Virginia 'Broadband Deployment Act' Would Kill Municipal Broadband Deployment (arstechnica.com)

Virginia lawmakers are considering a bill called the "Virginia Broadband Deployment Act," but instead of resulting in more broadband deployment, the legislation would make it more difficult for municipalities to offer Internet service. From a report: The Virginia House of Delegates legislation proposed this week by Republican lawmaker Kathy Byron would prohibit municipal broadband deployments except in very limited circumstances. Among other things, a locality wouldn't be allowed to offer Internet service if an existing network already provides 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds to 90 percent of potential customers. That speed threshold is low enough that it can be met by old DSL lines in areas that haven't received more modern cable and fiber networks. Even if that condition is met, a city or town would have to jump through a few hoops before offering service. The municipality would have to pay for a "comprehensive broadband assessment," and then issue a request for proposals giving for-profit ISPs six months to submit a plan for broadband deployment. After receiving proposals from private ISPs, the local government would have to determine whether providing grants or subsidies to a private ISP would be more cost-effective than building a municipal broadband network.

Comments

Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't even do as well as the government, you don't deserve to be in business.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[neonv]

The government can subsidize the costs and offer service for well below the actual costs, which is unfair competition.

The issue in high costs with broadband come from partial or complete monopolies of ISPs. ISPs like Comcast can charge whatever they want in many areas because they are the only viable option.

In order to reduce costs, the government can help introduce competition. When many companies offer similar service, they compete for customers in price and customers win. I really like this idea in Virginia of providing a means for municipalities to introduce competition rather than become competitors themselves. It provides a means to offer lots of competition to companies like Comcast. This is something Comcast fights with a passion since they won't make as much money.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

And worse, when the government gives them a monopoly, they have no incentive to provide service because no one else can. That is what has happened in Seattle. Why work hard and expand your service area when you can take your time and do it more cheaply over decades rather than months?

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[ShanghaiBill]

In order to reduce costs, the government can help introduce competition.

Here is how to do it: When trenching the streets, install a wide (12" or more) PUBLICLY OWNED conduit pipe. Then allow any bonded provider to run cable or fiber through that pipe for a small standard fee. Since 99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching, this will make the market far more competitive.

Imagine how competitive the package delivery business would be if FedEx, UPS, and USPS each had to build their own network of roads? A single network of publicly owned roads fixes that problem, and allows competition to thrive. We can do the same with cable conduits.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Decades is right. I bought my house in Northgate nearly twelve years ago, and at that time Comcast had service less than a block away but in all of those years since they haven't added a single house on the street. A group of us even offered to pay for the installation but Comcast wasn't interested in doing that. We're stuck with 1.5 Mbps DSL on our street, so it was easy for me to talk several of my neighbors into offering to pay Comcast. Of course, that 1.5 Mbps is a max. I usually get 160 kbps. There's hope because CenturyLink is upgrading some of the area to 12 Mbps ADSL2.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Seattle is interesting though. When I was there, I had some small ISP options like CondoInternet where I could get 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps internet. There were a few other small ISPs as well in different parts of the city. Never seen that elsewhere.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Horseshit. This "act" is Rent-seeking at its most basic and obvious, and all the Free Market evangelism in the world won't change it.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

But those subsidies come from taxes, and there's usually not a lot of support in small municipalities for higher taxes. And if it somehow does become a problem, then the cable companies can complain about it. Until then, it's just a hypothetical, versus the current reality of high costs and poor service from the regional monopolies that the cable companies currently have.

The government is hobbled in so many other ways in providing good service that I find it hard to believe that they can't be beaten by a well-run business, especially in anything related to IT. The current cable monopolies don't have to be well-run businesses, so any manner of putting some competitive pressure on them would be an improvement to the situation.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[mi]

Since 99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching, this will make the market far more competitive.

Citation, please...

Imagine how competitive the package delivery business would be if FedEx, UPS, and USPS each had to build their own network of roads?

Kinda hard to imagine... But I don't think, the conclusion you are trying to project is all that obvious. At any rate, there is a LOT more to package delivery, than roads. There is nothing else to ISP beyond running and maintaining cables (and routers), so your analogy is not valid.

A single network of publicly owned roads fixes that problem, and allows competition to thrive.

The real hurdle to ISP-propagation is the local governments' corruption and ineptitude. Giving them more power will only make things worse.

Re: Hey, cable companies:

[TechnoCore]

Better yet let the government own sll physical lines at street level. Let different providers compete to dig down new fibers for the government. Then let anyone compete in these fibers be it isps private ppl or whatever.it's retarded to try and compete on the infrastructure level. It's too exoensive so you will never gave a free market there.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Lendrick]

Exactly. Government is bad. Any idea that involves government is bad. In cases where the government consistently does something better and cheaper than private industry (like health care in every other first world country), government is still bad because government is bad.

What's important is that you conclude that government is bad first, and then figure out how you'll reach that conclusion. Otherwise, you may actually come to a different conclusion in some cases, which would be wrong, because government is bad.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[amicusNYCL]

The government can subsidize the costs and offer service for well below the actual costs, which is unfair competition.

That seems like a red herring. "The Government" isn't some giant mega-corp paying out stockholders, it is run and funded by the citizens. That's not "the government" subsidizing the costs, it's the taxes paid by the people who live there. The people are subsidizing the costs, so why shouldn't the government be allowed to build and maintain a network for the benefit of the people which is paid for by the people? The answer of course is because the ISPs think they deserve everyone's money. That doesn't mean that towns should not be allowed to pool their resources and plan and deploy their own network paid for by themselves. Even if they are competing with a private company, they should still be allowed to do it. If the private company can't build a better network and provide better service than the people doing it for themselves then the private company doesn't get any business. They can up their game or go elsewhere. Instead, in reality, they find that it's a better investment to pay legislators to pass laws which favor themselves against the people living there, and the end result is that the people still have the same shit network that has been there for the last several decades and they're still paying way too much for it. That's the specific situation that people want to change - they want a fast network and a reasonable price, not 10down/1up DSL for $80/month.

The issue in high costs with broadband come from partial or complete monopolies of ISPs.

Right. But all of a sudden when the people step in to build their own network then *that* is unfair competition? I think the existence of a monopoly makes the environment for unfair competition, not a town deciding that they want to publicly fund a network.

In order to reduce costs, the government can help introduce competition.

How can they do that? Keep in mind that ISPs have very large war chests, and that they have no problems with paying large sums of money to legislators in order to maintain their monopolies and ban towns from doing things themselves. So how exactly should anyone expect the government to "introduce competition"? Wouldn't the ISPs claim some other sort of government overreach? If building their own network is unfair competition, then wouldn't "introducing competition" be labeled as some sort of anti-capitalist big government move to influence the market? You write a lot of bright-sky points without offering any actual solution. What is this supposed to mean:

I really like this idea in Virginia of providing a means for municipalities to introduce competition

What are you actually suggesting there? Anything at all? I'm not talking about suggesting vague things like "introducing competition", I'm talking about actual laws that would help the situation. Because a town getting together and deciding to fund and build their own network is a concrete example of introducing competition, but if that's not what you're suggesting then what kind of concrete steps are you referring to?

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[drinkypoo]

there is a LOT more to package delivery, than roads. There is nothing else to ISP beyond running and maintaining cables (and routers), so your analogy is not valid.

What? Who told you that? There are basically three major physical parts to package delivery, namely roads and interchanges, vehicles, and drivers. Networks have cables, routers, and switches, as well as hardware and users. (We will omit international considerations from both examples at this time.) Networks and roads both require maintenance as equipment fails. And they both require management to deal with malicious actors. They both also require the other kind of management to make them happen; networks have routing, and so do delivery companies. Networks use servers, and... well, so do delivery companies. UPS for example was well-known as the first surface shipper to optimize out left turns. But the truth is that delivery tracking and management is a relatively trivial exercise, on the modern complexity scale. I used to work for a company called ADAQ which made a delivery tracking program which ran on SCO Xenix and SCO Unix. Everything a small to medium size shipper needs to manage their business will fit on a 386, and that includes least cost routing and support for messaging with MDTs. If you want vehicle tracking, you might need a Pentium.

If you are determined, you can claim package delivery includes policing and whatnot. But then you can do the same for internet service.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[ShanghaiBill]

The real hurdle to ISP-propagation is the local governments' corruption and ineptitude

If there were high prices and lack of competition in 5 or 10% of locales, then simple corruption and ineptitude would be a reasonable explanation. But when the problem exists everywhere, you need to look for systemic structural problems.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[hawguy]

Just what we need.... an expansion of government powers and responsibilities. Did you learn nothing from the last election?

My municipal water system is cheaper and far more reliable than my internet service. In the past 10 years, I can't remember a single unscheduled outage of water service, and scheduled outages for water infrastructure improvements are rare and are announced months in advance (often with public hearings years in advance) and generally only lasted a couple hours.

If that's the kind of service I can expect from government owned conduit, I say bring it on.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[n8_f]

Sorry, but this is a horrible idea. That's like cutting a 160 foot swath across a state and then having each package delivery company pave their own roads. Or putting up power poles and forcing a bunch of power companies to run the wire. You've just significantly increased the costs. And when you're talking about tunneling, they go up fast. Just build the damn road. Run fiber to each building and run it as a utility. If you want to introduce competition, then allow ISPs to lease fiber connections to individual homes. There is simply no reason to run the exact same fiber to the exact same building three times so one of them can be used.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[by (1706743)]

...but isn't this the very definition of small government? It sounds like this legislation uses *large* (state) government to take away powers from *small* (municipal) government.

From the standard arguments of small government that I've heard, this sounds like a very bad thing. Shouldn't the People vote on these things through their small municipal government, where your vote buys you more substantial representation? (It looks like the smallest city in Virginia is around 4k people.)

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Kjella]

Here is how to do it: When trenching the streets, install a wide (12" or more) PUBLICLY OWNED conduit pipe. Then allow any bonded provider to run cable or fiber through that pipe for a small standard fee. Since 99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching, this will make the market far more competitive.

Why bother? Copper and coax are quite clearly inferior solutions for new deployment and laying down a 12" pipe would be a huge cost, just lay down a fiber to the nearest central and let companies compete for what boxes they want to put on the ends. Put out a bid with a reasonable residential SLA for line maintenance, make sure the penalties are sufficient for good service.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Gr8Apes]

Since 99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching, this will make the market far more competitive.

Citation, please...

Do a little research on how LDDS started It wasn't because the cable they paid for was expensive.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

North Carolina (with some lobbying by TWC) outlawed municipal ISP's a few years ago after Wilson, NC showed that they could do it alone much better than the business they were re-negotiating their contract with. I think it was Comcast.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[methano]

Ooops! I posted the above post. I didn't mean to post as AC. My apologies.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[n8_f]

I'm really surprised Wired published that. TechFreedom is a well-known industry schill. They had an equally stupid article against net neutrality. I love this from a recent article of theirs:

The Wheeler FCC has fixated on building government-run gigabit networks to serve small numbers of users in heavily Democratic cities. We need a more humble, realistic, pragmatic and inclusive approach.

The best, cheapest Internet access in America is consistently community owned. And it doesn't even have to be a large community. The small town of Sandy, OR has the best, cheapest Internet in the country. Forty dollars for 300Mbps symmetric or $60 for gigabit. No bandwidth cap. And they work with content providers like Netflix so their citizens get the fastest, highest quality content they can. Far better than any of the cable companies, which refuse to work with Netflix without significant payment. It's amazing how well your incentives align when your shareholders are also your customers.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm fascinated by the idea that Chattanooga,TN is a "heavily Democratic" city.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying very hard to resist wasting a mod point on upvoting a post that is already +5 Insightful.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Qzukk]

Since 99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching, this will make the market far more competitive.

Citation, please...

Just so you can get the correct citation, do you want the costs of wiring with the government seizing a right of way for you, or costs of wiring if you have to individually negotiate with every property owner whose land you are going to dig up?

Here's a fancy little equation from 2011 that doesn't include buying the property, and is just the cost of installation, not maintance or upgrades: cost per house = 3072 + 13365*(houses/mile) - 0.8867*houses + 25.04*frost_index + 17700*wetlands_pct + $1376*soil_texture + 165.40*road_intersection_frequency That equation is "rural" installation, costs are probably way higher in an urban environment where you have your choice of installing everything under the sidewalk the entire way or everything under the street the entire way. Suburbia is going to be a mix of the two.

As for IP transit? as low as $0.45/mbps and falling

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[MightyMartian]

For fuck's sake, local governments already running sewer pipes and water lines, why not just run conduit for fiber as well, and then lease it out? I think the idea is genius.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

It's amazing how well your incentives align when your shareholders are also your customers.

When some of the shareholders are the only customers, and the rest of the shareholders are required to invest by force of law. It's amazing how cheap internet can be when the "company" providing it doesn't have to worry about a profit or keeping the shareholders happy, and they don't have to provide service to everyone who is putting money into the system.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[mi]

If there were high prices and lack of competition in 5 or 10% of locales, then simple corruption and ineptitude would be a reasonable explanation

Why must my methodology differ?

when the problem exists everywhere, you need to look for systemic structural problems.

Indeed it is a system problem. And, according to the article I cited, that problem is the local governments mistreating commercial ISPs. The companies need the governments' cooperation to lay cables, and the local mayors, town councils et al consider it a golden opportunity — to extract favors. The favors are either for themselves (corruption) or for their cities (ineptitude)...

Now, you didn't include the requested citation(s) in your reply. Was that an accident you can promptly rectify, or are you taking back your earlier claim:

99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching

?

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Penguinisto]

My municipal water system is cheaper and far more reliable than my internet service...

Two problems with your assertion:

1) If governments tightly regulated ISP pricing and behavior like they do the local water utility, you might have had a workable analogy.

2) Two words: Flint, Michigan.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

My municipal water system is cheaper and far more reliable than my internet service.

I think there is a significant difference in the infrastructure between the two. You can't tell the difference between water molecules that come out your tap, but you desperately need the packet addressed to you to be the one coming out your internet tap, for one thing.

In the past 10 years, I can't remember a single unscheduled outage of water service,

Happens in my town on a semi-regular basis. Some nudge ran into a fire hydrant and cracked a pipe last week, taking out an entire block of water users, for example. Collapsed pipes that weren't maintained properly (because it was a government function to maintain them and they spent the money on less important, more visible things) several times last summer.

If that's the kind of service I can expect from government owned conduit, I say bring it on.

You will happily force others to pay for your happiness, it seems. The ends do not always justify the means.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

why not just run conduit for fiber as well, and then lease it out? I think the idea is genius.

I see nothing in this law that prevents such an operation, only the operation of an ISP service by the municipalities. In fact, I would bet that there are cities that do exactly this already, in places where there is sufficient population to justify the cost of the conduit.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

That sir was brilliantly funny.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

I really like this idea in Virginia of providing a means for municipalities to introduce competition rather than become competitors themselves. It provides a means to offer lots of competition to companies like Comcast.

I think you completely misunderstood the summary.
Also, see from the original article "The bill, which is being pushed by the Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association lobby group, would also make it hard for localities to offer lower rates than private ISPs."
which can be read as "Bryon's re-election campaign is being funded by Comcast and Spectrum"

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Is that an option?
2) Do you have evidence that that is indicative of the thousands of government run water facilities. Perhaps it speaks more to the tight wad state government overseer that was in charge of calling the shots and did so on a purely ideological basis.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies can subsidise costs too,to drive out competition and reduce choice until there is no choice left, then they can charge monopoly rates.

And if a municipal broadband charges market rates (And it could be made to do so, if we decide that government can demand that broadband has a set countrywide price), then profits would go back into the taxpayer coffers, reducing the tax burden or increasing services offered. If a private company does so, the money goes to a small pool of people who didn't pay the town taxes.

And if the private company tries to offer a cripling price demand, either high or low, a government can handle it, where a competitor would be unable to manage it and fall out (or, as before,enriching the town if rent seeking were to be attempted).

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Jiro]

If the private company can't build a better network and provide better service than the people doing it for themselves then the private company doesn't get any business.

Even if the private company can build a better network at the same price, the customers of the private network will not just be paying that price--they don't become exempt from taxes, so they'd have to pay double. This prevents private networks from becoming successful.

What you would be saying is only correct if the people can choose to purchase the private network's service instead of the government network's service. This is not an option.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

The people are subsidizing the costs, so why shouldn't the government be allowed to build and maintain a network for the benefit of the people which is paid for by the people? The answer of course is because the ISPs think they deserve everyone's money.

You have it 180 degrees backwards. When a commercial ISP serves a community it gets money from some of the people. When a government runs an ISP they get money from ALL of the people, even those who don't want the service. It's the governments who think they deserve everyone's money, and they regularly increase the amount of everyone's money they take by raising taxes.

Why shouldn't they do this for internet? Because it creates and unfair marketplace for existing commercial operations, and subsidizes the recipients of service by charging everyone. Anyone who complains about how unfair is it because Comcast has an economic monopoly in an area should be complaining just as loudly about this unfair competition practice.

And those who worry about NSA or FBI or other TLA monitoring of their communications should realize that federal law would make it acceptable for the government to inspect their communications if the government is providing the ISP service. Yes, keep in mind, there are exemptions to privacy that cover the ISP for actions taken to maintain or repair internet service. And it is much easier for such monitoring to take place in the first place when all the packets go through the government's routers. It's a government employee doing it.

Because a town getting together and deciding to fund and build their own network is a concrete example of introducing competition,

Not honest and fair competition, and because of that it isn't real competition. It's a veiled attempt at putting ALL of the incumbent ISPs out of business because they can NEVER compete against a service that doesn't have to worry about turning a profit or even breaking even. They cannot compete against a service where everyone in the coverage area is forced to either pay for and use the government service, or pay for the government service and pay extra to use the commercial service they prefer.

You might see the direct parallel between the antitrust actions against Microsoft for bundling IE as a browser, and the claims that by doing so they were hindering the third-party browser marketplace. How many web browsers do you see for sale today? How much larger a market share would Firefox or Opera have if the users had to pick one of IE/FF/Opera/other to install on their system instead of simply clicking on "The Internet" icon and getting IE (or now Edge)?

The correct answer to a problem where there are a large number of customers not being served by the existing commercial service is for another commercial service to come in and fill the need. It's not for the government to step in and take out the existing commercial services by selling below true cost and forcing them out of business. If the problem is "nobody can sell me service at a price that I like", then the answer is "too bad", not "make everyone else subsidize my service".

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[hawguy]

My municipal water system is cheaper and far more reliable than my internet service.

I think there is a significant difference in the infrastructure between the two. You can't tell the difference between water molecules that come out your tap, but you desperately need the packet addressed to you to be the one coming out your internet tap, for one thing.

If the municipality owned and maintained the conduit as the grandparent poster suggested, what's the significant difference between owning and managing empty pipes compared to owning and managing water filled pipes?

In the past 10 years, I can't remember a single unscheduled outage of water service,

Happens in my town on a semi-regular basis. Some nudge ran into a fire hydrant and cracked a pipe last week, taking out an entire block of water users, for example. Collapsed pipes that weren't maintained properly (because it was a government function to maintain them and they spent the money on less important, more visible things) several times last summer.

I don't doubt it happens but does it happen as often as the regular internet outages I see from Comcast?

If that's the kind of service I can expect from government owned conduit, I say bring it on.

You will happily force others to pay for your happiness, it seems. The ends do not always justify the means.

Well no, I expect that the customers of the service (i.e. me) will pay for it through access fees charged to the ISP's.

Re: Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

The suggestion is to build the conduit for cables. Last time I checked, one hole in the ground with a 12 inch pipe is pretty fucking similar to another hole with a 12 inch pipe in it. So your point about water molecules and data is stupid you idiot.

Re: Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Aha! A Libertarian...

You don't want anyone telling you what to do or taxing you for anything. But you expect the police and fire department to protect you, the roads to be drivable, and your local water supplies not to be fouled by garbage generated by others who are just exercising their rights not to be told what to do.

I think libertarians are the most cognitively dissonant of all the various idealists.

Re: Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you actually think that huge corporations are less corrupt than governments? What the hell are you smoking?

Re: Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious: if a government official requires that a private utility (e.g. Cable company) makes concessions to the local community as a condition of having access to that community, how exactly is that ineptitude? I'd call that doing a good job instead of merely taking the shitty deal the utility likely laid on the table to begin with.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

One way to prove that government is bad is to eliminate government funding, create gridlock, spread misinformation about government, and so forth until the government actually is bad. Republicans are on the cusp of perfecting this technique.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

If the municipality owned and maintained the conduit as the grandparent poster suggested, what's the significant difference between owning and managing empty pipes compared to owning and managing water filled pipes?

Internet service isn't "empty pipes". Would you pay for a fiber connection that was empty?

I don't doubt it happens but does it happen as often as the regular internet outages I see from Comcast?

More often here. My last internet outage was when I swapped modems and they had a bit of difficulty setting it up.

Well no, I expect that the customers of the service (i.e. me) will pay for it through access fees charged to the ISP's.

Municipal internet is paid for partly through customer fees and partly through taxes on everyone. You will be paying only a part of the true cost of the connection and service, and your neighbors who don't want city-run internet will be paying the rest. Do you remember, you are comparing your water service to your internet service, not just "empty pipes".

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone in the industry we generally estimate underground strand deployments at $5-$15 per foot plus materials. The $5-$15 figure covers labor, easements, equipment, etc. so it doesn't matter whether you're running fiber, coax, or a string with tin cans at each end. It's far and away the largest expense. The fiber itself, your peering contracts, racks of $10K routers, even your entire employee payroll are all piss in the ocean compared to ~$40,000/mile to lay the wires down. Look at a city like Chicago that has 4,000 miles of roads and you get an idea of the costs of trenching, and that's in a dense area where it's cheapest, it's still a $250 million outlay to light up the city. That's just the city proper. Chicago metro has more like 30,000 miles of roads.

If cities would absorb that expense instead of building yet another publicly funded Sports Ball Stadium every 5 years, and rent access to the resulting conduit, we'd be in far better shape.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[StatureOfLiberty]

And when commercial services just have no interest in serving your community? You can't force these companies to serve you. So, you just do without? So, you doom a community to having no new companies move in because you cant give them good internet service? That was Winston Salem, NC. And they provided their own service because NOBODY ELSE WOULD. And then the NC legislature stepped in and banned the practice for future communities. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

So, we have a law banning local governments from providing this service to their citizens because we want to be sure that corporate America won't lose a potential market that they aren't even interested in serving. Again, STUPID!.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually in this case this is actually the job of the Govt.

This is infrastructure, much of which is already run over PUBLIC property.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[luis_a_espinal]

Exactly. Government is bad. Any idea that involves government is bad. In cases where the government consistently does something better and cheaper than private industry (like health care in every other first world country), government is still bad because government is bad.

What's important is that you conclude that government is bad first, and then figure out how you'll reach that conclusion. Otherwise, you may actually come to a different conclusion in some cases, which would be wrong, because government is bad.

You are a God among men.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Registered Coward v2]

Exactly. Government is bad. Any idea that involves government is bad. In cases where the government consistently does something better and cheaper than private industry (like health care in every other first world country), government is still bad because government is bad.

What's important is that you conclude that government is bad first, and then figure out how you'll reach that conclusion. Otherwise, you may actually come to a different conclusion in some cases, which would be wrong, because government is bad.

You have it all wrong. Government is bad, expect when it pass regulations that protect my business model or job. Then it is most excellent.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Archangel Michael]

Improper Government is bad. Just that most modern governements are involved in way more than they should be (arresting people for serving food to the homeless??? WTF??)

My solution is much more simple. Government manages not just the Conduit, but the actual Fiber in it. Bring it all back to a COLO facility where the competition happens. The "cable" companies no longer control the cable, only the content. And since each customer can get the services they want, from the provider(s) they want, it is all open to anyone who want access to those customers. All they need is a feed from the COLO to whatever they are offering.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Registered Coward v2]

Horseshit. This "act" is Rent-seeking at its most basic and obvious, and all the Free Market evangelism in the world won't change it.

Stigler nailed it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad example ... there is this little town called flint.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Enigma2175]

It's amazing how cheap internet can be when the "company" providing it doesn't have to worry about a profit

Yes, it sure is. A normal business needs to charge cost of business+profit where government only needs to charge cost of doing business.

or keeping the shareholders happy, and they don't have to provide service to everyone who is putting money into the system.

There are tons of things that people pay taxes for where they don't receive a direct benefit. For example, childless people paying for schools or paying for public transit when you never use it. Much like municipal fiber networks, even if you don't directly utilize the service it still makes your city a better place to live. Having good schools, transit and internet encourages companies to locate in your city (which can lower your taxes) and also can encourage high-income people to locate in your city (which also can lower your taxes). Sometimes doing things for the public good is the best path even if you don't partake of the particular service.

That being said, I do live in a city with a municipal fiber network and I have used it ever since it was installed, for the last 10 years or so. I have never had a problem with it and it has always been a much better level of service than I ever got from Comcast (who was my former internet provider and my current cable provider). It's superior from a technical point of view as well as from a customer service point of view. I choose my own ISP and can easily switch if they do something I don't like, which certainly can't be said of the cable company monopoly that exists in most places. As you observe above, the city can provide the service cheaper than a private company because they don't need to make a profit, they just need to break even.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Municipal internet is paid for partly through customer fees and partly through taxes on everyone.

Nope. Well, unless you count the internet the municipality itself uses. Why do you think that shouldn't be the case though?

You will be paying only a part of the true cost of the connection and service, and your neighbors who don't want city-run internet will be paying the rest.

Nope. Well, again, unless you count the internet the municipality itself uses. If my neighbors don't want my city to use the internet, they can fucking vote in an Amish government or something. Well, they can try. They'll lose, because it would be stupid.

Do you remember, you are comparing your water service to your internet service, not just "empty pipes".

No, it's actually a comparison of the pipes under the street.

The actual fiber provider is as indeterminate as the water provider. Which in my case, is an independent company. A private, for-profit one.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Woldscum]

LUS Lafayette LA City owned.
http://www.lusfiber.com/index....

Speed Levels & Details

3x3 - 3 Mbps download & upload
- $19.95 - With purchase of LUS Fiber television or phone services

60x60 - 60 Mbps download & upload
- $29.95 - With purchase of television service and two-year agreement. Months 1-12 only.
- $52.95 - Standard price

100x100 - 100 Mbps download & upload
- $39.95 - With purchase of television service and two-year agreement. Months 1-12 only.
- $62.95 - Standard price

1,000x1,000 - 1,000 Mbps (1 Gbps) download & upload
- $62.95 - With purchase of television service and two-year agreement. Months 1-12 only.
- $69.95 - With purchase of all three LUS Fiber services
- $89.95 - With purchase of two LUS Fiber services
- $109.95 - Standard price

2,000x2,000 - 2,000 Mbps (2 Gbps) download & upload
- $299.95 - $500 installation fee, $500 activation fee and 48-month contract required.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

where government only needs to charge cost of doing business.

They don't even need to charge that much. They can operate at a loss because the "shareholders" will be forced by law to cover the losses. What other business do you know of where the shareholders cannot sell their stock at any price and must continue to invest more money in the company even when it is losing money?

There are tons of things that people pay taxes for where they don't receive a direct benefit.

Internet doesn't need to be yet another one, since there are companies already in existence that can provide the service to those who want it.

I choose my own ISP and can easily switch if they do something I don't like, which certainly can't be said of the cable company monopoly that exists in most places.

Uhh, you can chose not to use the municipal service, but you can't choose not to pay taxes. You CAN choose not to use Comcast and you won't pay Comcast a dime if you don't use them. You can switch just as easily if it is Comcast or Citycast.

And the alleged "cable monopoly" isn't really, since there is no monopoly for ISPs and never has been. The only monopoly that used to exist was for cable TV service, but "video content" no longer has any monopolies, and "Internet" has never had one.

As you observe above, the city can provide the service cheaper than a private company because they don't need to make a profit, they just need to break even.

As I also observe, they don't need to break even. They can operate at a loss to drive out the commercial competition -- something that the FTC would be investigating were it one commercial venture trying to bankrupt another by such means. People complain vociferously about Walmart coming to town and driving the local mom and pop stores out of business because they cut prices, but at least Walmart has to make a profit overall. City run internet services don't need to do even that much, so why is it ok for them to drive out competition when it's so evil if Walmart does it?

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

And when commercial services just have no interest in serving your community?

Start one. Or accept the fact that it is not cost-effective to provide service where you are. "I don't want to pay what it would cost" isn't a reason to force others to subsidize your internet.

So, you just do without?

I would love it were there a Golden Corral in my town. There isn't. I cannot force Golden Corral to come to town, so I should get the city to open up a buffet restaurant operated by taxpayer funds? I should not worry that such a "business" operated at cost or below might drive other for-profit restaurants already in town out of business? No, I just do without. Sigh.

So, you doom a community to having no new companies move in because you cant give them good internet service?

You seem to think that the only internet service available to anyone is cable or city internet. If there were such a demand for internet (to make it "doom" not to have any), someone would provide it. It is very unlikely that any company looking at coming to that community is going to base their decision only on cable or city internet service. A place without a demand for internet already isn't going to be a great place to operate a company from for other reasons.

So, we have a law banning local governments from providing this service to their citizens

Well, as I think the summary points out, there are exemptions for places where no commercial company wants to build on their own. So no, the ban is limited in scope.

because we want to be sure that corporate America won't lose a potential market

Because we don't want to create an unfair marketplace for existing companies who are already providing the service, just not as cheaply as some people think it ought to be. So we get a law that prevents municipal competition with existing companies -- just like this one does -- that doesn't prevent it entirely when there is proven to be no competition -- just like this law.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[dbreeze]

I'm gonna quit Frontier ASAP for backing this kind of nonsense...
http://www.telecompetitor.com/...
https://muninetworks.org/conte...
https://www.benton.org/headlin...
https://psmag.com/the-fight-ov...
" AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, CenturyLink, Verizon, Frontier. To stay in power, they’ve fought against cities and municipalities in state legislatures across the country.
“It’s been kind of a war,” says Christopher Mitchell, the director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative. “It’s rare for states to do much [Internet] building. Cities want to invest in more competition. But states, acting on behalf of cable and telephone companies, prevent that from happening.” "

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[liquid_schwartz]

Did you learn nothing from the last election?

I think the lesson is that forcing people to do things or restricting options are both bad. Depending on the topic and your political leanings there will be things that you are inclined to force people to do in the name of (your version of) decency and other things that you will be inclined to forbid. Both impulses need to be reigned in as much as possible. For example, as fun as the left found it to force bakers to make wedding cakes that they really didn't want to that is a terrible precedent. Now freedom to practice religion is limited (bad) as well as people can now be forced to do things against their conscience (also bad). There was no shortage of bakers, just a sense of F*** you I'm going to force you do it my way. Well, now with a new regime others might be forced to do things against their conscience. While some might call that justice, in reality forcing people to do things is generally bad. As a side note when I saw Hacksaw Ridge I was thinking how with the ruling limiting freedom to practice religion he probably would not have been able to do what he did. Sad.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

You should have checked the "post anonymously" box and signed it roman_mir.
--
Udachny

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Enigma2175]

I choose my own ISP and can easily switch if they do something I don't like, which certainly can't be said of the cable company monopoly that exists in most places.

Uhh, you can chose not to use the municipal service, but you can't choose not to pay taxes. You CAN choose not to use Comcast and you won't pay Comcast a dime if you don't use them. You can switch just as easily if it is Comcast or Citycast.

No, the city only provides the pipe, an ISP provides the actual internet service. There is competition among ISPs, where there isn't among the traditional providers (telco and cableco)

And the alleged "cable monopoly" isn't really, since there is no monopoly for ISPs and never has been. The only monopoly that used to exist was for cable TV service, but "video content" no longer has any monopolies, and "Internet" has never had one.

There is a monopoly on the infrastructure. No other cable companies are allowed to run lines to each house, only the one that the government has selected. If you are so against government, why do you support a government-enforced cable monopoly? No, there isn't a monopoly on video service but there is an effective duopoly on internet service in most places (cable and telco). The telco monopoly got watered down by the government, mandating that they allow the leasing of lines to other providers. However the baby bells have a lot of experience with thwarting such regulations (horrible provisioning process for 3rd party providers, extra downtime on leased lines, etc.) but the cable companies have no such regulations and in most places have a monopoly on coaxial cable to residences and businesses. There is a reason Comcast has consistently been voted the MOST hated company in America, when you have a monopoly there's no reason to provide good service.

As you observe above, the city can provide the service cheaper than a private company because they don't need to make a profit, they just need to break even.

As I also observe, they don't need to break even. They can operate at a loss to drive out the commercial competition -- something that the FTC would be investigating were it one commercial venture trying to bankrupt another by such means. People complain vociferously about Walmart coming to town and driving the local mom and pop stores out of business because they cut prices, but at least Walmart has to make a profit overall. City run internet services don't need to do even that much, so why is it ok for them to drive out competition when it's so evil if Walmart does it?

No, they don't need to break even, but they can. They don't drive out competition, they encourage it. I can choose from a number of different ISPs instead of just one or two. You seem to think that profit is a good thing, but from a consumer's perspective it's a bad thing. Competition is a good thing but for internet service most places don't have that. An open municipal network provides way more competition that currently exists because it lowers the barriers to entry for ISPs, making a more diverse marketplace. I'm not one of the people who rail against Walmart, they were able to put mom and pops out of business because mom and pops are mostly inefficient. The cable companies and telcos are also very inefficient but they are not punished by the market because of their effective monopolies. If you are in favor of healthy competition you should be in favor of municipal networks.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Chirs]

There's no reason why you couldn't structure the municipal broadband such that it has to break even over some suitable period. That would prevent it from continually being subsidized by the local municipality.

Where I live one of the main local telcos is owned by the province, and rather than being subsidized it consistently provides a profit back to the provincial government, while simultaneously being highly competitive with the big national telcos.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

No, the city only provides the pipe, an ISP provides the actual internet service.

The city IS the ISP. Lmgtfy: here: "SandyNet is the Internet Service Provider owned by the people of Sandy and operated as a public service by the City of Sandy." Now tell me again how the city only owns the pipes. Tell my how ANY municipal ISP service "only provides the pipes". If they only provide the pipes, they aren't an ISP -- BY DEFINITION.

There is a monopoly on the infrastructure. No other cable companies are allowed to run lines to each house, only the one that the government has selected.

First, there are other ways to get internet than "cable television wire". Second, the only reason the government has "selected" just one cable television company is because only one cable television company applied for a franchise.

If you are so against government, why do you support a government-enforced cable monopoly?

I don't, because there isn't.

No, they don't need to break even, but they can.

Whether they can or nor depends on how many subs paying how much money they can get. The NEED not to break even is a fact. That fact means they can, and probably will, operate at below true cost and create unfair competition with commercial suppliers that not only don't have the taxpayer general fund to dip into, have true shareholders that deserve a return on their investment.

They don't drive out competition, they encourage it.

Right. They encourage them to go bankrupt. You can't run a commercial ISP below cost, especially when part of your costs are paying a franchise fee to the city for access to the rights of way -- that the city doesn't have to pay, or pays to itself. YOU as an ISP give some percentage of your gross to the city, and the city, at worst, gives itself 5% of their gross. Where does your 5% wind up? Same pocket that the city's, and it isn't yours.

An open municipal network provides way more competition that currently exists because it lowers the barriers to entry for ISPs,

You have got to be joking. It increases the barriers to entry. If you know that you're going to have to charge a price for services that competes with a non-profit taxpayer backed service that can operate at a loss, you're not going to try. Your barrier is now the fight you'll have to make to get any subscribers, and a need to make a profit.

I'm not one of the people who rail against Walmart, they were able to put mom and pops out of business because mom and pops are mostly inefficient.

Good. You're consistent, at least. Now suppose that Walmart came into town and operated that new store at a huge loss just to force Mom and Pop out. They can do that for a bit of time, using profits from other places to shore up that operation. Would you be so forgiving of Walmart if they did that?

If you are in favor of healthy competition you should be in favor of municipal networks.

The world of 1984 and Ministry of Truth has arrived.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[n8_f]

It's amazing how cheap internet can be when the "company" providing it doesn't have to worry about a profit or keeping the shareholders happy.

You seem to have a very poor understanding of how democracies work.
My understanding is they are operating at break-even, so people that don't use it aren't really paying anything. In fact, it's saved the city government money that they were spending on very expensive commercial Internet access. Their problem is that demand has forced them to accelerate their build out (they projected very conservatively). Yes, being able to sell cheap municipal bonds helps. But capital isn't what's holding back the telcos. After all, a tiny city government just kicked their asses because they thought their customers had no other options. Also, it turns out that having widely available cheap and fast Internet has externalities that benefit even people that don't have it at home. Hard to fit on to a balance sheet, but still true!
You should really follow up on this, because it sounds like it would change your world view. Look up Jeremy Pietzold; he'd be happy to answer any reasonably worded questions you have about SandyNet. I think you'd find that he's generally an economic conservative, but perhaps he's more pragmatic than some. He's certainly invested more time than anybody here on this topic.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

OnlineNW in McMinnville, OR, is also a nice foil to Comcast in that town.

Plus, if you live further out (rural enough) from Mac, OnlineNW's wireless broadband is pretty useable too in Yamhill and northern Polk counties.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

...as opposed to Comcast and other contract-exclusive local monopoly service providers?

It's amazing what a company can do in its community when the profit can be a reasonable 5% year-over or so, because it's not trying to enslave the rest of the world and keep Wall Street traders and execs happy, while peeing on their customers' backs and calling it rain.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[pixelpusher220]

The government can subsidize the costs and offer service for well below the actual costs, which is unfair competition.

Except that the government has to pay those massively overpaid gov't workers who only work 3 days a week.

You can't have it both ways.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[pixelpusher220]

Have you learned nothing about natural monopolies? also, how many water lines go into your home....

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[aaarrrgggh]

While municipal should be the best solution, I am beginning to think that a co-op provides a better balance. You just need to find ways for the city to help the co-op. It is easy to be apathetic up to the point that it just doesn't work anymore. This happens no matter who owns the infrastructure. But really, nothing under 50Mb today should be considered broadband.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[pixelpusher220]

Oh I don't know. I think you can still see the cusp from the current location, but you might need to re-task Hubble.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[pixelpusher220]

The gov't doesn't have to manage it any more than they manage the water or electric networks. You can totally pay a private company to run said network.

But there needs to be ONE network on which all providers provide the service. Just like water and electricity.

I know that's basically what you meant, just stating it explicitly for the trolls :)

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Enigma2175]

No, the city only provides the pipe, an ISP provides the actual internet service.

The city IS the ISP. Lmgtfy: here: "SandyNet is the Internet Service Provider owned by the people of Sandy and operated as a public service by the City of Sandy." Now tell me again how the city only owns the pipes. Tell my how ANY municipal ISP service "only provides the pipes". If they only provide the pipes, they aren't an ISP -- BY DEFINITION.

I wasn't talking about Sandy, OR, I was talking about my local municipal fiber network, Utopia, that link is a list of the 9 different ISPs that provide service on the network. Comcast and Century Link have also been invited to provide ISP service on the network, but they prefer to lobby the state government to shut down Utopia, just like in Virginia. As the article notes, this isn't the people telling their government to ban municipal networks, this is the Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association, a cable industry group, pushing the legislation.

An open municipal network provides way more competition that currently exists because it lowers the barriers to entry for ISPs,

You have got to be joking. It increases the barriers to entry. If you know that you're going to have to charge a price for services that competes with a non-profit taxpayer backed service that can operate at a loss, you're not going to try. Your barrier is now the fight you'll have to make to get any subscribers, and a need to make a profit.

I am talking about ISPs that run over the municipal network. Any company that meets the basic requirements are free to offer internet, phone or video services on the network. The barriers of entry are much lower than a service provider that has to string cable across the city (if they are even allowed to).

If you are in favor of healthy competition you should be in favor of municipal networks.

The world of 1984 and Ministry of Truth has arrived.

No, ignorance is not truth and freedom is not slavery. This isn't 1984, and my city government is not Big Brother. How many ISPs can you get gigabit internet from? I have at least 10 that I know of, if that's not competition then what is?

At its core, government is the people banding together to provide those same people with services. It's no different than a farm co-op. Yes, government (particularly at the national level) is growing much larger than I would like to see it but at the local level there is still a great deal of control by the people and a method for firing elected officials that don't use the people's money wisely. You are just so convinced that government == bad (and probably taxation == theft) that you just can't even conceive the notion of the government providing a useful service for the people. Society doesn't exist for businesses to make a profit, it exists to better the lives of the people in the society. I think that basic services that everyone or most everyone in the city use should be provided by the government to keep costs down - because the people banding together to provide the service is more efficient (read: cheaper) than having a company do it with the associated profit margin. These services include roads, police, firefighters, water, sewer, power, and in my view, communications. If it's something that everyone needs to use then why should the people pay a middleman (a for profit company) to build such services when they can provide it themselves, via government.

Incidentally, here is a White House report on how municipal networks spur competition, but I'm sure you'll immediately discount it because Obama is the debbil.

I can see yo

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

There's no reason why you couldn't structure the municipal broadband such that it has to break even over some suitable period.

There's no reason it couldn't be structured to require that the prices be higher than any competing commercial ISP, too. But if you think that any city would do that, or that the people who are pushing the city to provide cheap broadband would accept that, you're naive at best. The whole purpose of a municipal ISP is to have lower rates than the commercial providers.

No, any city agency that can charge low prices and hide the losses by dipping into the general fund will do so.

Where I live one of the main local telcos is owned by the province, and rather than being subsidized it consistently provides a profit back to the provincial government, while simultaneously being highly competitive with the big national telcos.

So you actually live someplace where there are multiple phone companies all serving the same area with multiple sets of wires? Fascinating. Otherwise, they can't be competitive with "big national telcos" if the big national telcos don't actually serve your area. And since any franchise fees are simply moved from one pocket to the other for the provincial telco and are a profit for the provincial government when paid by the "big national telcos", the provincial telco has a big step up on showing a profit.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

You seem to have a very poor understanding of how democracies work. My understanding is they are operating at break-even, so people that don't use it aren't really paying anything.

Except the backing of the general fund when there is a loss. And the loss of competition when a for-profit company cannot compete and pulls out.

In fact, it's saved the city government money that they were spending on very expensive commercial Internet access.

If the city government didn't have internet access written into the cable franchise then they are fools. In any case, to HAVE internet service, the city is paying someone for it, and it is now being funded by the taxpayers -- just like it was before the city became it's own ISP. Those taxpayers are either "customers" of the city ISP or just plain old taxpayers who don't care about internet access.

Yes, being able to sell cheap municipal bonds helps.

Interest from the bonds comes from taxes, and the principle is guaranteed by the taxpayers. If the city ISP fails after the city issues bonds to build it, guess who gets to pay back the bond holders?

After all, a tiny city government just kicked their asses because they thought their customers had no other options.

No, the city just kicked their asses because the city doesn't have to make a profit or break even on the deal, and doesn't have to live by any of the franchise agreements they make commercial vendors live by. It's amazing how much cheaper you can sell something if you don't have to make a profit and can rely on shareholders to cover any losses.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Obfuscant]

I wasn't talking about Sandy, OR,

I was, and the person I replied to was, and the comments I made were in the context of a municipal ISP. You're arguing about something completely different.

I can see you're ideologically opposed to municipal networks and I'm unlikely to change that so I'll quit trying.

So far, the only attempts you have made are trying to convince me that municipal infrastructure without municipal ISP service isn't bad, and I've not been talking about that. So yes, your arguments about a different situation are unlikely to change my mind about the actual topic of discussion. Hmmm.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

arresting people for serving food to the homeless??? WTF??

Yes, how dare a city have a HEALTH department which enforces standards for serving food and apply that to everyone fair and square.

And how dare the police enforce the law, rather than capriciously decide to favor some individuals over others.

PS, you're wrong if you think it's modern, you could find such practices in the Bible.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Darinbob]

This is a silly argument though. You may as well say that if a company doesn't have the same need to have high profits that they shouldn't compete as it's unfair to the fat cats. Generally the conservative stance for as long as I can remember was "government are inefficient, slow, wasteful, and out of touch with the citizens." But as soon as government does something efficient and desirable the message changes to "government shouldn't do that!" I think some of this is just bitter resentment that their theory that all government is evil has counter examples, which is why they often like to pick on the only government agency that can pay for itself (USPS).

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Darinbob]

Hypocrisy is the cornerstone of government.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Darinbob]

This won't change as long as the voters stop paying attention and instead instinctively vote only for those of the correct red vs blue teams. They don't know if the guy is a crook or not, but they'll vote for him because that's the lever they always pull. And besides these issues are extremely complicated for the average voter to think about, as compared to easily digested voter information of "my opponent is an evil liberal/conservative with his hand in your wallet".

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Darinbob]

And yet citizens vote FOR municipal broadband because the professional corporations have a product that's overpriced and underserviced. These corporations know that they have the inferior product which is why they're lobbying legislatures to make competition illegal. Voters need to hate the internet providers more, since we have plenty of municipal electricity/gas providers because the voters really really hate the big power companies and the big power company bills and there's not a lot of legislative action trying to prevent that.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Szeraax]

Disagree. Utopia 250Mbps symmetical is $35 (though, I often get much closer to 300). I'd rather have the $5!

Re: Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

> The government can subsidize the costs and offer service for well below the actual costs, which is unfair competition.
Oh booohoooooh. Unfair competition my Ass. If Comcast /cablecom or whatever can't or won't / don't want to deliver, fuck them. If they don't want money they shouldn't complain about unfair competition. Not to mention splitting up the cake between providers is not considered unfair? They don't want money, fuck them, municipal broadband. At least that's how here in Europe it would work if you're lucky and live in a municipality with politicians that aren't at least twice your age.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

What's your hard-on for private profit? If the government can do break-even and save customers/taxpayers money in the process it's immoral to NOT do it.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

The government can subsidize the costs and offer service for well below the actual costs, which is unfair competition.

But the law doesn't forbid them from doing that. The law forbids them from doing providing an alternative at all.
Meanwhile if private individual tries to compete the ISP that currently has a monopoly will subsidize the cost in the particular region with revenue the get from other areas until the competitor is gone.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is COMMUNISM, and we all know for a fact it'll never work, people become evil, etc.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[ElizabethGreene]

This bill brought to you by Cox, Verizon, and Comcast.
Any insinuation that these parties have a commercial interest in it is "preposterous".

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about it: who else, other than a Republican running for office, could go into an interview and say "I can't stand this organization, and if you hire me I'm going to do everything I can to see that it fails" and actually get the job?

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Flint, Michigan is a perfect example of what happens when you elect anti-government Republicans to run government services. Here's a helpful hint: when you want somebody to run your organization, it rather helps if that person's first goal in life is not to destroy your organization.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[currently_awake]

Solution: divide the country into blocks and require an ISP to support all customers in a block in order to have access to government owned right-of-ways.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[currently_awake]

Or have the government own the last mile, and rent it to anyone. Companies only need to connect the local office and patch in to compete.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hypocrisy is the cornerstone of Republicans.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[RockDoctor]

Then allow any bonded provider to run cable or fiber through that pipe for a small standard fee. Since 99% of the cost of providing service is the trenching, this will make the market far more competitive.

You'd have to have some provisions (which you may be trying to cover in "bonded" - not a term used outside adhesive technology here) to failsafe that old/ obsolete cable (fibre, whatever) is removed from the conduit as part of bankruptcy proceedings, with some really punitive consequences if the cable isn't removed. And those provisions would need to be based on tested legalese, so that the precedent is there for (for example) selling the houses of investors in a failed provider to pay for the removal process.

You may have seen the absolute rats-nest that results if people aren't required (and forced) to remove their cables. We had to use an oxy-acetylene "gas axe" to clear up one cable tray for a job.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

You're advocating the government install empty pipes with my tax money to provide competition? No. You're an idiot.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I don't see anywhere in the Constitution guaranteeing Comcast the ability to make ridiculous amounts of money off providing people shitty internet service after they've enjoyed all sorts of subsidies courtesy the local, state, and federal governments in terms of easements and eminent domain, not to mention huge tax breaks because they're some sort of "too big to fail."

Having a government option would make them more competitive, because they could, in fact, offer more services, extra services, better services than a municipal option could...or so they claim. Or maybe their shitty internet isn't so great, in which case, why is forcing me to buy their internet service (because it's my only option) to keep them afloat any different from me having to pay into taxes to pay for a municipal service?

I mean, it's pretty sad that all those private military contractors are starving in the streets and unable to make decent money because they just can't compete at the discount prices we all pay for a gubmint army, right?

Re: Hey, cable companies:

[mi]

if a government official requires that a private utility (e.g. Cable company) makes concessions to the local community as a condition of having access to that community, how exactly is that ineptitude?

If the would-be ISP walks away as a result, the community is left without that ISP's service. Or, as probably happens too, the company says, Ok, we'll do that — and then some, but in exchange you make sure, no one else ever gets to offer their service in your town. Which, obviously, is also quite damaging to the community. Hence ineptitude. And corruption.

I'd call that doing a good job instead of merely taking the shitty deal the utility likely laid on the table to begin with.

The requirements for everybody ought to be the same and clearly spelled-out. In a country with separation of powers, such requirements can not be left to the executive to formulate.

I'm flabbergasted, I even need to explain this...

Re: Hey, cable companies:

[jxander]

There's a company in San Diego called Webpass. For years they've done "urban" fiber: strictly the heart of downtown, full of apartments, condos, etc. Anywhere that they can set up one switch closet for dozens of customers.

They were purchased by Google recently. I had hoped this would mean expansion into residential business, but not yet.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[drinkypoo]

But really, nothing under 50Mb today should be considered broadband.

It should be illegal to advertise anything under whatever number, 50Mbps is fine but 25 Mbps is ok, as "fast" or "high speed". Restricting the term "broadband" is stupid.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Rakarra]

Yes, how dare a city have a HEALTH department which enforces standards for serving food and apply that to everyone fair and square.

Yeah, maybe that should be out of the purview of that health department.

If the end result is that people feeding each other without authorization is criminalized, then something has gone horribly wrong along the way and needs to be scrapped.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Rakarra]

2) Two words: Flint, Michigan.

Oh, well, if one city screwed it up (and it's a vigorous debate who is at fault here), then the whole system across the board is screwed.

No system is going to be 100% perfect in every municipality. The question is will we have reasonable expectations of high-quality service?

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Rakarra]

No, ignorance is not truth and freedom is not slavery. This isn't 1984, and my city government is not Big Brother.

Don't you understand?? Government is BAD. It's BAD BAD BAD BAD. Didn't they teach you this in your Objectivism course? If there's a solution that involves government, it has to be bad, no matter what the actual outcomes. If Comcast is the private-sector solution, well then it's the better solution, because government is bad. Think how much worse things would be in the rest of the country if people had more choice than the regional telco/cable duopolies! I shudder to think of the horrors that would unleash! People would be able to choose their own private-sector ISPs, even, which might be good, except it's choice mandated by the government which is always bad, so this choice is bad too.

People governing their own affairs are good. Except when they decide to combat a national ISP which wants to impose its outside rules on a region, that's bad. An outside entity imposing rules that residents don't like is bad, except when a big business is involved, in which case it's somehow good. But that sets up monopoly, which is bad! Except if it's a telco/cable monopoly, which is good! Oh fuck it. Fine, I'll just go TOTAL cognitive dissonance and say there ARE no regional monopoly/duopolies, a position no sane conservative or liberal believes in, not to mention anyone outside of Slashdot or the John Birch Society. That should do it.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Rakarra]

This won't change as long as the voters stop paying attention and instead instinctively vote only for those of the correct red vs blue teams.

The voters elect people who they think they agree with generally, because legislators are generalists, they vote on every topic, not just an area of expertise.

As such, they usually vote on what someone's positions on affordable housing, public transportation, jobs, taxes are. The "will you open up broadband access to city municipalities" is pretty far down on most peoples' priority list. And any candidate who runs on that issue is rarely credible -- they'd be seen as a niche candidate for a job position that absolutely requires a generalist.

Re:Hey, cable companies:

[Coren22]

https://www.google.com/search?...

Perhaps what people object to is the US government running healthcare. They have proven that they can't do it well, but I guess you don't care.

Well...

[Frightened_Turtle]

...Strike Virginia off my list of potential places to live. :/

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Strike anywhere except my mom's basement off my list of potential places to live. :/

fixed that for you

Re:Well...

[DaMattster]

As I've been told by Virginians themselves, "In the Commonwealth of Virginia, there ain't nothing common wealth about it. You're either poor or got too much money to play with."

Re:Well...

[Fire_Wraith]

First, this isn't a law yet. The Republicans have a majority in the statehouse, but the governor is a Democrat (though I haven't seen any word on how he intends to respond). That said, there's already a law on the books restricting Municipal broadband. Most of the built-up suburbs have at least two options between FiOS and Cable (mostly Comcast, but Cox has a few counties including Fairfax, the biggest DC suburban one). Currently the only part that has municipal broadband is Bristol, in the southwestern part of the state on the Tennessee border, where they have full FTTP. Unfortunately, it's not exactly a large city (population ~17k).

Overall the state isn't a bad place to live, though it has its crazy quirks, and some parts of it are very different from others. Most of the tech jobs are up near or in DC, and relate to the Federal Government in some way. The DC suburbs are pricy and traffic sucks (though not as bad as the Bay Area still). The weather usually isn't too bad, though people have no clue how to drive in snow. The food is pretty good, and you're well positioned between both the Northern and Southern regions of the country.

Re:Well...

[ShanghaiBill]

You're either poor or got too much money to play with."

The poor folks are mostly in southern or western Virginia, where they have lived for generations. The rich folks are mostly Yankee immigrant lawyers and politicians living around the beltway. There are now enough northern immigrants that Virginia has gone blue in the last three presidential elections.

Re:Well...

[Scutter]

Ok, I've made a note in your permanent file.

Re:Well...

[pezpunk]

we aren't immigrants. we're merely educated. i've lived in Northern Virginia all my life.

Re:Well...

[The-Ixian]

It was on your list?

Be honest now. You didn't really have a list, did you?

Re:Well...

[ShanghaiBill]

i've lived in Northern Virginia all my life.

Do you know how to make cornpone? Do you eat biscuits with gravy? Have you ever BBQed a road killed possum?

Re:Well...

[Lodragandraoidh]

That description would cover every state from Texas east to the Atlantic Ocean, and North to the Virgina - with a few Midwest states thrown in for good measure.

Re: Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I carpetbagged all the way from Bethesda to Arlington.

We in NoVA get educated and rich so we can afford to marry the high-class women and men around here. We can't help becoming democrats in the process because of that education.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

i've lived in Northern Virginia all my life.

Do you know how to make cornpone? Do you eat biscuits with gravy? Have you ever BBQed a road killed possum?

yes, yes, and no one BBQ's possum. reminder: grilling is not BBQ

More of that small, local govt freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just more of that Republican love of smaller, more local government at work. Smell the FREEDOM!

Notice a funny thing about these Republican bills: their content is usually the OPPOSITE of the bill's name. This is because when you summarize it, it never sounds like sonething you would want to pass. At least if you are an ordinary citizen, that is, and not some megacorp or rich person.

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[Captain Splendid]

To be fair, letting corporations run everything is technically "smaller government". Republicans might be stupid, but they are consistent.

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the Marsha Blackburn model. After Chattanooga's electric utility successfully deployed gigabit municipal fiber, the telcos sent Marsha wheelbarrows full of money and she passed them a nice law making such things illegal. There's no hope in Tennessee for any further municipal internet (or any non-monopoly-incumbent internet, at all).

Now she's on Team Trump, so expect her tactics to go nationwide.

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

Consistently retarded.

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[Kenja]

It's weird that they have to keep passing laws and increase the size of enforcement agencies in the pursuit of smaller government.

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[no-body]

To be fair, letting corporations run everything is technically "smaller government". Republicans might be stupid, but they are consistent.

It's not!

There is a huge difference between Corporations and local governments.
Who are both responsible to? Shareholders somewhere or people actually you know from local City Council meetings.
What is their underlying objective? Increase return of investment to shareholders or run a municipality most efficient serving the people living there.

You can see how municipalities are fought for their independence by state governments occupied by people dependent on campaign contributions when municipalities trying to become independent from Corporations in electrical, zoning (fracking) and now internet. There are actual cases where a state government sues municipalities in those instances.

Looking how this works can be clearly seen how senators vote against normal people so they can be bilked by Corporations in drug sales:
http://www.senate.gov/legislat...

They are busy returning favors for funds received and their voters behaving just right lulled and sleeping soundly watching TV ....

You really need to open your eyes and use your grey matter for a change.

Donald Rumpelstiltskin has no clue and is probably only concerned about covering his dick's history, trying to make things "great" again.

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

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[Darinbob]

What they really mean is that they want a smaller government if run by their opposing party, but a larger government if their party is in charge. It's the only way to ensure that you prevent the people from doing things your party disapproves of and that you're allowed to keep doing what the other party disapproves of.

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[Darinbob]

Trump has sort of given up on the Democrat vs Republican model. He's a none-of-the-above because he doesn't adopt the ideals or platforms of either party. He only seems Republican because that's the party he's currently groping. The republicans are merely holding their noses long enough to get their wish lists approved.

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[partiallynothing]

And to see how intersectional bullshit actually works, look at the pissing contest for the Million Women March that's all about radical black feminists demanding that other radical feminists first "check their privilege" - in other words, submit to oppression by blacks.

You, sir, are a fucking moron. "Submit to oppression by blacks," huh? Go fuck yourself for twisting the Million Woman March into a white-vs-black game. Just STFU.

Re:More of that small, local govt freedom

[Rakarra]

then increase the minimum wage to price uneducated workers out of the job market

Except that we've usually seen the opposite from the Minimum Wage.

Grow some balls and see just how much money teacher's unions give to Democrats - and ONLY Democrats

Yeah, when the other side's honest, open, stated goal is to put you out of business, yeah, you're probably not going to freely give them bundles of cash.

Uh huh...

[Desler]

"Small government!" "Local control!"

Smells Like

[DaMattster]

More entitlements given to the wealthy. Looks like Virginia is going to practice more wealthcare.

Republican lawmaker Kathy Byron

[linuxguy]

Does it surprise anyone that it is a Republican? I know, Dems can be bought too, but it appears that Republicans have a fire sale going on.

Re:Republican lawmaker Kathy Byron

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republican Party is the party of the Devil, not the party of God.

Re:Republican lawmaker Kathy Byron

[Darinbob]

The $X Party is the party of the Devil, not the party of God.

Creatively named legislation

[fiannaFailMan]

Didn't GW Bush sign a "clear skies" act that defended the freedom of companies to pollute?

Re:Creatively named legislation

[Avarist]

Or the "Patriot Act"

Crony Capitalism

[l0ungeb0y]

Just another case of Gov't providing Corporate Protectionism at the expense of the People Anyone that still thinks that "People" are the Citizens Gov't serves are either delusional or hopelessly naive The real Citizens of the US are the Corporate Personhood and the Wealthy Elite

Re:Crony Capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is exactly as it should be. How would you little people be able to function without the Elite telling you what to do, when to do it and how to do it all the time? We finally had the chance to build a unified world, one where wars would be pointless, one where borders would be a relic of the past, where nations would be erased. And what do you ungrateful smelly deplorable lowlifes do? You vote for Brexit. You undermine the EU. You elect Trump. Decades of patient progressive work for naught. A shame the Elite can't bring out tanks - yet - to put you back in your place.

Results

[DaMattster]

I think this may spur on people to do it themselves on a smaller scale. In parts of rural UK, this is already happening. A group of people got together and decided to hell with muni or corporate, they're going to do it themselves.

Re:Results

[DogDude]

That's a great idea, but eventually, somebody has to get paid for an Internet connection, whether the last mile is handled by an ISP or a group of individuals. I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans pass laws to make it illegal to do what you're describing, in which case no ISP would sell a group of people bandwidth to be sub-divided.

Re:Results

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he's talking about peerage. Anybody can set up a network using the Internet Protocols suite; but if you don't peer with the other networks then you have no Google, no Youtube, none of the services that are on "the" Internet. There's nothing to stop those services from connecting to your network; but they aren't going to do that if you're just a few dozen nodes.

Re:Results

[Obfuscant]

whether the last mile is handled by an ISP or a group of individuals.

A group of people banding together to become an ISP _IS_ an ISP. And the law in question here doesn't stop that.

in which case no ISP would sell a group of people bandwidth to be sub-divided.

Upstream providers would be HAPPY to sell service to anyone they can. It's money in their pocket. Why wouldn't they? It won't be illegal for people to form an new ISP to take advantage of an underserved customer base. What other excuse would there be to not sell to them?

So which ISP

[Kernel Kurtz]

owns Kathy Byron?

Or do they share..

Re:So which ISP

[Motherfucking Shit]

It looks like her primary master is Verizon.

Re:So which ISP

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like pretty much all the major ISPs are represented in the list though.

Only a problem when they block better (G fiber)

[raymorris]

I think this state law goes a bit overboard. That I can think of, municipal fiber is only a problem in two types of cases. Sometimes, city council just isn't very good at running an ISP - they are mostly car dealers, real estate agents, and insurance agents, not networking experts. So they waste taxpayer money with their toy ISP. The local voters can probably handle that most of the time.

Many of us probably recall Google announced they'd build out Google fiber only in cities where the local government didn't get in the way too much, dragging out permit processes for years, demanding kickbacks, etc. That reminds us that cities can and sometimes do make it very difficult, time consuming, and expensive for ISPs to offer improved services. Suppose you're councilman Jones. Two years ago, you proposed spending $50 million of taxpayer money building Muninet, run by the city. You get Muninet operational, a bit over budget, but it's providing 25 Mbps for $35. You and the rest of the city council aren't experienced at running an ISP, so sometimes there are glitches, but it should recover the $50 million investment over the next 12 years. You've taken some heat from the local newspaper for increasing taxes to pay for mediocre service, but you'll probably manage to get re-elected - you can spin it as a reasonably successful project, in it's first two years.

Now Google comes knocking, wanting to offer gigabit for $70. That makes your Muninet 25 Mbps look like utter shit. If Google is allowed to offer gigabit, nobody will pay for Muninet service anymore and your record will show taxpayers (voters) were left holding the bag for the $50 million construction cost. Are you going to approve Google fiber ( the death of Muninet) or are you going to do everything you can to keep gigabit at bay, protecting your Muninet project?

When the politicians who are responsible regulating / approving services are also running a competing service, they have a conflict of interest. That does need to be addressed somehow, but I don't think it means tax payer ISPs need to be banned.

Re:Only a problem when they block better (G fiber)

[Anonymous Coward]

Google Fiber is dead, zed. They pulled the ripcord on that thing a few months back.

Re:Only a problem when they block better (G fiber)

[Anonymous Coward]

use that brain of yours to figure out that it can happen with any other company

Re:Only a problem when they block better (G fiber)

[drinkypoo]

When the politicians who are responsible regulating / approving services are also running a competing service, they have a conflict of interest. That does need to be addressed somehow, but I don't think it means tax payer ISPs need to be banned.

I don't know about that. I think maybe it does. I think that governments that want to enable these projects need to take viability into account. What technology is muninet using? If it's using wireless, then it would have better been enabled by simply letting someone else do it. Make it easy for technically proficient residents to run a WISP and they'll do it themselves. If it's using fiber, then they should have pulled fiber useful to people like Google, who can then use their fiber. If it's copper, that was dumb. Force telcos to expand their networks like they promised, by refusing to issue them any permits for anything else until they do so. Let them handle the copper. Or, force cable companies (the other purveyors of oversold copper) to do the same, through the same means. But really, the telcos should have to solve the last mile problem, since we already paid them to do so.

Re:Only a problem when they block better (G fiber)

[amicusNYCL]

It sounds like you should get kicked in the taint for rolling out a new network in the age of fiber but deciding to run with Cat-5 because you got a great deal on spools. Just because the network is publicly-funded doesn't also mean that all of the expertise needs to come from the community. Part of that public funding is hiring a designer who knows what they're doing.

Re:Only a problem when they block better (G fiber)

[Anonymous Coward]

All that raymorris said makes sense, but for every case of that (if it's ever happened), there's dozens of small towns that have little to no service from any ISP, or at most one thanks to the lone ISP refusing to provide service without an exclusive franchise agreement.

This law mandates that small towns will never have anything more than crap for their connection and never have any competition.

Also, Google's problem isn't with municipal ISP's. Their problem is that the local provider, Comcast, AT&T, etc make it a nightmare for any other ISPs to do installations (to protect their franchise). They've done things like require the competitor to request hookup rights to each individual pole separately, and then process the orders sequentially.

I think this one can be tough to decide.....

[King_TJ]

The bottom line is - we all want more fast, inexpensive broadband options. So when you live in a city that doesn't really have them, you jump at the first opportunity that comes along. Sometimes, that's going to be your local government proposing a roll-out of a city-wide system.

If it seems like a law is trying to block that from happening, your first reaction is to protest that law!

But like someone else on here pointed out? Municipal Internet doesn't always have the best long-term track record. It's likely funded with grants, donations and whatever else could be scraped together to do the initial build-out, and then it's all about keeping as many captive customers as possible to justify those initial costs.

If better, faster broadband alternatives pop up, your local government may not be too receptive to allowing them in, as they know that would effectively ruin their own project.

There are certainly some success stories out there, as well, though.

I guess I lean towards disliking legislation that tells your local govt. it CAN'T do such a thing. If the local residents vote for it and a plan is approved by the local city hall, I think that should be respected. But it would be wise of local voters to be aware of the potential pitfalls and to voice their opinion that a city-wide broadband project is a "non starter" if it doesn't provide really good speeds.

Re:I think this one can be tough to decide.....

[Anonymous Coward]

So, do you have any examples of where these horrendously run local co-ops were big meanies making the internet upgrade faerie of Comcast too sad to offer services?

Re:I think this one can be tough to decide.....

[oh_my_080980980]

As opposed to Verizon stopping their roll out of fiber.....

Re:I think this one can be tough to decide.....

[Darinbob]

And yet what if there's no choice? So many parts of the world have great inexpensive internet, but in America we're told that it's too expensive to roll out service if you're unlucky enough to live where you do, or the costs are extremely high for rather mediocre service, and in order to keep those prices down to an almost affordable level they had to fire all the customer service people who know what they were doing. Seriously, if former republics of the Soviet Union can have faster and cheaper internet doesn't that say something bad about America? Why aren't the voters embarrassed by this?

Who's in Your Wallet?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone was thinking it...

DSL isn't that fast

[Anonymous Coward]

In the middle of a town of 200K people, my DSL was running between 900K and 1200K down, and 300K up.

Admittedly we have bad copper. Admittedly I was on the tail end of that wire. But still, 10Mbps is lofty for 90% of people on a DSL, when signal strength deteriorates quickly with distance. Now would ATT say you had 10M to charge your for it and count you as one of its many satisfied customers? Of course, but you wouldn't have it.

Potential solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't the municipalities provide tax cuts to local citizens who contribute to their own privately owned broadband company?
This way someone can just start a "company" which is paid for using donations from citizens, and those citizens incidentally get tax cuts.

What - a corrupt Republican? Say it isn't so!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? How is this surprising in any way? Republicans shilling for corporate donors. Noooo! Unheard of!

Of course, both parties are crooks, but they do tend to have different donors/owners. The Republitards are owned by the corporate world, while the Demodiots belong to union labour and enviro-fascists.

It's all about Value

[RumGunner]

If our corporate overlords can't make any money from something, it has a value of zero to the people in charge of those kinds of decisions.

Re: Only a problem when they block better (G fiber

[Anonymous Coward]

Except no such thing is happening, raymorris, as many of the municipal ISPs, such as say, EPBFI are offering gig-level service for the same price that Google Fiber was.

The only people having problems are Comcast, AT&T, Cox, Verizon, who want to rip people off. It is their purpose in life.

Geee...

[MitchDev]

And this doesn't scream "Bought and paid for by Cable Companies".....

EPB costs five times as much as Google fiber

[raymorris]

> EPBFI are offering gig-level service for the same price that Google Fiber was.

EPB costs five times as much as Google fiber, and you're forced to pay most of that cost whether you want the service or not. Most of the cost of EPB is funded by federal tax dollars - residents of California being forced to pay the bill for Chattanooga's internet service. The next largest source of funding is from residents' electric bills. Again, you pay for it whether you want the internet service or not. About 20% of the cost is covered by the $70 / month that internet customers pay.

In total, the cost is $350 / month per customer - five times as much as Google fiber, and people who don't even get the service still have to pay for it.

Re:EPB costs five times as much as Google fiber

[Anonymous Coward]

EPB costs five times as much as Google fiber, and you're forced to pay most of that cost whether you want the service or not.

It seems you're talking about EPB, not EPBFI. The electric portion is indeed much more expensive than Google Fiber, though the raw KWH rate is within the norms for the country, but yes, electric service costs more than internet service in most places.

This is not news. People use electricity, and it's rarely free.

Most of the cost of EPB is funded by federal tax dollars - residents of California being forced to pay the bill for Chattanooga's internet service.

Nope. You can read their financial statements right there.

You may be thinking of the 100 million or so grant that EPB got for its Smart Grid, but that was only a portion of the Federal Stimulus dollars, so why shouldn't any of the people in Tennessee get some? They too pay their taxes. The government exists to serve them too.

The next largest source of funding is from residents' electric bills.

You mean an electric company gets funding from electric bills? My word, what a shock. What a shock.

Of course, as their financial reports show, they're still operating their fiber service profitably on its own. Sorry.

Again, you pay for it whether you want the internet service or not. About 20% of the cost is covered by the $70 / month that internet customers pay.

In total, the cost is $350 / month per customer - five times as much as Google fiber, and people who don't even get the service still have to pay for it.

Nope. You're just making up numbers and assertions with no actual basis in reality, meanwhile, I have actual audited financial statements.

Oh but wait, you've been caught lying about EPBFI before, haven't you?

Yes, I still remember you claiming that EPBFI had only about 300 customers total, when in reality they had tens of thousands, because wait for it, wait for it, you were deliberately trying to deceive, weren't you?

Re:EPB costs five times as much as Google fiber

[Anonymous Coward]

Source? Or did you pull those numbers out of thin air.

WTF?

[oh_my_080980980]

"“I just think government needs to be very cautious about investing taxpayer dollars in these networks that they not only have to be able to manage, but they also have to maintain them,” Byron told The Roanoke Times. "Maintaining this type of stuff is much better done by private business.”" http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...

Really cock sucking whore. Do you have proof to support this assertion that does not come with wheel barrels full of cash....

Re:WTF?

[hyades1]

"Really cock sucking whore. Do you have proof to support this assertion that does not come with wheel barrels full of cash....

Cocksucking whores across all of America join in demanding an apology from you for comparing them to a conscienceless bottom feeder like Kathy Byron. Spokes-slut Anya Neeze says that when the lipstick hits the love muscle, at least she and her colleagues provide something of value to average guys. The only things Byron sucks hang small, limp and useless from the crotches of rich old men with too much money, too much power and too much regret that they never came out of the closet when they were still spry enough to chase down a congressional page.

Re:WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maintaining this type of stuff is much better done by private business

Of course, when her political opponents suggest maintenance of the government built infrastructure, she will oppose them vehemently. That is all beside the point anyway because a private party will deal with the management and maintenance of a municipal network. Republicans like their Red Herrings.

How do the sponsors justify themselves?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do these people justify themselves to their citizens? This is like arguing that government should be prevented from building/maintaining roads. Perhaps you can justify a law making it illegal for municipalities to force citizens to use their services but preventing them from setting up a service to begin with? Imagine where we would be with if this had been the mentality when the electric grid was going up, half the country would probably still be using outhouses and candles.

Re:How do the sponsors justify themselves?

[Darinbob]

They don't have to. They got elected in the first place. Now all the pretense of being a nice person can be shed. With all the wheelbarrows of money you get from corporations telling you how to vote you can easily put out all that bad press you want about opponents in upcoming re-election campaigns. Many politicians go quickly into being widely hated in their districts and yet somehow manage to keep staying in office. Othertimes their district is loved by the voters who only care about one issue, and dont really care that the politician is hurting different districts.

Internet isn't water.

[Anonymous Coward]

No religious zealot is going to manage to pass a law that leads to your arrest if you like to shove your water up your arse.

Re:Internet isn't water.

[Applehu Akbar]

And if your water supply is not broadband enough to support bluegrass, you can always resort to drip irrigation.

The real purpose

[Anonymous Coward]

... providing grants or subsidies to a private ISP ...

How does one prove that a group of local businessmen can do better than a nation-wide telco? Thus we find the real purpose of the bill. This is privatizing an essential service at any cost. It's had decreasing benefit on the phone system and the state wants to repeat that mistake with new technology.

Re:The real purpose

[Darinbob]

Shouldn't it be enough to prove tha tthe nation-wide telco is doing a very horrible job? Or that the nation-wide telco can't provide internet as fast or cheap as in foreign countries?

Guess whose reelection war chests are now full?

[Mysticalfruit]

Clearly the cable companies don't like competing against hyper local internet providers who cater to their customers... Since they can't compete, they're next tactic is to simply make it illegal. How do they do this?

Thanks to bullshit like citizens united I can only speculate that the cable companies went door to door acting as citizens making large contributions to law makers who saw the world as they do.

Dishonest title

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's up with the trend to title bills with attractive names of what they're opposing?

Broadband Deployment = no broadband deployment.
Right to work laws = the right for a company to fire you.
Three dinosaur group = commercial abuse of a local dinosaur site. ...and many more misleading bills, acts, laws. Who do they think they are tricking?!?

Re:Dishonest title

[Avarist]

It's a third world country tactic. Just like the name of any third world country is the exact opposite of what it is, like the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".

Muni Fiber doesn't mean Muni ISP

[swb]

Municipal fiber shouldn't mean "municipal ISP".

IMHO, the municipality should charter a municipal corporation and use the municipality's bonding authority to fund the network buildout. Obviously the relevant experts should be hired from the utility and telecoms environment so that it's built to whatever the current standard is in such a network, with an eye towards long-term viability and maximum flexibility.

Once built, the fiber network is only that -- a fiber network. Part of the network buildout should include a data center, where network operators who want to offer services on the network may colocate their equipment and buy into the network. These will be the ISP(s) that you choose your services from. It should be wide open, so that anyone who wants to become an ISP of some kind can rent access at the data center and offer services.

The municipality has statutory authority and ownership of the fiber corporation, but doesn't "run it" -- The Municipal Fiber Corporation should have its own management that knows how to run the network, and operates it on a non-profit basis, charging connected users and network operators/ISPs whatever amount is necessary to maintain the physical plant. This also keeps the city council, police department and other nosy political entities out of the network as well -- it shouldn't be a city department.

The MFC doesn't and isn't allowed to offer services on the network -- that keeps it from competing with private businesses. Schools and other government entities can use their own budgetary dollars to buy into the network as ISPs at some government rate, but not for free.

This way you end up with a professional managed network, run as a non-profit, but offering for-profit business access to a huge subscriber base on a state of the art infrastructure that they pay to access, but don't own.

New Zealand

[Anonymous Coward]

In NZ, the government decided the network needed to be modernised.

So, the local company that owned the existing copper was given the choice "Split, becomes a telecoms company and a separate infrastructure company" and we will allow you to bid on the fibre install.
So we ended up with the solution.
The government has bankrolled in conjunction with the infrastructure company to put fibre or high speed wireless to 90% of homes and businesses. That infrastructure is then leased on a per subscriber basis to any ISP on exactly the same T&C. So I can be at one end of the country and my ISP at the other. So I have access to about 20 different ISPs who offer variances on services.
The income earned is split between the infrastructure company who runs/manages the network and the government.
The government also gets increased tax $ though increased economic activity.

So, we the people get high speed internet, private businesses can be ISPs, the government has a panel that sets the wholesale rates per subscriber, we get cheap reliable internet and everyone is happy. So for a 100/20 unlimited data (no caps, no traffic shaping, no port/service blocking) I can get it for NZ$95/month (US$67.70) including all taxes etc etc etc. And the whole country will be connected by 2022, not just the large cities, but small towns too.

Occasionally the governments realise they actually work FOR the benefit of the people. Mind you businesses are NOT people in NZ.

1984 NewSpeak

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to 1984 where "We have always been at war with EastAsia" and "War is Peace", "Ignorance is Knowledge" and "Freedom is Slavery".

Re:1984 NewSpeak

[Darinbob]

"Dialup is Broadband".

Both can be problems

[raymorris]

> Also, Google's problem isn't with municipal ISP's. Their problem is that the local provider, Comcast, AT&T, etc

I have no doubt that some ISPs have tried to slow Google fiber down however they could. Also, we know that Google announced at the outset that they wouldn't even consider b deploying in a city until the city itself promised not to be a major pain in the butt. They didn't insist on that because of their imagination. City administrations HAVE derailed deployments, sometimes but not always while receiving donations or legal kickbacks from incumbent providers. Often, the city's franchise agreement with the incumbent is that the incumbent ISP (Comcast) pays the city 3% of all revenue. So the more subscribers Comcast has, the more money city council gets to spend on Councilman Jones Parkway. Having competition come in, from Google or elsewhere, directly reduces the budget for the council members' pet projects.

Re:Both can be problems

[Anonymous Coward]

City administrations HAVE derailed deployments, sometimes but not always while receiving donations or legal kickbacks from incumbent providers.

Names. Places. Dates.

Re:Both can be problems

[Anonymous Coward]

City administrations HAVE derailed deployments, sometimes but not always while receiving donations or legal kickbacks from incumbent providers.

Names. Places. Dates.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160314/09374733901/isps-are-blocking-google-fibers-access-to-utility-poles-california.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160204/05121433515/states-wake-up-realize-att-lobbyists-have-been-writing-awful-protectionist-state-broadband-laws.shtml

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/07/frontier-teams-with-att-to-block-google-fiber-access-to-utility-poles/

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ISPs-Also-Blocking-Google-Fiber-Pole-Access-in-California-136481

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140424/06185027014/verizon-knows-youre-sucker-takes-taxpayer-subsidies-broadband-doesnt-deliver-lobbies-to-drop-requirements.shtml

Re:Both can be problems

[Anonymous Coward]

So no examples of a municipal owned ISP involved? I see Frontier, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, Comcast, and some of your examples aren't even City Administrations.

They're also redundant, one of your links is just a copy of the same material.

But so far, you've only shown that it's apparent that Raymorris's hysteria over municipal ISPs is made up.

VCTA

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, you fucking pricks

How About ?

[JimSadler]

Why not allow every municipality to offer the service for a fee and also allow private companies to offer their services. It is absurd that any cable company be allowed an exclusive territory. Make them compete like everybody else. That exclusive nonsense is nothing more than corporate welfare.

If you ignore the cost to build the network

[raymorris]

Last year's financial statement, which you so helpfully linked to, shows that their subscriber revenue approximately covers the cost of customer service and other expenses they had last year while using the network that taxpayers spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

When you invest in infrastructure, a key number is how long it takes to recover your investment. If you spend $350 million building a network and it generates gross profit of $70 million / year, the recovery period is five years - it takes five years to get your money back. Keep in mind you'll need to replace much of that network as technology advances, and you better recover your costs of the network before have to start replacing parts of it.

What is the cost recovery time for EPBFI? Five years? Ten? Try 300 years! At least 50 times worse than any operating private company.

> that was only a portion of the Federal Stimulus dollars, so why shouldn't any of the people in Tennessee get some? They too pay their taxes.

For all I care, go ahead and pay an extra $230/month taxes and $50/month on your "electric" bill to subsidize an inefficient ISP, but don't then lie and say it costs $70/month. It costs $230/month plus $50/month plus $70/month = $350/month.

Re:If you ignore the cost to build the network

[Anonymous Coward]

Last year's financial statement, which you so helpfully linked to, shows that their subscriber revenue approximately covers the cost of customer service and other expenses they had last year while using the network that taxpayers spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

You mean contrary to your false accusations, they are fiscally solvent and not dependent on your purported "Most of the cost of EPB is funded by federal tax dollars - residents of California being forced to pay the bill for Chattanooga's internet service." which you said just a post ago? Very quick of you. That's not a new record though, some people can contradict themselves in a single sentence.

PS, expenses include retiring the debt to pay for the infrastructure investment. Suspect you knew that, but thought you could obfuscate it.

If you didn't, then you're just dumb. But that was kinda obvious when you were lying about the number of customers they had.

When you invest in infrastructure, a key number is how long it takes to recover your investment. If you spend $350 million building a network and it generates gross profit of $70 million / year, the recovery period is five years - it takes five years to get your money back. Keep in mind you'll need to replace much of that network as technology advances, and you better recover your costs of the network before have to start replacing parts of it.

What is the cost recovery time for EPBFI? Five years? Ten? Try 300 years! At least 50 times worse than any operating private company.

And here we have Ray Morris babbling a bunch of numbers with no sources or foundation, unlike say, actual analysis.

Huh. Is that also why you made up accusations about municipal governments stopping ISPs, when instead, it's private ISPs doing just that to a municipal ISP?

For all I care, go ahead and pay an extra $230/month taxes and $50/month on your "electric" bill to subsidize an inefficient ISP, but don't then lie and say it costs $70/month. It costs $230/month plus $50/month plus $70/month = $350/month.

Tell you what raymorris, if that is your real name, you stop lying about the number of customers EBPFI has. See, I still haven't forgotten that. You can also stop making up numbers, like these, and those above, and instead, stick to the truth.

Really, you might as well be belaboring us about a Zombie Apocalypse for all the basis in reality your nonsense has.

Free Enterprise!

[Anonymous Coward]

Slave people!

Comcast wrote Sheri Weiner's Nashville bill

[raymorris]

You can of course Google for yourself if you'd like to see a dozen examples, but here's one to get you started. Nashville council member Sheri Weiner admits the anti-Google fiber council proposal she sponsored was written by AT&T and Comcast.

Re: Comcast wrote Sheri Weiner's Nashville bill

[Anonymous Coward]

You can of course Google for yourself if you'd like to see a dozen examples, but here's one to get you started. Nashville council member Sheri Weiner admits the anti-Google fiber council proposal she sponsored was written by AT&T and Comcast.

Oh, so the example you're offering is that it's AT&T and Comcast, namely a pair of for-profit, non-municipally owned companies, that are to blame and this alleged Sheri Weiner, was working at their catspaw, and one in that there is no municipal ISP involvement at all?

Well, good thing they didn't prevail then.

At least, in Nashville's city council. They are still suing in court.

And probably lobbying in the state legislature.

And why did Google suddenly back off on their fiber plans.

Hmm.

Republicans at work.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shocking.

Environmental Protection

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republicans approach is clearly inspired by the environmental impact analysis processes by the EPA and others. Instead of natural environment, these representatives want to protect the business environment. Too bad they don't generally do it to protect a diverse business environment but support homoculture if it is cultivated by a private party.

Re:Crony Capitalism...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and that government of the Persons, by the Persons, for the Persons, shall not perish from the earth.

  Corporations are (legal) Persons...

Good. Internet access is not a 'human right',

[Anonymous Coward]

nor is it the duty of the municipality to provide to the people. Give food and shelter to the needy, not internet access.

I don't understand

[CanadianMacFan]

It's strange to see all the posts on here in favour of municipal governments acting as ISPs. First of all it's not very often that government has shown itself to be more efficient than the private sector.

But what I really find hard to understand, and I'm not trying to troll, is that the government being ISP is a good thing while it being a medical provider, or paying for medical services, is a bad thing. Even threaten to mention a single payer medical system and the cries of socialism ring out. Having a healthy population is more important than the government providing Internet access.

The US could move to a single payer system with the government being a single insurer and the healthcare providers remaining private. This would allow people to see anyone they wished to instead of who was with their insurance. Costs would go down because paperwork would be reduced and because a single payer could get larger volume discounts. And if people wanted to pay more to get faster/better service they still would be able to.

As for the ISP problem just force the big companies to open up their data centres like what has happened in Canada. You don't need to have the government run yet another set of cables in the ground. And get rid of rules that prevent another company from putting in cables/fibre if another company already has some there. But the new company, and the old, would still have to open up their centres to other ISPs. You don't want to have to require every ISP to install cables or fibre to every building. And there is no reason that the government needs to own the last mile.

This is SHOCKING!!

[vannoble]

According to followthemoney.org Verizon is her second largest donor, right behind the VA GOP. Big Red has given her $31,500. Other top donors are VA Cable Telecommunications Association ( $14,250) and AOL Time Warner ($11,500). That's a lot for state House representative. Still don't understand the difference between "donations" like this and bribery.

Shooting off your cocksucker again troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't shoot my mouth off without knowing what I'm talking about" - by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Thursday December 31, 2015 @09:29AM (#51215379)

I catch you shooting your mouth off fucking up constantly: 2 raymorris security fuckups https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47379233/ & https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47374033/ + raymorris = script kiddie https://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8895203&cid=51726265/

&

Tell us how ONLY 'newer script kiddie tools' have stringlength built in (when PASCAL had it for ages - my fav tool) https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8472509&cid=51114383/ YOU BLUNDERING WANNABE!

APK

P.S.=> You like to talk behind others' backs like the gossiping bitch TROLL you are raymorris https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9880997&cid=53312265/ well, here I am letting YOU TALK in those links, showing your FAILS wannabe ... apk

10 down and 1 up?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is bullshit and lame. When did private companies get preference over municipal authorities. The corrupt lawmakers are getting paid off to put this through - I hope it is challenged as unconstitutional (I don't know which part of the Constitution this applies, I'm sure it does somewhere). It's hardly a law that represents "by the people for the people", surely.

Come live in NZ everyone - I get 100 down and 30 up, unlimited data, $95 per month, and extra $30 a month gets me 200/100, $199 a months gets gigabit.

re: FiOS

[King_TJ]

Actually, FiOS might be a good example of what I was referring to in my original post.

In the city I live in, FiOS started to be very cautiously deployed in a very limited manner -- but was essentially killed off before it got any momentum, because local city government declared it couldn't sell television services here. (They already signed an exclusive deal for Comcast to get all the TV distribution rights for our city for 10 years when they first came in.)

Verizon sold a few (like literally 3 or 4) FiOS installations in town that only had VoIP telephone and Internet, but no TV portion enabled. But to get it, you had to pay the same price as you'd pay for the "triple play" bundle they normally sold. So not that competitive against Comcast.

I can't say if the same has actually happened in a city where they have municipal Internet broadband, but it shows how local government can and does do things to block progress for competing services.