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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.
Making legislated monopolies great again!
Government working for it's constituents at the finest.
Let's not pretend like this is a party-specific issue. While they pay more lip service to helping the little guy, Democrats are every bit as much in the pockets of big business as Republicans are.
This is what happens when you let one party have a complete stranglehold on state government. The number of Republicans in the state senate are almost 6 to 1 in favor of Republicans. It's almost 3-1 in favor of Republicans in the state house. The governor in Republican and there's no accountability. Voters have shown consistently that the vast majority of them only care about whether a D or R is next to a candidate's name and everything else is negotiable. I'm sure we'll get a few "Throw the bums out" posts, but that's not going to happen. Most of the state governments in the southeastern USA have sizable Republican majorities. I've seen corrupt practices out of the Democrats too when they had strangleholds on states with huge majorities in the state legislature. It's what happens when one party gets entrenched and there's no hope of getting them out.
I know the intent of the article is to make people enraged, and it certainly seems like something's going wrong here.
However, I have serious, fundamental reservations about government competing with the free market.
While certainly there are some circumstances, and this may well be one, where government can beneficially 'manage the commons' better than private or for-profit interests, there's something troubling about government agencies, on taxpayer funds, driving private firms out of business.
Yes, I see from the article that EPB runs a profit, and doesn't take tax money for operation. But do they bear the long-term capital costs that a private firm would for infrastructure? They certainly get use of city right-of-ways, no? In disputes over land use or zoning, I have to imagine they get a far more sympathetic hearing from city agencies?
In any case, it should be in the interest of any citizen to doubt the wisdom of establishing and protecting anti-competitive markets in the long run, not to mention the idea of a business having (essentially) the power of law enforcement on their side.
http://reason.com/archives/201...
-Styopa
yeah I was wondering: if Verizon and Comcast can build it, can the government then lease it after getting right to expand? Hell, since they paid for it, can they lease it for free?
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please tell us why you tolerate this corrupt behavior by your legislators? $45 million isn't pocket change. Are you really going to ignore this the next time your representatives run for re-election?
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.
Through means which don't make sense prima facie, I can switch electric and natural gas providers at will while the utility company continues to provide the connectivity. Why can't we 'nationalize' the fiber but let service providers compete on the service?
Golf clap for a master job the GOP did getting people to vote against their own best interests. Bravo, my friends.
Credit would be due if it were somehow 'hard' to fool people. As Mark Twain (allegedly) said, "It's easier to fool a man than to convince him he's been fooled."
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
I'm no fan of the GOP, but face it: It would not have been any different if the Democrats ruled. What would change is who gets to steal from you.
And frankly, if you're a rabbit, do you care whether fox or wolf eats you? It sure matters to fox and wolf, but to you, the outcome isn't that different.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Your statement presumes the Democratic party would yield a different result. That isn't the case. The Democratic party shifted to neoliberalism in the late 80s/early 90s.
The parties differ on social issues. They are identical when it comes to corporate issues.
The Democrats won the popular vote. In a two horse race they seem pretty competitive.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
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.'"
Let it go already. There is no popular vote in the US for president, and never has been. The republicans won by the rules that were in place. If the rules had been different, the campaigns would have also been different, but they weren't.
I've been arguing for years that if telecommunications companies take public money for expanding infrastructure, they need to be designated as common carriers.
in the 1990s, back when it was Bell Atlantic (before Bell Atlantic-NYNEX, before Verizon) got public money to build out infrastructure in the general I-95 corridor. They then didn't do it for YEARS.
We need to go back to the old ISP days -- line (physical connection) was separate from port (data to the internet), and the ILECs (incumbent local exchange carriers ... ie, phone companies) were required to publish tariff rates at which people could buy dedicated lines from them. ... and I believe common carriers, they're not sell information on their users other than basic directory to third parties.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
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.
To be fair, if he did, it would have been quite bizarre to say the least.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Except that's exactly how it should be. That's a use tax. Some services (Fire/Police) you can't have a use tax and have them be available when you actually need them. They are a benefit that everyone gets just by them existing. Some people don't like having to pay taxes to fund them, but they get the benefit anyway. Public internet access is not something that benefits everybody implicitly. The only people who it benefits are those who use it. I shouldn't have to pay for you to have public internet access. Just like you don't have to pay for me to have private internet access. Tax me for the infrastructure, fine. I do implicitly benefit from my city having the infrastructure for public internet access, because I do have the option to use it, even if I didn't agree it needed to exist. But do not tax me for the operation of it or for other people to use it.
Nova Express indicated that Democrats are not competing with Republicans due to their various political stances. What AmiMoJo rightly pointed out was that given we have a two party system, if the popular vote is +/- a few percentage points either way, then support for the political stances of both sides is evidently competitive. I don't believe anyone was making a statement as to which party should currently occupy the Oval Office.
That should have been obvious. As a helpful hint, it's the misinterpretation of information that makes one side think the other is not particularly bright.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
No. Which was GP's point, as opposed to GGP pretending that it's okay when one side does it. This is the problem; when you only focus on what the other team does, it's easier for 'your' team to get away with worse and worse things.
Just look for pictures of NYC at the turn of the century and you can see neighborhoods with hundreds of power and telephone lines from competing companies going through neighborhoods.
You kind of missed the point but I'll revise. There hasn't been any meaningful version of a free market in power line or wire line telecom or cable TV networks within the lifetime of anyone who will read this.
This is why it will never be that way again and why there should be no corporate interests invested in owning utility lines.
I don't see a problem with a (regulated) private company owning utility lines as long as they don't also own what is being transmitted over those same lines.
And that makes it ok?
It actually makes them more dishonest. They pretend to be something they're not.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
..that has actually been brought up before on Slashdot, but it bears bringing up again.
Why not let each county/city build out a fiber optic network that will serve its citizens, connect to each county that touches them in a peering agreement, then connect to the overall backbone that is the Internet? Once those fiber networks are built out, the county/city can then let any ISP that wants to connect to the fiber and sell services -- with the county/city collecting $XX.xx per connection for upgrades and maintenance. THAT would create competition. Even if the local county/city creates their own ISP, then that service provider/entity must be separate from the entity owning the fiber optics and still has to pay $XX.xx per connection for access to the physical fiber. Fair play and all that.
The county/city entity that owns the fiber should have a completely "hands off" policy (net neutrality) when it comes to data flowing over the fiber and their only concern is the physical upkeep and maintenance.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
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
legislated or otherwise. A lot of folks want these things left in private hands, but they also want the government to take an active role so that rural communities have access at a price they can afford. If you want those two things together the only solution is subsidies. Big ones. Otherwise you have to accept some level of nationalization or state run utilities. Usually you're talking nationalization since the money's coming from the Fed in a lot of cases (since most states with big rural populations don't have enough of their own money to run all that expensive cabling...).
The third option: Low prices due to competition, isn't on the table. Even if these weren't natural monopolies (which given that they often need eminent domain to run cable they are) the amounts of money they make (Comcast charges $80/mo for Internet that costs them $9/mo, support included and that's from their SEC filing so it's accurate) they'll just buy up their competitors.
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"Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again!
No, no!
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
- Abe Lincoln
The only people who it benefits are those who use it. I shouldn't have to pay for you to have public internet access.
I'm not sure that's entirely true. Society, by and large, has moved online. For example, most job postings (if posted at all) are online. There is a societal value (including to you) in having people able to access those job postings. Also, many government activities (information dissemination, license renewal, etc.) can be provided more efficiently online, saving the government (and by extension, you) money. I'm sure there are many other examples of how other people having internet benefits you. It might not be the most direct benefit, but that doesn't mean it's not there.
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
I like how you get to decide what people are forced to spend money on, then make a complaint about Comcast.
Comcast never threatened to jail someone for not buying their service. You propose totalitarianism.
He didn't decide what the people of Chatanooga are forced to spend money on. The people of Chatanooga decided what they all, collectively, would spend money on. It's called representative democracy, you blithering idiot.
Meanwhile AT&T and Comcast have proven that at the state level, where money talks far louder than votes, they have much more "representation" than the citizens. There's your totalitarianism.