It is obvious if you follow the sequence of events:
(1) The city government announced it would lay fiber and operate a government-owned ISP for its residents. (2) TDS sued. (3) At that point the city government could have simply exerted its power, and threatened TDS - "Drop the lawsuit, else we will revoke your exclusive license which will allow another competitor like Verizon or Comcast to enter this city."
It's all about power. Government has it; TDS does not.
Most Japanese connections are DSL. It's just that, thanks to the US-paid rebuild after the war, the japanese phone lines are high-quality and very short-run, so they can support 50 Mbit/s DSL.
That helps boost the overall Japanese average to 16 Mbit/s overall (speedtest.net). For comparison here's the speeds for other world regions: Russian Federation 8.3 Mbit/s U.S. 7.0 E.U. 6.6 Canada 5.7 Australia 5.1 China 3.0 Brazil 2.1 Mexico 1.1 Mbit/s
And if you prefer to look on a state-by-state basis of the EU, US, and Canada then you get: 1 Sweden 13 Mbit/s 2 Delaware, Romania,Netherlands,Bulgaria 12 3 Washington,Rhode Island 11 4 Massachusetts 10 5 New Jersey,Virginia,New Hampshire,New York 9 6 British Columbia,Colorado,Connecticut,Arizona, Slovakia 8 Mbit/s
>>>there are constitutional and other laws in place to ensure that whatever the government does in terms of snooping or investigating is available to public scrutiny. >>>
Our ancestors were farmers whose job was to kill cows or sheep, with blood spilling-out all over the place and cries of anguish from the beasts. This mass killing did not turn society into a a bunch of murderers. Neither will some game with 2D polygons on screen.
>>>>they end up $500,000 in debt with medical bills.
I don't know where people come-up with these numbers. My dad had a pacemaker installed, and the whole thing about cost 7000-something dollars. When it was removed it cost even less (3000-somethhing). My brother's wife had a hysterectomy that only cost $15,000 - cheaper than buying that shiny new car sitting in your driveway. I only spend about $200 on my own annual checkup. Healthcare really isn't that expensive compared to other things we waste money upon (like $1000 a year cable tv, or $500 a year cellphones).
As for the Amish, usually they help-out one another. An expensive bill for one is an expensive bill for the whole community. Just as when a barn burns down, they all come together to build it, so too do they help each other with money shortages. They don't rely on government "safety nets" because they rely on each other.
They also do something else that is alien to most Americans - saving cash.
No because U.S. newspapers don't use mail service. U.S. papers hire dedicated delivery persons to drive (or walk) house-to-house delivering the paper. So your EU example is non-relevant here.
What U.S. papers have been doing is consolidating the morning and evening papers into just a single delivery time (morning). That effectively cuts their costs in half.
>>>"most music/movies suck, so I'll take it for free instead" :
No actually the argument goes, "Most music/movies suck, so I will *filter* it first and only buy the stuff I like." Huge difference and it empowers the consumer not to waste money (and make megacorps rich).
My Compaq laptop with XP only has 112 MB of memory.
Aim for that.;-) And no I have no idea why it says 112 instead of an "even" number like 96 or 128. That's how much the laptop has without any expansion installed.
I'm currently running Ubuntu 8.something. If I want to upgrade do I have to a do a complete reinstall, or can I just click "install updates" on my desktop? If it's the former, then I'll just stay with Ubuntu 8.
>>>Preventing the creation of a governmental company, no matter what line of business, is anti capitalistic
Yeah I agree.
So what's that have to do with my original statement, that I think a private corporation like Verizon FiOS would do a better job? This is no different than if the U.S. Army says "we need more tanks." They don't build the tanks themselves. They ring-up Lockheed or Northrop or some other corporation and have them build the tanks.
Also: I don't agree with your premise that a government monopoly is any better than a Comcast monopoly or Microsoft monopoly o ATT monopoly. We should steer clear of monopolies wherever we can, which is why I disagree with having a postal monopoly (which is deep in debt) or passenger rail monopoly (ditto).
You have a valid point (it's called "tyranny of the majority" to squash the minority underfoot). But I can not lay my hand on any part of Monticello City's constitution that forbids them from creating a fiber-optic company. Can you?
False. The amount of money collected from gasoline/diesel taxes *far exceed* the amount spent on annual maintenance. Where does the excess go? I don't about your state, but in mine the gas taxes are used to subsizde the Light Rail trains. I've sat in the State House and seen the vote for myself - money taken from the road fund and used to build a new rail line from Tysons Corner to Towson.
The senior minority leader had a fit, saying it was a misappropriation of funds, but of course he was unable to stop it.
But rather than have government do the job, I think I would simply called Verizon on the phone and said, "We want FiOS and and have the 70% of the population willing to buy it." Corporations have the expertise and experience to do the job, which politicians lack, so let corporations handle it.
At least public roads are directly funded by those who use them (drivers). If you don't drive, then you don't pay the "use fee" collected at the pumps.
That should be true of all government-provided systems. You want to send a letter: you pay the cost of the stamp. You want to ride the subway or metro train: you pay the ticket. You want to build a house in Nowhere, Virginia: You pay the installation costs. There should not be any subsidization for these services by non-users. Not one single dime.
It appears that TDS sells physical videos that we can buy. Also modems. Steal them. Working together and using our power as consumers we could kill this giant (i.e. bankrupt the corporation), same way we did to Circuit City.
Aside -
These TDS idiots charge $35/month for 750k DSL! Dang. I only pay $15 for mine. TDS is not only dishonest but also greedy.
>>>you want the 90% who have decent broadband to pay even more so that the 10% in places where it is expensive don't have to pay so much, even though they choose to live there. >>>
You were marked troll, but I've heard the Greens/Environmentalists make the same argument - Stop subsidizing rural homes with cheap electricity and phone hookups (i.e. eliminate the Universal Service Fee). Let rural home owners pay the true cost of these connections, and it would discourage rural sprawl, and "help the environment".
>>>This is one of the textbook cases of how natural monopoly/duopoly arise.
Except in the case of cable television, which is most areas the monopoly did not arise naturally. It was *mandated* by the local government when they granted Comcast (or Cox or Time-warner) an exclusive license in the neighborhoods or counties.
The government should revoke that exclusive license, and let other companies to move-in. Imagine if the metal pipe under your street not only had Comcast, but also Cox, Time-Warner Cable, Charter, Apple TV, and so on. You could just pick the one you liked, the same way you can choose a Ford, Honda, GM, Toyota, Kia, or Dodge car.
>>>the government takes from us while providing almost NOTHING in the way of services
False.
Study-after-study has shown that rural citizens (i.e. the red-colored zones) get MORE money, per capita, than people in the cities/urban areas. This is because the rural citizens have their electricity subsidized and their phone connections subsidized by government or corporations via the Universal Service Fund. And soon their internet will be subsidized too. If rural citizens paid the *true* cost of these long-distance runs of electric/phone they would not be able to afford it.
>>>Are you going to be able to pay $small_ISP $20k to rip up the street and pull you a run of fibre?
I call bullshit. Verizon has been rolling-out FiOS without any need to rip-up streets. They simply run the wire through the same government-owned pipe that Comcast uses. You could have Time-Warner, Cox, Charter, and other internet companies sharing the same metal pipe, each with their own cables running in parallel.
And before you say "that's not efficient" - well neither is having ~20 different companies all making cars, but it gives the consumer the power of choice. .
>>>I think, ideally, the last mile would be municipally owned, and they then lease the lines to $small_ISP of your choice, at a flat rate.
Not possible. There's not enough room in a single cable to allow multiple companies to operate. Take Comcast for example. Their cable is already full from 50 megahertz all the way up to 5000 megahertz. There's no room to "share" that line with someone else.
>>>I don't think people have been using the internet to aggregate information for display on public chalkboards "for ages."
No instead they used the wire services and chalkboards. If you time-traveled to New York City in the 1890s, especially around the central business district, you'd see public chalkboards everywhere, constantly updated with the latest news. Same thing.
>>>Yeah, because newspapers, diaries, and broadsheets have never existed before.
Not just newspapers, but the idea of posting news stories on a public bulletin board dates all the way back to New York City in the 1890s..... or even earlier. People would stand outside Wall Street or store windows, and read the headlines scrawled across chalkboards. It ain't something new.
I hate quantum physics. Does an electron actually exist in both places at the same time?
Or is it more likely we just lack the proper understanding to make an accurate prediction, so instead we have to play with probability (i.e. guess). Imagine how people would have laughed if Newton said, "The force the apple hit me on the head is determined by gravity. Or maybe it was an orange. I just don't know."
Slashdot Mirror
It is obvious if you follow the sequence of events:
(1) The city government announced it would lay fiber and operate a government-owned ISP for its residents.
(2) TDS sued.
(3) At that point the city government could have simply exerted its power, and threatened TDS - "Drop the lawsuit, else we will revoke your exclusive license which will allow another competitor like Verizon or Comcast to enter this city."
It's all about power. Government has it; TDS does not.
Most Japanese connections are DSL. It's just that, thanks to the US-paid rebuild after the war, the japanese phone lines are high-quality and very short-run, so they can support 50 Mbit/s DSL.
That helps boost the overall Japanese average to 16 Mbit/s overall (speedtest.net). For comparison here's the speeds for other world regions:
Russian Federation 8.3 Mbit/s
U.S. 7.0
E.U. 6.6
Canada 5.7
Australia 5.1
China 3.0
Brazil 2.1
Mexico 1.1 Mbit/s
And if you prefer to look on a state-by-state basis of the EU, US, and Canada then you get:
1 Sweden 13 Mbit/s
2 Delaware, Romania,Netherlands,Bulgaria 12
3 Washington,Rhode Island 11
4 Massachusetts 10
5 New Jersey,Virginia,New Hampshire,New York 9
6 British Columbia,Colorado,Connecticut,Arizona, Slovakia 8 Mbit/s
>>>there are constitutional and other laws in place to ensure that whatever the government does in terms of snooping or investigating is available to public scrutiny.
>>>
Those constitutional guarantees didn't help this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMB6L487LHM
Or this guy (note this happened *nowhere near* the border): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUzd7G875Hc
Actual footage of INNOCENT citizen being beaten: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgejD6c-9YA&feature=related
Read Robert Heinlein's "Blowups Happen".
BTW I love coconut.
Interesting. My other laptop which is an identical model, but with expansion, says an even 256 MB. Why isn't it 256-16 == 240? (shrug).
In any case please aim your OS at 128 MB so I can keep using my old laptop. ;-)
Our ancestors were farmers whose job was to kill cows or sheep, with blood spilling-out all over the place and cries of anguish from the beasts. This mass killing did not turn society into a a bunch of murderers. Neither will some game with 2D polygons on screen.
>>>>they end up $500,000 in debt with medical bills.
I don't know where people come-up with these numbers. My dad had a pacemaker installed, and the whole thing about cost 7000-something dollars. When it was removed it cost even less (3000-somethhing). My brother's wife had a hysterectomy that only cost $15,000 - cheaper than buying that shiny new car sitting in your driveway. I only spend about $200 on my own annual checkup. Healthcare really isn't that expensive compared to other things we waste money upon (like $1000 a year cable tv, or $500 a year cellphones).
As for the Amish, usually they help-out one another. An expensive bill for one is an expensive bill for the whole community. Just as when a barn burns down, they all come together to build it, so too do they help each other with money shortages. They don't rely on government "safety nets" because they rely on each other.
They also do something else that is alien to most Americans - saving cash.
No because U.S. newspapers don't use mail service. U.S. papers hire dedicated delivery persons to drive (or walk) house-to-house delivering the paper. So your EU example is non-relevant here.
What U.S. papers have been doing is consolidating the morning and evening papers into just a single delivery time (morning). That effectively cuts their costs in half.
>>>"most music/movies suck, so I'll take it for free instead" :
No actually the argument goes, "Most music/movies suck, so I will *filter* it first and only buy the stuff I like." Huge difference and it empowers the consumer not to waste money (and make megacorps rich).
My Compaq laptop with XP only has 112 MB of memory.
Aim for that. ;-) And no I have no idea why it says 112 instead of an "even" number like 96 or 128. That's how much the laptop has without any expansion installed.
I'm currently running Ubuntu 8.something. If I want to upgrade do I have to a do a complete reinstall, or can I just click "install updates" on my desktop? If it's the former, then I'll just stay with Ubuntu 8.
>>>Preventing the creation of a governmental company, no matter what line of business, is anti capitalistic
Yeah I agree.
So what's that have to do with my original statement, that I think a private corporation like Verizon FiOS would do a better job? This is no different than if the U.S. Army says "we need more tanks." They don't build the tanks themselves. They ring-up Lockheed or Northrop or some other corporation and have them build the tanks.
Also: I don't agree with your premise that a government monopoly is any better than a Comcast monopoly or Microsoft monopoly o ATT monopoly. We should steer clear of monopolies wherever we can, which is why I disagree with having a postal monopoly (which is deep in debt) or passenger rail monopoly (ditto).
I like choice. Monopolies take away that power.
You have a valid point (it's called "tyranny of the majority" to squash the minority underfoot). But I can not lay my hand on any part of Monticello City's constitution that forbids them from creating a fiber-optic company. Can you?
False. The amount of money collected from gasoline/diesel taxes *far exceed* the amount spent on annual maintenance. Where does the excess go? I don't about your state, but in mine the gas taxes are used to subsizde the Light Rail trains. I've sat in the State House and seen the vote for myself - money taken from the road fund and used to build a new rail line from Tysons Corner to Towson.
The senior minority leader had a fit, saying it was a misappropriation of funds, but of course he was unable to stop it.
That's fine. Their town; their decision.
But rather than have government do the job, I think I would simply called Verizon on the phone and said, "We want FiOS and and have the 70% of the population willing to buy it." Corporations have the expertise and experience to do the job, which politicians lack, so let corporations handle it.
At least public roads are directly funded by those who use them (drivers). If you don't drive, then you don't pay the "use fee" collected at the pumps.
That should be true of all government-provided systems. You want to send a letter: you pay the cost of the stamp. You want to ride the subway or metro train: you pay the ticket. You want to build a house in Nowhere, Virginia: You pay the installation costs. There should not be any subsidization for these services by non-users. Not one single dime.
It appears that TDS sells physical videos that we can buy. Also modems. Steal them. Working together and using our power as consumers we could kill this giant (i.e. bankrupt the corporation), same way we did to Circuit City.
Aside -
These TDS idiots charge $35/month for 750k DSL! Dang. I only pay $15 for mine. TDS is not only dishonest but also greedy.
Problem solved. Actually I bet just the threat alone would be enough to make TDS fall on its knees and obey the government.
>>>you want the 90% who have decent broadband to pay even more so that the 10% in places where it is expensive don't have to pay so much, even though they choose to live there.
>>>
You were marked troll, but I've heard the Greens/Environmentalists make the same argument - Stop subsidizing rural homes with cheap electricity and phone hookups (i.e. eliminate the Universal Service Fee). Let rural home owners pay the true cost of these connections, and it would discourage rural sprawl, and "help the environment".
>>>This is one of the textbook cases of how natural monopoly/duopoly arise.
Except in the case of cable television, which is most areas the monopoly did not arise naturally. It was *mandated* by the local government when they granted Comcast (or Cox or Time-warner) an exclusive license in the neighborhoods or counties.
The government should revoke that exclusive license, and let other companies to move-in. Imagine if the metal pipe under your street not only had Comcast, but also Cox, Time-Warner Cable, Charter, Apple TV, and so on. You could just pick the one you liked, the same way you can choose a Ford, Honda, GM, Toyota, Kia, or Dodge car.
>>>the government takes from us while providing almost NOTHING in the way of services
False.
Study-after-study has shown that rural citizens (i.e. the red-colored zones) get MORE money, per capita, than people in the cities/urban areas. This is because the rural citizens have their electricity subsidized and their phone connections subsidized by government or corporations via the Universal Service Fund. And soon their internet will be subsidized too. If rural citizens paid the *true* cost of these long-distance runs of electric/phone they would not be able to afford it.
>>>Are you going to be able to pay $small_ISP $20k to rip up the street and pull you a run of fibre?
I call bullshit. Verizon has been rolling-out FiOS without any need to rip-up streets. They simply run the wire through the same government-owned pipe that Comcast uses. You could have Time-Warner, Cox, Charter, and other internet companies sharing the same metal pipe, each with their own cables running in parallel.
And before you say "that's not efficient" - well neither is having ~20 different companies all making cars, but it gives the consumer the power of choice.
.
>>>I think, ideally, the last mile would be municipally owned, and they then lease the lines to $small_ISP of your choice, at a flat rate.
Not possible. There's not enough room in a single cable to allow multiple companies to operate. Take Comcast for example. Their cable is already full from 50 megahertz all the way up to 5000 megahertz. There's no room to "share" that line with someone else.
>>>I don't think people have been using the internet to aggregate information for display on public chalkboards "for ages."
No instead they used the wire services and chalkboards. If you time-traveled to New York City in the 1890s, especially around the central business district, you'd see public chalkboards everywhere, constantly updated with the latest news. Same thing.
>>>Yeah, because newspapers, diaries, and broadsheets have never existed before.
Not just newspapers, but the idea of posting news stories on a public bulletin board dates all the way back to New York City in the 1890s..... or even earlier. People would stand outside Wall Street or store windows, and read the headlines scrawled across chalkboards. It ain't something new.
I hate quantum physics. Does an electron actually exist in both places at the same time?
Or is it more likely we just lack the proper understanding to make an accurate prediction, so instead we have to play with probability (i.e. guess). Imagine how people would have laughed if Newton said, "The force the apple hit me on the head is determined by gravity. Or maybe it was an orange. I just don't know."