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A Community-Run ISP Is the Highest Rated Broadband Company In America (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A new survey by Consumer Reports once again highlights how consumers are responding positively to [community-run broadband networks]. The organization surveyed 176,000 Consumer Reports readers on their experience with their pay TV and broadband providers, and found that the lion's share of Americans remain completely disgusted with most large, incumbent operators. The full ratings are paywalled but available here to those with a Consumer Reports subscription. All the usual suspects including Comcast, Charter (Spectrum), AT&T, Verizon, and Optimum once again fell toward the bottom of the barrel in terms of overall satisfaction, reliability, and value, largely mirroring similar studies from the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
One of the lone bright spots for broadband providers was Chattanooga's EPB, a city-owned and utility operated broadband provider we profiled several years back as an example of community broadband done well. The outfit, which Comcast attempted unsuccessfully to sue into oblivion, was the only ISP included in the study that received positive ratings for value. "EPB was the top internet service provider in our telecom ratings two times in the past three years," Christopher Raymond, electronics editor at Consumer Reports told Motherboard. "Consumer Reports members have given it high marks for not only reliability and speed, but also overall value -- and that's a rare distinction in an arena dominated by the major cable companies," he said.
One of the lone bright spots for broadband providers was Chattanooga's EPB, a city-owned and utility operated broadband provider we profiled several years back as an example of community broadband done well. The outfit, which Comcast attempted unsuccessfully to sue into oblivion, was the only ISP included in the study that received positive ratings for value. "EPB was the top internet service provider in our telecom ratings two times in the past three years," Christopher Raymond, electronics editor at Consumer Reports told Motherboard. "Consumer Reports members have given it high marks for not only reliability and speed, but also overall value -- and that's a rare distinction in an arena dominated by the major cable companies," he said.
Can't have communities in charge of stuff. That's communism, that is. And the community making people who use the community's resources pay their part of it is violence, I tell ya. Violence. How dare communities not provide things for free(loaders)?
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
A LOCALLY run, COMMUNITY based ISP, where those that run it, LIVE in the community, are ACCOUNTABLE to the community, actually runs it correctly? Shiver-me-timbers! Wish more cities would do this and kick out the mega-corp-don't-care ISP's.
We've been paying hundreds of billions to the telecoms through a Universal Subscriber Fee for decades, and NO ONE (except the telecom shareholders) has ever gotten anything for that money.
Google Fiber was actually ranked second. I'm not surprised by that at all. Their customer service has been fantastic, as has the internet and TV. The two times I've had an issue, they had metrics to show exactly what was wrong from their end and their support rep understood the problem and could interact directly with the engineers.
On the other hand, Comcast required more than 3 calls to bury the outside cable line after it was replaced (it was supposed to be buried automatically with a second crew after the tech left, but he didn't file the right paperwork), and when I called customer service, one representative told me he was going to "reset my modem to resolve the issue". Yeah, apparently resetting modems can bury cable lines underground now, folks...
-=Lothsahn=-
The difference isn't supposed to be competition, it's that we've removed conflicts of interest. Cooperatives/public utilities work very well for domains where you just throw labor at problems, and ISP infrastructure fits that bill.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It cost $300 million to build EPB's fiber network.
Of that, $111 million, almost half, came from taxpayers outside of Chattanooga - people who can't get the service, but are required to pay for it.
Wow, rebuilding the network every year sure is expensive!!
Oh wait....that's not what's going on....and those ebil tax thefts you describe were subsidies for broadband service available to anyone that wanted to apply for them. It wasn't some terrible plot by Chattanooga that only could benefit Chattanooga.
Well yeah it damn well better be aftee taxpayers already paid for the vast majority of the expense, building the fiber network.
So I have some bad news. There's this thing called the Interstate Highway system.....
You, dumb, stupid, fucking, ignorant cunt. You fucking morons just can't be told, to remind you fuckwits, just because you don't drive on a road does not mean you shouldn't pay taxes for it because you might get deliveries by it, the fire brigade and police drive on it, the school bus drives on it, and all the teachers, but fuck all that, "I don't use the road, so I shouldn't pay taxes for it, is all that screams in you tiny pin heads", you fucking morons (I include those who modded this stupidity up). The entire community economically benefits, all the businesses, all the services, all the government costs you pay become cheaper, you dumb stupid fucking cunts.
Don't care how you mod this but eventually swearing at these idiots becomes compulsory.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Well, imagine that. Apparently when you are beholden to your customers rather than your shareholders, your customers think you do a better job at it.
Not really.
I don't like morons. Easy way to not have morons is to help pay for other people's schools.
I don't like rotting food. Best way to avoid it is to help pay for other people's infrastructure.
The ongoing costs are negligible per person, per consumer. The initial cost is the only significant quantity and even that, diluted over 340 million people over several years, isn't much.
Actually, it's effectively more people than that, as the Feds get taxes other than income but you're treating all tax as income.
The amount I pay Comcast (who, incidentally, deliver less than a tenth of what I pay for and who have illegal non-compete agreements with other ISPs) in a month is probably more than I've contributed to Chattanooga's Internet since it's inception.
How much would I, personally, have if I'd kept Chattanooga ignorant and isolated? Not much. Not nearly as much as I've gained from them strengthening their economy and thus not only placing less of a drain on society but actually giving back.
Gaining more this way is equivalent to losing the other way. Why would I want to lose, if it's a choice?
I've worked in both laying ISP infrastructure and operating it. It's not difficult or expensive, just tedious. You don't need constant upgrades, just better management and a willingness to not cut corners.
In other words, I know from experience in running infrastructure that most ISPs are defrauding their customers and lying to the politicians and courts about the need to do so.
How is rewarding that behaviour going to pay for my Internet?
What it will do to my Internet is increase restrictions and increase price whilst reducing service. Pay more, get less. No thanks.
I think the Chattanooga experiment should be not only legal in every town and city but encouraged with the stipulation that it's a minimum of 10 gigabits to the home actual rate and five nines reliable.
That way, there's no claim over competition as no ISP offers that. If it's that expensive to do, the taxes would be impossible. If it's not expensive, it's for the ISPs to explain to customers why they're better despite lying about what can be delivered.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And let's see. $111 million divided by 340 million... 33 cents, on average.
The highest paid person in the US earns something like $23 million a year before bonuses, although I did hear of someone earning $54 million before bonuses.
Somehow, I doubt you paid even the 33 cents.
You probably lose more than that in a year from defective vending machines and misplaced change.
Instead, you could have invested it in a stronger America with (gasp) jobs and stuff.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I live in Texas. I paid for the Chattanooga fiber network.
Do they want me to also pay for running fiber to rural areas of Tennessee? I'm not interested in paying for that. If people in those areas want fiber, they can pay the cost instead of forcing me to pay for their internet service.
So Texas gets no federal funds? Oh, you do. I hope you are saying thanks to all those people in Chattanooga that helped pay for your infrastructure.