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Tennessee Could Give Taxpayers America's Fastest Internet For Free, But It Gave Comcast and AT&T $45 Million Instead (vice.com)
Chattanooga, Tennessee is home to some of the fastest internet speeds in the United States, offering city dwellers Gbps and 10 Gpbs connections. Instead of voting to expand those connections to the rural areas surrounding the city, which have dial up, satellite, or no internet whatsoever, Tennessee's legislature voted to give Comcast and AT&T a $45 million taxpayer handout. Motherboard reports: The situation is slightly convoluted and thoroughly infuriating. EPB -- a power and communications company owned by the Chattanooga government -- offers 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps, and 10 Gpbs internet connections. A Tennessee law that was lobbied for by the telecom industry makes it illegal for EPB to expand out into surrounding areas, which are unserved or underserved by current broadband providers. For the last several years, EPB has been fighting to repeal that state law, and even petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to try to get the law overturned. This year, the Tennessee state legislature was finally considering a bill that would have let EPB expand its coverage (without providing it any special tax breaks or grants; EPB is profitable and doesn't rely on taxpayer money). Rather than pass that bill, Tennessee has just passed the "Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017," which gives private telecom companies -- in this case, probably AT&T and Comcast -- $45 million of taxpayer money over the next three years to build internet infrastructure to rural areas.
A politician's constituents are the people who donated the most to their campaign.
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However, I have serious, fundamental reservations about government competing with the free market.
That might be a valid concern if provision of wireline data was actually a free market. It is not and never has been and there is no reasonable prospect of it becoming one in the near future either. Companies like AT&T and Comcast have a government granted monopoly because of the substantial capital costs involved in setting up and maintaining such a network. As such they need to be regulated to assure against abuses. Given that fact it is perfectly reasonable for the government to get into the market with alternative offerings if the private corporations are not providing sufficient value to the citizens.
Maybe after you twats realize Democrats also voted for the bill, you could stop letting them get away with goddamn murder while you scream "REEEEEEEEE" at only half of the problem.
https://legiscan.com/TN/bill/H...
Facts? Get those goddamn facts out of here.
It's not free. It's government providing needed infrastructure. High speed Internet access is a requirement for being a first-class citizen in the modern age.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
In this situation, "their way" (the current way) is to have regulations that prevents competition from entering an area the cable companies aren't expanding into amyway, "my way" (the alternative that got shot down) is to get rid of the regulation and allow a profitable company to expand where nobody has yet at no additional cost to taxpayers...
Cities providing internet does not create a "legislated monopoly," it creates a public service. However, having legislation that protects monopolies by not allowing competition does create a "legislated monopoly." Really basic stuff here, guys, shouldn't be this difficult for this crowd.
I know it's hardly a new complaint, but Slashdot's recent trend towards not merely provocative but 100%-contrary-to-the-facts-of-the-matter headlines is really getting ridiculous.
Yes, the city/state government could have spent a bunch of money to "give the fastest internet for free" to the people inside the urban bounds of Chattanooga. OR, they could use that money to make it worth the providers' time to extend that lovely fast service out in to the surrounding areas that have no access at all. Which is what they're doing. They didn't "give" the money to the infrastructure people. They're funding an expansion of the infrastructure into areas of the state where the availability of such business offerings will eventually do a lot to grow the state's economy and tax base. The headline is very and deliberately misleading. We can certainly debate whether or not TN should be spending money in this way, but that's not the same as purposefully misrepresenting the situation in a fit of juvenile clickbaiting. Knock it off, Slashdot.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
In the 2000's, Portugal's ANACOM (kind of our very own FCC, but much more "lobby-able") allowed the subsidization of copper, cable and fiber installation to unserviced areas exclusively to Portugal Telecom (PT, now commercially known as MEO), then a mostly public company with a big monopoly on phone and internet services but none in cable or satellite TV, with the state itself covering up to the 90 %'s of the cost but ownership being kept by PT. All PT had to do was compromise on maintenance and also service the rural areas where they already had a presence, thus providing close to 100% home owners with basic cable DSL. It was very good - for the 2000's, many villages ended up with 256kb internet services with copper, although they were more expensive than in cities.
Problem: rural lines were never maintained or upgraded. By 2010, internet users in rural areas had ascended to more than 80% due to population renewal - most schools, services and even income tax forms or civil services are now internet-based and people need a solid bandwidth for accessing these services, and these services are not made for 2000'ish bandwidth. Our income tax website for instance is a 50MB Java Applet that constantly fails and requires refresh, does bad caching. Moodle and other educational web platforms, even email, demand decent down and upload speeds for word, pdf or other assignments. In technological terms, we have the xDSL protocol but not even close to the throughput to support it effectively. I've seen multiple cases of people subscribing to 24mbit services, effectively getting 2mbits tops, and the instability at that speed prompts most people to even request a reduction to 1.2mbits to PT so they get a stable service.
Bigger problem: PT/MEO was sold by our previous right-wing government under pretext that it was a demand for targeted Troika goals for having received a bail-out, and a known company dismantler Altice, spearheaded by Luso-French CEO, took the majority share (and abolished the state-owned golden share) of PT, while managing to include a monopolizing contract clause specifically for rural areas, where the installed lines were mostly payed for by the state, but are still fully owned by the company. And they pretty much payed below asking price. Better offers were denied from more decent parties for reasons that were never actually disclosed. PT is now a super-aggressive marketing company, with the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo and our best comedians stepping in their commercials. The service, obviously, hasn't improved sh*t the last 5 years.
So now, in Portugal we have at least 4 fiber providers, 2 of them expanding their own line strongly to rural areas not serviced by PT, but they are constantly blocked from providing service because they can't use the tubing that is now owned by PT (part of the lines deal), and new licenses for cabling will not be issued because of the monopolizing clause. They can't even demand the lease of existing lines or tubing in some instances. That's how strong ANACOM is defending PT.
For this reason, Portugal is now becoming a home-3g/LTE playground with actual decent speeds. I am seeing more and more people switching to home-LTE plans because they are much cheaper and immensely more modern and reliable. They are provided by all ISPs unlike landlines because PT does not have a monopoly there, and so prices and plans are a lot more competitive. And yes, I said mobile services in Portugal rural areas are more reliable than landline. That's how bad it gets.
Now, why do I have to live in a country where rural areas get the same treatment as 3rd-world countries, who pretty much skipped landlines for cost, and are jumping to mobile data instead. It is appalling.
Chattanooga EFB took over $300 million from taxpayers. There are 75,000 households in Chatanooga, so the cost is $4,400 per family even if you don't get the service, with an additional monthly charge if you want the service. When you have to pay $4,400 plus $60-$150 per month, that's not free. That's not anywhere near free.
This is quite inaccurate. EPB only took $111 million from taxpayers. $300 million was the total cost including the amount paid for by Internet, cable, and electricity customers of EPB. That comes to $1628 per household, not $4400. Fiber optic cables are tax depreciated over 15 years, with a presumed service life of 25 years, so that is $15 per month per household in taxes.
And considering these taxes then mean you don't have to deal with companies like Comcast, it seems like quite the bargain.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
In reference to an article yesterday on a similar topic I posted the following link to a functioning co-op. Co-ops take leadership, but they can really serve the public good in ways that a government bureaucracy or a for-profit cannot. Not a panacea, but the Maryland Broadband Cooperative has a pretty good record I think. As states outlaw municipal broadband it seems to me that this kind of institution is one that they can't sensibly outlaw. They could try, of course, an no doubt will. Anyway, MDBC has put a lot of fiber into the countryside.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy