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Marco Rubio and Other Senators Move To Block Municipal Broadband (theintercept.com)
New submitter h33t l4x0r writes: Presidential candidate Marco Rubio recently "fired off a letter (PDF) to the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to allow states to block municipal broadband services." The municipal services offer cheaper, faster broadband alternatives to the large telecoms. Rubio's campaign has taken large donations from AT&T, and the article notes that other providers, "fearing competition, have used their influence in state government to make an end-run around local municipalities. Through surrogates like the American Legislative Exchange Council, the industry gets states to pass laws that ban municipal broadband networks, despite the obvious benefits to both the municipalities and their residents."
I live in a town with a gym that was paid for with tax dollars and a gym that was paid for privately. They compete. There are no problems. If you don't like one, go to the other. Same goes for education.
I don't see the problem, but then again, I don't have a problem competing with the government. Only a protectionist claiming to be a capitalist would.
Place something witty here
Because corporations are people too? ;-)
I don't know, I think it's ideological nuttery to be honest, the same sort you see exhibited in the very first post to this article (which may or may not be a spoof, but it's a common viewpoint.) "The free market can always do better" they argue, even when presented with systems that exist purely because the free market isn't even bothering to participate.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
CThe last thing I'd want is to get Internet access through the government. If you think service via private companies is bad, just wait until you try getting service via the government!
Power: Check.
Water: Check.
Gas: Check.
I fail to see how broadband would be any different. (And how it could possibly be worse than Comcast.. Three rate hikes this year alone, plus that "data threshold" bullshit which is really another $30/mo rate hike by another name)
By far the shittiest broadband ISPs I've encounteredwere the private ones set up by a HO or apartment complex. Talk about no incentive to improve.
Look, the problem here isn't that the local governments want to set up broadband. It's that ihey are prevented by law from doing so, even when no private organizations are willing.
-- I ain't broke, but I'm badly bent.
Scratch one more candidate off my 2016 list.
This Republican sees nothing wrong with local government getting into the broadband business so long as it does not set up a monopoly. After all there is pressure from voters to "have the city do it" only when there is no, or one ready bad, private alternative. Broadband is a utility, and city involvement in it is developing along the same lines as city involvement in water and power systems.
Local voters are part of the market too.
Talk to the citizens of New Jersey that recent got screwed by Verizon who took Billions of tax payer dollars to wire the state and reneged on the deal. So again FUCK YOU RUBIO.
I lived in a town with municipal internet. It was wonderful. My up/down speeds were synchronous, I didn't have to buy my own modem (or lease one for 10 bucks a month), and here comes the kicker: If I had a problem and had to call them, I talked to an actual person. No machine, no waiting on hold, just a person picked up on the other end of the line. A person who was even competent enough to perform basic tasks, like renewing my IP address.
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
A couple of points. How would overcapacity ever be a problem for a nonprofit? Sure, more money spent up front, which may be considered wasteful, but it sure beats the cost of having to add capacity later.
As to "the cost would likely be that the level of service rarely improves," I don't understand. Isn't it the mantra of capitalism that the private sector can always offer goods and services more cheaply and efficiently than the government? Yet how is it that Comcast and Verizon don't even offer 1-GB Internet at $70 a month like Google? The reality is that they don't want to compete with anyone, be it the government or another company. And they aren't about to provide better services or prices. On the cable TV front, what's Verizon's response to the cord-cutting trend? Instead of slashing prices, improving service, and offering much better deals to existing customers in order to retain them, they create "custom" semi-a la carte packages that cost more per channel and are cynically configured to get you to add channel packages. Plus they've increased hardware rental fees by 50-75% over the past couple of years. I don't see a welter of companies clamoring to provide Internet and TV services. Even Google is taking its sweet-ass time lining up municipalities for its fiber service. It isn't just the governmental red tape holding them back -- it's also the mammoth cost of building the infrastructure. And if an entity as huge as Google is taking baby steps, how reasonable is it to expect smaller companies to step in, even if the regulatory climate were more conducive to competition? As it stands, it seems local governments are the only competition for the likes of Comcast and Verizon.
Bullshit. There are a whole raft of studies which show that state-provided healthcare offers similar outcomes at a greatly reduced price. Strangely enough, when you remove money-sucking middlemen from the equation, healthcare becomes a lot cheaper. The single buyer gets a much better deal on medication and supplies, etc. which lowers the price for everyone. Hospitals aren't looking at their bottom lines to gouge patients, etc. If you really think there is any doubt in this, you really need to read more. The US spends a greater proportion of its GDP on its non-public healthcare than other countries with public healthcare. You'd save money, simplify everything, and whenever you went to the hospital, there would be no paperwork or money changing hands. Witchcraft!
What else would you expect from the Corporate Party?
While it's very true that the Republican party in its current incarnation is absolutely a corporate party it implies that other parties are not. The last 8 years could be dubbed the Goldman Sachs presidency as described here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITI... or http://www.nationalreview.com/...
Not convinced yet? How about Obama pushing TPP as hard as he can? That's as corporate as it gets. Hillary is bought and paid for which is why the media is working its level best to feed us only smiling pics of her. Only Bernie, an independent who seeks the Democratic party nomination, could be described as anti corporate.