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Americans Support Letting Cities Build Their Own Broadband Networks, Pew Finds (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Most Americans want to let local governments build out internet service if the internet providers in their area aren't any good, according to the Pew Research Center. In a phone survey of over 4,000 people last month, Pew found that 70 percent of respondents agreed that local governments should have the power to start their own high-speed networks if current offerings are "too expensive or not good enough." The results show an overwhelming support for municipal broadband -- networks that are at least somewhat run by local governments -- at a time when encouraging broadband buildout is a top federal priority. But despite the support, in much of the US, building out municipal networks just isn't possible. More than 20 states have passed laws banning local governments from starting their own broadband service, largely at the behest of internet providers that want to avoid competition at all cost. Though Pew's survey found some positive results for municipal broadband, it found less support for broadband subsidies for low-income homes. Under half of all Americans, 44 percent, said they supported subsidies, while nearly everyone else surveyed said they felt internet service "is affordable enough" that most households should be able to pay for it. (At the same time, nearly half of all people surveyed said they didn't know what speed of internet they received.)
My dream: local governments (or the local power company) run the "last mile" passive fiber to every home. Then any company can apply to come in and start hooking up at the switch boxes. This means new offerings like Google Fiber could hook up quickly, and the old guard can still provide competitive service if they choose to (also dragging them into a fiber-first model). No need to fret over who gets connected at the house level, because you have public oversight at that level, and not having to do the last-mile means there's less incentive to hook up only the rich neighborhoods, because all of them can be done fairly efficiently once you have backhaul. This design also keeps the government from trying to be an ISP, which they aren't really equipped for -- instead they maintain the street-level infrastructure, something they do a lot of already.
Before telecom deregulation I had a small ISP over Verizon's copper, and (for the time) it was great. The ISP of course got killed off as soon as Verizon was allowed to stop sharing the lines. A decade of stagnation followed. I'd love to see the smallest changes on the public side to make private competition viable, and a municipally owned last mile makes a lot of sense.
These posts are always about individuals and families, but fail to mention small businesses. I live in Boulder, CO, and a lot of new small and medium businesses are opting to move ten miles North to Longmont because they have municipal fiber. (It's certainly cheaper to live or operate a business in Longmont, but many have pointed to the availability of high-speed synchronous fiber as the driving factor.)
Being wary of the government is a hallmark of republicans. I think that tends to materialize as being very susceptible to propaganda from business. It was the same for health care, before Obama was elected, Americans seemed to generally like the idea of single payer healthcare depending on how you phrased it. That support evaporated overnight when it started to look like a remote possibility. A the mention of "death panels" a good number of people were suddenly ready to die to protect insurance companies from the evil government.
Asking people if they like municipal broadband you're going to get yes. Asking them after comcast says "THE GOVERNMENT WILL BE SPYING ON YOU" with "like we do" in fine print? There will be a ton of morons instantly declaring it's an anti-american idea.
I personally can't fathom why someone would fear the government they can vote in but love corporations they can't even sue, but I've been accused of being an out-of-touch liberal...
You know when you combine our pots, 30+70=100 and 7+17=24, so you're saying the same thing. Also, it's 23 states, not 24, because you counted Washington twice as it shows up in the report table twice.
You were implying this is somehow a Republican-only problem, which as a Californian, I can confirm that it's not. Since CA has 12% of the US population all by itself, and is D controlled at nearly every level, it's pretty disingenuous to call it merely cherry-picked. Hell in my post I even say that it's mostly a Republican problem ("affects both parties but Republicans more"). However if you must view everything through the lens of "if one party is wrong the other must be right", then I can't help you.
Besides, raw counts are dumb since 30/50 states voted R, so really we ought condition or even weight by population:
Voted D: 6/20 = 30%, 49% population-weighted
Voted R: 17/30 = 56%, 69% population-weighted
So if you are in a D state, odds are 50/50 that you have restricted municipal broadband. In R states it jumps to almost 70%. What it most definitely is not, in either case, is near zero.