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Comcast Tries To Derail Fort Collins Community Broadband (dslreports.com)
Karl Bode reports of Comcast's efforts to "derail Fort Collins community broadband": Colorado is one of more than twenty states where incumbent broadband ISPs have quite literally written and purchased state protectionist laws prohibiting towns and cities from getting into the broadband business, even in instances where the private sector has failed to deliver. But Colorado is unique in that town and cities in the state have been able to vote locally on whether to overturn this ISP-lobbying-for- law, SB 152. And guess what? They keep voting to exempt themselves from the law, usually overwhelmingly. Dozens of cities and towns continue to opt out of the restrictive state measure during local elections. More than 100 have done it so far, which should tell you plenty about how locals feel about their local broadband options. Fort Collins, Colorado will be the latest to try and table a petition on November 7 simply exploring the idea of opting out of this state provision and considering a city-run broadband network. But Motherboard highlights how incumbent ISPs like Comcast have already spent more than $200,000 to prevent this conversation from even happening. To be clear Fort Collins isn't certain to proceed with such a network, but incumbent ISPs are terrified they've even begun to have the conversation, and have been running ads like this one to try and derail it.
Government of the people, by the corporations, for the profit.
If you can't vote and can't be put in jail, you shouldn't be able to lobby or contribute to politicians. Corporations are NOT people.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
It took a couple tries to get it passed in Longmont (45min south of Ft Collins) but we now have fiber broadband. Built out very quickly
Have gnu, will travel.
" Fort Collins, Colorado will be the latest to try and table a petition..."
US English - to table something means to put it away without further discussion. "Let's table this motion till next week."
British English - to table something means to place it on the table for discussion. "Let's table this ISP motion and vote on it."
I always thought DSLReports was US based and used US English... who knew?
E
P.S. WAY TO GO FT COLLINS and the other 100 CO cities that have fingered "you're number one" to Comcast and the telcos.
But I sure could use the new fiberoptic link. I think Comcast underestimates how much people actually care about fast broadband therese days.
You paid $200K to not have any competition? Then you have to invest at least $400K into building/upgrading the infrastructure that you just prevented from happening. You have one year otherwise you forfeit your rights, you lose your $200K and you give everything built/upgraded so far to the competition you just prevented.
#DeleteFacebook
"Comments have been disabled for this video"
I'm shocked.
If people are apathetic and are misinformed there is no real solution.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
From the Comcast ad
It absolutely will.
I work from home, logged into my employer's computers over the internet.
That takes my car off the road 10 trips per week, during rush hour, the busiest time of day.
I live in Longmont, a city of 100,000 an hour south of Ft. Collins. Longmont set up a municipal broadband utility (NextLight) and is over 60% of the way to running fiber to every single building in city limits (29 square miles). My neighborhood got wired a year ago. I've got $50/month gigabit fiber that runs speedtest at over 930 mb/s - no transfer limits, no extra charges. It was even rated the fastest broadband in the country. Seriously, every medium-sized city should do this. Six people in the house, 20+ devices, nothing ever slows it down, and just about everything is limited only by the sending server capacity.
Were members of Fort Collins' Chamber of Commerce paid off by Comcast? I ask because they're against the idea and are pushing for a "No" vote.
Their statement: "While supporting the concept of a connected community, the Chamber is opposing this ballot issue while encouraging the City to come back with a stronger plan that favors public private partnerships"
'Cause the internet won't speed this [traffic] up.
Check out that traffic. There's like 2 cars in front of him at a red light in an otherwise completely clear road system.
They want to build more bridges and flash a picture of an over-constructed underutilised bridge.
They want to spend more on public safety even though they have spare fire engines sitting around doing nothing.
I can understand why Comcast finds this kind of available infrastructure threatening. People may actually get used to things going smoothly at expected pace.
Keep a very close eye out on the state GOP reps and senators that have pushed this legislation to see where the kickbacks are going.and who is getting them.
As Ben Franklin said, the constitution created for us a republic, if we can keep it. With the GOP in charge stand a very good chance of loosing it.
The GOP hates hates communists so much because they dislike the competition with their mercantilistic monopolies.
Having a state run industry is THEIR thing - they just make sure it's owned by people that pay them rather than the citizens that vote for them.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Comcast executives should be executed. By torture.
The idea of a contract is great in theory. (Generally) two parties freely choosing to bind themselves to an (assumed to be) mutually beneficial agreement. In practice, not so much especially when the contract is between entities of grossly disparate positions of "power" (which means whatever it needs to mean to enable discussion).
There is little "freely" when the choice is to accept an agreement written by a more powerful entity with no possibility of negotiation or do without a facility that is in a practical sense a basic requirement of reasonable participation in society. Especially when civil process has apparently been manipulated to eliminate the practical possibility of competition.
Read a credit card agreement sometime; by the terms of such agreements the Corporation can change the terms at will or whim. Try changing the terms yourself and see where it gets you! Practically, large powerful entities must be balanced by other large powerful entities. A municipality vs Comcast is a lot more balanced than J Average Citizen vs Comcast.
Libertarian-style idealism is kinda cute, but its proponents are likely to be taken advantage of by sociopaths. There are some rights that cannot be given away ( or sold) by contact. I think that in a rational society the 'list' of such rights would be much, much longer.
"I'll believe corporations are persons when Texas executes some!"
I have had Comcast for a few years without any competition except for Century Link. Its not bad, but try to get a cable moved. I spent days calling a place that I could barely understand. I would get an appointment and no one would show or else they didn't have the equipment and would be back with it tomorrow but they never showed. This went on for months and finally I had it resolved. I hope we get a city owned system with hopefully better service. I think most of the problems that I had was co-ordination with what the people overseas or at the local office told me and the contractors were told.
Yst one quesrion does comcasr have cheaper plans on fiber like 100Mbps/100Mbps, I would imagine thar would be a lor cheaper as 1Gbps probsbly is the rop tear (read letks guage people a bit extra because these custumers ar not that prize senitive), and unless you have a lot of heavy users in your home the returns deminush rapidly above 100mbps. Unless of corese comcast does iptv and n cable boxes reserve banwith from the same downlink (ikve seen exsamles of this with telias iptv in sveeden)
There is little "freely" when the choice is to accept an agreement written by a more powerful entity with no possibility of negotiation or do without a facility that is in a practical sense a basic requirement of reasonable participation in society.
Cable TV is not a basic requirement. The Cable TV companies did not write the franchise agreements. I was involved in the local government when we dealt with franchises, and the one we had contained a LOT of stuff that the cable company would rather not have there. We demanded PEG facilities and complaint response rates and had authority to veto channel changes. We pissed the cable company off on a regular basis by asking for, and getting, revenue statements to make sure they were operating within the profit guidelines of the franchise, and whenever they asked for a rate increase. The city I live in now wrote in a requirement for the entire system to be upgraded to fiber long before this was a common thing. They have in writing a requirement that ANY change to service is announced to the subscribers more than 30 days in advance, although I cannot get the city to actually do anything when Comcast violates that provision.
So, you have the power structure backwards, and are assuming that because you want something is it a requirement for living.
Now, if you are actually referring to internet, then you've missed the detail that being an ISP doesn't require a franchise from the municipality or agreement from any competitor, unless you want to use the public rights-of-way to distribute your service.
Especially when civil process has apparently been manipulated to eliminate the practical possibility of competition.
"Civil process" has nothing to do with limiting competition. If you want to compete with the cable company, sign the franchise and go for it. You'll lose your socks because you'll never make a profit, but you can try. You'd be a moron to sign a franchise agreement like the ones the cable companies already have, and that's why the city is never going to do it for their services. That's one reason why a municipal internet system is operating at an unfair advantage.
If you want to compete as an ISP, which is what internet service is, go for it. Unless you want access to the local rights of way to distribute your service you don't need a franchise. You'll still need to make sure you make a profit if you want to succeed, and that's another reason why municipal internet services have an unfair advantage. They don't have to make a profit. They can operate at a loss and the general fund will bail them out.
Read a credit card agreement sometime;
Irrelevant. This analogy is so far from analogous to be laughable.
A municipality vs Comcast is a lot more balanced than J Average Citizen vs Comcast.
A fine platitude, but J Average Citizen is not trying to run an ISP. The municipality already has a franchise agreement with the cable company (but not with ISPs in general) that would put them in direct competition with a company that they regulate to some extent -- a third unfair advantage. The municipality can say "Comcast, you must do X, but we don't have to because we say we don't."
Once government creates a system of regulation that limits corporate actions or requires them, then going into direct competition without following the same rules is simply unfair and should not be an acceptable government action.