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More Than 750 American Communities Have Built Their Own Internet Networks (vice.com)
Jason Koebler shares a report from Motherboard: According to a freshly updated map of community-owned networks, more than 750 communities across the United States have embraced operating their own broadband network, are served by local rural electric cooperatives, or have made at least some portion of a local fiber network publicly available. The map was created by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit that advocates for local economies. The Institute's latest update indicates that there's now 55 municipal networks serving 108 communities with a publicly owned fiber-to-the-home internet network. 76 communities now offer access to a locally owned cable network reaching most or all of the community, and more than 258 communities are now served by a rural electric cooperative. Many more communities could expand their local offerings according to the group's data. 197 communities already have some publicly owned fiber service available to parts of the community, while more than 120 communities have publicly-owned dark (unused) fiber available for use by local residences and local area businesses. The group's map also highlights which states have erected legislative barriers to hamper these local efforts and explains what these laws actually do.
This isn't about free market, or communism, or capitalism at all. It's about communities using their own resources for infrastructure and what *should be* a common utility. If things ran they way they should, the easements, right-of-ways, the utility poles, should be owned by the municipal governments and leased to those that can show they can sustain the rent, not damage other people's stuff, and be relied on when there's damage from storms, etc.
There are easements granted and right-of-ways that I as a property owner granted to utilities. Sadly, this was done by prior owners, who benefited from the fees. But then one of the utilities changed the nature of the easement, and low and behold, I could charge them once again.
Municipalities should control their infrastructure, not some lawyer for Verizon, AT&T, etc etc. This has zero to do with communism. It has to do with the most important common denominator for most people: community, not some hackneyed description of an obtuse financial model or governmental construct.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
That's not how evidence works. You've got it backward.
In informal settings it's not unusual to reference relatively uncontested positions without providing evidence each time.
That the US has poorer outcomes per person per dollar is well known. Most other OECD countries have similar health outcomes for similar per person expenditure and have similar levels of government involvement in healthcare. Comparing the US to these countries supports the hypothesis that "government run systems tend to work better and cost less".
To the extent that "government run systems tend to work better and cost less" is accepted as true, then asking that an example that is offered that contradicts this be elaborated _is_ how evidence works.
If you don't consider that "government run systems tend to work better and cost less" is true or well supported, would you please say so so we can have a discussion around that. Picking points on form doesn't really add anything, here.