[HN Gopher] The number of cities with municipal broadband has ju... ___________________________________________________________________ The number of cities with municipal broadband has jumped over 4x in two years Author : sharkweek Score : 402 points Date : 2021-04-28 15:29 UTC (7 hours ago) (HTM) web link (gammawire.com) (TXT) w3m dump (gammawire.com) | GordonS wrote: | This is a little OT since the article is about the US, but I'd | really like to see how feasible it would be to build a community | ISP for the town I live in in the UK (Scotland). | | FTTC has only recently reached my town, and availability is still | patchy. Knowing BT, it will be another decade before the whole | town has the option. | | And upload speeds are still rubbish, and it's expensive too - the | fastest deal BT will provide is 900/100 (although they only | guarantee 450 down), and it's PS60/m (~$83), and you have to take | a 2 year contract, _and_ the price rises by 3.9% a year _during | the contract_! | | There have been smaller, full-fibre ISPs popping up all over | England, offering much better packages than BT as half the price. | | Anyone have any information about getting started with something | like this? If it makes a difference, it's for a small, rural | town, population 10-15k. | iptrans wrote: | You can start your own community ISP if you can sign up enough | neighbors. | | However, it'll take years to build out and they payback will be | far longer than two years. | | There's even funding to be had, but it's no small undertaking. | | Hit me up by email if you want more information. Contact in | profile. | martinald wrote: | Do you mean FTTP not FTTC? 900/100 isn't bad for PS60/month | imo. Do you actually need 900 down? I used to have 1000/1000 | from hyperoptic in London but switched down to 150/150 as | virtually nothing on the internet supports or needs higher | speeds once you get bored of running speedtests for the fun of | it. The only thing that can use it is large xbox game | downloads, but even at 150 most are done in 10-20 minutes, and | over wifi you struggle to push more than that throw a couple | walls anyway. | | Other providers offer Openreach FTTH btw - not just BT. | GordonS wrote: | I meant FTTP; I've been on FTTC for several years, 80/20, for | PS26/m. I realise there are others selling Openreach | products, but prices are similar or higher, and still I don't | see any products with a high upload speed. | | I don't really need 900 down, but I've really like higher | upload speeds. Regardless, I'd like me and others to have the | option. Really, I'm just so sick of how _slowly_ the UK 's | fibre rollout has been - _glacial_! It 's really encouraging | to see the various smaller English ISPs (like HyperOptic) | building their own network and offering symmetric products at | half the price of OpenReach, but I realise the economics are | unlikely to make sense for small towns. I also realise that | burying fibre without any existing ducting is going to be | very expensive. Still, I'm interested to find out what would | be involved, or if there are non-fibre options - not with the | aim of profit, just providing more options for local people | and businesses. | nobody9999 wrote: | > Do you actually need 900 down? I used to have 1000/1000 | from hyperoptic in London but switched down to 150/150 as | virtually nothing on the internet supports or needs higher | speeds once you get bored of running speedtests for the fun | of it. | | I'd argue that symmetric links at 1000/1000 are actually | incredibly important. | | The lack of decent upload speeds has created the enormous | centralization of services that we see today. | | If most folks had gigabit (or more) upload capacity, | decentralization would become a viable solution to the | enormous centralization of content, data and services. | | There are a variety of tools that allow folks to self-host | their content and many more would appear if there was | widespread implementation of symmetric (multi-)gigabit ISP | connections. | | If there were the ability to stream your puppy videos from | your home internet connection to dozens of friends/family, | what do you need Facebook, Instagram, etc. for? | | That's why high-speed symmetric connections are important. | subtlestorm wrote: | Is there a way to search addresses / cities by Fiber connection ? | Say I want to move to a city while holding a remote job, I would | love to have a fiber connection and I found its really to search | by address. | iptrans wrote: | Alas, no such service exists. | | Even the FCC can't get proper broadband coverage data by the | zip code, not to mention by address. | lotsofpulp wrote: | Redfin/Zillow/trulia/realtor.com should figure out now to | scrape ISP websites and show what type of internet is | available for a house. | | I had to manually put in addresses when I was searching for a | home to make sure it had symmetric fiber. | iptrans wrote: | ISPs would more likely than not take exception to such | scraping. | | Even if they weren't reporting accurate data, which they | don't always do. | mooreds wrote: | I'm so envious of other cities in our county with fast municipal | broad band. | Hammershaft wrote: | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/gop-plan-for-bro... | | Remember that Republicans tried to ban municipal broadband | federally only two months ago! Just an absurdly, transparently | corrupt move. | CountDrewku wrote: | "In the face of compelling pandemic-driven evidence that | affordable broadband Internet access is essential to modern | life, that tens of millions of Americans are being left behind, | and that an emergency requiring immediate action exists, five | enlightened Arkansas Republicans recently persuaded their | overwhelmingly Republican legislature to vote unanimously to | give local governments significant new authority to provide or | support the provision of broadband Internet access." | | We'd be better served by providing the names of the ones who | introduced it instead of a blanket statement making it sound | like all Republicans supported this, especially when at the | local level where it really matters they did not support it, | they did the exact opposite. | | Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Bob Latta (R-Ohio) | Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) | | The general idea that there should be competition is good, just | not going about it by blocking attempts to create municipal | broadband. I'd like to still have the choice to choose private | companies if I feel the public option isn't meeting my needs. | freeone3000 wrote: | The republican point of view is that if something is | government-supported, it's unfair to compete against, as the | government option will offer better quality service at lower | cost than is economical for a private company, since the | government has no profit motive. | | (This somehow leads to the conclusion that government | services are bad.) | dcow wrote: | It also doesn't even seem accurate. Private industries can | compete with public ones on both quality and cost. The | problem is that, in the face of municipal broadband, | private companies have to compete to actually serve the | public not "compete" to gouge consumers of as much money as | possible in their comfy government protected monopolies. | hooande wrote: | It's hard to see how this is a negative with something like | broadband. as long as they can offer better quality service | at lower cost, it's a win for every citizen | [deleted] | fallingknife wrote: | Free market / small government party, lol | goatcode wrote: | Opposing something that's government-controlled does not | contradict that. I'm not arguing against it, by any means, | though. If municipal services are governed by the Bill of | Rights primarily, I'd be all for it, at this point. However, | in world in which the FCC is in constant violation of the | Bill of Rights, I'm not holding out any hope. | IncRnd wrote: | > Remember that Republicans tried to ban municipal broadband | federally only two months ago! Just an absurdly, transparently | corrupt move. | | The article you posted said something else, that the bill was | to ban government-run broadband in an area that has private | competition. | | From your link: The bill "would promote | competition by limiting government-run broadband networks | throughout the country" and States or | municipalities that already offer Internet service may continue | to do so if "there is no more than one other commercial | provider of broadband Internet access that provides competition | for that service in a particular area." | tzs wrote: | > The article you posted said something else, that the bill | was to ban government-run broadband in an area that has | private competition. | | Not quite. It bans new government-run broadband everywhere | regardless of whether or not there would be private | competition in the area. In areas that already have | government-run broadband, it allows that to continue as long | as that area does not have more than one private provider. | Jotra7 wrote: | You say this like it's a good thing. | grecy wrote: | How anyone thinks corporate lobbying is good for anyone other | than corrupt politicians and corporate giants is a mystery I | will _never_ understand. | parineum wrote: | Actual lobbying is such a small part of the money that goes | to politicians that it's a red herring. | | The source of corruption is through PACs that support | candidates without the candidates consent or guidance (either | ostensibly or actually). | | You can either give a candidate a few thousand dollars | directly or you can spend an unlimited amount of money | telling people how great you think the candidate is. Only the | former is lobbying. | dillondoyle wrote: | Plus threats to pull or create jobs, fights for tax | incentives or other 'free' stuff like special | infrastructure or zoning changes. Messaging attacks & | earned media are near free, healthcare industry is culpable | here. Military seems to be the worst in all of this. | | Politicians care about getting re-elected. That's the power | fulcrum or pressure point. | dariusj18 wrote: | A lot of people immediately think this type of thing is | corruption, but consider that these people might actually | believe in this stuff and that it's easier for companies to | find and support like minded politicians than it is to | convince someone who holds an opposite view. | Retric wrote: | Politicians around the world regularly flip flop on | issues in lockstep with their party. That's not the | behavior of someone that actually holds personal views on | the subject, suggesting that something else is | influencing decision making. | | Which shouldn't be surprising as politics covers such a | wide range of issues it would be strange for most of them | to have strong views on every issue. Frankly it's people | who don't care one way or the other are who you try and | influence. | TheSpiceIsLife wrote: | You're making a distinction where one doesn't exist. | | _Lobbying includes all attempts to influence legislators_. | | PACs are just a legal fiction to circumvent a law, the | effect is the same: support those who's policies you | prefer. | grecy wrote: | I'm not really interested in discussing semantics, but | rather the root issue. | | Money in Politics, especially when it's perfectly legal, is | a massive, massive problem. It's literally impossible to | get fair and impartial leaders who will make decisions in | the interest of the common person when corporations are | spending millions and millions. | | Right now a judge sitting on the highest court in the | entire country is hearing a case involving a company who | openly and directly paid to have her elected into that | position. I don't care if that person is from the right or | left (or middle), there is no universe where that is a good | thing, or should be allowed. | | Having a Supreme Court Justice you paid preside over your | court case sounds like a very perverted form of Justice | under Democracy to me. | pkghost wrote: | While lobbyists write actual laws and work for the same | companies + industry groups that fund the PACs, I find it | difficult to agree with you. | IgorPartola wrote: | Well actually _repositions glasses_ , lobbying is a big | part of it: you are a politician for a part of your career. | If and when you quit, you can just go work for the lobby | that had lobbied you while you were in office. It's an | amazingly well planned out safety net that all but the most | disgraced politicians (see Anthony Weiner) can rely on. It | means that even if you and I and our closes 1000 friends | got together and each kicked in $1000 to donate to a | politician to, say, vote for municipal broadband, it might | not mean nearly as much as $25k from a lobby group that | later will hire the politician with a very cushy salary. | Sohcahtoa82 wrote: | I see no difference between "We'll give you $X to vote for | this bill" and "We'll spend $X on advertising for your | campaign if you vote for this bill". | parineum wrote: | > "We'll spend $X on advertising for your campaign if you | vote for this bill" | | That's illegal. | | The advertising is given no strings attached. The only | incentive that you (the politician) have to vote for | things that favor the company is that, if you don't, they | may not advertise for you next time. | | The "fun" part of this whole thing is that the money | those companies spend isn't really the issue, it's the | fact that the money is helpful to influence people. | Comparatively, if a person of non-political celebrity | tweets that they like a candidate, they might muster much | more influence than say, Exxon could for the same | candidate. Now that candidate is just as beholden to the | interests of that celebrity as one might be to a | corporation. | | In effect, the PAC money really is just taking money away | from influential individuals and commoditizing it. | | I, personally, don't really see a difference. It's not | like pre-Citizens United America was some sort of | paradise. Most people perceive it as worse but I just see | it as different. I, personally, still have a similar | amount of political power and influence. | Cederfjard wrote: | > The only incentive that you (the politician) have to | vote for things that favor the company is that, if you | don't, they may not advertise for you next time. | | And also that if you do, you may be able to go and work | for them for good compensation when your political career | is over. | lotsofpulp wrote: | Or your spouse/sibling/kid/niece/nephew get a nice | internship or other position. | ceejayoz wrote: | I'm inclined to treat "you got a million dollar ad buy on | your behalf from Municipal Broadband Sucks PAC" as a _form_ | of lobbying, personally. | anaerobicover wrote: | To our misfortune the Supreme Court does not agree, and | where they are the opinion that counts. (As you know no | doubt already.) | stjohnswarts wrote: | Being for a free market is great, if it's better than the | government run internet won't it win out in the end anyway? | I've yet to see anyone prove it's a better idea to not allow | the extra competition. Seems like other countries have a mix | and it's fine, what is so unique about the USA that we can't | try what has worked in other countries? I'll never understand | the Republican reptile brain feature that is so opposed to | change. | topspin wrote: | In my state the Republican legislature passed legislation to | enable both municipal broadband and require power companies to | allow data services on utility poles, which power companies | invariability blocked. | cure wrote: | Wow really! That is great. Those are some enlightened | Republicans. Which state is this? | sjg007 wrote: | With permanent WFH municipal broadband is a major bonus. I live | somewhere with fiber and it is glorious. | grouphugs wrote: | and the nazis use it to hurt us, so we learn the lesson, never | give technology to nazis | IgorPartola wrote: | I wish my city offered it. I just signed up with Frontier's fiber | which like yay for that (though it was a process to get them to | realize they have a connection on my street as their internal map | was apparently out of date). But... | | 1. I wanted to use my own router instead of theirs. Turns out | they send DHCP responses with VLAN 0 ethernet tags (which I guess | is for 802.1p) which apparently a lot of DHCP clients don't | understand at all. I tried OPNSense and Mikrotik ones and ended | up having to apply a patch manually to dhclient that comes with | OPNSense and recompiling it just to get an IPv4 address | (https://github.com/opnsense/src/issues/114). | | 2. They don't provide native IPv6, they don't plan to provide | native IPv6, they have a 6rd setup that is inaccessible by new | customers, and to top it all off, from what I can tell they | actively block 6in4/protocol 41 so I can't even use a third party | tunnel. | | 3. Their tier 1 tech support at least knows what IPv6 is (the | thing they tell people they don't support; they don't understand | it beyond that). Their tier 2 support guy called me once but he | clearly was simply relaying messages from an actual network | engineer he was getting via text chat, so I got nowhere. Their | tier 3 is their network engineers who have no time to talk to | people like me since I never got a call I was promised from them | and have no way to follow up except starting with the 800 number | again (a literal multi-day process). | | At least with city broadband I know exactly who works on the | project and can go talk to the network engineer who can unblock | protocol 41/unfuck the DHCPv4. /rant | rektide wrote: | just a reminder that the supreme court sided with Verizon, | overturning the requirements that incumbent local exchange | carriers (ilecs) offer unbundled loop elements for fiber. the fcc | updated their rules in 2003. up till then, the 1996 | telecommunications act was in effect, and fiber & telephony | lines, even if owned by one company, could be leased at wholesale | rates by competitors. so now, if someone wants to compete, they | have to dig their own lines, or ongoingly & unregulatedly find a | way to lease lines. | | verizon made this problem. they told the court, we need a | monopoly on our infrastructure or we will not do this. 20 years | latter & there has been a massive slow down in roll out, rates | have been stagnant & high, & municipalities are left doing what | the supreme court dismantled: creating competitve offerings. | | i feel like at some point this may need to be revisited. alas, | the most likely way it'll get revisited is municipal isps | disaggregating, becoming local providers, but allowing competitor | exchanges to lease their local loop elements. muni fiber, but a | number of different isps. which is what we ought to have had, but | with less rules of the road & more string things together. | lizknope wrote: | My city provides me clean water, treats my sewage, and picks up | my trash. They seem to do a pretty good job at it, I would be | fine if they provided Internet service too. | bluGill wrote: | My city does that too - for $120/month. At that rate well and | septic would be paid off in 10 years, and they typically last | much longer with minimal maintenance. (the bill is itemized, so | trash is about $12/month - same as what is was at my old rural | house even though the trash pickup has a lot more density) | rohansingh wrote: | If you are a software engineer, working on municipal broadband or | starting a local ISP is a really intense way to expand your | skills. | | For the past year, I've been volunteering at NYC Mesh | (nycmesh.net), which is a non-profit that provides fixed wireless | broadband in New York. I thought I knew a thing or two about | networking -- hell, I've even given a talk in the network track | at LinuxCon in the past -- but working on NYC Mesh really showed | me the limits of that knowledge and has helped me learn a ton | more. | hpoe wrote: | I've always wanted to expand my networking skills and | understanding. Any suggestions on how to get involved in | something like this? | [deleted] | rglover wrote: | https://startyourownisp.com/ | IgorPartola wrote: | Wow, that was straight and to the point breakdown of costs: | https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jjUYOQMuZ4cRyTv1M5X | 8... | | Honestly, this doesn't sound like a bad idea in my area. I | can likely put the tower right on my own land and | immediately cover a decently sized neighborhood. | narwally wrote: | It even has things like zip-ties and other miscellaneous | items priced out. It's still a rough estimate for a | minimal install, but I've undertaken DIY home improvement | projects that were in this price range and my estimates | weren't quite this detailed. | rohansingh wrote: | Sure, here's some ideas: | | 1. Join the NYC Mesh Slack (slack.nycmesh.net) even if you're | not in NYC, just to see how it's run. | | 2. Read Brian Hall's post, "How to start a community | network": https://www.nycmesh.net/blog/how/ | | 3. Read Graham Castleton's "Start Your Own WISP" guide: | https://startyourownisp.com/ | | 4. Look around and find folks in your area with a similar | interest. If you're in or near a city of any size, I bet | there's somebody who's already started or is trying to start | something. | volkk wrote: | how do you volunteer specifically at nycmesh? | rohansingh wrote: | I help out with planning and designing hubs, upgrading & | installing equipment, troubleshooting network issues, and | with anything else I can related to network architecture. | jarboot wrote: | We're trying to do this in Milwaukee right now and talked to | Brian from nycmesh who got us in the right direction. It's | going to be difficult to get things started but there's so many | great resources. Thanks for adding so much documentation! It | really helps a lot. | | If anyone's interested in helping in Milwaukee please reach | out! We're looking for any technical talent we can get, | especially in the networking space. | chrononaut wrote: | For those interested, there are other volunteer-run mesh ISPs | in other cities in the US and in the world: | https://jointhemesh.net/#!/list | | (There might be a better list somewhere else as well) | permo-w wrote: | Headlines like this are annoying | | 4x or "rose/fell by x%" is meaningless if you don't have prior | knowledge of the figures | | yes it indicates some growth or decline, but why not use actual | stats? | minikites wrote: | >Still, many people who have access to and use municipal | broadband think rather highly of the service. In fact, in a 2019 | report conducted by PCMag, the authors of the study found that | many municipal broadband providers offer some of the fastest | internet speeds in the country. | | Maybe we can finally start chipping away at 40+ years of | conservative propaganda about how useless and ineffective | government is. Government projects and services are not evil, | wasteful, or inferior, that's propaganda talking. | giantg2 wrote: | "Government projects and services are not evil, wasteful, or | inferior, that's propaganda talking." | | They _can_ be. There just needs to be the proper balance of | oversight. The lower down the government chain the projects are | run, the more control the people have over them. For example, I | wouldn 't want federal or even state run internet, but | municipal or even county internet would be easier to deal with | since my voice would represent a larger share of the | customers/votes and has a higher likelihood of being addressed. | At the higher levels, one locality might have an issue but only | represent 1% of the customers/vote, so you could end up with | that minority being neglected. | martin8412 wrote: | That does make sense though. At city level people are way | more likely to be interested, because they can actually make | a difference, and it will help the community they live in | minikites wrote: | >I wouldn't want federal or even state run internet | | How is Comcast or any other large ISP meaningfully different | from this? At least you get _a_ vote at the federal level, | Comcast has zero reason to listen to you. | giantg2 wrote: | They aren't that much different in service quality and I | don't like them either. | | You actually can get a vote at Concast if you buy stock, | which can be more than what a single vote is worth at the | federal level. The real difference is in how you can | pressure them. Your single vote in the government covers a | multitude of topics, in what is essentially a two choice | system. You may need to vote contrary to your beliefs on | one topic to protect your rights on another topic. In | dealing with a single topic related to a company, you can | concentrate your efforts through your voting stock, | boycotts, etc. | | So, when a politician hears a minority complain about an | issue, they have zero incentive to listen to you because | they lose nothing due to the discrete nature of measuring | sucess (minority votes no longer matter once you secure the | majority to win). At least companies care about losing | revenue because it's measured continuously. Look at how | they fight to attract and retain customers through deals, | competing with other companies, and even negative stuff | like fighting municipal internet. | | The better choices are local companies and municipalities. | This is because a person's voice is worth more and the | concerns amongst the customers/voters tend to be more | homogeneous than at higher levels. | FredPret wrote: | Any huge, old, unaccountable organization is going to suck, | government or corporation. | | The key is being accountable to the end user. Local | governments with rational and active voters and | corporations with energetic competitors usually do very | well. | atotic wrote: | Anecdote: I live in Palo Alto, and my entire neighborhood | is on Comcast. In January, service got to be really bad, | 1Mbs upload during the day. Comcast came out, said our | local node was saturated at 92%, and that they have an | upgrade planned a year from now, and that we can suck it | till then. | | This is Palo Alto, the land of very vocal neighbors. They | started a campaign where we all sent a complaint to the | FCC. Within a week, we were personally contacted by a | Comcast rep, techs came out, and suddenly I had 30Mbs up. | And Comcast reps have been calling, emailing every week to | make sure we are ok. Not sure what happened, the node did | not get upgraded, but they fixed something. | | And another data point on how sad the situation is in the | US: my brother lives in Belgrade, Serbia, in one of those | concrete high-rises from the 70s. He got fiber this year | from a private company, and his speeds beat mine, and it is | dirt cheap. There is no logical explanation for the fact | that his internet speeds beat mine, and I am a mile away | from Google HQ. | prophesi wrote: | I think that's the point. | | City > State > Federal > Telcom Monopolies in terms of your | voice being heard. | giantg2 wrote: | Telecom can vary in it's place. I would put a local | company around the city level because they are often | invested in their communities. Really, I would say that | goes for companies or government - the bigger they get, | the more removed they are from what is going on in the | customer/voter lives. | sokoloff wrote: | I agree that City > State > Comcast. I think Comcast > | Federal, though, in terms of service level and individual | voice. (With Comcast, my voice is 20dB under the noise | floor. With the feds, it's 10dB lower than that.) | | Plus, if you get something wrong federally, it's | enormously difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and | unlikely to get fixed. If one or a few states get | something wrong, you have as easier time showing | comparables and proving that a better way is possible. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | Speaking of getting things wrong... if Comcast runs some | half baked DB query to flag problem customers and it | flags a false positive on you you're just gonna get your | service turned off. When the states and feds make those | mistakes there's a body count or at the very least lives | ruined. Comcast, or other BigCo will generally do the | right thing to make you go away, after all, every dollar | spent on fighting people is a dollar that could be | profit. When government does wrong and gets called on it | digs in its heels much, much harder. | HarryHirsch wrote: | What doesn't help is that thanks to 40 years privatization | there is now very little in-house expertise left. Any kind of | services are now provided by a local contractor and there is | no one competent to supervise them. It'll be hard to get rid | of the entrenched corruption and waste. | | _For example, I wouldn 't want federal or even state run | internet_ | | The government telco was _glorious_. They would provide | service _anywhere_ for a two-digit hookup fee and the target | time for service interruption was 48 hours, and they kept to | that. | giantg2 wrote: | Is that the US and how long ago was that 2 digit fee? | | "...there is now very little in-house expertise left." | | I don't really see this being an issue. If they are taking | market share from the private sector, then it's likely that | private companies will make cuts to preserve profits and | those people can be hired by the government. If not having | in-house expertise was really a problem then no companies | would ever be able to expand. Instead they hire externally | and hire consultants. | HarryHirsch wrote: | _Is that the US and how long ago was that 2 digit fee_ | | Pre-privatization German telecom charged 40 marks for | connection, that included laying cable to the demarcation | point. | | For the lack of in-house expertise to supervise private | parties, look no further than Boeing. They relied on | self-certification, and we ended up with the 737-MAX. | giantg2 wrote: | "For the lack of in-house expertise to supervise private | parties, look no further than Boeing. They relied on | self-certification, and we ended up with the 737-MAX." | | That would require a major shift in mindset, policy, and | even law for the US. Even stuff like drugs and medical | devices are tested by third parties, not the government | itself. | avhception wrote: | In Germany, there is a clear pattern: | | - a community (often, but not always, rural) pleads one of our | big ISPs (almost always deutsche Telekom, since we gifted our | tax-funded telephone network to them) to provide better service | (or service at all) | | - dt. Telekom laughs in their faces and tells them to screw off | | - the community gets together and finances building a network of | their own, sometimes even involving locals to dig the trenches | for the fibers. They calculate with a sharp pencil and need | customers to break even. | | - dt. Telekom notices this and quickly deploys their own network, | steamrolling the new local ISP with their big marketing budget | and brand name | | - the small local ISP goes bankrupt, city initiatives stop etc. | | And to add insult to injury, dt. Telekom then uses it's customers | as leverage to bully content providers into crappy peering deals. | They're also guzzling tax money by the millions in public-private | partnerships all while screwing the public over. | txdv wrote: | Telekom is utilizing the German law system and companies in the | USA are doing the same. | _jal wrote: | At least your monopoly responds to threats by providing the | service they monopolize. | | In the US, step 4 becomes "pass a law banning muni efforts and | lie about existing coverage", and local communities keep the | same crappy, expensive service. | mjevans wrote: | It's been that way in WA State for like 20 years... and will | hopefully soon end once the Governor signs into law one of | the two passed bills recently discussed. | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803426 | | (The better but not perfect 1336) https://app.leg.wa.gov/bill | summary?BillNumber=1336&Initiativ... | | (The grand standing and barely a bone to the consumer 5383) h | ttps://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5383&Year=2021.. | . | Wohlf wrote: | >At least your monopoly responds to threats by providing the | service they monopolize. | | True but the grass isn't really greener, Germany lags behind | the US in average broadband speeds, mean and median for both | directions. | mirchiseth wrote: | Has anyone documented the process on getting your city to adopt | Municipal Wireless. Things like - Which department to approach - | What kind of hurdles/prior agreements with big ISPs one would | face and how to tackle those - Budget calculations and where it | becomes self-sustaining | iptrans wrote: | Muni wireless is generally a bad idea. It has been tried many | times and failed. | | What you want is a municipally owner fiber network. | | What you really need to start a muni network is grassroots | support. If the constituents want it it will be built. | jhayward wrote: | Muni wireless is still a potentially viable model in the | "last 200 meters" type design. The equipment and frequencies | needed are just barely starting to be available. | rosstex wrote: | So, from 1 city to 4 cities? /s | bogomipz wrote: | Is there a link anywhere to the actual study this post | references? | | I was surprised to read that there were over 100 cities in the | U.S. offering municipal broadband as of 3 years ago and even more | surprised to read there now would be 560 cities offering | municipal broadband. I know there are at least 18 states that | restrict cities from creating municipal broadband networks[1]. | Does anyone know if there's a comprehensive list of municipal | broadband offerings? This lists a lot of municipal broadband | providers but it's nowhere near even the 100 quotes from 3 years | ago: | | https://www.allconnect.com/blog/cities-with-cheap-high-speed... | | [1] https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband- | roadbloc... | fiftyfifty wrote: | The city I live in voted for municipal broadband in 2017. Our | local private internet provider Comcast fought it at every turn, | Comcast spent millions fighting municipal broadband in a city | with about 150,000 residents. We started rolling out our own | broadband to residents in 2020. It took a couple of years for the | city to hire and build up a department and lay the infrastructure | to support it city wide and I finally got the service at the | beginning of this year, and it has been awesome. We have gigabit | internet up AND DOWN for $59.95/month. What really burns me is | the private providers we have, Comcast and CenturyLink, have been | here for decades and could have done exactly what our city has | done: run fiber to every neighborhood and house. It would have | been cheaper for them too, they already had the infrastructure in | place. They chose not to make the investment and instead spent | millions trying to prevent us from providing better service for | ourselves. I hope everyone has the chance to get better/cheaper | internet service for themselves and their community, so far it | has worked out great for us. | narwally wrote: | At the moment I'm usually fine with my 200Mbps download speeds | from Spectrum, but man am I jealous of those upload speeds and | that price. I'm looking to move soon, and municipal fiber is | definitely on the list of things that could get me to pick one | area over another. It's not only a great deal on an essential | service, but gives me a bit more confidence in the local | government and the citizens that voted for it. | throwawayboise wrote: | Counterpoint: a nearby city wanted to provide municipal | broadband. Mayor, city council, majority of the public seemed | on-board. The city realized they knew nothing about running an | ISP, so they hired some consultants, who hooked them up with | another contractor to build out and run it. Some time passed, | nothing happened, the contractor went bankrupt. Every cent of | tax money spent amounted to nothing. The big ISPs (Comcast and | ATT) continued to operate and expand their services, which are | better than they've ever been (which is not to claim it | couldn't be better, but more people have broadband now than | they did before). | bproven wrote: | Is this Fort Collins, CO? :) | takeda wrote: | What your city did sounds great, and I hope it will be | similarly done in other places as well. | | I think ideally the city should allow for other ISPs to lease | these lines (of course at price that would cover the cost of | maintaining them) and still providing option to be one of those | ISPs. This would lower the barrier to enter for other ISPs and | perhaps further lower the price. | | I only hope that your city won't end up selling the | infrastructure to someone in the future, because that will of | course kill the whole effort. | | I believe the key to solve our ISP problems is unbundling the | local loop. The bill that congress wants to pass to fix | Internet will be a failure, unless the money is meant for local | governments to do the same your city did. | bombcar wrote: | If providers would take the money they'd normally fight | municipal broadband with and instead fight for access to the | "last mile" they'd come out way ahead - offload a cost center | to the municipality, get better access and speed, and be able | to differentiate on services. | takeda wrote: | They would, but so would their competitors. Comcast and | Spectrum have currently a great position, because cost to | enter the market for anyone else is so high. Not even | Google with their "unlimited" amount of money was able to | get through it. It's crazy that currently the only way to | enter the market is to deploy thousands of satellites (like | Starlink) and once Starlink becomes a competitor to current | ISPs other competitors won't be able to follow them. | | This situation can't be solved without changing laws and | local governments. | CerealFounder wrote: | Gather around, this is good. | | How I sued Spectrum California for $1800... | | So my internet had rolling outages for weeks and Spectrum | wouldnt do anything. So they sent a technician to my house. | Three consecutive days, scheduled appointment, no one showed, | or called (other than the automated attendant. This is | important later). I was furious. I was talking to my father who | did a bit of law school and he shared that California has a | $600 a day no show penalty for companies with 25 or more | employees. | | https://legalbeagle.com/7272842-service-noshow-penalty-calif... | | So I file small claims for the full 1800. I show up and theyve | sent a person who professionally goes to court to fight these | things. It also became clear the they use the auto dialer | follow up to negate the "no call" portion of the "No show/now | call" law. They've got it down to a science. | | So dejected by their treachery, I try a last second hail mary | by asking the judge if I can speak to the court. I tell him "I | am you, you, you (pointing at him and the people sitting in | court), this company dosent care about providing the service | they promised, theyd rather spend that money hiring henchmen to | beat the consumer laws on a technicality. Their largest | investment is in extraction, not service. Im just a guy who | wanted his internet and to go back to work. If my experience | hits home at all please, hold them accountable." | | Lonnnnng silence and the little Spectrum rat is visibly | smiling. The judge starts to speak "Mr Cereal, I personally | empathize with companies not respecting my time. Its so | frusteratinfg" The whole court audibly gasps, this judge is | gonna stick them. Judge flustered "Wellll, I dont mean Specturm | specifically. That said, I find fully in favor of Mr Cereal and | order a full judgement." | | Ive sold two companies for 9 figures in my life. I have never | ever ever seen my jewish father as proud of me as when I called | him and told him what happened. I got a check two weeks later. | | tldr: ISPs are evil, but you can get them if they dont show. | Also, your dad will be proud. | Hammershaft wrote: | It sounds like a story but I'll give the benefit of the doubt | if only because I so want to believe. | CerealFounder wrote: | What part? Its a law on the books and it all went down at | the Stanley Mosk courthouse on the third floor. I was also | late to roll call and I had to take a Bird scooter a | quarter-mile from Chinatown because parking at the court is | like $40/day. | Svperstar wrote: | If you sold two companies for 9 figures why are you | concerned about paying $40 for parking? | narwally wrote: | I was half expecting the lawyer to no-show as well, but of | course they finally show up when it's their money on the | line. | avarun wrote: | This made my day. I don't even care if it's made up, I choose | to believe this happened. | kstrauser wrote: | You're my hero. I'm not your jewish father, but I'm still | proud of you. | georgel wrote: | Similar situation in Fort Collins, Colorado. Connexion (the | city's brand for municipal ISP) is 60/mo for symmetric gigabit | fiber, and for 300/mo can get 10Gb/s and near zero outages. | Comcast and Century Link keep sending "deals" in the mail that | are laughable. I am very happy with municipal ISP. | | https://www.fcgov.com/connexion/residential-internet | fiftyfifty wrote: | Yeah, I'm actually in Fort Collins, I was trying to be a | little vague for anonymity but ya know. With Longmont | Colorado having municipal broadband I think Comcast saw Fort | Collins as a hill worth dying on. I've heard that Boulder and | Denver are looking at putting municipal broadband on a ballot | in the future. Certainly how things turn out in Fort Collins | will be considered in other communities around the state. | After 4 months on our community broadband I'm still fighting | with Comcast over bills and charges. | bproven wrote: | Yeah I am in FC and I wish Boulder and Denver well, but it | will be a hard fight Comcast _owns_ the city of Denver and | most of its metro. Through influence and legislature that | is all in their favor. As well as being a HUGE employer in | the state. | | My only gripe is I really wish they would roll the FC | Connexion to my neighborhood in midtown now lol | beached_whale wrote: | Can help a lot with the tax bases too. I know my municipal | ISP just dumped $17 million into the municipal tax base of a | city of just over a 100 thousand. They also pay well. So | that's money that is not being taxed. | jfengel wrote: | Is it cheaper to run fiber to houses than to hang WiFi off | telephone poles? I know WiFi isn't as good as a hard | connection, but running cables sounds really expensive and | cumbersome. | linsomniac wrote: | The parent is talking about Fort Collins, which decades ago | went to almost entirely underground utilities. Partly for | aesthetics, partly because of all of the lovely old trees in | the downtown area which kept taking utilities out. | | There are some poles around, but most of the city is | underground. So in this instance, yes, it was cheaper to run | the fiber than to run the fiber _AND_ set up poles. :-) | iptrans wrote: | WiFi is really poor as a last mile technology. | jfengel wrote: | What about as a last 100 meter technology? (I'm sorry, I'm | not being glib. I don't know much about networking at that | level.) | iptrans wrote: | WiFi is really bad at anything but in home connectivity. | ksec wrote: | > It would have been cheaper for them too.... | | Can some enlighten me, _why_ did they _not_ do it? For those of | us outside US, we never quite grasp why US mobile network and | ISP are so bad. All while refusing to do any improvement. | | Not only are they bad, they are ridiculously expensive. ( and | healthcare... but we wont go into that. ) | apexalpha wrote: | It's more profitable to collect $70 a month and not do | upgrades than to do $500 per household Capex expenditures and | then collect $70 a month. | narwally wrote: | And if they do it in city A, then city B down the road is | going to start demanding the same treatment. | ksec wrote: | Well yes. But I assume they _would_ react once or even | before competition like municipal broadband is available . | Except from reading this doesn 't seems to be the case at | all. | ashtonkem wrote: | Capitalism is wildly inefficient for infrastructure, and it's | really frustrating how often we have to relearn this as a | society. There's a damn good reason why the city owns the pipes | that bring water to and sewage from your house, and why the | power lines are owned by a heavily regulated monopoly. The | physical infrastructure to run internet to everyone's homes | should be owned by the state and responsive to the citizens it | serves and not the shareholders who profit. | amelius wrote: | What makes cable companies different from, say, a duopoly in | mobile phone operating systems? | tshaddox wrote: | The general response would be that, because of barriers to | entry and economies of scale, the optimal number of firms | in some industries is 1, and thus that firm should be | regulated or run by the government in order to prevent it | from exploiting its immense market power. | goodpoint wrote: | The whole concept of | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market requires being | able to purchase interchangeable goods on the global | market. | | Yet, you cannot buy a service like broadband or sewage, put | it in a box and sell it to someone living in another | continent. | | Location-bound services usually become quasi-monopolies, | where free market does not apply. The quasi-monopolist is | able (and happy) to charge the maximum price that people | can pay. | ashtonkem wrote: | Land usage, mostly. | | Cell companies need space for towers and fiber to those | antennas. It turns out that these don't take up all that | much space, so it's trivially possible for multiple cell | phone companies to setup towers covering the same | customers. | | Cable companies however have to deal with the "last mile" | problem, which is both massively more expensive than | installing more centralized infrastructure, but also | involves installing infrastructure on much more restricted | areas. | colejohnson66 wrote: | @amelius asked about phone _operating systems_. But your | comment is a very good point about mobile phones vs home | internet. | sokoloff wrote: | Isn't there a spectrum license/conflict issue for mobile | network operators? | ashtonkem wrote: | Absolutely, that's part of why T-Mobile and Sprint joined | together. But there's enough spectrum available to run a | few different cell phone companies, while last mile | issues are pretty much permanent for cable companies. | colejohnson66 wrote: | There may be a duopoly, but I can still get what I want | with jailbreaking or rooting (although that is getting | harder over time). With ISPs, if they both suck, I'm SOL. | heavyset_go wrote: | This is like saying that you can get away from your ISP | monopoly by using your neighbors' WiFi. | missedthecue wrote: | This is just competition. Nothing anti-market about that | user3939382 wrote: | Even famous libertarians like Hayek agree that infrastructure | is a necessary duty of the government. To me, it's the plate | on which the free market rests and operates. It is the wiring | of the market itself. | m463 wrote: | I think regulatory capture is one of the most profitable | loopholes in capitalism and I don't think there are adequate | checks and balances. | | I wish there was a better way to regulate internet service | that wasn't subject to these kinds of shenanigans. | | I suspect long-term it is competition that ends up fixing | this, but think of the drag on the economy when good | communication is fouled up like this. | JohnWhigham wrote: | Capitalism isn't at fault here; spineless municipal | governments are. Since the federal government is also | spineless, it's refreshing to see some starting to wake up to | the hellscape that is our Internet infrastructure. | martin8412 wrote: | It's not even capitalism to begin with. It's corporate | socialism. Where you have companies actively using the | government to secure their own payday. If a company has | millions and utter millions to throw at not having to | compete.. | | That being said, I agree that natural monopolies should be | considered an issue for the state. | ronnier wrote: | Comcast makes me sick. I spent months getting off of them and | it was worth every bit of it by switching to Ziply fiber in the | Seattle area. I went from this to this: | | * Comcast 1000/35 Down/up to Ziply 1000/1000 down/up | | * Monthly bill cut in half | | * Comcast monthly data caps, to no data caps with Ziply | | And that's right, Comcast gives 35 Mbps upload, if you are | lucky! And data caps. | ortusdux wrote: | My best option currently is Wave Broadband, with 940/20 | costing 100$/mo. I pay an extra 8$/mo for 940/25. The tech | installing my line checked my signal and said that they could | support 940/940, but they wont offer it in my area. I am | pricing the cost of a fiber run that after install will be | 1000/1000 for 60$/mo. I would gladly pay $3k to hook-up. | Analemma_ wrote: | Wave Broadband literally doubled my bill out of the blue | last November-- not because a trial pricing period ended or | anything, but just because they could: I was in an | apartment building where they were the only option. It's | irrelevant now because shortly after that I moved to a | different location, but they're just as bad as Comcast. | Private ISPs delenda est. | GloriousKoji wrote: | With comcast in my area the unofficial strategy is to | require you to sign up for a new plan every year to slowing | tick down your speed and increase costs. If you stick with | your old plan the monthly doubles. Right now I'm paying $60 | for 60/3.5 with comcast. A few years ago it was $30 for | 100/3.5 I have no other real options, it's gross. | Alupis wrote: | My comcast bill is $70 a month for 1000Mbps down / 36Mbps | up. Pretty happy actually... and my area has no municipal | ISP, and the only other option is AT&T's DSL variant. | mjevans wrote: | Your area has no Broadband Internet competition. You have | extremely poor upload and presumably a cap that you can | go over by accidentally leaving a video streaming service | tab open on. | | How are you happy again? It sounds like you're happy to | be in an abusive relationship rather than none at all. | Alupis wrote: | I'm happy because it satisfies my needs for a reasonable | price. I don't have a use for 1Gbps uploads... mostly | nobody does actually... and I stream a lot of 1080p | content, which comes nowhere near the "data cap" any | month of the year. | | Perhaps things would be different if I were streaming 4k, | but I'm not - and that would only be an issue with a data | cap (I agree, data caps are absurd). | | BTW, the limit on the upload is a physical issue with | cable lines and the DOCSIS protocol... I don't feel it's | realistic to demand fiber to everyone's home when nearly | nobody has an actual use-case for symmetrical home | connections... | | Lastly, getting the government involved in maintaining | lines to everyone's homes is a disaster waiting to | happen. What infrastructure is the government doing an | excellent job maintaining as it is? With salary caps on | staffers, and the inability to terminate underperforming | employees - municipal-owned lines and/or ISP's will start | out great, and over time suffer the same bureaucratic | disease the rest of the government already has. | lotsofpulp wrote: | >BTW, the limit on the upload is a physical issue with | cable lines and the DOCSIS protocol... I don't feel it's | realistic to demand fiber to everyone's home when nearly | nobody has an actual use-case for symmetrical home | connections... | | Nobody had a use case until a family of 4 needs to work | and school from home simultaneously or upload video. | Somehow, we had a use case for delivering people ad laden | garbage tv shows via cable, but something like fiber | internet which might actually be used for productivity | and creativity is not worthy of public support? | Alupis wrote: | Are you so sure the government can run a high tech ISP | better than the private sector? That they will employ the | best and brightest and pay them market rates or better? | | Or will it just turn into yet another jobs program, | filled with sub-par employees that can never be fired for | poor performance... While the infrastructure rots away? | | Say what you want about Comcast... But my internet never | goes down, is always fast, is a reasonable price, and | support is readily available within a couple minutes if | needed. | | Can you say the same for any government run program or | infrastructure project? | lotsofpulp wrote: | > Say what you want about Comcast... But my internet | never goes down, is always fast, is a reasonable price, | and support is readily available within a couple minutes | if needed. | | I've dealt with Comcast in 3 states on both coasts, and I | can't share any of those sentiments. The upload is always | garbage. | | > Can you say the same for any government run program or | infrastructure project? | | Yes, I've never had to call anyone about my electric, | gas, sewage, water, roads, parks, or air. Also, FYI, a | government org came up with the internet in the first | place. | | This trope of "all things government bad" is so lazy. We | are lucky in the US to live in a relatively trustworthy | society, where the FAA/FDA/CDC/etc have done quite a few | things to make our lives pleasant. Obviously they're not | perfect, but by and large the civilian agencies have | undoubtedly pushed our quality of life up. | Alupis wrote: | Electric - burned down several towns in California 2 | years back due to failure to maintain the lines over the | last _30 years_. | | Gas and Sewage rarely require infrastructure upgrades... | ie. there's no new home appliance that requires "more" | gas than the lines can currently provide (or provided 30 | years ago). | | Water? What about all the lead in the water issues that | were exposed a few years back? Do you think they would | have just fixed that if nobody made a big stink about it? | | ARPAnet has literally nothing to do with how commercial | (or municipal) ISP's operate today... not sure what point | you're trying to make. | | FAA has been attempting to upgrade ATC services nation- | wide for years and years... still hasn't happened. Plus | they've outsourced certifications of new aircraft to the | manufacturer (because they don't have the staff to do it | themselves, because they don't pay as well as private | companies) which led to the Boeing 737-MAX thing... | | CDC is now a political organization spouting whatever the | current president wants (at least under Trump and Biden) | | FDA - shills for the beef and corn industries... | | None of your examples are good. | lotsofpulp wrote: | I do not understand what the purpose of pointing out | specific deficiencies is after I already pointed out that | there were deficiencies. | | I know myself and many other people feel safe traveling | via air, buying food at the grocery store, drinking tap | water, are not worried about our houses burning down, and | trust the vaccines will help protect us. | dragonwriter wrote: | > Electric - burned down several towns in California 2 | years back due to failure to maintain the lines. | | That was a private entity. (The same one that also was on | proabtion for felonies for killing people and causing | widespread damage with its gas operations not long | before.) | Alupis wrote: | Is it though? They can't do so much as paint their trucks | without government approval. | | I'll admit, utilities are a bizarre hybrid at best - | however it was the government's state level utility | commission that approved the non-maintenance plans for | decades. | lotsofpulp wrote: | I consider utilities as part of government. They private | part is just so government officials can use them as a | scapegoat. For example, not letting PGE raise prices to | do proper maintenance, but then also blaming them when it | caused wildfires. Of course, voters will vote for the | politician that promises to keep costs down and keeps | more money in their pockets. | hellbannedguy wrote: | I heard threw the grapevine Xfinity (comcast) has given | up on trying to compete with streaming services. | | Their strategy is just charge more for everything, and | make ordering services compliced. | | Going on their website to just get basic cable, and low | speed internet is very hard. | | They push packages--hoping you will never realize when | the deal ends. | | They rely on senior citizens who just pay the bill, and | are not technical enough to even shop around--if they | have a choice? Most households don't. | | Comcast should be required to have have simple billing, | and simple ording of service | | That could be taken care of the next time your local | government ok's their next franchise agreement. It's not | a franchise. It's some agreement government has with | them. | | Be careful calling Xfinity (comcast) for anything. The | calls are routed overseas, and those employees main | function is pushing package deals. Don't fall for it. | They try to get the customer to agree on voice, so they | have evidence. | | 1. I'm ok with their internet service, except for the | price, and lack of competition. | | 2. The cable tv service is subpar. I have had checkering | for ever. I gave up on getting it corrected. After three | visits from third party vendors it's still not right. | (This third party vendor was working 6 days a week, and | was required to lease his service truck for $250/week.). | | 3. If you do have a lousy connection, it might be | partially related to a filter Comcast put on years ago, | but never took off. (The new filters are fine, but a | certain brand of an older one is bad. I just threw it out | so I can't give the part number. If you have voice | remote, make sure it's on the right three splitter. I | vagly remember it on the outlet with the lowest | resistance? | | 4. I believe Comcast knows they are pushing too much | through that coaxial. I believe they preparing for a | class action lawsuit, but might not care? | | 5. I only put up with Comcast because there's no real | competition where I reside. Xfinity's agreements with | local municipalities needs to be nixed. | | 6. Comcast promised to not cut off service during the | pandemic, but lied. | | 7. Comcast offers Hotspots. Your router could be the | hotspot, and they don't have to tell you. (I don't | believe their is any danger to this practice though.) | | I would love it that infrastructure bill did away with | Xfinity. They provide very few good paying jobs. I would | like to see free internet provided to every American, | even the wealthy. | heavyset_go wrote: | > _And that 's right, Comcast gives 35 Mbps upload, if you | are lucky! And data caps._ | | Before I switched last year, I only got 10Mbps up from | Comcast. | JohnTHaller wrote: | In NYC, I have exactly one broadband provider. Spectrum | (formerly Time Warner). Their highest end package is 500 down | / 20 up. I can't get FiOS because, even though Verizon | contractually agreed to wire all of NYC up for fiber, they | lied and didn't. So, my only other option is Verizon DSL with | offers 'up to 7Mbps' down. | | T-Mobile is rolling out their home 5g internet now. It | doesn't support streaming yet, but it hits around 200+ down | and 25 up on my phone, so it may get there. | sinak wrote: | If anyone is considering T-Mobile Home 5G Internet, you can | dramatically improve your connection speeds by getting the | devices to connect on the 5G n41 band, where T-Mobile has | much more spectrum. Unfortunately n41 is 2500 MHz, which | means it's readily absorbed by building materials. Hooking | up external antennas to the hotspot requires a bit of | playing with the device [1], but can be a big help. | | https://www.waveform.com/a/b/guides/hotspots/t-mobile-5g-ga | t... | ep103 wrote: | nyc has sued verizon multiple (?) times for failing to roll | out fiber into the city and just keeping the money. Each | time verizon does some update, or rolls out a little bit | more, and the story repeats. Telecom is a utility, end of | story. | toss1 wrote: | NYC needs to get serious | | Tell Verizon and the others that if they fail to fulfill | their contract, the will get their license pulled, or, at | the very least, they will operate their own local | municipal broadband. | | Of course the incentives are probably for each individual | politician such that with enough graft, campaign | donations, etc., that they just stick with the status | quo, but I'm not familiar with the local situation. | | [edit: typo "fulled" => "pulled"] | thomastjeffery wrote: | It sounds like that is what they have been doing. | | What they need to do now is tell Verizon that they | _failed_ to fulfill their contract, pull their license, | and operate their own municipal broadband. | lotsofpulp wrote: | New York City government has been all talk and no walk | because they also do not want to pony up the sufficient | funds to make it happen. | toss1 wrote: | Yup. Although, while I'm no longer familiar with the | local situation, it seems that the action has more been | to sue Verizon and pocket the proceeds from the lawsuits | into the general fund, while keeping their actual | regulatory big gun in the holster. | | Managing lawsuits and paying fines is apparently still | cheaper for Verizon than actually installing the fiber. | | What I want to know is WHY no regulator or judge has seen | fit to actually enforce the requirement sufficiently to | change Verizon's behavior. | | (Or why they just don't use your suggestion, say they | failed, repeatedly, pull the plug, and make their own | system. They could pay for a LOT with the profits, even | providing better and cheaper service) | meragrin_ wrote: | > It doesn't support streaming yet, but it hits around 200+ | down and 25 up on my phone, so it may get there. | | Does that mean the 5g internet is really slow(DSL speed?) | or do they actively block streaming? Is there another | reason streaming wouldn't be supported even at a decent | speed? | JohnTHaller wrote: | I misread the announcement. They don't support a couple | specific services (Hulu Live TV) but everything else | streams just great from reviews I've read (Netflix, | YouTube, regular Hulu, etc). | JonLim wrote: | Depending on where you live, check and see if you have | Natural Wireless[0] available in your building/residence. | Recently moved into an apartment that is lucky enough to | get their service, and we get gigabit for ~$70 a month. | | Have had almost zero issues, and their support has been | tremendous. | | [0]: https://naturalwireless.com/ | 310260 wrote: | Spectrum (TWC) also likes to get exclusive rights to | certain buildings too. Making the problem worse. | | On the topic of T-Mobile home internet, it does support | streaming. Availability is determined by the network in | your local area though. | JohnTHaller wrote: | I misread the announcement. They don't support a couple | specific services (Hulu Live TV) but everything else | streams just great from reviews I've read (Netflix, | YouTube, regular Hulu, etc). | xedrac wrote: | I've found that I almost never get the rates I pay for with | Comcast. I'm currently on their 600/35 plan, and I'm lucky to | get 200 down and 15 up. So even if Comcast were to roll out | "gigabit" everywhere, it would likely be very inferior to | municipal fiber. | tzs wrote: | Have you considered switching to a lower speed plan? | | If you are only actually getting 200, you might as well | switch to the 200 plan and save $20/month. | philote wrote: | It's nuts. I used to live in a major city, 10 minutes from | downtown, and the only high speed internet I could get was | Spectrum cable internet. I recently moved to a rural, mountain | area in the same state and there is a small ISP that provides | fiber to the entire county. They even have good pricing. | r00fus wrote: | Just to note: Sanders 2020 "Internet for All" plan would have | given municipalities the blueprints to a) fight Comcast and | entrenched providers and b) funding to do so, thereby enabling | more freedom. Unfortunately he did not prevail in the primary. | | More municipal and small internet providers could act as a | bulwark against centralization and corporate dominance of the | backbone of our communication infrastructure. | tgb wrote: | Biden's infrastructure plan includes similar verbiage.[1] | | > support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or | affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and co- | operatives | | Anyone know if it would work? Note that this is the bill | getting criticized as not being about "real infrastructure" | due to daring to have non-transportation infrastructure, like | this. | | [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements- | releases... | AnthonyMouse wrote: | The reasonable scale for a municipal fiber deployment is, | as the name says, at the municipal level. There is already | a reasonably competitive Tier 1 provider market, because it | isn't a natural monopoly, and there is no need for the | government to enter a market segment which is already | working. | | Which means the biggest thing you need from the feds (and | for that matter the state governments) is to get out of the | way and stop actively interfering with cities that want to | do this. Which doesn't seem like much to ask, but the | incumbents have spent the last hundred years capturing | every level of government in the US, and then we got the | likes of Ajit Pai running the FCC, which was an impediment. | | The other thing to watch out for is the classic regulatory | capture move where the government is about to spend money | on municipal infrastructure to compete with the incumbents | and the incumbents lobby instead to give the money to them. | In this context here you're looking for money that goes to | "5G" instead of fiber. Because "5G" means incumbents who | own wireless spectrum and/or want to "buy" it from the | taxpayer using tax money and then sit on it to exclude any | other competitors from having it. Or have the taxpayer pay | for their privately-owned infrastructure, providing a | permanent cost advantage so that no one else can ever | competitively enter the market in the future. | | First rule of the game is never give tax money to the | incumbents. History has shown that it's a black hole that | produces no results, and anybody who doesn't understand | this is either captured or not paying attention. | notyourwork wrote: | If most of society can work from home and conduct business | via the internet, I'd argue the internet is clearly | infrastructure. There weren't traffic jams and cars all | over the highways last year, we were cruising the internet | superhighway. | | Would love it for dinosaurs in politics to get with it and | understand the implications of technological investment (or | lack thereof). | richwater wrote: | Government intervention is what gave providers local | monopolies in the first place. | | More legislation from the federal and state level is not | needed, unless it's literally "All local agreements are now | null and void" which isn't even legal. | munk-a wrote: | Government intervention is constantly needed to keep a free | market in balance - there certainly is poor spirited | legislation that's designed to assist in market capture but | there is a lot more legislation out there that's protecting | small markets. | | Anarcho-libretarianism isn't the solution here and neither | is rejecting balanced legislation out of a force of habit. | SlowRobotAhead wrote: | I'm not shitting on your comment, but are you saying _"we | need government involvement (regulatory oversight) to | solve problems made from previous government involvement | (poor spirited legislation)?"_ | | I don't think anyone is suggesting no laws at all, but | perhaps we can have some foresight and not legislate | ourselves into oversight which will only make more | legislation which will only make more... | | I'm happy to see municipal internet IF the service | quality and price is competitive. While we're dealing | with the Verizon's and Comcast's of the world, this is | usually working, what do we do when we've destroyed the | market and the local service sucks? | nickysielicki wrote: | > Government intervention is constantly needed to keep a | free market in balance | | "Constant government intervention" is incompatible with | the definition (literally) of a free market. | pessimizer wrote: | Only the kind of free market that has no rules against | fraud and robbery. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | This is just daft, is your idea of free markets the drug | cartels of columbia? Because thats what you get wuthoit | government intervention | nickysielicki wrote: | Hey, if you don't like free markets, that's fine, I'll | respect your opinion. | | I'm just saying that: | | Oxford defines a free market as: "an economic system in | which prices are determined by unrestricted competition | between privately owned businesses." | | Wikipedia defines it as: "a system in which the prices | for goods and services are self-regulated by buyers and | sellers negotiating in an open market. In a free market, | the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from | any intervention by a government or other authority, and | from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and | artificial scarcities." | | Investopedia defines it as: "an economic system based on | supply and demand with little or no government control." | | Words have meaning, god damn it. | munk-a wrote: | But that's just folks giving the benefit of the doubt to | your earlier statement - the technical definition of a | free market is incompatible with our modern society. | ClumsyPilot wrote: | Words do have a meaning, so tell me what is "unrestricted | competition"? Because columbian cartels think it means | murdering your competitor along with his family. Is that | too unrestricted for you? Okay, let's leave out murder. | | How about paying random people to leave bad reviews for | your competitors. Or paying shops so they don't stock | competitors products. Or agreeing with banks that your | competitor should not get a loan. Or making a deal with | railroads where they will only transport your product, | and not your competitors? Because all of the above have | happened. Is that "unrestricted"? | smolder wrote: | Anarchical, intervention-less markets are where cartels | and monopolies form and destroy competition, and then | there stops being anything free about it. By that strict | definition of free markets, they are ephemeral, self- | defeating things. | billytetrud wrote: | Government intervention is only needed to settle | disputes. Governments are already constantly intervening | by barring isps other than eg Comcast from building. That | government intervention has to stop. Government enacted | monopolies are what caused the problem in the first | place. Yes government has to act to stop it, but probably | at the state level. | TameAntelope wrote: | That's a fun idea, but we're well past that now. In | reality, monopolies _do_ exist, and the government needs | to step in to resolve the dispute the people in a given | area now have with the monopoly for its anticompetitive | practices. | | Also, infrastructure isn't easy to build and is | oftentimes not even profitable. Are you suggesting only | places where an ISP can make money should have Internet | access? | billytetrud wrote: | ISPs are _government-granted_ monopolies. It 's so | disappointing how many people here don't seem to | understand that. Look up regulatory capture and then down | vote me... | fouric wrote: | The ISPs got into a monopoly position due to government | intervention, yes. That was a mistake. Unfortunately, now | that we're in this position, it's too late, we're stuck, | and we need the government to get us back out - | "activation energy", so to speak, to get us over the | energy barrier from our current high-energy position (ISP | monopolies) to a low-energy position (competitive | market). | | Ideally, at that point, the government would then step | back and merely enact rules to keep the market fair and | competitive. | | Whether that _actually_ happens is another matter. My | prediction is that the past trend of the government never | letting go of power that it has acquired will continue. | TameAntelope wrote: | Yes, but the granting of monopoly status already | happened, that part is over. You can't unring that bell, | is my point. | takeda wrote: | Actually government intervention is the only way to solve | it. | | The problem is that in a city there's limited space to run | the wires to each home. | | Also if you want to have 10 competitors is really silly to | expect having 10 fiber optic cables going to every home | when majority of people wouldn't use more than one ISP at | the time. Then 9 fibers will be then unused and degrading. | | When Internet was reclassified to Title II, Wheeler | specifically excluded Title II's provision that required | existing ISPs to lease their infrastructure to competitors. | Back in late 90s, early 2000s we had tons of ISPs to chose | from, exactly because of that provision. | | This needs to change if we want to get competition back. | | Or we would need cities to build such infrastructure which | is even harder and more expensive thing to do. | | Either way it requires government intervention. | kevincox wrote: | In Canada the network owners are also required to lease | the infrastructure to other operators but the situation | is similar (although IIUC not quite as bad). | | It seems to me that city-owned is actually the best | option in this case. If it is optimal to have one set of | infrastructure than it makes sense to have that | infrastructure owned by the city which operates for the | common good. As much as I am hesitant to trust the | government to run the network I have no issues with my | water or electricity utilities and the prices seem quite | fair. | jollybean wrote: | Owning 'infrastructure' is a different than being service | provider. | | I actually would strongly support municipalities owning | the last mile as part of their services, but I'm less | interested in them actually providing service. | | The problem is the monopoly still exists. My father lives | in a small town ironically with a tiny little ISP not | owned by one of the majors. But the water - they pay $200 | a month for water (!), because they are making major | expansions to the water stations to support new building. | The town council was pushed to do this by the builders | with a lot of wining and dining. So the local, fairly | poor townspeople are paying ridiculous rates. Since | amalgamation, the town does not have it's own mayor, they | do 'regional' groupings, so the individual town can't | punt the program. | | Due to monopoly situation in the town, the townspoeple | are stuck paying massive rates to subsidize a rich | builders exploits. | | These things are common and guaranteed to happen. | | The idea is to have some degree of socialization where | absolutely necessary, and then to try to provide real | competition on that infrastructure. If the construction | and maintenance of the infrastructure can be competitive | (like roads) then great. For electricity transport, it | can become a problem, as the semi-private agencies that | manage the electrical grid are often very inefficient. | | Every town should take control of the 'last mile gear' | but I suggest your ISP actually should be one of many | private players. Definitely more than the physically | limited Choice of Comcast + 1 other. | JoshTriplett wrote: | > I actually would strongly support municipalities owning | the last mile as part of their services, but I'm less | interested in them actually providing service. | | Exactly. Municipalities should run fiber to the nearest | meet-me room, and license at a defined rate to anyone who | wants to light up that fiber. | billytetrud wrote: | Limited space? For wires? You know how small wires are | right? | ceejayoz wrote: | Individually? Sure. | | They add up, though. https://www.ecmweb.com/safety/media- | gallery/20902083/crazy-w... | majormajor wrote: | Take away the government intervention and you take away | the property easements that allow utilities to put up | poles and run wires through yards, etc, to get to all the | houses. | | Good luck with your "let everyone run their tiny wires | wherever without the government being involved" plan. | You've heard of NIMBYism, right? How many times do you | think you'll be allowed to rip up the street? | smolder wrote: | In countries that are very light on regulation there (I | think I recall Brazil having this) you'll see messes of | Ethernet hanging around, with dead cables still present. | Unsurprisingly, they do provide a lot of bandwidth for a | small price, comparitively. | takeda wrote: | That's also how Romania is (or at least was) one of | countries with fast and cheap internet. | | It started with the government telco not being interested | in Internet. So people started running Ethernet cables, | first to neighbors, then to other buildings. It started | as having local networks to share files. Eventually those | network got connected to Internet. If the price or | quality of service provided is not satisfactory they can | switch to another ISP. The bad part as you said is the | huge number of ugly looking wires[1] | | [1] https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-many-internet- | cables-on-la... | zaphar wrote: | For wires that need too run out in the elements around a | quarter inch or higher, plus you need conduit, and backup | wires. So about an inch or more with just naive napkin | estimation. I'm probably underestimating it actually. | Ekaros wrote: | They probably won't share conduits, and probably just in | case want more than one pair... So it does add up. | blt wrote: | > Conversely, the specter of governments operating broadband | networks in competition with the private sector, or of state or | local governments serving as both regulators and owners of | competing broadband networks, could stifle investment or reduce | private-sector access to capital. | | > Larry Irving, 2014 | | Oh, no! Reduce private-sector access to capital? How will society | continue? | | Seriously though, there is plenty of money to be made in private | sector manufacturing and installation of networking equipment. | The point of public internet is to place the infrastructure | planning and the mediation of access under control of a body that | is interested in long-term societal benefit instead of short-term | profit. | ouid wrote: | I believe that the ISP monopolies are also interested in long | term profit. | HarryHirsch wrote: | Sure, consequently they invest in lobbying instead of | physical plant, it provides a better return on investment. | colejohnson66 wrote: | But there's a way to do that: invest in infrastructure. If | everyone in town offers 50/10 and you build out fiber for | 1000/1000, you'll get customers from the other companies. But | no one does that; they just don't compete. | sokoloff wrote: | If Comcast then offered 150/10 at a discount if you bought | cable TV services from them, they could still compete | favorably against municipal broadband for many households. | HarryHirsch wrote: | _Conversely, the specter of governments operating water and | sewage plants in competition with the private sector, or of | state or local governments serving as both regulators and | owners of competing water and sewage plants, could stifle | investment or reduce private-sector access to capital._ | | One shudders to think what Comcast Water and Sewage would be | like. | cure wrote: | > One shudders to think what Comcast Water and Sewage would | be like. | | It's funny, caps on Comcast Water and Sewage would be illegal | in many states! | colejohnson66 wrote: | _Our records show that you've flushed your toilet more than | 100 times this billing period. Each addition flush will incur | an addition $10 /flush fee._ | | _Thank you for choosing Comcast!_ | aksss wrote: | Or you can opt for throttled flushes. | sokoloff wrote: | At least we could crap on them for a change. | dv_dt wrote: | I would say under-investment by private holders of last-mile | infrastructure holds back a lot of other business sectors as | well as quality of life for people in those cities. This from a | city dweller who watched the mega telecom extract profits while | installed infrastructure decayed to unusable in my last | neighborhood. | | I recall getting sent technicians telling me, well they don't | have enough diagnostic units to actually figure out this | problem, but I'll switch you to another pair and you can see if | that works - call us back if it doesn't. | linsomniac wrote: | In our area we had two choices: Copper cat-3 that was installed | in 1971, or coax that was installed in the '80s. The first | provider got billions of dollars of increased tariffs by | promising to deliver fiber to the home by the year 2000. | | They had their chance to demonstrate they were interested in | investing in the infrastructure. | | 3-4 months ago we got our municipal fiber connection, gigabit | symmetric, no caps, and it's glorious! We can also get 10-gig, | but that's $300/mo and I don't have the internal network to | handle it. | aksss wrote: | This sounds exactly like the residential situation in my | city, minus the happy ending. | judge2020 wrote: | It'd be nice if there were a registry of cities/companies | with a 2 or 10 gigabit residential fiber offering. Google has | 2gbit but (for Atlanta) it's only at specific apartment | communities: | | https://fiber.google.com/2gig/ | | https://fiber.google.com/cities/atlanta/#:~:text=Find%20a,Fi. | .. | legutierr wrote: | This sounds great. Where are you? It seems like a promising | place to open a business. | artificialLimbs wrote: | Bismarck AR and several surrounding communities have fiber | through a Coop. They ran 12 strands to my wall. Plans only | show 1Gb on their sales brochure. Maybe they don't have | infra for 10G yet... I haven't bothered to ask. | | https://www.catc.net/services/internet | linsomniac wrote: | Much of the Northern Front Range of Colorado has this sort | of setup rolling or rolled out: Longmont, Loveland, Fort | Collins. I'm in the latter. | | I'm one of the earlier deploys, but they plan to have the | whole city deployed in the next year-ish. My office is | expecting to be built out in around 4 months. | | Pricing for residential is: $59.95 (landed) for gigabit | (symmetric, no caps), or $299.95/mo for 10-gig. This is | Internet only, they also have phone and TV. | | For businesses, the pricing is different: 250M/500M/1G is | $99.95/199.95/399.95. Pretty much directly competitive with | Comcast Business pricing we've been paying, but with much, | much more outbound bandwidth. | lotsofpulp wrote: | > Oh, no! Reduce private-sector access to capital? How will | society continue? | | All that private sector access and 95% of people still have the | same 3Mbps upload and slow latency as 20 years ago when cable | broadband first came out in the US. | | Zero reason to not have fiber be delivered the same way as | electric, gas, and water. | gruez wrote: | >Zero reason to not have fiber be delivered the same way as | electric, gas, and water. | | ...provided by private companies? eg. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Edison, https://en | .wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Compa..., or | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Water_Works | lotsofpulp wrote: | Utilities have government oversight. I'm not sure why they | even bother with the distinction, since pricing and whatnot | has to go through government approval. In contrast to | internet, where Comcast and their peers can do whatever | they want whenever they want. | ashtonkem wrote: | If we can have Comcast provide service and regulate is | aggressively as we do power companies, that seems like a | great deal to me. | HarryHirsch wrote: | Isn't Con.Ed. the one with the continuous transformer | explosions because they cut maintenance to the bone? | | As far as I know in Berlin they are considering re- | nationalizing the waterworks because the current owner | fails to adequately maintain the infrastructure. | [deleted] | orliesaurus wrote: | I remember some other HN user who started their own Fiber ISP and | did a "show HN" a couple of years back. It was super insightful | how they started as a moonshot project for their own benefit and | the one of their community. Forgot your username (and even | searching I couldn't find the specific thread) but if for some | reason you read this I hope you're still successful! | sangnoir wrote: | Are you referring to | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952040 ? | cronix wrote: | After reading many comments, I wonder why more people aren't | looking into Space X's Starlink. Broadband speeds, no wired | infrastructure, portable, no caps and $100/mo. It seems to be | about $30 more/mo than most here are paying, but their broadband | is tied to a physical location and not easily movable. Soon it | will be mobile, as in dish corrects itself in realtime while | driving a motorhome [1], etc. You can take them out in the middle | of nowhere, as long as you don't leave your region, like I did 2 | weeks ago as a test in the Willamette National Forest in Oregon, | 20 miles out on a logging road. Didn't even get 1 bar of cell | service, but was watching movies on Netflix in 4k and even played | a bit of COD. You can change your region with Starlink, but it | takes a day or two as you have to call and tell them the "new | address." It's all manual. They are working on a way to automate | those requests via the web so they take minutes to change instead | of hours or days, and when mobile comes out you probably won't | need to do that either. | | [1] https://arstechnica.com/information- | technology/2021/04/dishy... | | Laying fiber is expensive, and the more rural you go the more | expensive it gets. | afavour wrote: | Part of the reason people are very excited by municipal | broadband is the ownership part. No giant corporate entity | standing between you and your internet connection. | | The connection being mobile is nice but it's not something I | require from my broadband connection, I already have a | cellphone. And I live in an apartment building where installing | a dish will be all but impossible. | | Don't get me wrong, Starlink is amazing tech and in rural areas | it'll be a huge deal. But in reasonably sized towns and cities | a wired, locally owned internet connection is also huge. | CountDrewku wrote: | You just have extremely slow ass local government/regulation | to deal with instead... | HDMI_Cable wrote: | Which is better than an actively malicious oligopoly. | afavour wrote: | I'd argue that's one of the reasons municipal governments | are the best place to do this. If you tried at the state or | federal level it would be slow as molasses but cities can | move quicker. | iptrans wrote: | Starlink is only an option for a very, very small portion of | the population. | | The Starlink constellation has less total bandwidth than a | single strand of fiber. It simply does not scale. | | Starlink only has permits for about a million terminals or so | and they must be very careful in where and how many customers | they sign up so as to not overwhelm the system. | | Elon himself has said that Starlink is only an option when you | have no other options. | INTPenis wrote: | A little anecdote about municipal broadband in Sweden. Normally | it's great and I love it. The ones I've seen have been run by the | municipal real estate owner. They're the ones who build apartment | buildings in a certain municipality but they're sometimes half | privately owned. | | In my current hometown they branched off a separate private | company to manage the broadband. | | Anyways, in a little town where I lived, a street of about 6-7 | apartment buildings banded together and contacted Telia first | about digging fiber to their buildings. | | Telia gave them a disgusting deal which would have restricted all | the tenants to the Telia ISP. They've done this before even in | bigger cities where they sign a deal with one real estate company | so all their buildings only have Telia. | | My SO at the time actually worked for Telia but she was a clever | girl because she realized you could go directly to the municipal | broadband and have them dig the fiber. That way all the tenants | could choose from any ISP in the country and not be restricted to | just Telia. | | This even raises the desirability of the building for young | people who favour Bahnhof as ISP for example. | pottertheotter wrote: | A lot of the apartment complexes here on the U.S. have started | doing these exclusivity deals with an ISP so you can only buy | from one, even if more options exist in your market. The real | estate owners make money off it. | atlgator wrote: | Chattanooga allegedly has 10GB municipal fiber. | pottertheotter wrote: | There's quite a few that do. Utopia, which covers several | cities in Utah, has offered 10Gbps for 3 or 4 years. | maxharris wrote: | I moved to Tennessee recently, and we have municipal broadband | from EPB. On the one hand, it's offered at a fair price | ($68/month for a symmetric gigabit connection). On the other | hand, they have been promising IPv6 support for years but have | completely failed to deliver. Unfortunately the sales people are | every bit as non-technical at EPB as they are anywhere else, and | they don't seem to understand the issue at all. | | Does anyone else have the same experience, or is just EPB in | particular that's bad on offering IPv6? | | Obviously, I still prefer EPB's service over that of Comcast, | AT&T or Cox. I'm not complaining about municipal broadband in | general. (I would like to see a NAT-free internet in my lifetime, | that's all.) | p1mrx wrote: | It would be nice if municipal fiber just provided a dumb "layer | 2" pipe to some nearby PoP where you can shop around for an ISP | who knows how the internet works. Basically the dialup model, | but 10000X faster. Then municipalities wouldn't have to worry | about stuff like IP addressing and DMCA notices. | | The main disadvantage is that packets to your neighbors need to | hairpin through the PoP instead of staying local, but that's | probably not a big deal for residential traffic. | xyst wrote: | There's a municipal ISP in Chattanooga, TN that offers their | residents gigabit internet at ~$68 per month. They even offer 10 | gigabit internet (symmetrical) to the home. These offerings blow | the major ISPs out of the water, and even in some cases are on | par with Google Fiber (at a cheaper price). | | The way the system is now, most areas/communities are only served | by a single ISP. In the past 5 years of moving in the city, I | have only had the choice of selecting Spectrum. | aksss wrote: | What are the financials behind this? I only ask because it's | pretty damned expensive to build a network and then do the O&M. | $68/mo sounds like very old broadband prices that were | subsidized by revenue from other channels (bundling). Does $68 | get the city to a break even or is this running at a loss? Not | criticizing, just curious how that pencils out - what true cost | is. | wing-_-nuts wrote: | IIRC they ran fiber with the power lines in order to enable a | smart grid. They realized they had so much spare bandwidth | that they could sell internet service. Basically everyone | with a power connection to EPB can get fiber internet? | | Brilliant move. I'm considering Chattanooga as a retirement | location. Lots of outdoor recreation, no state taxes and I | can supposedly get fiber internet anywhere I can get | connected to the power grid? Sign me up! | williesleg wrote: | That's what I want more politicians snooping on my porn surfs | asiachick wrote: | American's infrastructure is crumbling | | https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/americas-infrastructure-is... | | Plenty of other article to reference on that. | | Why would we expect municipal broadband to be any different? | Network tech jumps up speed every ~5yrs, unlike most other | infrastructure that hasn't changed in decades. | | The current government sanctioned monopolies need to stop but I'm | pretty confident that municipal broadband will being net negative | in a few years as it kills commercial investment therefore | leaving places that have it struggling to keep up with those that | don't. See Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc... All have market based | solutions. I expect in 5-10 yrs they'll be running terabit | connections for VR or AR 3D video/telepresence and municipal | broadband will be stuck only able to stream Netflix and take | years to get the government to approve for upgrades. | pessimizer wrote: | Also American's current broadband providers are shit. | vladmk wrote: | It should be criminal for those behemoths to restrict people of | internet. As I've said in the past internet is too common to be | monopolized by these companies if anything they should seek to | enhance internet for all vs constricting it. | billytetrud wrote: | Government run utilities like this look really good at the start. | They naturalize existing infrastructure that was built privately | and simply run it at lower cost. However they are really bad at | investing in the future. 20 years down the line, municipal | internet will likely be far worse quality and probably more | expensive than private ISPs. Comcast and other Monopoly holders | are evil, to be sure, but the answer is to take away their | government granted Monopoly agreements, not to have state run | internet services. Governments are not good at running companies. | Business simply isn't the business of government. I fear these | municipal internet operations are very short sighted. The problem | is that they'll look like they're working well for years and | years until the infrastructure becomes outdated. | ravedave5 wrote: | This exact thing is occurring with existing private providers | read the other comments about poor support in people's cities. | So yes it will probably happen with municipal too, but at least | the citizens can do something about it. | billytetrud wrote: | The best solution is for states to ban local municipalities | from enacting monopolies of any kind. Municipal ISPs are fine | as long as private ISPs are allowed to compete. | nobody9999 wrote: | >The best solution is for states to ban local | municipalities from enacting monopolies of any kind. | Municipal ISPs are fine as long as private ISPs are allowed | to compete. | | An even _better_ solution is for municipalities to own the | last mile, then sell access to that last mile to private | ISPs. | | This lowers barriers to entry, enables additional | competition on price, bandwidth, service, etc. and provides | a revenue stream to maintain, manage and upgrade the last | mile infrastructure. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-04-28 23:00 UTC)