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Big Telecoms Strangling Municipal Broadband, FCC Intervention May Provide Relief
MojoKid writes: With limited choice and often dismal upstream speeds, it's no wonder many people are excited to hear that newcomers like Google Fiber are expanding super-fast gigabit internet across the country. But some Americans also have access to other high-speed fiber internet options that compete with the big guys like Comcast and Time Warner Cable: municipal internet. In the case of the small town of Wilson, NC, town officials first approached Time Warner Cable and Embarq, requesting faster Internet access for their residents and businesses. Both companies, likely not seeing a need to "waste" resources on a town of just 47,000 residents, rebuffed their demands. So what did Wilson do? It spent $28 million dollars to build its own high-speed Internet network, Greenlight, for its residents, offering faster speeds and lower prices than what the big guys could offer. And wouldn't you know it; that finally got the big telecoms to respond.
However, the response wasn't to build-out infrastructure in Wilson or compete on price; it was to try and kill municipal broadband efforts altogether in NC, citing unfair competition. NC's governor at the time, Bev Perdue, had the opportunity to veto the House bill that was introduced, but instead allowed it to become law. However, a new report indicates that the FCC is prepared to side with these smaller towns that ran into roadblocks deploying and maintaining their own high-speed Internet networks. The two towns in question include aforementioned Wilson, and Chattanooga, TN. Action by the FCC would effectively strike down the laws — like those that strangle Greenlight in Wilson — which prevent cities from undercutting established players on price. The FCC is also expected to propose regulating internet service as a utility later this week.
However, the response wasn't to build-out infrastructure in Wilson or compete on price; it was to try and kill municipal broadband efforts altogether in NC, citing unfair competition. NC's governor at the time, Bev Perdue, had the opportunity to veto the House bill that was introduced, but instead allowed it to become law. However, a new report indicates that the FCC is prepared to side with these smaller towns that ran into roadblocks deploying and maintaining their own high-speed Internet networks. The two towns in question include aforementioned Wilson, and Chattanooga, TN. Action by the FCC would effectively strike down the laws — like those that strangle Greenlight in Wilson — which prevent cities from undercutting established players on price. The FCC is also expected to propose regulating internet service as a utility later this week.
We the Government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations, will not allow the democratic process to interfere with the rights of business to dictate monopolistic and oligopolistic solutions to citize ... erh, customers.
In particular, you have no right to competition nor to form any "more perfect union" that reeks of socialism or even just consumers rights.
Business must be allowed perfect freedom. All other freedoms are coincidental.
Signed.
Your governor.
I am anarch of all I survey.
But it makes the town a better place to live, so more people (and businesses) move there, increasing the number of subscribers and lowering the cost for everyone. Hey, it could happen.
Wait, towns that protect incumbents, then want to throw those incumbents out to run their own service...huh?
How about this: government is the provider of last resort (it kinda works this way already for a bunch of other services). If the local telcos or ISPs thought it was profitable, then they would have already done it. But they didn't. So it's up to the local government to step in and work to improve their community. One of the reasons we're in the house (and town) we're in now was because back in 1998 there was Cable Internet service available. These days I'm fairly certain that a house without access to high speed Internet service will sell for far less than a house that does have access to it. Higher house prices equals higher taxes. It's in their interest to make the tax base as wide and high as possible.
I know that if and when I move next, one of my primary considerations will be "What kind of internet access is available here, and who is the provider". When I last did in 2008, that was a major consideration in buying in the current town (Cox/Fios both available) as opposed to the next county (Comcast only).
I wonder why the city council thought they were so much better qualified to make these projections than the people who run ISPs for a living.
Their reasons are irrelevant. The decision to employ public funds to this end was made by the people. If the ISPs insist the weight of their opinion must be greater than that of the people those ISPs should be dismantled as they're a threat to democracy.
That almost looks like long term investment! This is america damn it!
Look at the comparison between people in the US who have electricity provided by a commercial for-profit entity and those who have it provided by a co-op/municipal entity. All the evidence I can find suggests that the municipal systems are better for the community than the commercial operators.
I cant find any suggestions that people living in areas where the electricity is provided by a municipal monopoly are unhappy with the service or wish they had a commercial operator running things.
And there is nothing to suggest that municipal broadband is going to be anywhere near as crap as the current offerings. Its likely to be high speed fiber links (so already it will be faster in the real world than the crappy speeds most cable and DSL operators currently give you) and there is no real reason for the municipality to try and pull tricks to protect TV revenues (since the municipalities generally dont have skin in the TV game in the way the current monopolies do)
I don't see this as that different from a municipal water system. The town, through it's elected officials, chose to implement this plan. Perhaps the citizens voted for this system knowing that initially it wouldn't break even but think that it was good for the town as a whole. Much as I might vote for a municipal water system even though I get my water from a well and don't want to subscribe to the water system. I realize that it's good for the town and therefore good for me indirectly even if I don't directly take advantage of it. I support bond measures for schools even though I don't have children and don't plan too and so do some who send their children to private schools. Who are we, not part of the town, to question their wisdom and judgement from afar. Perhaps the town made the judgement that as the internet grows and government services migrate to the net, more people will sign up and it will be revenue neutral or even make them money down the road. I support the idea the local government is the best and I see no reason to over turn their judgement here.
I've been wondering how long it would be before internet access began to be regarded as a utility. It has a lot in common with water and electricity in the 21st century - important to everyday life, high capital investment to put in infrastructure, commoditized once that infrastructure is in place. The parallel with electricity is especially close - different providers all use (or in theory can use) the same wires.
Of course, internet access is not as important as electricity and water in a fundamental survival sense, but the key is whether access to it is regarded as a norm of civilized life. 150 years ago access to electricity was rare and not part of day to day life - arguably, electrical infrastructure is not critical for survival or even for civilized living. Yet, today, living without electricity is not something most of us would care to contemplate. I suspect over the next 50 years "information infrastructure" will come to be regarded much the same way - theoretically we could make do without it, but the normal functioning of society and people's interactions with that society will require it.
Whether tha'ts a good thing is of course another question, but to me regulating the internet as a utility is in 2015 a no brainer.
If they borrowed money in the form of municipal bonds to get this done and it doesn't pay off and they default or declare bankruptcy why should the state bail them out? The creditors who bought the bonds should take a haircut for making a bad investment. Why should the state bail out those investors? Isn't that how municipal bond markets are suppose to work? Isn't that why they're private, won't private investors look at what the bonds are for and make a judgement if it's a good investment of their money or not? Who are you to tell the bond holders how to invest their money?
If the majority can decide to force me at gunpoint to pay for something I did not want, then the "democracy" must be dismantled as not a mere threat, but actual impediment to freedom.
As a white person I have to say only another white boy would say something this ridiculous.
Every government ever has forced people to pay for things they didn't want. Pacifists funded the revolution at the exact same rate as Patriots. You couldn't get out of paying for the war that conquered the Indians of Ohio by claiming you had a principled disagreement with the policy of Indian Removal to West of the Mississippi.
BTW, the policy of Indian Removal probably would not have worked if the Native Americans had real governments that could do things like insist that the Oglala Lakota of what is now South Dakota send 1,500 number of warriors to a rally point in Green Bay to join the Unified Native Resistance Army. Since they didn't we got to fight each nation thirteen-on-one, with some very rare exceptions (i.e.: Tecumseh), and even those exceptions typically didn't have the political power to enforce taxation or military service. Which meant that when they lost a battle they lost the war.
Since corporate-owned Internet was provably no obstacle to government surveillance, your question is irrelevant.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
I think by using phrases like "fuzzy-warm feel-good liberal nitwits" you pretty much sideline yourself. Politics is all about compromise and finding a common solution, something that is obviously missing from your world view. No wonder you feel that your efforts have come to naught. No one wants to be called a nitwit.