The sad thing is it is quite difficult for a single city who wants to provide internet access to its residents to do so (some states have passed laws prohibiting it, even), there's little chance the federal government will take an active hand in the near future.
When not even all of New York City has access to broadband internet, despite promises that it would be so by now... I was going to say it's hard to figure out why the companies keep thinking they can get away with this sort of thing, but the government never really does much about companies never delivering on infrastructure improvement promises that they make.
Yeah, for 30+ years the federal government has been funneling 100s of billions into network infrastructure with little to show for it. Just imagine if the DOT or DOE had been responsible for laying the nation's fiber. It would have probable taken 20 years and gone 100 Billion over budget, but at least it would have been DONE by now.
Thanks to a conservative legislature, these company had literally 0 consequences for not honoring their agreement with the Government. I can only hope the progressives in the FCC are able to wrangle these assholes into delivering on these promises. Thanks to government subsidies and tax breaks, providing internet service is one of the most profitable businesses to be in, second maybe to Petroleum. These companies have no excuse for failing to improve their networks in a timely fashion. The people running these companies should have all their assets seized and be thrown in jail.
Would love some links.
0
Options
That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
When not even all of New York City has access to broadband internet, despite promises that it would be so by now... I was going to say it's hard to figure out why the companies keep thinking they can get away with this sort of thing, but the government never really does much about companies never delivering on infrastructure improvement promises that they make.
Yeah, for 30+ years the federal government has been funneling 100s of billions into network infrastructure with little to show for it. Just imagine if the DOT or DOE had been responsible for laying the nation's fiber. It would have probable taken 20 years and gone 100 Billion over budget, but at least it would have been DONE by now.
Thanks to a conservative legislature, these company had literally 0 consequences for not honoring their agreement with the Government. I can only hope the progressives in the FCC are able to wrangle these assholes into delivering on these promises. Thanks to government subsidies and tax breaks, providing internet service is one of the most profitable businesses to be in, second maybe to Petroleum. These companies have no excuse for failing to improve their networks in a timely fashion. The people running these companies should have all their assets seized and be thrown in jail.
Would love some links.
2nd post in the thread has an article summarizing a tell-all book about the subject.
The sad thing is it is quite difficult for a single city who wants to provide internet access to its residents to do so (some states have passed laws prohibiting it, even), there's little chance the federal government will take an active hand in the near future.
Thank fucking god the FCC is preempting those utterly insane laws. Killing compatition is not how you grow a market. If a munisipality has some extra cash they want to invest (and make it back at a 9:1 ratio), let them. America was built on supply and demand. There is a great demand for fast and stable internet. There are plenty of folks willing to provide it. STOP STANDING IN THEIR WAY.
The sad thing is it is quite difficult for a single city who wants to provide internet access to its residents to do so (some states have passed laws prohibiting it, even), there's little chance the federal government will take an active hand in the near future.
Thank fucking god the FCC is preempting those utterly insane laws. Killing compatition is not how you grow a market. If a munisipality has some extra cash they want to invest (and make it back at a 9:1 ratio), let them. America was built on supply and demand. There is a great demand for fast and stable internet. There are plenty of folks willing to provide it. STOP STANDING IN THEIR WAY.
I agree completely.
I hope the towns that are trying this fare better than the ones that tried to do public Wifi a few years back, that was largely a complete disaster.
How about we let police and lawyers deal with people breaking the law rather than ISPs? Bittorrent is fine. I've heard similar argument about encryption. It's used for bad purposes! So what?
USB sticks can be used to send files, and door locks keep out people who would otherwise like to be in your house. Why is their illegitimate use of any concern? Why not sue or arrest people breaking the law instead?
Keep in mind this is no longer the case but...
Years ago bittorrent would slow to a crawl an entire neighborhoods internet access by saturating the upload link. Which is why they aimed to try to cap the speed these downloads ran at. now the infrastructure is much better today and a few bittorrent downloads are usually no worse than someone watching Netflix. But policies written for years ago seem to stick around longer than they are needed.
+2
Options
Lord_AsmodeusgoeticSobriquet:Here is your magical cryptic riddle-tumour: I AM A TIME MACHINERegistered Userregular
The government should just do it itself,
but oh no! Creating actual infrastructure that would benefit citizens? That's socialism! Besides, the government doesn't know how to get shit done
We should rely on private corporations in relevant fields because they surely know how to do this better for the government, more efficiently, and for less money right?
I mean, I'm pretty sure I've seen that argument made why the government shouldn't be handling it, and I'll probably see it crop up any time people suggest the government handle this kind of thing.
It's starting to get frustrating (like it hasn't always been super frustrating)
Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Lincoln
+2
Options
FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
edited July 2015
Obligatory link to Chattanooga, TN creating its own municipal-run broadband network after getting a federal grant(and beating a Comcast lawsuit to keep them from setting the network up), and then seeing a rise in median income and home values, as well as a number of new businesses relocate there.
Last year, they had a plan that offered 1 gigabit per second for $70/month. I pay that much for 20 Megabits, tops. The money quote from the article:
"If the private sector is unable to provide that kind of bandwidth because of the steep infrastructure investment, then just like highways in the 1950s, the government has to consider providing that support."
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
Never underestimate the power of the Commerce Clause!
Psn:wazukki
+5
Options
jungleroomxIt's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovelsRegistered Userregular
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
They've got the capability to do MUCH more than they do. They're just nickel and diming people to death. Cable companies won their war against fiber optic (so far) and now they're half-assing their expansions so they can fleece the shit out of their customers.
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
Google's unlikely to ever connect outside of highly profitable urban areas. There's no reason state governments can't build out physical infrastructure and leave service delivery to ISPs, all of whom would be given the same wholesale pricing structure. Numerous countries, including Australia, have adopted the structural separation model, and it works very well.
I'm paying a little below $80 for i don't know what. The service is at least great, though, only, like, two noticeable outages in the whole time i've lived here, one was an issue of intermittent service, the other was solved in a few hours, it's fast, handles well when someone else is making a skype call, i just think that's too damn much for internet alone, so i'm trying to call them.
Though Comcast seems to take "transfer this account so you have permission to negotiate its price" more seriously than the government takes background checks...
0
Options
FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
That's pretty much what Chattanooga did; they did get some federal money but they're the ones that laid down the fiber optic grid with a taxpaer-owned utility. I think the mayor in his quote isn't necessarily referring to federal government to provide support, just any government.
I also had something re: the Google point but then I updated the thread and saw that Suriko said pretty much what I was going to say, so yea.
Google just started laying fiber in the Atlanta area and Comcast has already doubled their offered local speeds. On the subject of rural areas, I think Google may be hoping they can handle those more efficiently through various forms of wireless networks (their balloon project and their large investment in SpaceX for their satellite constellation project are two different efforts in this direction).
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
Google just started laying fiber in the Atlanta area and Comcast has already doubled their offered local speeds. On the subject of rural areas, I think Google may be hoping they can handle those more efficiently through various forms of wireless networks (their balloon project and their large investment in SpaceX for their satellite constellation project are two different efforts in this direction).
That's another thing that's sitting poorly with me. Any mention of fiber competition in an area, and Comcast et al pull massively improved speeds seemingly out of a hat, which leads me to believe that they could do this at nearly any point, but choose not to? You can make the argument that it's not in the company's best interest to do so without competition, but then you put yourself in the situation that the system as is allows for about 60% of Americans(number taken from my article linked earlier) to have only one internet & cable provider that chooses to provide the barest minimum of service because they can, and attempt to litigate/lobby competition out of the way, mostly successfully, which sounds like it needs some outside intervention.
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
Google just started laying fiber in the Atlanta area and Comcast has already doubled their offered local speeds. On the subject of rural areas, I think Google may be hoping they can handle those more efficiently through various forms of wireless networks (their balloon project and their large investment in SpaceX for their satellite constellation project are two different efforts in this direction).
That's another thing that's sitting poorly with me. Any mention of fiber competition in an area, and Comcast et al pull massively improved speeds seemingly out of a hat, which leads me to believe that they could do this at nearly any point, but choose not to? You can make the argument that it's not in the company's best interest to do so without competition, but then you put yourself in the situation that the system as is allows for about 60% of Americans(number taken from my article linked earlier) to have only one internet & cable provider that chooses to provide the barest minimum of service because they can, and attempt to litigate/lobby competition out of the way, mostly successfully, which sounds like it needs some outside intervention.
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
That story really bugged me. If they weren't able to offer him internet and had no plans to, why lead him on like that? What benefit is there to Comcast?
Comcast are assholes. That's all there is to it. If they won't see an immediate and/or large enough profit, they don't give two shits about you.
I could go into it, but the long short is that comcast will make deals to be a sole provider and then ignore the conditions because very few have the time or money to actually stand up to them
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
When you said 'The Government' can't it would have to be 'State governments' what were you referencing if it wasn't the Feds?
It was the feds, but the RUS doesn't do what we're wanting... it partners with private industry, and you guys are talking about government efforts funded by taxpayers and owned by the State.
0
Options
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
That said, being on the ISP side of things I have seen at least my company put in a lot of money into upgrading infrastructure. The problem is it doesn't matter how much money the government gives, there is not much incentive to spend that kind of capital to run 100 meg service to a podunk town of 1000 residents, so those markets tend to get upgraded at a significantly slower pace.
Which is one of the reasons why the physical broadband infrastructure should be a state asset.
You wound me Suriko
Please, let me forget what has been lost
0
Options
Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
To further the "let's ban BitTorrent" or get ISPs to throttle it all - it's not very easy to do. You can do Deep Packet Inspection on each packet and deprioritise the BitTorrent ones, but that is super expensive and trivially defeated by encryption. You can guess at what is BitTorrent traffic by looking at traffic profiles, but that doesn't work that well and can be defeated by tuning your settings. You can focus on the default ports that are used, but that doesn't get you very far once clients start shipping with randomised port usage by default (as they largely do now).
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
When you said 'The Government' can't it would have to be 'State governments' what were you referencing if it wasn't the Feds?
It was the feds, but the RUS doesn't do what we're wanting... it partners with private industry, and you guys are talking about government efforts funded by taxpayers and owned by the State.
The private industry they traditionally partner with are local Co-Ops that are more or less purpose made by and for the community to provide utility service. Not Comcast &c.
My understanding of Chattanooga's setup is that it is run by a private corporation that is just owned by the municipality; rather than through the Department of Transportation or something. The EPB is equivalent to the TVA and so would qualify for RUS funding, aside from the fact that Chattanooga's probably isn't rural enough for USDA rather than HUD.
And, regardless, I'd be perfectly happy with the internet equivalent of Obamacare instead of single payer. I just want to stop paying through the nose for shit internet connectivity. So do whatever to get to a better place where I'm not getting fucked by Comcast or AT&T.
And, regardless, I'd be perfectly happy with the internet equivalent of Obamacare instead of single payer. I just want to stop paying through the nose for shit internet connectivity. So do whatever to get to a better place where I'm not getting fucked by Comcast or AT&T.
Google just started laying fiber in the Atlanta area and Comcast has already doubled their offered local speeds. On the subject of rural areas, I think Google may be hoping they can handle those more efficiently through various forms of wireless networks (their balloon project and their large investment in SpaceX for their satellite constellation project are two different efforts in this direction).
That's another thing that's sitting poorly with me. Any mention of fiber competition in an area, and Comcast et al pull massively improved speeds seemingly out of a hat, which leads me to believe that they could do this at nearly any point, but choose not to? You can make the argument that it's not in the company's best interest to do so without competition, but then you put yourself in the situation that the system as is allows for about 60% of Americans(number taken from my article linked earlier) to have only one internet & cable provider that chooses to provide the barest minimum of service because they can, and attempt to litigate/lobby competition out of the way, mostly successfully, which sounds like it needs some outside intervention.
I don't have any direct information on Comcast, but I have seen enough of what goes into offering higher speeds to know it's not "seemingly out of a hat". It's a large and speedy investment in infrastructure in those areas in order to upgrade them enough to provide those speeds. They have to have switches that can handle DOCSIS 3 / 3.1 with enough channels to make those speeds work, and those switches are not cheap (especially from Cisco, but they have major competition from Arris who are much cheaper). There needs to be enough bandwidth on the cable lines, which requires a combination of running new lines / increasing fiber and moving cable TV channels out of the analog spectrum to digital which means making sure customers - many of whom still have TVs without QAM tuners - can still get those channels. It also means making sure customers have the equipment they need to make use of those speeds and not be harmful to the network which means making sure customers all have DOCSIS 3 modems. And they can't do all of this at the same time for all of their areas, the support and management channels just can't handle it.
Cable companies are now spending billions to upgrade markets in order to provide 100 - 300 mbps+ speeds. I'm not saying that the competition from Google is bad, because it is not and it is no coincidence that the Google areas are the first ones where cable companies are offering these speeds and competition is good. The franchise system cable operates off of is BAD specifically because it allows for localized monopolies. I'm just saying it is not quite as easy as it sounds and at least in some areas companies are working as fast as they can to get it done.
0
Options
FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
Google just started laying fiber in the Atlanta area and Comcast has already doubled their offered local speeds. On the subject of rural areas, I think Google may be hoping they can handle those more efficiently through various forms of wireless networks (their balloon project and their large investment in SpaceX for their satellite constellation project are two different efforts in this direction).
That's another thing that's sitting poorly with me. Any mention of fiber competition in an area, and Comcast et al pull massively improved speeds seemingly out of a hat, which leads me to believe that they could do this at nearly any point, but choose not to? You can make the argument that it's not in the company's best interest to do so without competition, but then you put yourself in the situation that the system as is allows for about 60% of Americans(number taken from my article linked earlier) to have only one internet & cable provider that chooses to provide the barest minimum of service because they can, and attempt to litigate/lobby competition out of the way, mostly successfully, which sounds like it needs some outside intervention.
I don't have any direct information on Comcast, but I have seen enough of what goes into offering higher speeds to know it's not "seemingly out of a hat". It's a large and speedy investment in infrastructure in those areas in order to upgrade them enough to provide those speeds. They have to have switches that can handle DOCSIS 3 / 3.1 with enough channels to make those speeds work, and those switches are not cheap (especially from Cisco, but they have major competition from Arris who are much cheaper). There needs to be enough bandwidth on the cable lines, which requires a combination of running new lines / increasing fiber and moving cable TV channels out of the analog spectrum to digital which means making sure customers - many of whom still have TVs without QAM tuners - can still get those channels. It also means making sure customers have the equipment they need to make use of those speeds and not be harmful to the network which means making sure customers all have DOCSIS 3 modems. And they can't do all of this at the same time for all of their areas, the support and management channels just can't handle it.
Cable companies are now spending billions to upgrade markets in order to provide 100 - 300 mbps+ speeds. I'm not saying that the competition from Google is bad, because it is not and it is no coincidence that the Google areas are the first ones where cable companies are offering these speeds and competition is good. The franchise system cable operates off of is BAD specifically because it allows for localized monopolies. I'm just saying it is not quite as easy as it sounds and at least in some areas companies are working as fast as they can to get it done.
I'm sure that isn't as easy as just flipping a switch, sure, but A. These companies already have such laughably poor optics that I can't imagine anyone working for an ISP thinks it's a good idea to ONLY start these upgrades once a faster, cheaper competition rolls into a town, and B. Some of that competition, once established, do the same thing for the customers anyway without waiting? This article shows that the major municipal gigabit networks - Chattanooga, Cedar Falls, IA, Wilson, NC - laid out the infrastructure, and started out with a speed around what was on offer in the established marketplace, and then incrementally upped the maximum until it reached a gigabit. Yes, they were going to hit a gigabit anyway, but doing it that way allows them to pitch it as continuously upgrading the network for the consumer benefit, without any outside stimuli for doing so. Given how starved most people are for good service from an ISP, it confuses me that small local governments can do advertising and customer relations better than one of the biggest and richest companies in America.
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
I feel like we all agree net neutrality is a good thing. So check.
Now the debate is moving into, how do we get everyone good internet.
The government needs to spend their money better. As opposed to just giving 400 billion dollars on a promise of fiber. Set a bounty. The first ISP to get to a customer with fiber and offer services up to 250 mps gets 10k to offset costs, and exclusivity with that potential customer for 5 years at 60 bucks a month or some such. Oh, there is a city of 1k that doesn't have broadband and you provide it, here is 10 million to wire it. That 400 billion dollars would have had every single household without access to broadband, they would have gotten broadband. Make it not only economically feasible, but profitable to bring fiber to the household. They should do that.
There are of course, some areas where there isn't going to be any meaningful way to wire them, and in some cases the govt should just wire the last mile to a junction for isps to jack in, but the fed is really bad about how they give incentives to businesses.
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
Never underestimate the power of the Commerce Clause!
This is like... the exact type of thing the Commerce Clause was invented for too. Republicans that are sane should be getting behind it 100% because it's a legitimate use of the clause instead of the burgeoning powers of the Fed using this clause for everything under the sun.
But they won't, because "socialism".
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
It's because doing things on a small scale and building it from the ground up is easier than patching over and upgrading a large system that has been in place for 30 years. Municipal networks don't have existing infrastructure and customer bases to plan around, nor do they have dozens of other markets to consider when planning.
Structural separation is a beautiful application of the free market, removing the monopoly of whichever company owns the infrastructure connecting to a particular property. The user is then free to choose from any number of privately-owned ISPs, all of whom will be playing on an even playing field given standardised wholesale rates for access to the (public) infrastructure.
Structural separation is a beautiful application of the free market, removing the monopoly of whichever company owns the infrastructure connecting to a particular property. The user is then free to choose from any number of privately-owned ISPs, all of whom will be playing on an even playing field given standardised wholesale rates for access to the (public) infrastructure.
I agree.
Does anyone have data or articles on how this played out in other markets (the electricity market comes to mind)?
+1
Options
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
A bunch of local municipalities would jump (absolutely leap) at the idea of being able to lay their own fiberoptic cable and run their own local ISP. Not only would the cost to lay the cable be something they could easily pay for through bonding, the amount they could collect would go far and above the cost to perate and could spill over to other areas of much needed infrastructure updates like roads, sewer, bridges, landscaping, etc. etc.
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
Never underestimate the power of the Commerce Clause!
This is like... the exact type of thing the Commerce Clause was invented for too. Republicans that are sane should be getting behind it 100% because it's a legitimate use of the clause instead of the burgeoning powers of the Fed using this clause for everything under the sun.
But they won't, because "socialism".
The impression I get of U.S. republicans, is that if it isn't good for the ultra-rich, and only them, it's something to oppose. Good for just Joe Average? Must be from Satan and Socialism.
+3
Options
FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
Zepherin I like your idea, but it would also need some kind of incentive to actually maintain the network and continually provide service to it, otherwise it's just a race to build it and provide the same crappy level of service they do now.
Structural separation is a beautiful application of the free market, removing the monopoly of whichever company owns the infrastructure connecting to a particular property. The user is then free to choose from any number of privately-owned ISPs, all of whom will be playing on an even playing field given standardised wholesale rates for access to the (public) infrastructure.
I agree.
Does anyone have data or articles on how this played out in other markets (the electricity market comes to mind)?
Hong Kong does this sort of privatization a lot. In particular, their bus transit system is like this. The government plans out the routes, bundles them together, and auctions them to companies. Companies that fail to meet acceptable service standards get their routes yanked and they're given to another company, which has happened and resulted in the demise of certain companies. Their power generation model is the same; the government sets targets for generation, and pays companies to generate their fraction of the target - with the caveat that the target is always significantly more than usage, such that there's backup redundancy if a company fails to meet their target.
Not sure about their Internet model, but I'm willing to bet it's similar, given that you can't just dig up Hong Kong to lay more fibre. It is, however, a super-small region, geographically speaking.
The Government can't do it anyway. It'd need to be each state government. The solution at this point is to demand that players like Google get into your space asap. The moment they announced gigabit internet in Austin, AT&T, Time Warner, and Suddenlink all started also rolling out 300+ download speeds.
Never underestimate the power of the Commerce Clause!
This is like... the exact type of thing the Commerce Clause was invented for too. Republicans that are sane should be getting behind it 100% because it's a legitimate use of the clause instead of the burgeoning powers of the Fed using this clause for everything under the sun.
But they won't, because "socialism".
The impression I get of U.S. republicans, is that if it isn't good for the ultra-rich, and only them, it's something to oppose. Good for just Joe Average? Must be from Satan and Socialism.
This is a reflection on your sources, rather than US Republicans.
Posts
Would love some links.
2nd post in the thread has an article summarizing a tell-all book about the subject.
Thank fucking god the FCC is preempting those utterly insane laws. Killing compatition is not how you grow a market. If a munisipality has some extra cash they want to invest (and make it back at a 9:1 ratio), let them. America was built on supply and demand. There is a great demand for fast and stable internet. There are plenty of folks willing to provide it. STOP STANDING IN THEIR WAY.
I agree completely.
I hope the towns that are trying this fare better than the ones that tried to do public Wifi a few years back, that was largely a complete disaster.
Keep in mind this is no longer the case but...
Years ago bittorrent would slow to a crawl an entire neighborhoods internet access by saturating the upload link. Which is why they aimed to try to cap the speed these downloads ran at. now the infrastructure is much better today and a few bittorrent downloads are usually no worse than someone watching Netflix. But policies written for years ago seem to stick around longer than they are needed.
but oh no! Creating actual infrastructure that would benefit citizens? That's socialism! Besides, the government doesn't know how to get shit done
We should rely on private corporations in relevant fields because they surely know how to do this better for the government, more efficiently, and for less money right?
I mean, I'm pretty sure I've seen that argument made why the government shouldn't be handling it, and I'll probably see it crop up any time people suggest the government handle this kind of thing.
It's starting to get frustrating (like it hasn't always been super frustrating)
Last year, they had a plan that offered 1 gigabit per second for $70/month. I pay that much for 20 Megabits, tops. The money quote from the article:
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
Never underestimate the power of the Commerce Clause!
They've got the capability to do MUCH more than they do. They're just nickel and diming people to death. Cable companies won their war against fiber optic (so far) and now they're half-assing their expansions so they can fleece the shit out of their customers.
I'm paying $80 for 60 meg.
Google's unlikely to ever connect outside of highly profitable urban areas. There's no reason state governments can't build out physical infrastructure and leave service delivery to ISPs, all of whom would be given the same wholesale pricing structure. Numerous countries, including Australia, have adopted the structural separation model, and it works very well.
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
Though Comcast seems to take "transfer this account so you have permission to negotiate its price" more seriously than the government takes background checks...
That's pretty much what Chattanooga did; they did get some federal money but they're the ones that laid down the fiber optic grid with a taxpaer-owned utility. I think the mayor in his quote isn't necessarily referring to federal government to provide support, just any government.
I also had something re: the Google point but then I updated the thread and saw that Suriko said pretty much what I was going to say, so yea.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
Tell that to RUS.
That's another thing that's sitting poorly with me. Any mention of fiber competition in an area, and Comcast et al pull massively improved speeds seemingly out of a hat, which leads me to believe that they could do this at nearly any point, but choose not to? You can make the argument that it's not in the company's best interest to do so without competition, but then you put yourself in the situation that the system as is allows for about 60% of Americans(number taken from my article linked earlier) to have only one internet & cable provider that chooses to provide the barest minimum of service because they can, and attempt to litigate/lobby competition out of the way, mostly successfully, which sounds like it needs some outside intervention.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
"... via public-private partnerships."
What am I supposed to tell them?
That is exactly what's happening.
When you said 'The Government' can't it would have to be 'State governments' what were you referencing if it wasn't the Feds?
Comcast are assholes. That's all there is to it. If they won't see an immediate and/or large enough profit, they don't give two shits about you.
I could go into it, but the long short is that comcast will make deals to be a sole provider and then ignore the conditions because very few have the time or money to actually stand up to them
It was the feds, but the RUS doesn't do what we're wanting... it partners with private industry, and you guys are talking about government efforts funded by taxpayers and owned by the State.
You wound me Suriko
Please, let me forget what has been lost
The private industry they traditionally partner with are local Co-Ops that are more or less purpose made by and for the community to provide utility service. Not Comcast &c.
My understanding of Chattanooga's setup is that it is run by a private corporation that is just owned by the municipality; rather than through the Department of Transportation or something. The EPB is equivalent to the TVA and so would qualify for RUS funding, aside from the fact that Chattanooga's probably isn't rural enough for USDA rather than HUD.
Move to Austin!
I don't have any direct information on Comcast, but I have seen enough of what goes into offering higher speeds to know it's not "seemingly out of a hat". It's a large and speedy investment in infrastructure in those areas in order to upgrade them enough to provide those speeds. They have to have switches that can handle DOCSIS 3 / 3.1 with enough channels to make those speeds work, and those switches are not cheap (especially from Cisco, but they have major competition from Arris who are much cheaper). There needs to be enough bandwidth on the cable lines, which requires a combination of running new lines / increasing fiber and moving cable TV channels out of the analog spectrum to digital which means making sure customers - many of whom still have TVs without QAM tuners - can still get those channels. It also means making sure customers have the equipment they need to make use of those speeds and not be harmful to the network which means making sure customers all have DOCSIS 3 modems. And they can't do all of this at the same time for all of their areas, the support and management channels just can't handle it.
Cable companies are now spending billions to upgrade markets in order to provide 100 - 300 mbps+ speeds. I'm not saying that the competition from Google is bad, because it is not and it is no coincidence that the Google areas are the first ones where cable companies are offering these speeds and competition is good. The franchise system cable operates off of is BAD specifically because it allows for localized monopolies. I'm just saying it is not quite as easy as it sounds and at least in some areas companies are working as fast as they can to get it done.
I'm sure that isn't as easy as just flipping a switch, sure, but A. These companies already have such laughably poor optics that I can't imagine anyone working for an ISP thinks it's a good idea to ONLY start these upgrades once a faster, cheaper competition rolls into a town, and B. Some of that competition, once established, do the same thing for the customers anyway without waiting? This article shows that the major municipal gigabit networks - Chattanooga, Cedar Falls, IA, Wilson, NC - laid out the infrastructure, and started out with a speed around what was on offer in the established marketplace, and then incrementally upped the maximum until it reached a gigabit. Yes, they were going to hit a gigabit anyway, but doing it that way allows them to pitch it as continuously upgrading the network for the consumer benefit, without any outside stimuli for doing so. Given how starved most people are for good service from an ISP, it confuses me that small local governments can do advertising and customer relations better than one of the biggest and richest companies in America.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
Now the debate is moving into, how do we get everyone good internet.
The government needs to spend their money better. As opposed to just giving 400 billion dollars on a promise of fiber. Set a bounty. The first ISP to get to a customer with fiber and offer services up to 250 mps gets 10k to offset costs, and exclusivity with that potential customer for 5 years at 60 bucks a month or some such. Oh, there is a city of 1k that doesn't have broadband and you provide it, here is 10 million to wire it. That 400 billion dollars would have had every single household without access to broadband, they would have gotten broadband. Make it not only economically feasible, but profitable to bring fiber to the household. They should do that.
There are of course, some areas where there isn't going to be any meaningful way to wire them, and in some cases the govt should just wire the last mile to a junction for isps to jack in, but the fed is really bad about how they give incentives to businesses.
This is like... the exact type of thing the Commerce Clause was invented for too. Republicans that are sane should be getting behind it 100% because it's a legitimate use of the clause instead of the burgeoning powers of the Fed using this clause for everything under the sun.
But they won't, because "socialism".
Old PA forum lookalike style for the new forums | My ko-fi donation thing.
I agree.
Does anyone have data or articles on how this played out in other markets (the electricity market comes to mind)?
The impression I get of U.S. republicans, is that if it isn't good for the ultra-rich, and only them, it's something to oppose. Good for just Joe Average? Must be from Satan and Socialism.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
Hong Kong does this sort of privatization a lot. In particular, their bus transit system is like this. The government plans out the routes, bundles them together, and auctions them to companies. Companies that fail to meet acceptable service standards get their routes yanked and they're given to another company, which has happened and resulted in the demise of certain companies. Their power generation model is the same; the government sets targets for generation, and pays companies to generate their fraction of the target - with the caveat that the target is always significantly more than usage, such that there's backup redundancy if a company fails to meet their target.
Not sure about their Internet model, but I'm willing to bet it's similar, given that you can't just dig up Hong Kong to lay more fibre. It is, however, a super-small region, geographically speaking.
This is a reflection on your sources, rather than US Republicans.