Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead • Hacker News Board

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#61

Post by Spivak » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 3:52 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

49531 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government.

> They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government My point is that's a terrible baseline to settle for. If our metric for "should we do it" is solely "is it better than Comcast," we've got a problem. My specific concern is around local police having expanded access to locals' internet activity.

In my ideal world we would be talking about the public utility of having network cables (of some baseline quality) running to every building in a municipality that any number of ISPs can provide the actual service for.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#62

Post by Carlton87 » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

epoch_100 wrote: post #2

Good! By allowing individual municipalities to manage their own Internet infrastructure, we can help keep the Internet from becoming effectively owned by the likes of Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

It has worked fantastic for Chattanooga Tennessee. I love my EPB speed and price.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#63

Post by paulie_a » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

takeda wrote: post #34

epoch_100 wrote: post #2

Good! By allowing individual municipalities to manage their own Internet infrastructure, we can help keep the Internet from becoming effectively owned by the likes of Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

The best way is to let the city provide the last mile infrastructure (the connection between nearest POP and your house), and then lease it to ISPs for a fee to maintain it. That way we once again can have competition like during the time DSL was popular (telcos were required to lease their wires, that's why there was so much choice of ISP for anyone who remembers early 2000)

The dsl days were terrible. Installers would literally move wires from a competitor because that green box didn't have the capacity.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#64

Post by hedvig » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 3:55 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

49531 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government.

> They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government My point is that's a terrible baseline to settle for. If our metric for "should we do it" is solely "is it better than Comcast," we've got a problem. My specific concern is around local police having expanded access to locals' internet activity.

No its not. That's a huge distinction - these services are held in the public's interest. Not for the profit motive of small group of shareholders. And things like demand having any control or the idea that you can really switch to the "competition" don't actually exist.

Where were you when all of these private companies built-in backdoors for law enforcement anyways.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#65

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 3:57 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #16

I feel like people are being shortsighted about municipal fiber. It’s not a one time and you forget it thing. Verizon has upgraded the FiOS network several times since 2005. We have some towns on the eastern shore of MD that did municipal cable, back when that was the state of the art. Those systems are lagging far behind Comcast now because nobody wants to raise rates to generate cash for upgrades. Municipal fiber i…

> We have some towns on the eastern shore of MD that did municipal cable, back when that was the state of the art. Those systems are lagging far behind Comcast now because nobody wants to raise rates to generate cash for upgrades.

It seems like the best solution would be to do both. Have a municipal network that serves everybody so that you don't need build out requirements for anyone else, then stop having them.

Then if the municipal network is not providing competitive price/performance in a particular area, other small providers can spring up. Meanwhile if you're in a farmhouse in the countryside, your options will be slower and more expensive than someone in a skyscraper in the city, but you'll still be guaranteed to at least have one.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#66

Post by rayiner » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #37

seniorivn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is it any better then current olygopolly? The solution should be raising competitiveness of the market. Like in countries with a lot better internet, especially per dollar.

Internet infrastructure in most countries is publicly owned... Market competition isn't the only way to produce socially desirable outcomes.

It's certainly not publicly owned in the most populous Western countries (UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, etc.).

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#67

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:00 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #61

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government My point is that's a terrible baseline to settle for. If our metric for "should we do it" is solely "is it better than Comcast," we've got a problem. My specific concern is around local police having expanded access to locals' internet activity.

In my ideal world we would be talking about the public utility of having network cables (of some baseline quality) running to every building in a municipality that any number of ISPs can provide the actual service for.

> we would be talking about the public utility of having network cables (of some baseline quality) running to every building in a municipality that any number of ISPs can provide the actual service for

Me too. And I think municipal broadband is the right first step--I'm lobbying for it in New York. But as it scales, we'll move from competent municipalities to incompetent one to evil ones. I'd prefer we figure out the balance of power before Ferguson, Missouri rolls out municipal broadband. (Or before they turn into new Port Authorities and BARTs.)

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#68

Post by rayiner » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:01 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #24

rayiner wrote: post #16

I feel like people are being shortsighted about municipal fiber. It’s not a one time and you forget it thing. Verizon has upgraded the FiOS network several times since 2005. We have some towns on the eastern shore of MD that did municipal cable, back when that was the state of the art. Those systems are lagging far behind Comcast now because nobody wants to raise rates to generate cash for upgrades. Municipal fiber i…

The thing is the bulk of the cost is pulling wires. Fiber optic cables have an almost unlimited theoretical bandwidth. You just need to upgrade the hardware on both sides, which is getting cheaper by the minute.

A lot of the cost is pulling wires, but the equipment on both sides is also a major expense. FiOS scaled up from 75 mbps to 1 gbps over the same passive infrastructure, but the cost of upgrades was substantial. BPON line cards were upgraded to GPON linecards, and an upgrade to NGPON2 is in the works. As bandwidth went up, the number of customers per line card had to go down. 1G router ports had to be upgraded to 10G router ports. Etc.

I mean, just do a traceroute and see how many hops there are before you get to a peering node. In a municipal system, that's all infrastructure that the government has to pay to upgrade.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#69

Post by hedvig » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:03 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #16

I feel like people are being shortsighted about municipal fiber. It’s not a one time and you forget it thing. Verizon has upgraded the FiOS network several times since 2005. We have some towns on the eastern shore of MD that did municipal cable, back when that was the state of the art. Those systems are lagging far behind Comcast now because nobody wants to raise rates to generate cash for upgrades. Municipal fiber i…

"nobody wants to raise rates to generate cash for upgrades."

So maybe we change that mindset, rayiner.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#70

Post by scurvy » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:05 PM UTC

I find it hilarious that the overwhelmingly "move everything to the cloud" community here is advocating a build-your-own route over outsourcing the job to a massive company.