitol of Russia and has the best technology in Russia. Try a smaller city like Leningrad.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

Jealous I am.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

I just checked. Internet in Moscow is provided by Yota and not the government. Russia has moved very far from Communism in the last 20 tears.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

So, in order for my comment to be valid I must somehow produce the exact mordida monopolies extract from customers in the entire Southern California region? Could you be more obtuse?

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

Yes, they screwed up the Internet so bad when they first installed there they were sued by the city to correct the situation. In the meantime, most of the city didn't have broadband for a couple of month. Also, AT&T's latency is almost unwatchable to this day. I particularly liked when they rolled out wirelss TV and received a 20% drop in subscriptions according to the senior field engineer in Chula Vista. They also destroyed my power lines in my neighborhood causing a two-day power outage. I sure liked that. No thank you. But if they would let us have access to the fiber that supports every municipal building the area this wouldn't be an issue because someone like Virgin Media would move in an put the monopolies out of business.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

Also, looked at your link -- where's the cap? Cox has this magic 250GB cap they don't mention until you hit it. Then they want you to move to business class. Then they lie to you about the speed you are guaranteed in writing. Then they tell you to frack off if you don't like it. I can't find anything there about a cap on the AT&T Internet. Their top speed listed as Power is "up to 45 Mbps". Why the ambiguity? In England, I get the guaranteed 162 Mbps for $5 more because of competition. Even Cox gives me 50 mbps as the low end on business boradband, even though I pay for 80, and get 32. sigh

Also, AT&T has subjectively worse customer service than even Cox. When we tried the TV service I was on the phone for 2.5 hours waiting to ask why I had no TV signal.

Re:Annoying.

[sabbede]

Well, we could regulate broadband as a utility. Reasonable, considering that it is already a de facto utility. No taking involved, profits are guaranteed, and the public's interests are secured.

Re:Annoying.

[silas_moeckel]

That really depends on the state. In mine when the contract is over the next company takes over the physical plant, it's one of the reason they can be so reluctant to do any improvements. There is no reason those company's can not continue to use the existing physical plant, in the long term it should be cheaper to piggyback on the muni's plant. If you think those 401k's deserve their mono(duala)poly status that is a whole different matter no company deserves a legal monopoly.

PS 401k's should be widely invested even if one segmented tanked it should be a minor blip if anything other segments should increase to make up the difference.

Re:Annoying.

[interkin3tic]

We already did pay for it through taxes, so no, not MUCH higher.

Re:Annoying.

[flufythedestroyer]

I think the core issues here is companies like verizon making agreements with cities and make it legal. To me, it should be illegal as theres nothing good can come out of that deal. Lets face it, if Comcast or Verizon makes deals with cities which prohibits the use of their wires, its only to destroy competition and nothing else.

Re:Annoying.

[mr_mischief]

In Houston, not exactly a small city, the power lines are provided by Centerpoint Energy. Centerpoint is a publicly traded private sector business. The electricity is sold by myriad companies at various prices on various plans. Those companies then pay Centerpoint for the use of the lines Centerpoint builds and maintains.

The natural monopoly of the wires is maintained, but the billed service need not also be a monopoly.

Re:Annoying.

[anagama]

Because I can't afford tunnels, poles, and 10 million acres.

Re:Annoying.

[dave420]

It's not breaking the system, though, as other countries have demonstrated time and time and time again. Breaking the system is ensuring the status quo is maintained.

You are calling for the government to regulate that a company will step up and maintain the last mile for every resident? Genius work, sparky!

Re:Annoying.

[dave420]

That's mobile internet, not wired. That's not particularly pertinent to the discussion.

Re:Annoying.

[dave420]

They'd have their investments wiped out because of a few tens of thousand of dollars of equipment? Do you even know how investment funds work? With each of your posts you are showing us you get easily confused.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Or you can just go around pulling number out of you mind that have no basis in reality. A made up number is not a statistic.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

If the companies are currently getting the use of public right of ways ( tunnels, poles, and land) for free why can't you use the same rules and get it for free too? Somehow your argument just does not add up.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

What countries have government owned last miles?

Re:Annoying.

[stephenmac7]

Yes, but the question is whether it's a good idea to buy out the backbone companies. Internet, which is similar to other utilities such as water and electricity, should not go down the path of those two, which are much more expensive where they have been nationalized (like where I live), both in price and government spending (taxes).

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

It is the only internet I could find out about in Moscow. Do you have any proof that the last mile in Moscow is owned by the state?

Re:Annoying.

[MobyDisk]

I'm going to guess that you didn't know what the term "nationalizing" meant. Just to be clear: it means the government declares that it owns a company and all it's assets. The US constitution has an Eminent Domain clause that explicitly forbids the US government from doing this without compensating the owners. This is perhaps one of the strongest boldest lines between a dictatorship and a democracy. The government cannot waltz into a company and say "we now own this company."

Do not try to equate "not stealing a company" with "coddling an industry."

Re:Annoying.

[Chandon Seldon]

Why even have "providers"?

Just give me an IPv4 address and a /64 of IPv6 addresses and charge me a reasonable price for the link and bandwidth. Maybe have an upcharge for 5 static IPv4's and a /48 of IPv6's. Charge local providers for datacenter space and advertising space in the "how do I get email, streaming television, and VoIP phone service" brochure.

Re:Annoying.

[Enigma2175]

Just because I say I love my ISP you assume it is Xmission? You would be right, they are fantastic!

Re:Annoying.

[swillden]

Flat rates only work where water is abundant. Where I live, it's really important that water be metered so that people have an incentive to keep their consumption down.

Re:Annoying.

[Enigma2175]

What city would that be?

I don't want to give out TOO much personal information but I live in one of the 15 cities participating in the Utopia network.

Re:Annoying.

[jxander]

While I agree with the concept, practice is drastically different

If the government wanted to get out of the way and let private enterprise determine the best method to provide internet service, then why are they signing monopoly-creating agreements, even against themselves? That goes completely against finding an optimal solution. Though, I suppose it depends on your definition of "optimal." The current setup is definitely the optimal revenue generator for the ISPs.

But if we want optimal usability and affordability for the customers/constituents, well, the popularity of Google fiber should be an early indication. But for even better results, the cities need to allow these already-existing fiber cables to be utilized... ideally by an ISP that doesn't yet exist in the market area, and has no non-compete arrangements with the current providers (and is blocked from creating any such arrangements)

Re:Annoying.

[Whorhay]

Unmetered use could definitely lead to abuse I guess but how many people actually try and limit their use of water in serious ways to lower costs? Maybe I've just got really cheap water, but I've never given a crap about the cost of my water bill. My usage has stayed pretty much the same for nearly a decade and the cost is so low that I would have to halve my water usage to save the cost of a lunch. I don't water my lawn because I give nary a shit about my lawn and watering it would just mean having to cut it more frequently.

Anyways an easy way to help curb wasteful use could just be to install valves that automatically shut off whenever you surpass the authorized usage. Although I suppose that might cost just as much as metered billing to maintain.

Re:Annoying.

[mikecase]

An excellent way to put it.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Just trying see how you public fibre was actually funded and how much it actually cost. Since it is being paid for by a sales tax your internet is being subsidized by people who purchase things in your city but don't use Utopia.

Re:Annoying.

[anagama]

Because I'm not a common carrier.

Here's the deal as referenced in the article I linked to above:

1) Claim common carrier status (this puts them under title II and they would have to lease out the lines they install to competitors) as a prerequisite for
2) getting access to public rights of way, and then once built,
3) Claim they are not common carriers and thus not subject to title II.

It's a scam on the public.

Re:Annoying.

[evilviper]

the cost is so low that I would have to halve my water usage to save the cost of a lunch.

I know several people, living in just modest houses with very small lawns, who pay well over $100/month for their water bill, here.

Not watering the lawn here doesn't mean less-frequent mowing, it means not having a lawn at all.

A big chunk of the US is some degree of desert.

Anyways an easy way to help curb wasteful use could just be to install valves that automatically shut off whenever you surpass the authorized usage.

That would be illegal. Utilities aren't allowed to shut off service, even for non-payment, without an epic load of red-tape and procedures. Shutting off someone's electricity or gas in winter can result in serious illness or death.

Lack of water could be many, many, many times worse. No cooling (swamp cooler) in 120F degree weather. No bathing, no flushing toilets, etc, and in the extreme, just 2-3 days to live, if you don't have access to several gallons of it. I've even heard that lack of running water is sufficient reason by itself for code enforcement to condemn a building as uninhabitable, in most areas.

Re:Annoying.

[Archwyrm]

Unfortunately Comcast and US West/Qwest/Century Link have been quite successful in keeping it out of some of the more major cities, namely Salt Lake City. I used to find this very aggravating but then I moved out of state. I still don't have fiber though.

Re:Annoying.

[Archwyrm]

And yes, Xmission is awesome.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

Or you keep acting as a shill for monopolies that steal our public bandwidth (through taxes and exclusivity agreements) and bribe politicians for exclusive access. A made up claim that monopolies deserve anything isn't a claim either.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

You claimed the the ISPs added no value to the last mile because what ever they added has no costs and are using right of ways for free. Why can't you do exactly the same thing for no investment? If they can then why can't you?

Perhaps because they are claiming the last mile as common carrier but not the entire network? The costs of instaltion is right of ways is much less than the cost of the right of ways but is far from zero.

Re:Annoying.

[Enigma2175]

Just trying see how you public fibre was actually funded and how much it actually cost. Since it is being paid for by a sales tax your internet is being subsidized by people who purchase things in your city but don't use Utopia.

Yes, that's why I mentioned that it was funded by sales tax in my original post. Just as they subsidize my internet connection, I susbidize many city services that other people use that I don't.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

A made up claim that monopolies deserve anything isn't a claim either.

You need to understand the difference between an opinion (Government should not take over private companies) and facts ( we pay $100,000,000 in "fair compensation" to the monopolies). Anyone can have an opinion and it need not be based on facts. Facts need to be verifiable or they have no validity. It is not valid to make up a number and present it as a fact.

Re:Annoying.

[Zalbik]

For places like Seattle where you still have a lot of people that don't have DSL or cable as an option,

My god, there are large urban areas in the US (and large ones at that), where cable internet is not available?!?

Do you have other conveniences like electricity & indoor plumbing?

Wow...I thought internet options in Canada were pretty limited.....guess I'll count my blessings...

Re:Annoying.

[Khashishi]

How can it be 20% cheaper for everybody if everybody uses different amounts of water? Do you mean it will be 20% cheaper on average, or do you mean everybody.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

So in effect your city has a monopoly on the last mile as no private company can compete with a subsidized provider.

Re:Annoying.

[Enigma2175]

Yep, and that's the way we like it. My city also has a monopoly on sewer systems. Just because people want something doesn't mean some company has to make a buck off of it. If the people own the network then it is cheaper than a company owning because it doesn't need to pay shareholders every quarter, it just has to pay for itself. The network being owned by the city doesn't mean there isn't any competition in the ISP space, there are 15-20 different ISPs I can choose from, can you say the same?

Re:Annoying.

[swillden]

Areas that have to import water aren't the only areas that need to be careful of water usage. I'll grant that there are probably some areas that have so much water they don't need to be concerned. I haven't ever lived in one.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

You need to stop shilling for moronic assholes that bribe, lie, and retard our economy. We all have opinions.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

You need to state opinions as opinions and not facts. Just because I do not agree with you does not mean I am shilling.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

No, you're inability to pull your head out of the reality of this monopolistic situation and your opinion that you think you're making a salient point convinces me that you'll just keep rambling on until you think someone gives a shit. You're a shill.

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

Learn how to debate correctly then we will talk.

Re:Annoying.

[evilviper]

Nobody said these people are impoverished... Just that water can be expensive, and unmetered water would be instantly misused.

Re: Annoying.

[elton247]

If politicians are being bribed how is the government going to help? Seems like a contradiction. The government is part of the problem.

Re:Annoying.

[sjames]

I'm not sure. *Knock Knock*. Hello, I'm taking a survey. Would you prefer fast affordable internet or 100,000 dead brown people?

Re:Annoying.

[jklovanc]

An alternate question might be "Would you prefer fast affordable internet or preventing weekly terrorist attacks in the US and against US citizens abroad?"

Re:Annoying.

[sjames]

In other terme, it's not that national security is a better sell here, it's more a matter of what the political class cares to sell. Apparently they are quite bloodthirsty these days.

Re:Annoying.

[Sarius64]

You're cute. Learn the history of hyperbole and spin on it.

Re: Annoying.

[Sarius64]

Correct!

Noncompetition

[Travis Mansbridge]

Comcast themselves say "Comcast and TWC do not compete against each other in any area" (direct quote).
This collusion clearly violates the ideals of free-market capitalism, but at what point does it violate the law?

(Sorry to anyone who's seen me post this comment before, but I'm still scratching my head over this)

Re:Noncompetition

[geekoid]

It violates monopoly laws:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Noncompetition

[Jane Q. Public]

but at what point does it violate the law?

It started violating Federal and State antitrust laws many, many years ago.

The deeper question you should really be asking is: why haven't they been called on it?

Re:Noncompetition

[NoKaOi]

but at what point does it violate the law?

The point at which they stop giving campaign contributions and spending so much on lobbying. Unfortunately, that will never happen. We've passed the point where the influence public opinion could outweigh the influence of campaign contributions.

Re:Noncompetition

[Jane Q. Public]

FCC regulation does not make them immune from antitrust laws.

Re:Noncompetition

[LynnwoodRooster]

Lots of municipalities (like those I've lived in - Seattle and area, and now down in Ventura County, CA) offer exclusive franchises to cable providers, creating this natural division not by collusion of Comcast and TWC but by dictate of the local Governing body. Now, it is true that does not lock you in for Internet as well, but it's a lot easier - and usually much lower cost, to bundle Internet with other cable services.

Make it a utility.

[B33rNinj4]

More cities need to treat internet access as a utility. It's the best way to break the current monopoly.

Re:Make it a utility.

[tomhath]

What utility is not a monopoly? Besides, most city dwellers have the choice of cable, DSL, or wireless.

Re:Make it a utility.

[JeffOwl]

Oddly enough electricity providers in parts of Texas and not completely monopolies. There is still a company that maintains the lines and infrastructure but you buy your electricity from one of several providers who compete with each other on price and plans like "nights or weekends free." So that's great.

However, the phase of the development in which I live only has DSL. Two streets down or over and they also get the option of cable. Not on my street though. Not sure how that happened.

The city has a municipal monopoly on garbage collection

Re:Make it a utility.

[PPH]

choice of cable, DSL, or wireless.

Cable: I can have TV and broadband. But in spite of advertisemsnts for a bundle of three services, telephone is not available in my area. Agreement with the telco.

DSL: Not offered for years. FiOS was coming. When it finally arrived, broadband and telephone was available. But the TV offered was les extensive than what my rabbit ears pick up. Agreement with the cable company.

Wireless: Too slow and intermittent for streaming video or VoIP. Broadband is slow, but useable for simple web pages. I'm not supposed to use VoIP over wireless broadband anyway due to TOS. Agreement with the telco.

So basically all of the providers have an agreement not to compete in each others core businesses. They claim not to be monopolies needing regulation. Because competition. Really? Where?

Re:Make it a utility.

[B33rNinj4]

Exactly. I live in Texas, and use a co-op for electricity. It's been much better than when I was in Nevada.

Re:Make it a utility.

[Charliemopps]

The "monopoly" (which is not what it is at all) is the only way a phone company can be profitable and the only way they will maintain the network. If the city doesn't like it they're welcome to maintain it themselves. Several have tried and after bankrupting the city re-signed their carrier agreements. Copper networks are hugely expensive to maintain. The only way they are profitable is because the phone company can spread the rates out to everyone in town. The people in the cheap areas to server pay more than they would otherwise (business parks, high density areas like apartments) and people that live in expensive areas to serve get VERY large discounts so they can afford service. Without this setup most of the city could not even afford to have phone service. This entire system requires reduced competition. If any other company could come in and install their own network, they would install it ONLY in the areas that were cheap to serve... they'd undercut the telco and people living in that "Cheap to serve" area would obviously switch. The phone company would be required to raise rates for everyone else. The competitors would again move in to the cheaper ares, people would switch and the telco death spiral would end with rural customer unable to get service at all...

Re:Make it a utility.

[B33rNinj4]

First, I'm not a Republican. Second, if the city leaders that you vote into office are screwing you over, elect someone to do the job better. Petition the city council. Man up, and take matters into your own hands. You are in a much better position to control your rates.

Re:Make it a utility.

[dave420]

Did you read the summary? Of course you didn't. We're discussing fiber, not copper. Fiber is ridiculously cheap to lay, support, and maintain.

Re:Make it a utility.

[Sarius64]

Yes, so many Republicans ruined Detroit! Moron.

Re:Make it a utility.

[Sarius64]

Then GTFO and let companies like Virgin Media move in who seem capable of making plenty of profit throughout freaking Europe!

Re:Make it a utility.

[Sarius64]

Hilarious!

Government, Not Globalization, Destroyed Detroit

How the Democrats Destroyed Detroit

How Coleman Young Ruined Detroit

With Detroit bankrupt, is 'blue model' to blame?

Yep, next thing you know Democrats will again be trying to get into our bedrooms.

California Legislators Want to Tell College Kids When to Have Sex

Re:Government ISP?

[geekoid]

You have no clue what net neutrality is, do you? OR maybe you do ant you want 1 company dictating what people can see and do?

"Stop trying to make rules for how the Internet works. "
sense, you make none. The internet functions on rules.

Business as usual

[nurb432]

Screw the consumer. Its how barely regulated (virtual) monopolies, that are out of control, operate.

Break them up, jail the board of directors. Return control to the people.

Re:Business as usual

[Charliemopps]

Screw the consumer. Its how barely regulated (virtual) monopolies, that are out of control, operate.

Break them up, jail the board of directors. Return control to the people.

Barely regulated? The telecom industry is one of the most heavily regulated industries in the country. I work for a telco. We've got an entire floor of people dedicated to regulatory compliance. It's a huge cost to every telco out there.

Cable companies, however, are barely regulated at all. That's real problem. You need to either regulate them or deregulate telcos. If you don't most telcos will be bankrupt in a decade or two. Every major Telco out there is selling off exchanges as fast as they can. They're losing their asses to the cable companies now that everyones moving to cellphones.

Re:Level playing field

[geekoid]

" The tax paid agency has no incentive to not lose money. "
they actually do.

becasue
" All they need to do is spend their budget."
that will go away.

Re:Government ISP?

[suutar]

If it's implemented as you imply, I'd be fine with fast lanes too. I just don't think it will be.

Re:Level playing field

[khallow]

becasue
" All they need to do is spend their budget."
that will go away.

... at the end of the fiscal year.

Re:Level playing field

[alen]

you're on drugs if you think your local government will upgrade their networks every time netflix doubles their data that they send. it might seem good now but 5-10 years in the future if local governments run the ISP's out of business they will laugh at you when you complain you can't stream 8K or whatever the next one is. they will act like any other local utility and tell you to wait 5 years until they gather enough data that there is a demand for it, then take another few years to study the problem, then spend another 5 years begging for money in the budget and finally upgrading the network

Re:Government ISP?

[NoKaOi]

I want competition, not government ISP.

You're (probably intentionally) ignoring a huge point. As pointed out in the summary, the agreements also prohibit the leasing of the already existing fiber lines:

and prohibit municipalities from selling or leasing their fiber to local startups who would compete with these huge corporations.

So it's not just that the government can't operate an ISP, it's that nobody else can. And before you try and say it's not fair that the cable company had to run their own lines, while the government ran them for these other ISPs, keep in mind these points:
1. The competing ISPs would still have to pay for the lines.
2. The cable companies have received huge subsidies from the government.

Personally, I *want* "fast lanes" because they remove popular traffic off the main transit links.

Okay, now I know something's up. I also see that all of your recent comments pro-big-corporate-ISP. What you're pretending to not understand is that "fast lane" doesn't mean fast lane, it means everything else is slow lane. They're not talking about building out new faster infrastructure. And it's not simply about peering, it's about charging providers extra to provide this "fast lane" which amounts to "give us money or we're gonna slow you down."

My home town, Burbank, CA has metro fiber for businesses. Studios love it. The fiber is actually owned by the cable company. Heh!

See! You think fiber is okay if it's the cable company making a profit on it, but not if it's a competing ISP.

Re:Level playing field

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand the difference between the city providing fiber and a business providing Internet? Really, talk about knee jerk reactions. The bulk of the cost of an ISP startup is the last mile, this does not affect the backbone of the Internet, the ISP would be responsible for getting services to the fiber shack, which btw is no different than it is today except that the fiber shack was paid for with taxes but is owned by Verizon and the likes.

Re:Level playing field

[tomhath]

Your are funny. (I assume that was a joke)

Re:Level playing field

[Anonymous Coward]

You're on drugs if you think you have to upgrade fiber to increase bandwidth.

It is TRIVIAL to supply 100Mbit/100Mbit to every home and that is more tan enough for running 20 netflix feeds per home. In fact the gear for 100Mbit is dirt freaking cheap and all over the place used.

The entire City Plant can be 100/100 and the only hard part is the Internet POP. so you need a couple of fibers to the next town. In fact if you do it right every town has a 2 fibers off to the next town to create a web like the internet is supposed to be. suddenly your STATE is completely online and now it is trivial to get backbone wholesale rates for internet access from a backbone provider. comcast did this using leftover gear from the @home days to have a backbone all over several states in the midwest back in 2003 and it is STILL running on that now 15 year old gear and is still more than they need in bandwidth for flinging TV commercials all over multiple states.

Let me guess, you actually don't know shit about how networking works let alone fiber?

A war well waged

[Dega704]

In my view municipally run fiber networks are an inevitable necessity, whether they are open-access or the service is run by the city. Internet access has become a vital utility and becomes all the more so every year; and fiber networks are the only viable way to provide it and grow with future needs. I wish the average person could understand this. Competition doesn't happen partly because building multiple physical network infrastructures in the same place makes no more sense than having multiple electrical or water systems. The only reason there are two hardwired Internet providers in any place to start with is because two completely unrelated infrastructures(cable and phone) were converted to provide service; both of which, ironically, have been made obsolete by the Internet. It worked for a while, but it has been obvious for years that it is time to move on. That is why so much fiber infrastructure was built in the first place. The incumbent ISPs know this, and are terrified by it. Hence why they have gamed the entire system and greased legislators with bribes---excuse me--"lobbying money", and done a very thorough job of it.

Re:A war well waged

[evilviper]

municipally run fiber networks are an inevitable necessity

Fiber to the home is not some magic, infinite-bandwidth pipe that'll be great, forever. That mistake seems to be at the heart of those who think municipal data networks are magically perfect, with no down-sides...

Figure that whatever network wiring you install, will have to be replaced in its entirety once every DECADE. Consider if municipal networks had been in-vogue a few decades earlier:

In the 70s, municipal networks might have simply been phone lines.

In the 80s, people would have wanted the area wired with coax cable for TV, in ADDITION to those phone lines.

In the 90s, people would have wanted those phone-lines cleaned-up, with upgrades to support their use with high-speed dial-up and ISDN.

In the 2000s, people would have wanted their coax cable infrastructure ripped-out and replaced with fiber behind the scenes, to give them MORE TV channels, and higher-speed cable internet.

Also in the 2000s, people wanted to replace their phone lines with cellular, and with poor coverage of early providers, no doubt they would have wanted their muni to somehow invest in that, too.

In the 2010s, people would be insisting on LTE cellular upgrades, and WiFi hotspots installed all over the area. And that's in-addition to wanting fiber optics to their home for even higher speeds than those cable modems can provide...

In the 2020s, people will no longer be willing to share the capacity of a fiber-optic cable with 64 of their neighbors, and will demand their provider remove all those optical splitters (see: FIOS) and give them dedicated circuits to the central office, so they can get very, very high-speed data connections. At the same time, they'll want ever-faster wireless/cellular internet service as well.

In the 2030s, people will be chafing under the bandwidth limitations of old-fashioned fiber optic cables, and either want the whole area completely rewired with higher-bandwidth fiber optics, or some entirely new technology.

In addition to that, you've got routine maintenance, as well as possibly lots of emergency repairs. And those huge expenses are all assuming it's a very well-run and efficient agency. A little bit of cruft in the organization, and municipal fiber can easily be a HUGE money-pit.

And frankly, you can get all the same advantages, just by controlling existing telcoms as monopolies, and carefully regulating them, as was done with the Bell System in the old days.

Re:A war well waged

[swb]

Gigabit ethernet is still a mainstay in business environments, used for everything from desktop connectivity to SANs with little motivation to adopt 10 gig ethernet or fiber channel except in larger organizations for specific applications and usually only storage networks. It's been like this for nearly 10 years and unless the price of 10 gig drops substantially I think 1 gig will seem pretty adequate for most connectivity for some time to come.

I would imagine that for consumer WAN use, gigabit fiber would have a lifespan of 20 years easily. Netflix streams 4k at about 16 Mbps, gigabit would support many simultaneous streams.

I think the upgrade factor would happen from the neighborhood-level distribution systems as the oversubscription there would be felt first since the majority of consumers (not geeks torrenting everything and doing continuous online backups of TBs of data) wouldn't use more than about 25 Mbps at peak.

But even those upgrades could be handled with some kind of consumption-based pricing, which I think would be inevitable.

And while previous technologies adopted for Internet use quickly proved inadequate (copper pairs, coax, etc) they weren't designed for two way data and none were installed with any kind of modularity or easy upgrades. A structured fiber network would be much easier to upgrade piecemeal where it was needed (eg, adding backhaul in denser areas) or even individual house drops for early adopters.

Re:A war well waged

[evilviper]

Gigabit ethernet has some more life left in it, but not many more years, now. There are wireless networking protocols in the works which will have speeds in excess of 1Gbps. Companies far and wide have been using 10GbE uplinks for over a decade now. The economy quieted things down for a bit, but I still expect 10GbE in consumers hands soon. And even without it, bonded gigabit NICs can utilize nearly double the bandwidth. And in homes with multiple users, the gigabit ethernet connection can be a bottleneck. Of course that's likely an issue with businesses large and small for a couple years before consumers can join in. But still only a few short years.

And gigabit is a big bottleneck for storage. A local RAID array of just a few drives can easily exceed gigabit speeds several times over. Fine only for servers you know won't have heavy I/O requirements.

Re:A war well waged

[swb]

There's no arguing that 1 gig Ethernet is only marginally adequate in the data center, but 10 gig pricing is still ridiculous for anything but very large data storage and niche adoption for uplinks or storage-specific uses. I doubt anybody has considered it for general purpose rollouts at $300/port or more (not including cabling restrictions).

For a lot of smaller organizations only running 2k IOPS, iSCSI @ 1 gig is still pretty usable and likely to stay that way until enterprise ports are much cheaper.

But the point was that gigabit Ethernet is still used and useful even where its limitations are seen in bandwidth-intensive applications, so for consumer WAN access, arguing that gigabit Ethernet needs to be ripped out and wholesale replaced in 10 years is ludicrous when it's hard to advocate any kind of consumer consumption that would exceed 100 megabit, and that includes thinking of multiple 4k streams and concurrent data access.

Plus any kind of municipal fiber is going to have structured buildout with upgrades and modularity baked into the design, not tacked on afterwards like POTS or coax cable. The stress on the network isn't going to be the drops to houses but aggregation points, but these will have that kind of upgradability built into the design.

Re:A war well waged

[evilviper]

Neither telecos nor cable operators were able to accurately predict the future two decades out. I don't see why municipal fiber operators will be any more prescient.

And despite your accusation, if you'd actually read through my comment, you'd see I didn't suggest fiber would need to be replaced within a decade.

Re:A war well waged

[swb]

Figure that whatever network wiring you install, will have to be replaced in its entirety once every DECADE.

This is what you wrote in your original post.

Neither telcos or cable operators built cable plants for data networking. Telco last mile is essentially a 19th century technology, it's a little unrealistic for any design to predict the future a century out. Everyone expects upgrades on that timeline.

Cable plants are data networks by accident, not by design. They were designed as one-way distribution systems -- whatever predictions they made have worked out well for the designed use considering that only backhaul and encoding upgrades have been necessary to transition from analog NTSC to digital hidef with data added on without altering end-user physical connectivity.

A municipal fiber network is a data network by design, not by adaption or transformation from something not baked into its design. Will it need to be upgraded in whole or in part over its life? Obviously. But it seems unclear to me what would cause 1 gig drops to homes to suddenly seem obsolete given what we know about how people use networks now and for the next 10-20 years.

Given its design purpose and structure, upgrades should be manageable, not the kind of wholesale rip-and-replace needed to go from ancient technologies (POTS) or adapted technologies like coax which weren't designed to be data networks.

Re:A war well waged

[evilviper]

This is what you wrote in your original post.

Congratulations, you read THREE whole sentences into my comment before you flippantly posted a reply. That's a whole 10% of the way! A few more hours, and I'm sure you can make your way through it all!

Re:A war well waged

[dave420]

So cities adopting a tried-and-tested system of owning the last mile and leasing it out to whoever wants to use it shouldn't happen because if a bunch of people decide to run RAID NAS over it to the internet it will not be fast enough. Gotcha. Awesome.

Re:A war well waged

[evilviper]

Last-mile is expensive, technology requires routine and LARGE investments for major upgrades, and there is a lot of RISK involved in every upgrade. If the upgrade path chosen doesn't work out as well as predicted, somebody has to foot the bill.

Municipal fiber could end up:

  Very expensive and may need to be tax-pay subsidized to survive.

AND/OR

Completely stagnate after the first deployment. Heavy congestion pretty quickly, which is NEVER resolved (because that would cost lots of good money), little or no expansion to new homes, and possibly even skimping on repairs. And looking quite slow and antiquated in short order.

And that's just a few of the major, ongoing risks, assuming it's successfully built in the first place. It's not a sure-thing. City-wide municipal wifi deployments have completely failed on several occasions. A private company has to bare the risk, while a muni will expect (and get) bailouts when they screw up.

If everybody in an area wants to go that way, I won't try to stop them. But painting it as a magical, cheap, easy, no-lose situation is utterly ridiculous.

Re:A war well waged

[swb]

"What I mean isn't what I say." Have a nice day.

Re:A war well waged

[evilviper]

What's this? A an extremely general statement, turned out to have a few exceptions? The devil, you say!

I CLEARLY explained my opinion on fiber further in my comment. If you can't be bothered to read past line 3, I don't care what you have to say about any topic.

Re:Government ISP?

[fightinfilipino]

Stop trying to make rules for how the Internet works.

but this is precisely what the corporate lobbyists are doing. do you have ANY solution that will stop these lobbyists from undermining actual competition? this is where government CAN step in, to stop these shenanigans and enforce an equitable, competitor-filled marketplace. otherwise, an unregulated "free" market quickly becomes anything but, full of Comcast-esque fiefdoms.

Re:Government ISP?

[thule]

Net neutrality as was originally defined was that packets shouldn't be treated any different than any other packet. The idea was to prevent traffic shaping. I pointed out, quite awhile ago, that no shaping had to be done. All a company would have to do is let some ports get congested and upgrade ports that serviced their preferred services. Few seemed understood this point. I also wondered exactly how this would be regulated since peering is an integral part of how the Internet works. Fast forward to present. Now everyone is talking about peering. Welcome all! This was my point all along. I just feared the day when people would realize this point. I don't want the government approving every single stupid change an ISP has to make to their peering. It sounds like a regulatory disaster. More lobbying, more corruption. The best way to solve the problem is to pressure local governments to open up right of ways. The cable companies can sue. Let them.

Re:Level playing field

[Anonymous Coward]

So here's a thought for you.

Certain things are natural monopolies. Generally speaking, these are things that cost a relatively large amount of money to deploy to everybody, but which have relatively low marginal costs once the infrastructure is in place.

Electricity.
Water.
Gas (in the sense of natural gas, rather than the liquid hydrocarbons that the USA calls gas.)
Telecommunications.

So instead of having private companies providing these services, why not have the government pay for the infrastructure - out of tax payer's dollars, yes - and provide them to the community, whilst private companies pay the government to provide the necessary services on top of that infrastructure? You get competition, in the form of multiple private companies providing similar services at differing price levels (and, presumably, differing service levels), without having to worry about somebody charging juuuuuust underneath what the market is willing to tolerate before somebody else comes in to build duplicate infrastructure (or even better, charging more than that level, only to drop prices when somebody threatens to build duplicate infrastructure until such time as that somebody goes away, at which point the prices go right back up again...)

Or is that too socialistic for the United States of America?

Government Actively Keeping Fiber Dark in My Town

[glennrrr]

Because my city council demands that any new company providing cable TV commit to wire every home and apartment building before getting permission to operate in my town, Nashua, NH, Verizon FIOS was driven out of town. As it happens they sold what fiber they'd laid down to a regional operator, so I can get fiber Internet, but not TV.

I'm not saying that Comcast lobbied hard and spent a lot of money to get this rule enforced, but obviously this kind of barrier to entry benefits Comcast or any incumbent ISP greatly.

Re:Government ISP?

[thule]

It has been implemented this way already. Starting with Yahoo! years ago. AOL too. If a company has a large national network, they can deliver data to peering points bypassing expensive transit links. Do you think Yahoo! and AOL had unfair advantages?

Yup

[Krishnoid]

Who will invest in the Internet infrastructure that we badly need, indeed, and who will go out of their way to hinder its operation?

Re:Government ISP?

[rahvin112]

Last mile utilities are natural monopolies. If you want 4 companies to run fiber past your house your price will reflect running the fiber four separate times. The entire reason broadband costs in this country are triple or more those of the rest of the developed world is we are paying to run the same wires multiple times.

They beauty of not recognizing the natural monopoly is that two things will happen, the first is that if you are a high enough density with wealthy enough customers you might get a singe overbuilder who will conspire with the incumbent to ensure prices remain high, and the if you aren't in an area conducive to overbuilding your price will go up dramatically just because they can.

The solution is to either recognize the last mile monopoly and make it government administered (government build-out of neighborhood connections with leased access to all comers), or let it be private and regulate the shit of out as a utility. Anything other than those two will result in high prices, bad service and abuse of monopoly. We're currently doing the later in the US in the name of competition and free market that doesn't exist. As a result we pay 10 times more than countries like sweden (with worse density than the US and worse construction conditions) and we have worse service than some third world countries in both speed and reliability. The worst of all worlds for no other reason that to make rich people richer. It's the height of stupidity.

At some point people need to realize that pretending we live in some ideal free market is just that, pretending. Monopolies are contraventions of the free market and MUST be regulated or you end up with something far worse than government run. Republicans helped spearhead trust busting back in the day (because trusts break free markets), it's ironic how they want to prevent trust busting today.

Re:speaking of FCC

[Anonymous Coward]

crap. linked to my g+. Sorry, my bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Isn't YouTube also considered social media?

Re:Government ISP?

[thule]

I want competition, not government ISP.

You're (probably intentionally) ignoring a huge point. As pointed out in the summary, the agreements also prohibit the leasing of the already existing fiber lines:

and prohibit municipalities from selling or leasing their fiber to local startups who would compete with these huge corporations.

So it's not just that the government can't operate an ISP, it's that nobody else can. And before you try and say it's not fair that the cable company had to run their own lines, while the government ran them for these other ISPs, keep in mind these points: 1. The competing ISPs would still have to pay for the lines. 2. The cable companies have received huge subsidies from the government.

Personally, I *want* "fast lanes" because they remove popular traffic off the main transit links.

Okay, now I know something's up. I also see that all of your recent comments pro-big-corporate-ISP. What you're pretending to not understand is that "fast lane" doesn't mean fast lane, it means everything else is slow lane. They're not talking about building out new faster infrastructure. And it's not simply about peering, it's about charging providers extra to provide this "fast lane" which amounts to "give us money or we're gonna slow you down."

My home town, Burbank, CA has metro fiber for businesses. Studios love it. The fiber is actually owned by the cable company. Heh!

See! You think fiber is okay if it's the cable company making a profit on it, but not if it's a competing ISP.

I'm not pro-big-ISP, I'm just skeptical of FCC regulation. There is a difference. I am also convinced that most people have no idea how the Internet works. My comment about Burbank just a funny thing. It works just like you want. Burbank doesn't own the fiber, it is owned by the "evil" big-ISP. They just sub-out to the cable company for maintaining a neutral network that all businesses can connect to. Transit is optional and doesn't have to be provided by the cable company. Burbank had a huge incentive to do this because of all the studios in the area. They needed high speed point to point links to send large amounts of data.

the "agreements" cover more than fiber...

[Lumpy]

Community Wifi is also targeted with this. My experience was from Comcast targeting the one community WiFi project we had running and was shut down.

we were illegally providing internet service for free without paying franchise fees to the local government to the tune of $10K a month.

It's a fucking Mobster kickback is what it is...

see iProvo

[Anonymous Coward]

Provo, Utah tried this approach: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IProvo. Unfortunately, it didn't work out too well, and Google had to come save the day...

Re:see iProvo

[Anonymous Coward]

Provo paid for the lowest bidder, who so happened to have a history of messing up fiber Installs. If you're going to outsource your work, get someone competent.

Re:Government ISP?

[marka63]

Except they are treating the packets differently by allowing vastly different percentages of them the be dropped over different peering links. If the packet is destined for their network and they have control over the link then the packet should be treated equally to all other packets destined for their network. They have (partial) control over the bandwidth of the peering link.

The same also applies to packets leaving their network.

And Outside the U.S.

[fullback]

I'm moving and my new place has 200Mbps down/100Mbps up fiber, so that's an upgrade from the 100Mbps I've had for about 15 years. And the price is going down to about US$38/month. Not bad, huh? I could choose 1 Gbps, since everywhere has been upgraded with it for years now, but it would only be useful for content inside the country. The infrastructure is far more advanced than the U.S.

Of course there are no caps and no provider-conspired speed throttling. I've never had a provider-caused outage in 20 years of internet service.

That's that service level and pricing that competition has created over time in Japan. I'm in a small town, so don't even think about the "U.S. is too big" reply. Every time I go the U.S. I'm shocked at the level of service. You are really under the thumb of the internet provider mafia.

You need to vote in representatives that will actually to start representing you. I don't see any hope for you without that.

Re:And Outside the U.S.

[l0n3s0m3phr34k]

must be nice. My apartment complex has been enforcing an illegal "exclusive" were only AT&T is provided, even though recently they said "whatever", now I face the task of trying to convince Cox to come in. I get a HUGE 2.4 down, 712k up. Kazakhstan has faster speeds than my apartments, and I have the "fastest" business connection available. Once AT&T got the place locked in, why ever upgrade?

Re:Level playing field

[TubeSteak]

they will act like any other local utility and tell you to wait 5 years until they gather enough data that there is a demand for it, then take another few years to study the problem, then spend another 5 years begging for money in the budget and finally upgrading the network

Utilities don't get funded through the general budget.
They petition the PUC/PSC/etc with a plan, it gets approved (or not),
then the utility either raises prices the approved amount to cover the direct cost
or the utility issues bonds... and then raises prices the approved amount to cover the bonds.

And AFAIK there's no such thing as a government utility, only government chartered corporations.
They are self funding and mostly independent of government, except where they have to interact with the Public Utilities Commission, like any other utility.

Re:Government ISP?

[thule]

In Los Angeles, there is a heck of a lot of fiber. I remember talking down the sidewalk in Burbank. Three man holes a few feet apart. One said "MFN 20K" (which is now AboveNet), another "ATT 20K", and another "Layer3 20K".Admittedly, these are obviously backhaul links, but they were on the same street as the muni sewer. Given how they were laid out, they were probably using the same conduit. Fiber is not the same as water, sewer, etc. It can be done and is already being done. I'm pretty sure AT&T and Charter fiber run on the very same poles in a city.

ah no

[Charliemopps]

Again with this one-sided uninformed bullshit. Why did the city sign those agreements? A gift to the telecom? It's a joke. City after city trys to install their own network and gets their ass sued by their local telecom. And they lose... every time. Why? Because it's breach of contract.

Those telecoms agreed to maintain the cities aging copper network in exchange for no direct competition for teleco services. Maintaining that network is hugely expensive. The city comes in and plans to install fiber which will clearly be a direct competitor to the old copper network. Does the city want to release the telco from their obligation to maintain the copper? If they were I'd pretty damned sure the telco would jump at the chance. But they're not. They want the telephone company to continue to maintain a dieing network while the city installs fiber to only the most profitable areas, in direct competition with the telco.

No city is required to sign these agreements. They are up for renewal all over the country every day of the year. Yet, they all sign. They could maintain the network themselves, but they don't. If it was such a profit rich venture why don't we see cities doing this all over? Because it's not very profitable. They city could certainly buy out the contract, even in the middle of the contract and take over the network any time they wanted. But then they would have to maintain that network... the WHOLE network. Not just that business park where they wanted the fiber.

What I'd suggest, is if the cities want more control over this sort of thing. They should buy the network, not sign any more contracts and then install fiber conduit only. Lease conduit to vendors. They you have competition. Any vendor can come in, blow a new fiber through the conduit, and get going. When they dont need it anymore they pull their fiber, and viola. The governments not providing your intenet and you have real competition. This will require the city to maintain the phonelines however. No phone company is going to touch them if they're losing the most profitable part of town, they'll lose money.

Re:Government ISP?

[Rockoon]

do you have ANY solution that will stop these lobbyists from undermining actual competition? this is where government CAN step in, to stop these shenanigans and enforce an equitable, competitor-filled marketplace.

Are you listening to yourself, at all?

...the government has already stepped in, or else you wouldn't have a problem with the lobbyists. You do understand who lobbyists lobby, right?

Re:Government ISP?

[currently_awake]

If government couldn't do a better job, then why are corporations working so hard to keep them out?

Niggle: one polices one's monopolies and crooks

[davecb]

Actually one "polices" them rather than "regulating" them. It's called the "police power of the state", and refers to a lot more than the cops. Anything that gets you dragged in front of a magistrate or board who can punish you is policing

Regulation is a technical term for bylaw-like legislation, is misleading as heck, and historically is a term that lots of people in the 'States and Canada viscerally hate.

Re:Level playing field

[anagama]

This allows them to not pay for right of way access, for building tunnels, installing poles, etc. etc. It's a "socialize expenses, privatize profits" thing -- essentially leveraging the worst parts of socialism to further the worst parts of capitalism.

Re:Government ISP?

[Arker]

"If government couldn't do a better job, then why are corporations working so hard to keep them out?"

Because it's unfair competition. These guys whine like you are proposing to waterboard them at the hint of *fair* competition, so you can imagine how they feel about unfair competition.

And it really is unfair competition. The private ISP has to charge enough to cover their costs, a government has options to subsidize the service and charge less than they are actually spending on it, among other advantages.

Re:Level playing field

[Gizzmonic]

they will act like any other local utility and tell you to wait 5 years until they gather enough data that there is a demand for it, then take another few years to study the problem, then spend another 5 years begging for money in the budget and finally upgrading the network

Actually, go check out Wilson, North Carolina. They embarrassed Time Warner so badly, Time Warner strongarmed the state into making municipal broadband illegal. It creates a lot of cognitive dissonance with the "government can't do anything right" crowd.

Which is hilarious considering the current system is just government-granted monopoly anyway, yet they defend it voraciously because, uh...privatization!

Re:Level playing field

[geekoid]

"And AFAIK there's no such thing as a government utility,"
there are many.

Pipes aren't service

[mbkennel]

The physical infrastructure---dark fiber---is a natural monopoly, and could be supplied and owned by government.

The service itself, equipment to transport information on and off, and policies would be privately owned and maintained, and competition required.

It's little different than rails or roads which have cars and service operated by competing carriers on the same transport infrastructure.

Re:Level playing field

[jklovanc]

that will go away.

If they don't spend it. Anyone in the supply industry knows about March madness where government departments spend their budget whether they need to or not. If they go over budget they get a bigger one next time.

Verizon

[asgalvan]

What are you talking about? Comcast, Verizon, and others are not backbone providers that would be places like Level 3 Communications

The scary thing is that Verizon is a Tier 1 provider. When they bought MCI several years ago, they got UUNET too.

they want to get rid of copper and replace 4g/lte

[Joe_Dragon]

they want to get rid of copper and replace it with 4g/lte with low caps and $10 a gig for going over.

Re:Level playing field

[silas_moeckel]

That is why you split the difference, muni fiber only handing off CWDM. Fiber has been pretty standard for a LONG time and not expected to change. With CWDM/DWDM your ISP gets to determine the speeds the muni is just passing light back and forth, it literally has nothing that requires power with a CDWM network.

Re:Level playing field

[silas_moeckel]

I would really not want the muni to have any networking gear. We need to back away from ugly refrigerators on telephone polls. Cheap optics are good for 40km that is far more larger than any town.

What The Government Subsidizes It Regulates

[xdor]

But I guess the NSA is piping everything through their basement already, so maybe it doesn't matter...

is anyone still voting democrat/republican?

[dbreeze]

You people make me sick.
I've been caught in the telecom's shenanigans before. Go ask the early directors of the e-NC program in N Carolina around 2003 about the tricks Sprint pulled to halt potential competition at the taxpayers expense..
Keep voting for candidates financed by ANY big money interest and keep expecting them to care about your poor asses. Nooooo.... y'all aren't insane..... :eyeroll:

Re:Government ISP?

[thule]

And what if Netflix stopped peering with those ISP's? Then what? The problem started because Netflix was depending on Cogent to have sufficient peering links. Cogent didn't. Cogent also didn't have any incentive to upgrade those links because Cogent likes to have settlement-free links.

These non-compete agreements should be illegal

[Karmashock]

Its effectively a contract to form monopolies.

Re:These non-compete agreements should be illegal

[Karmashock]

Fuck their cable. They can run it and I wouldn't stop them.

My issue is in telling other people they can't run cable in competition to them.

I don't give a shit about comcast's cable or Verizon's cable. They're welcome to it. It just shouldn't be the only cable in existence on pain of death.

Which is what happens when government gives them a monopoly. If I try to run cable in competition, you won't give me a permit.

And if I try anyway... you send men with guns to explain the error of my ways.

Thus by the transitive property... local governments around the country are putting a gun against the head of anyone that tries to diversify the ISP business and bring real competition to that sphere.

And for what? Some cheap bribes apparently. Its pathetic... You're obviously ashamed of it... We all are... its disgusting.

Re:speaking of FCC

[ShaunC]

Isn't YouTube also considered social media?

Judging by the comments on the average YouTube video, I'm pretty sure it's considered antisocial media.

Re:Level playing field

[tranquilidad]

Here's a list of 251 publicly owned electric & gas utilities in the U.S. At the bottom of the list are state and federal power agencies.

Everywhere I've lived (approximately 15 cities across five states) the water utility has been owned by a municipality or county. I know there are plenty of others that are privately owned, I just haven't lived there.

The cable and telephone companies that I know used to be owned by municipalities were sold off to private enterprises some time ago though I expect that many still exist.

Re:Level playing field

[Enigma2175]

they will act like any other local utility and tell you to wait 5 years until they gather enough data that there is a demand for it, then take another few years to study the problem, then spend another 5 years begging for money in the budget and finally upgrading the network

Actually, go check out Wilson, North Carolina. They embarrassed Time Warner so badly, Time Warner strongarmed the state into making municipal broadband illegal. It creates a lot of cognitive dissonance with the "government can't do anything right" crowd.

Which is hilarious considering the current system is just government-granted monopoly anyway, yet they defend it voraciously because, uh...privatization!

That's what is happening in my state, only it is Comcast that is buying off the state legislature to try to kill Utopia. I'm so glad that these 2 companies are going to merge so that they can more efficiently purchase our elected officials.

Re:Level playing field

[tranquilidad]

I wouldn't argue that government can't do anything right though you probably consider me part of that crowd.

I would argue that the larger the government entity, the less efficiently it can do anything. If there was government ownership of utility infrastructure I would prefer it was done at a local government level where there's some level of accountability to the voters. I firmly believe that federal ownership and management of internet infrastructure would be a disaster.

I've only lived in a couple of places that had actual competition amongst cable TV providers. My experience with government owned infrastructure was no different than that owned by private entities. While we may argue that government should own the last-mile the fact is that whether it's run by a government entity or business the entity has to have a way of covering costs - either through rates or taxes. Again, this comes to size. I'd prefer to deal with a small, local entity than a large, national one.

An issue faced by networking infrastructure providers is that it has, so far, needed to be upgraded on a fairly consistent basis.

The water, electricity and POTS lines have needed maintenance but have, for the most part, been a rather stable infrastructure. Networking infrastructure, on the other hand, has had significant requirements for upgrading over the past 30 years. There will always be a segment of the population that wants the latest and fastest (I'm in that category) and another segment that sees no reason to upgrade (my 83 year old father actually preferred, at one time, when the web page loaded no faster than he could read it). If taxes are required to cover the cost of upgrading infrastructure then you will likely face a large opposition to raising those taxes from people who think the service is "good enough."

Re:Government ISP?

[Enigma2175]

This is because Comcast is in the business of selling access to their customers. Their cable TV business charges the customer for access then they sell the customer's eyeballs to advertisers. They are used to getting paid twice for the same thing so they were mystified by the Internet because they were only getting paid by their subscribers. Fortunately, they have figured out they can start extorting money from companies providing services to their customers "It would be a shame if anything happened to that packet, Netflix". Since the FCC is packed with cable and telco insiders they certainly aren't going to do anything about it. In the end, the costs will get passed on to the consumer and Comcast stockholders will get to upgrade their yachts.

Re:Government ISP?

[Enigma2175]

Fiber has enough bandwidth that you don't need fiber for every company that provides services. My city's fiber network terminates in a central NOC in which all the service providers on the network have a peering presence. When my packet hits the NOC it routes it to my ISP who contracts with tier 1/2 providers for transit across the internet. Why would I need multiple fibers to my house when any company can provide services across the existing network by peering at the central NOC? Municipal networks are the way to go, the people should own the network.

Re:Government ISP?

[fightinfilipino]

do you have ANY solution that will stop these lobbyists from undermining actual competition? this is where government CAN step in, to stop these shenanigans and enforce an equitable, competitor-filled marketplace.

Are you listening to yourself, at all? ...the government has already stepped in, or else you wouldn't have a problem with the lobbyists. You do understand who lobbyists lobby, right?

you mean the same lobbyists employed by the very telcos trying to influence lawmakers? yes, i'm fully aware. what i am arguing is that we take a stand, make our "representatives" in Washington actually do that for once, and stop the corporations from trying to screw us all over. THAT is the point. your solution appears to be "let's just place our trust in the free market!" that doesn't work. you understand who pays the lobbyists, right? .

Re:speaking of FCC

[Psicopatico]

Judging by the comments on the average YouTube video, I'm pretty sure it's considered antisocial media.

Do you really go to a video site to read comments?
Weird.

Not all cities...

[elistan]

Not all cities.

http://www.ci.longmont.co.us/lpc/tc/index.htm

As part of the November 5 election, Longmont's voters approved funding for the full development of the City's fiber optic broadband network. We would like to thank the community for supporting this move toward a future filled with progress and opportunity. As a true gigabit city, we are and will be positioned to be a leader in digital communications and a global information hub. We are lighting tomorrow, today.

Even Al Gore and Bill Clinton disagree

[raymorris]

> History has proven that privatisation universally results in increase of charges to the individual and major reductions in the provisions of services.

You are far to the left and Al Gore and Bill Clinton on that one. They made a big deal about reducing bureaucratic waste and getting things done faster by hiring the private companies that did the same job for half the price and in half the time. I think Gore even wrote a book about it.

> It is logical, governments attempts to provide the maximum possible service

They better not, not in the US. In the US they are supposed to provide the FAIREST possible service, with the most possible input from the taxpayers who are paying for it. If my (govt service) is better than yours, that's unfair and wrong. If I live in the boonies and are therefore limited to 1 mbps, everyone else should be limited to 1 mbps too.

> Private industry attempts to provide the least possible service for the maximum possible cha rge, for fuck sake they publicly brag about, it's called profit.

Please look up the definitionbof profit. Profit = the value generated minus the cost incurred. Maximum profit, therefore, is when you have the best service (therefore most sales) at the lowest cost.

  > PR=B$ types to run around spreading the delusion that corporations love you, the really, really do).

They love your money. They can get your money in either of two ways. A) you choose to give them your money in exchange for their service, because theirs is the best or B) the local government essentially forces you to give them your money because they don't allow you to have any choice. In the US, internet service is mostly b. Thelocal governments grant monopolies to one cable provider and one phone provider. Coincidentally, the same company that government grants monopoly power so they overcharge you also turns around and donates the money they got from you to the politicians. So the politicians force you to give Comcast too much money, then Comcast gives that money to the politicians who helped set the thing up. Here's a great solution - get MORE politicians involved!

Can't with Citizens United

[AnontheDestroyer]

There's a good reason not even Net Neutrality, the one piece of cable company fuckery we staved off, didn't last very long after Citizens United.

It's because it "takes a lot of money" to win elections, and government representatives know where their bread is buttered in that regard. If you don't play ball, the money will go to your opponent.

Then when you do get elected, partisan bickery is so bad that both parties (and especially Republicans http://nymag.com/daily/intelli...) demand full loyalty to the party, which consolidates votes around the money winners even more.

Then when you are done as an elected official, you are free to get an even higher paying job as a lobbyist, and you know who they like? That's right, the ones who play ball.

This sounds like a mad conspiracy, but it happens over, and over, and over again.

So no, there will be no voting in representatives who oppose this until we reign in campaign finance and the opportunity to get double your pay later as a lobbyist.

Re:speaking of FCC

[LookIntoTheFuture]

The cable countries have figured out the great truth of America: If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring. Apple could put the entire text of Mein Kampf inside the Itunes user agreement and you'd just go "Uh, Agree, Agree, Agree..."

Bingo.

Government of the people ?

[Taco Cowboy]

When I first came to America I was very impressed with the idea that America has a government of the people, by the people and for the people

For a kid from a Communist country, I can't tell you how much awe I had for the notion that a government is actually on the side of the people !

But then ... I was naive

It turns out that the government of the United States is not what I imagined to be

The government of China is definitely NOT on the side of the people - and they do not have to be, because they never say that they are a democracy

But in the United States of America, we are supposed to be a Democracy, which means that the government has to rely on the VOTES of the people in order to be formed

So, what the fuck has gone wrong ???

Re:Government of the people ?

[dave420]

Just a guess - maybe people believed the hype? All those years of hearing how awesome America is and how it's the greatest country on Earth, singing the pledge every day at School, flags everywhere, etc. made them complacent, and any suggestion it wasn't was shot down in patriotic pique, meaning the situation only got worse. If something can not be rationally criticized - be it China or the US - it will fester, with its worse aspects eventually challenging its better aspects. Nationalism and patriotism are reasons for the US's decline. Both are fine and useful concepts for struggling countries or communities, but when it becomes de rigueur in more powerful countries or communities, it outlives its usefulness to the extent it tends to becomes a problem. Just think how much shit a President would get if he/she didn't wear a US flag pin - that's not healthy for a country.

Re:Government of the people ?

[Sigmon]

Really? Seriously? Do you ACTUALLY believe that people having a sense of patriotism is how we got to where the U.S. is now? (Meaning it's not so much a government for the people, by the people, but more-so a ruling class lording their power over us.) How shallow. No, my dear fellow... We USED to have something to be relatively proud of... and still do to some extent, but it's almost gone. Freedom has been under assault for almost a century in our country... by men who believe they can make better decisions than I could and should make for myself. They go by many names... Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, Socialists... even some call themselves Republicans. All of them thirst for power and consider the 'masses' to be dumb hicks who couldn't feed themselves if the 'elite' weren't in charge. You are like one of these. Do you think a people smart enough to govern themselves are so dumb that they would just 'believe the hype'? Not at all. The sense of patriotism is toward the ideal this nation represents... not toward the government. Indeed, part of that ideal is quite suspicious and wary of people in government gathering too much power unto themselves.

Re:Government of the people ?

[dave420]

Keep telling yourself that. Ignore the problems, and ensure the decline continues. Good jerb!

Re:Government of the people ?

[Zalbik]

They go by many names... Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, Socialists...

And here's why they win. They've convinced Americans that the battle lines are "left vs. right", "republican vs. democrat", "liberal vs. socialist".

This keeps people fighting amongst themselves, arguing whether their shade of grey is the "right" way to run a government.

It's pretty obvious to an outsider what the power division is in America. It's pretty obvious if you look at america's decline over the past decades & see how authority has been consolidated & maintained. It's pretty obvious if you look at how fear and uncertainty are utilized by the government to herd the population in the direction they want them to go.

The battle lines are: "rich vs. poor". They almost always have been.

Until people understand that, and as long as people believe that stupid side issues like minor health care reforms (and yes, they are quite minor), gay marriage, abortion, gun ownership, immigration reform, etc are what is going to ruin / save the country, the longer the people in power stay that way.

Re:Government of the people ?

[bkcallahan]

No, we're supposed to be a Constitutional Republic. Weren't you quizzed on this for your citizenship?

Re:Government of the people ?

[kenwd0elq]

Agree completely. Here's a classic example of how foolish, supposedly "well meaning" citizens screwed themselves....

http://www.mystatesman.com/new...

POLITICS: Woman who voted for every Austin, TX tax increase discovers that now she can’t afford to live there. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”

Whenever "We the peepul" allow the government to "take care of us", we allow rapacious wolves to take over our lives. Democrap, Rinopublican, Socialist, "Green" - most political parties will promise you ANYTHING to get the power to jail you and steal everything that you have.

It might - just MIGHT - still be possible to roll it all back. Probably not, but I'm the eternal optimist. Vote Libertarian if possible, or Tea Party - and then roll THOSE crooks out of office at the next election. We don't want to "control government spending"; we want to abolish departments and sell their buildings. I want to revoke their pensions and jail a few. Cut all government salaries by a third - and then do it again the next year. We want to make Washington D.C. a ghost town. As it is, 9 of the ten highest income zip codes are in or next to the Beltway. Legend says that in ancient India, new rulers were weighed every year, to see if they had gotten fat at their subjects' expense. It ought to be illegal for a government official to own a luxury car or a boat or a swimming pool; those things mean they're making too much money.

I blame air conditioning. Washington D.C. used to be a fetid, barely inhabitable swamp. That's why Maryland and Virginia were willing to give it up. Air conditioning lets the parasites live in comfort. Ban air conditioning within 100 miles of DC, and just SEE how quickly the government shrinks!

Re:multiple cell towers too, or grocery stores

[Calydor]

This is why there would be multiple ISPs AT THE DATACENTER.

Do you have ten different sets of plumbing running to your house so you can pick and choose between the best supplier of fresh water? A dozen different power cables so you can switch power company easily?

Re:speaking of FCC

[Phroggy]

That's like going to Slashdot to read the articles. Sure, you COULD, but...

Re:multiple cell towers too, or grocery stores

[dave420]

Those are not natural monopolies, so I don't know what your point is. You might as well point at your shoe and say "HA! HOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?! SEE??" as that would have the same effect. If you can't see how a physical connection to shared infrastructure is different to two grocery stores or two cell companies you might want to take some time to acquaint yourself with the differences, at least to avoid such embarrassment later.

Re:Level playing field

[evilviper]

Utilities don't get funded through the general budget.

Not directly, but they do get to tell the government: "Hey, we're having a problem with X. You guys should go fix that."

This could range from saltwater infiltration into wells, monitoring of water levels, building of dams and other flood control structures, cleaning specific pollutants out of ground water (some wells are located in EPA Superfund sites), free allocation of public land, protection of endangered species due to systematic drainage of bodies of water, repairs to damaged wetlands, etc., etc. etc.

Re:Level playing field

[Sarius64]

Well played, sir.

Re:Government ISP?

[Sarius64]

First of all, the idea that the government can run anything well is ridiculous.

Which should make you wonder what the frack is wrong when people would rather have the government step in than keep the same bullshit politician-bribe generated monopolies in place across America.

Seriously, the President hires Tom Wheeler for the FCC? Can we please retro Mitt Romney into office? How could it possibly be any worse?

They do it in Sweden.

[Moskit]

Stockholm (among others) has a fiber network built and owned by the city. It is neutral, and various providers can sell services over it.

Selecting and switching service is simple. Moving patchcord is out of fashion, you just reprogram devices to redirect traffic where it should go - no need for physical action.

http://www.investstockholm.com...

This is how this should work. Sadly with various EU laws in effect this model is much harder to replicate now.

Annoying.

[dan_barrett]

This is exactly what Australia is trying to do with the National Broadband Network; Telstra - the incumbent last mile monopoly for cable and copper DSL - will eventually phase out their copper network to be replaced with the the government-funded mostly fibre based Nbnco last mile network.
Of course, the project is political dynamite, the rollout is massively delayed, has run over budget, and the current government is trying to change the fibre to the premises network to fibre to the node, but the intention is to provide common "wholesale" last mile connectivity that any ISP can resell to consumers.

2 roads (infrastru) go to the 2 different stores

[raymorris]

> If you can't see how a physical connection to shared infrastructure is different to two grocery stores or two cell companies you might want to take some time to acquaint yourself with the differences,

Roads are infrastructure, my friend. In my case , one road, called WJB Parkway, connects me to the Kroger grocery store. Another road, hwy 6, connects me to the Walmart store. Yet another, Villa Maria, connects me to the HEB grocery store. It would be more efficient to have one road, going to one store. That store could then sell rotten bananas for $6/pound since there would be no competition.

Re:Level playing field

[mr_mischief]

In Springfield, Illinois for example the electric and water are both handled by City Water, Light, and Power which is a non-profit company owned by the city. They actually have deals with smaller cities and towns to sell them electricity. Those rates are less than some of the private companies were charging, but higher than those paid by city residents. The other deals are actually used to offset costs for the residents' utility provision, keeping their rates even lower.

Sewer is a utility. Show me a commercially operated one in the US. Just one.

It would be nice if FCC stopped this

[WindBourne]

Seriously, what is needed is to require TIGHT regulations on companies that do this kind of BS. If they make agreements like this, then the feds should tax those companies for those areas. In fact, they should be able to limit the profits from those areas to say no more than 5%/year.
The reason is simple. With competition, each company has incentives to invest to keep customers happy. Without it, and esp. when prevented by those companies, then they have NO incentive to invest. So, by keeping profit for that region to below 5% (if not 3%)/year, then they have a strong incentive to invest to offer more amenities (i.e. more revenue to increase the profits), OR allow competition to come.

Regardless, this kind of BS is killing America. It is disgusting that companies are doing this, but understandable. What is REALLY disgusting, is that cities go along with this BS, and do not put time limits on it.

Re:multiple cell towers too, or grocery stores

[Scarletdown]

It doesn't "make sense" to have multiple grocery stores servicing the same area, the duplication is wasteful. Why have two barbershops servicing Ive neighborhood? It would be more efficient to have one

When there is stiff competition, the big winner is typically the customer.

Great, I just made myself hungry again...

Re:Government ISP?

[Rockoon]

what i am arguing is that we take a stand, make our "representatives" in Washington actually do that for once, and stop the corporations from trying to screw us all over.

Translation: With good intentions, increase government influence, because this time the lobbyists wont take advantage of the increased influence.

You are everything that was, is, and will continue to be wrong with populations of governed people. You just dont get that your ideas when implemented have made things worse, do make things worse, and will continue to make things worse. It was always good intentions that supported the increases in government scope that you complain about today, and your soluton is good intentions that increase government scope even more.

Take a few years out of your life and learn some god damned history.

Re:Government ISP?

[fightinfilipino]

Take a few years out of your life and learn some god damned history.

i've been around a while. watched various corporations dump all over people in terms of pay, pollution, discrimination, gentrification, and most recently, cutting up the internet into fiefdoms and, just recently, demanding that people pay twice for the same connection. so you'll understand when i say, an unregulated free market doesn't work. it ultimately boils down to how many people can make as much money as they can in as little time as they can and damn the consequences to others.

reducing government ability to regulate only allows corporates like Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, BP, Walmart, McDonalds, Monsanto, et al. to destroy ordinary people just to make a buck. excuse me if i don't put much faith in such companies to miraculously realize that they can treat people well without regulations or laws to tell them as such. if history has shown us anything, they DON'T.

the answer isn't just government regulation. it's also getting the populace to work with government and to vote jokers out when government also overreaches. in this case, we don't have enough people telling government to tell the corps to knock it off. and people can't tell the corps to knock it off directly because they've created a situation that is not a competitive "free" market where people can choose with their dollars.

the answer is not a binary "all government or no government." it. is. a. BALANCE. of the two.

if you're claiming that i haven't the years of experience in this, i would turn that around on you. trying to pass off a black and white binary as the only possible solutions speaks of incredible naiveté!

Re:Government ISP?

[suutar]

No, but I do think years ago Yahoo and AOL had a lot more interest in customer happiness than Comcast does now.

Re:Government ISP?

[Rockoon]

trying to pass off a black and white binary as the only possible solutions speaks of incredible naiveté!

Naiveté is repeatedly trying the same thing, getting the same result again and again, only to expect that this time things will be different.
Again, learn some history, because you clearly haven't learned any if you think that doing the same thing again and again will somehow magically lead to different results.

Re:Government ISP?

[fightinfilipino]

trying to pass off a black and white binary as the only possible solutions speaks of incredible naiveté!

Naiveté is repeatedly trying the same thing, getting the same result again and again, only to expect that this time things will be different. Again, learn some history, because you clearly haven't learned any if you think that doing the same thing again and again will somehow magically lead to different results.

i'm sorry, i must have missed the part where you proposed a unique and never-before-tried solution. before it just sounded like you wanted to let the corporations sort it out without regulation in the "free" market. yeah, that certainly hasn't been done before, to no malicious effect against regular people whatsoever.

see iProvo

[q4Fry]

I agree with the +Informative mods, but I'd like to point out that it doesn't follow that public fiber should be outlawed because one city tried and failed.

Re:speaking of FCC

[PsyMan]

I have to say that the only site I know of that has worse/better/funnier comments than youtube has to be the Pirate Bay. I have come away from there belly laughing at times. Slashdot has articles?