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20 More Cities Want To Join the Fight Against Big Telecom's Broadband Monopolies
Jason Koebler writes At least 20 additional American cities have expressed a formal interest in joining a coalition that's dedicated to bringing gigabit internet speeds to their residents by any means necessary—even if it means building the infrastructure themselves. The Next Centuries Cities coalition launched last week with an impressive list of 32 cities in 19 states who recognize that fast internet speeds unencumbered by fast lanes or other tiered systems are necessary to keep residents and businesses happy. That launch was so successful that 20 other cities have expressed formal interest in joining, according to the group's executive director.
this would be one of those times id actually go and vote if moving forward required consensus of the locals.
I'll start paying attention when, at a state level, they start declaring utility franchise agreements illegal.
Meaningful Competition Drives Progress: a vibrant, diverse marketplace, with transparency in offerings, pricings, and policies will spur innovation, increase investment, and lower prices. Communities, residents, and businesses should have a meaningful choice in providers.
I don't see how a government takeover will enhance competition. Mostly it will increase the cost of cable TV, at least until some other group decides that watching prime time TV is a fundamental human right.
Google Fiber seems to be rolling along in KCMO, and is expanding out into the metro area. Short of building their own networks, the cities should cut the red tape to make fiber installation as easy as possible. The $ cost should be technical, not wasting it on legal fees. Although they need to safeguard against evil companies (i.e. Comcast and Time-Warner). Still yet unknown if Google Fiber turns evil. They will be in my area (Overland Park, KS) soon.
Taking a quick look at their site I don't see anything about rules, a constitution, articles or incorporation, or any other provisions as to the way the new networks will operate. It has long been my opinion that a free Internet requires the last mile to be owned by the users. It is also my opinion that the last mile needs to be a common carrier to ensure there is no censorship.
I don't see those goals spelled out on the site. All I see is some cities striving to install fiber optics. That is great, but without steps taken to protect the user's rights I expect it will just turn into another self-serving telecom giant.
In Denver, CO we can choose between Century Link DSL (speeds suck) or Comcast (expensive and service sucks). If the city of Denver jumped in that would at least give us three choices. Competition is good, right?
Expect to see the gloves come off for this fight.
:D
The Telecoms absolutely will throw a Godzilla sized tantrum since the high density metropolitan areas are their biggest cash cows they have. They would give two shits about losing some barely on the map town in the middle of nowhere, but you're talking about where the big $$$$ live now.
There will be lobbying, crying, arguments, pleading, secret back-room deals, and just mass hysteria for all the Telecoms. Hell, they might even get off their ass and start doing something now that they see a very frightening possibility of real competition to their profits starting to rear its head.
It will be glorious
That is just so damn Un-American not letting Corporate monopolies rip you off
I live in Provo and they created the iProvo network. It didn't go so well and we ended up paying for it through the energy bills. On the bright side, Google bought it and now the companies here are actually competing. So if the cities mean build a network and have google take over, then I'm all for that.
Most of these companies are local monopolies because the local politicians were bribed to give them a monopoly. You don't have to build your own just get rid of the monopoly.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Wish I could see a list of the 20 additional cities. I doubt any of those are in FL either...the entrenched good ol' boy network down here would never let that fly.
OK, let's say for sake of argument you bring gigabit to every doorstep. Or heck, even 1% of doorsteps. All of your uplinks are going to be so massively oversubscribed that it's essentially meaningless, except for content that's hosted on local caching servers. This is great for things like Netflix, but even ultra-high quality 4K video with uncompressed multichannel audio isn't going to consume that much bandwidth. 40Gbit connections are standard on the largest backbones, with 100 Gbit coming on-line, but that's some awfully expensive hardware right now.
So my question would be: what added benefit you expect to get with a gigabit local loop when it's still going into the same sort of congestion limits? i don't mean to sound like a curmudgeonly old bastard, but this sounds more like a marketing gimmick. Even governments aren't immune from spreading marketing bullshit; in fact it's sometimes easier when you know you won't be held accountable (advertising fraud vs political promises) and it's all other people's money anyway.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
"...fast internet speeds unencumbered by fast lanes or other tiered systems are necessary to keep residents and businesses happy."
just like rest of infrastructure in the city. Need good roads, schools, water, etc.
mfwright@batnet.com
Awesome! So which cities are among the 20?
Socia wouldn't tell me what cities have expressed interest, because they haven't formally joined yet.
So there's no news here, and this is just a pointer back to Vice's previous article.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
My city is taking subscribers for gigabit service starting next week, and it's not on the list.
Most outgoing pipes are over subscribed anyway. Put the gigabit in place and let the markets sort out the demands on bandwidth for outgoing/incoming pipes. In the meantime, let the local markets invent and invest in providing content. Image all of your favorite local TV channels streaming live or 2way interactive class rooms from your local college. Enter into negotiations with Netfliks to franchise a local streaming data center. Start a new Wifi-cell phone service. There are thousands of ideas on could develop with gigabit to every home, business, individuals and hacker elites.
As someone how help start a kickass ISP back in the early 90s and that is still around today competing against the bigs, I'm all in on it. Build local, and buy local. Also be patent because if you build it and they will come.
Cheers!
Most of the comments I see are focused on monopoly issues. While relevant, it hides the fact that, except for the last mile (or ten miles, or fifty, or however far the nearest major hub is from you), the Internet performance we see is that of the whole net, not just the carrier we buy access from. It's high time that we quit thinking of the Internet as a communications service and realized it's as much a public good as highways, water, schools, or any of the other services we expect the government to take care of. its indirect benefit to us as citizens is as least as much as what we get from it directly.
That in NC TimeWarner's service level has fallen off a cliff and prices jacked 20% and they are laughing at you.
to forward this information to the mayor of my small town. Then I found out that he is a retired VP from Verizon. He would simply shitcan the idea.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!