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

#71

Post by lambdadmitry » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:07 PM UTC

inapis wrote: post #59

takeda wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All ISPs need is to separate the last mile (the fiber between your house and nearest POP) from their service. Once that would be available, we would have a real compression in that market. In all countries which are known for having best internet experience the ISP don't own the last mile.

I digress. In India, my local ISP owns the last mile and I pay approximately 14 USD each for two lines of symmetric and unlimited 100 Mbps. ISPs can own the last mile. All you need is extensive competiton. I went from paying $100(4M/250GB) to $50(20M/500G) to $30(50M/UL) to the current $15 (100M/UL). The prices decreased as more players entered the market. Of course, India doesn’t have excellent internet infrastructu…

So I am, too, from a country where internet is (was) great while ISPs own the last mile (Russia). It seems there are two prerequisites for that:

1. Low level of regulation (i.e. lawlessness) so small ISPs can just string cables in the air without any licensing

2. Relatively young infrastructure

Both of those aren't true for most developed countries. And even if it's not (Russia isn't), at some point market dynamics inevitably lead to monopoly. Most local competing ISPs are forced out of the market recently by state-sponsored mega-ISP that controls uplinks and finally went for last mile, too. As you can guess, the quality went down, while the prices went up.

You can't cheat the market forces unless you eliminate the market. Physical fiber is an amazing moat, there is no way how upstart ISPs can be price-competitive while duplicating an already existing network.

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

#72

Post by craftyguy » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:11 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #60

quasse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this argument all the time, but I don't really see it. What value is the ISP providing here? They sell you service on physical infrastructure that you the taxpayer already paid for? Peering? It seems like it would be much more efficient for a municipality to just negotiate citywide peering agreements for everyone. Some people try to push the "value adds" line, like IPTV and phone service, but I don't see any r…

> it would be much more efficient for a municipality to just negotiate citywide peering agreements for everyone Negotiating peering, providing customer support, buying routers and modems, maintaining equipment, et cetera isn't a core competency of most municipalities. If municipal broadband scales, we'll likely replace the ISPs with broadband servicing companies. Explicitly privatizing those operations makes it more…

> providing customer support

It could be argued that they don't even provide this adequately in areas where they are a market monopoly.

My local government provides far better customer support. When there is an issue or grievance, there is a place to file it and someone will always respond. As an added bonus, they don't try to sell me additional services every 5 minutes.

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

#73

Post by mattmcknight » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #56

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I'm nervous about how thoughtlessly we're embracing public ISP ownership. Local governments are notoriously corrupt, in both politics and police. These referenda expand their power without rebalancing any checks or balances. We ju…

>"Local governments are notoriously corrupt, in both politics and police." And yet on the whole they are probably still far less corrupt and corrosive than monopolistic ISPs such Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner(or whatever their calling themselves these days.) I would argue they are more accessible and accountable as well.

Local governments are the ones that granted these companies the monopolies.

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

#74

Post by rayiner » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

takeda wrote: post #43

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #3

Good for them. I hope this trend continues because ISPs need a good solid kick in the teeth.

All ISPs need is to separate the last mile (the fiber between your house and nearest POP) from their service. Once that would be available, we would have a real compression in that market. In all countries which are known for having best internet experience the ISP don't own the last mile.

> In all countries which are known for having best internet experience the ISP don't own the last mile.

ISPs own their own last mile almost everywhere. What you may be thinking of is unbundling, where an ISP may be required to let other ISPs use their last-mile facilities at regulated rates. That is a minority rule as well.

Most broadband providers in South Korea own their own facilities: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/cs/korea/material/CS_Kor.pdf (see Table 5.2).

Norway didn't start unbundling fiber until 2014, but was near the top of the charts in broadband performance long before that. (And it still doesn't impose price regulation on the unbundled fiber.)

Sweden is an exception where, in Stockholm, there as a municipally-owned ISP that provides dark fiber.

Hong Kong had unbundling, then got rid of it in 2004.

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

#75

Post by hedvig » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:19 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #53

ghaff wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assure you that small rural towns can be pretty hard to get broadband in from anyone, Comcast included. These towns exist for the most part because people want space and relative quiet. I'd also note that about 10% of the people in the town participated in the vote and the final vote was fairly close. Hopefully it works out because options aren't great if you can't get Verizon or Comcast in much of the Northeast. (…

Perhaps I wasn't clear. It's obvious that some people simply prefer to live in areas of relatively sparse population. What is in question are the benefits of imposing cumbersome governance structures on situations that don't require them. In a rural USA context, basic health and safety minimums are adequately enforced by the county. In some locations there might be a sewer & water district with part-time local admini…

FCC has been coopted by industry, so I don't think that excuse flies anymore.

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

#76

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #46

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.

You can vote with your wallet, too.

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by rayiner » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #65

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. The…

I think it's important to have internet access as a safety net, but building a whole municipal network for that seems like a waste of public money. It would be much cheaper to subsidize commercial 5G service for those folks who can't get wired broadband.

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

#78

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:23 PM UTC

craftyguy wrote: post #72

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would be much more efficient for a municipality to just negotiate citywide peering agreements for everyone Negotiating peering, providing customer support, buying routers and modems, maintaining equipment, et cetera isn't a core competency of most municipalities. If municipal broadband scales, we'll likely replace the ISPs with broadband servicing companies. Explicitly privatizing those operations makes it more…

> providing customer support It could be argued that they don't even provide this adequately in areas where they are a market monopoly. My local government provides far better customer support. When there is an issue or grievance, there is a place to file it and someone will always respond. As an added bonus, they don't try to sell me additional services every 5 minutes.

America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. Presently, the best-run municipalities are exploring municipal broadband. Their experiences will be positive. But not all municipalities are well-run. And today's well-run municipalities turn into tomorrow dumpster fires.

Publicly-owned infrastructure rented to private provider-maintainers is a proven model. It isn't a fire-and-forget solution. But by dividing power between the municipality and private operator, it provides a rudimentary balance. Remember, we got here because municipalities gave ISPs local monopolies. I don't get why we suddenly believe they'll now be totally competent and benevolent.

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

#79

Post by vertex-four » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:25 PM UTC

seniorivn wrote: post #20

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.

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.

Note that breaking even over 20 years in this town requires 72% of households to sign up, according to the article. Even if someone managed to cut costs by half, that's a town that can only ever handle two ISPs - maximum - with their own infrastructure at once with everybody signed up.

You could think of a system by which multiple ISPs could sell service over the same city-owned infrastructure, but there's no real benefit to that. (And I say this as someone living in a country where that essentially happens.)

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

#80

Post by rayiner » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:25 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78

craftyguy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> providing customer support It could be argued that they don't even provide this adequately in areas where they are a market monopoly. My local government provides far better customer support. When there is an issue or grievance, there is a place to file it and someone will always respond. As an added bonus, they don't try to sell me additional services every 5 minutes.

America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. Presently, the best-run municipalities are exploring municipal broadband. Their experiences will be positive. But not all municipalities are well-run. And today's well-run municipalities turn into tomorrow dumpster fires. Publicly-owned infrastructure rented to private provider-maintainers is a proven model. It isn't a fire-and-forget solution. But…

> America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative.

I strongly disagree. Have you ever been to Germany? All the infrastructure we have in the U.S. is shit compared to Germany. The roads, the trains, etc. The one bit of infrastructure in the U.S. that isn't shit in comparison is broadband.