

Broadband as a public utility: City provides 100mbps fiber, now fighting ISPs' lobbyists - kirse
http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A259848

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stuff4ben
This is an excellent article succinctly describing all of the issues around
municipal broadband. I hope they succeed so it spreads to other communities
and dissolves the federal government sponsored monopolies we have now with
Time Warner, Comcast, and others. Go Wilson, NC!

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tdavis
Normally I'd make some argument about how Big Government has no real
motivation (i.e. money) to supply a better product and private enterprise is
better qualified, but the current state of the telco companies make that
argument impossible. 10mbit fiber for $35/mo, no caps, and no packet sniffing?
Where do I sign?

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nazgulnarsil
this is great now, but what about in 10 years when you're still stuck with a
10mbit connection because the city has a monopoly and competing telcos are
offering 100mbit lines?

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Xichekolas
AFAIK, there is nothing exclusive about City of Wilson's network.

Why would you be _stuck_ on the city's network? Consumers could freely switch
to the telco's network whenever they wanted.

If the telcos want to upgrade and beat the city on speed, that's fine. Either
way the consumer wins.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
if it truly is a case where the city isn't regulating but instead simply
competing with the telcos and beating them that's great. I'm just paranoid
because the government has the legal right to enforce whatever they can get
away with.

~~~
sachinag
This is why Democratic orthodoxy on healthcare policy is to allow citizens to
"buy into" Medicare. Premiums at every private firm would plummet and coverage
would expand.

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nazgulnarsil
if this is true it is something i can support. free competition is the
defining feature that has created the standard of living we enjoy. it is also
the only thing that will bring that standard of living to the 3rd world. never
ending aid doesn't fundamentally improve conditions.

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kirse
I posted this article because I was interested to see what HN thinks on the
issue of having broadband as a public utility.

Sure, you get faster internet because you're handing over control and
subsidization to government, but then you're taking something that really
should be in the hands of every private individual and allowing the government
to get its hands into something that has traditionally been defined by open
access and freedom.

Personally I'm very happy with my private fiber service and would much rather
have a private company with consumer interests (supposedly) at stake instead
of simply plugging into Big-Brother Net.

It would be naive to think the government isn't already monitoring, scraping,
and sniffing every corner of the net that they can. However, it has to be a
much easier pathway to abuse once Internet service leaves the hands of private
enterprise.

~~~
martythemaniak
Your first point is simply the tired old ideology of "government bad, private
enterprise good". Municipal governments already run a number of public
utilities which are far more important and critical than broadband, so there's
no reason to think they would not do a good job with internet.

Your second point is just plain stupid. If a government makes it lawful to
snoop, it won't make any kind of difference who controls the servers - ISPs
are not going to start breaking the law of the land on behalf of their
customers.

~~~
kirse
_Your second point is just plain stupid._

For sake of argument, let's say that everyone's abiding by the rules and the
government's ultimate goal is to have as much access to private data as
possible. Which method do you think is easier?

"We're doing you a favor!" - own the network by marketing ridiculously cheap
subsidized internet with extremely high-speeds.

"We're taking away your freedom" - change the rules by forcing privacy-
violating legislation past the house and senate

~~~
chancho
This is a strange mixture of paranoia and naiveté. On the one hand you suppose
that the government's goal is to snoop on everyone, but on the other you
ignore that they have already been caught doing that with the willing
participation of private telcos. (FISA, warrantless wiretapping, etc.)

Putting telecommunication service in the hands of municipalities reduces the
possibility of diabolical eves-dropping schemes for all the same reasons that
it's less efficient than private enterprise: it's decentralized and it's run
by incompetent local government.

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jmtame
City of Monticello tried before and got sued. Hopefully this works out,
monopolies have a stranglehold on the telecom industry in the US.

[http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/telco-to-town-
wer...](http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/09/telco-to-town-were-suing-
you-because-we-care.ars)

~~~
lutorm
Can someone tell me how a corporation can argue that a group of people in a
city _are not allowed to_ get together and decide to offer whatever they think
it's in their own best interests to?

~~~
noonespecial
A group of people are certainly free to organize a non-profit and do this
whenever they want. When "the government" (state, local, etc) does it, its
quite a different animal.

Lets say it actually costs $40 to provide this service. TWarner currently
provides it for $45 and makes $5 a month per subscriber. The local government
provides it for $35. They make -$5 per subscriber. The deficit is covered by
taxes (probably a $10-$20 tax increase as government is rarely very
efficient).

It is now impossible for any carrier to provide the service and make money.
Its actually costing the consumers more. People who don't even use it are
paying for it. The market has been defacto-socialized, perhaps without even a
proper vote.

The cable companies suck monkey balls but this is not automatically the right
thing either. It _might_ very well be. Local governments usually do a pretty
good job with water. Still, it should not be undertaken lightly no matter how
mad at comcast you might be.

~~~
lutorm
I guess in my mind there is little difference between "the government", at
least at a city level, and a group of people cooperating for their own good.

Your example is a strawman argument, as there is no evidence that government
is less efficient than a private enterprise. (The example that comes to mind
is Medicare, which as far as I understand it has lower administrative costs
than most private plans.) That's not the point of the lawsuit, in any case.

I agree there is a difference between the government providing a service as a
nonprofit, self-financing corporation and using taxes to finance a service.
But you can't just argue that the market has been "defacto-socialized" without
saying why that would be bad.

There are many instances where people who don't use it are paying for it.
Roads, for example. A "fair" system would be to have every inch of roadway be
toll road, where the toll would be in proportion to the amount of space used
and wear inflicted on the roadway. Pedestrians would pay next to nothing,
bikes slightly more, then motorcycles, cars and finally SUVs and trucks. Every
lane on the freeway should be toll, with an increasing toll for the lower-
numbered lanes in case you want to go "faster". Such a system would be
ridiculously inefficient and cumbersome, so I'm fine paying my share of the
roads even if I use them less than average, because roads are an essential
infrastructure.

In the same vein, a city should be able to decide that a fiber network is an
essential infrastructure that should be provided to all inhabitants and that
shrinking the digital divide is important enough that low-income people should
have subsidized access. And no corporation should be able to argue that this
is "illegal".

Private corporations are allowed to exist to serve the needs of the people,
not the other way around.

