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The internet should be a public utility

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Re: The internet should be a public utility

#21

My question is, what would be the impact on the following areas if the internet was public utility? 1) security/encryption 2) bandwidth distribution 3) content freedom 4) Governance rules (federal gov?)

Why would 1) be an issue at all of the service was a public utility or not? It's not like a website will not use HTTPS just because it's on publicUtil.

2) is problem regardless. Something to be addressed, but it's not anything new just because it's becomes a utility.

I could see where 3) & 4) might be questionable. If it's gov't funded, then they like to tack on a lot of rules about what can/can't be used on the service. Obvious things like porn/p2p/etc would be blocked, but would access to things like Planned Parenthood be blocked too?

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#22

Has the author never heard of the Lifeline Program for Low-Income Consumers (aka Obamaphones)? This program already provides a benefit designed to provide free access to mobile internet. The $10 per month subsidy may not seem like much, but it'll buy you ~1Gb per month via Tracfone, for example. It's important to note that this program includes a requirement that "Obamaphones" be hot-spot enabled so that they can be…

1G is not enough. Dial-up would let you get more.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#23

Walk me through this argument - my local utilities are a nightmare! Their pricing is atrocious and regressive (huge flat fixed fees to connect, tiny marginal costs), they constantly have to borrow money from the city to make ends meet. Combined, we pay $350 a month for gas, water & drainage, electricity (over 50% of the bills are fixed costs, unaffected by our consumption). Customer service is awful. In comparison, o…

I think that has a lot to do with your municipality. I have municipal electricity and not only is it very affordable, it's 100% renewable because they started the shift to renewables back in the 1980s. They haven't had to raise rates in years. My internet is also municipally owned and it is about half the cost for double the speed as Comcast, which is it's only local competition. So, I think it largely depends on how well the government is run. If government officials look out for the public interest, listen to science, and think long-term, we'll get better outcomes.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#24

Has the author never heard of the Lifeline Program for Low-Income Consumers (aka Obamaphones)? This program already provides a benefit designed to provide free access to mobile internet. The $10 per month subsidy may not seem like much, but it'll buy you ~1Gb per month via Tracfone, for example. It's important to note that this program includes a requirement that "Obamaphones" be hot-spot enabled so that they can be…

A program that isn’t available to everyone and is routinely under fire. It also doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but instead throws money at the companies exacerbating it for profit. Broadly available, competitive broadband is the answer.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#25
In order for anything useful to happen in our society, we have to vote. It is now abundantly clear which party values what, and for whom. If we would rather vote based on 'abortion preventing our souls from partying with Jesus in heaven' instead of 'municipal broadband for all residents as a public utility', then we're going to continue to complain about this for another 50 years and beyond.

The problem is that saying this out loud means you're politicizing this problem. Well, it's largely a political problem, otherwise we could get the Federal Government to step in and properly fix this. Legislation in the past with the best intensions was purposely weakened at the last moment to allow billions to be taken from Federal programs that left zero actual improvement or infrastructure development. Guess which party is fighting hardest for such loopholes and promising that corporations can do this better than "big government"?

If we don't get our acts together in November, not having quality Internet access is going to be the least of our problems. Anyway, everyone enjoy going back to business as normal by Easter during the peak of this pandemic. I'm sure that will help as well.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#26
post #4

I talked with the mayor of Los Altos Hills, CA yesterday where I advocated for a municipal fiber ISP. It seems crazy to me that in Silicon Valley, and specifically in one of its richest towns, that broadband is not available to every residence. She makes a good point: the residents don't care. Her argument is that ~20 mbps DSL is good enough for the elderly population. And further - that for those who find that inade…

I'm hopeful for that satellite internet from SpaceX to solve availability.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#27
post #24

Has the author never heard of the Lifeline Program for Low-Income Consumers (aka Obamaphones)? This program already provides a benefit designed to provide free access to mobile internet. The $10 per month subsidy may not seem like much, but it'll buy you ~1Gb per month via Tracfone, for example. It's important to note that this program includes a requirement that "Obamaphones" be hot-spot enabled so that they can be…

A program that isn’t available to everyone and is routinely under fire. It also doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but instead throws money at the companies exacerbating it for profit. Broadly available, competitive broadband is the answer.

> It also doesn’t solve the underlying problem, but instead throws money at the companies exacerbating it for profit

Quite similar to Obama's approach to healthcare, what a coincidence! :-)

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#28

My question is, what would be the impact on the following areas if the internet was public utility? 1) security/encryption 2) bandwidth distribution 3) content freedom 4) Governance rules (federal gov?)

So I can't obviously "prove" any causality, that would require serious studies; but I can testify how things work here in France.

1) doesn't change anything. Mostly due to ISP practices, which are regulated under typical communication laws (this dates back to radio, landlines, post offices, etc)

2) bandwidth is generally great. The idea is this: you mutualize the pipes (shared by citizens through public organisms, and some private infrastructure / maintenance companies). Then all ISP invest together to build the best shared infrastructure; at which point any customer can just switch to any ISP at any time — you just unplug-replug in the locally shared DSLAM/PON/whatever.

FWIW we've got the same infra for elec, water, kitchen gas, even banking... you just hook up with another utility provider and they switch you within days, weeks at most (it's a manual intervention in many cases). Don't like your elec provider? Next month, you're out.

The net result is that we've got up to 1Gbps symmetrical for €40/mo (say $45), basic offers for e.g 250Mb at €10-20/mo maybe. There's even a 10Gbps network being deployed (at the routing level, it's mostly equipment) by one ISP, I got it and measured ~3.5Gbps max concurently (I'd rather have 1Gbps symmetrical since I've got servers though, self-hosting is a very real possibility with such bandwidth; all IPs are full stack on demand here (all ports, no sub-1024 shenanigans) unless you're on budget offers.

3) that's freedom of speech most likely (e.g porn is legal... nobody questions that). Also ties to GDPR now, on the source side. We've had such laws in France for two decades now, look up the CNIL. Nothing to report here, ISPs would be fined if not respecting a modicus of neutrality — but there's no data cap on home connections whatsoever, so it's not comparable to the US situation. In the past (DSL era) we observed some early / prime time throttling of selected websites (e.g YouTube) by a certain ISP who was "at war" with Google (so, that was a choice, not a factor of infrastructure).

4) See 2. It's all private but there's gov oversight and regulation to maintain access. For instance, you can't cut internet to poor people, unemployed etc. here: we've determined it's too important to have internet access to find a job and do basic admin stuff (pretty much all state services are now online). That's the real value of internet as a commodity: it's a matter of "can you leave a household without electricity? without water? without internet?", the answer being a resounding "no" because that's inhumane, that's attacking their dignity and our decency. The question thus becomes, how much of it do we 'guarantee' to everyone, like basic healthcare. The answer here in France is: enough to live decently, enough to keep functioning as a normal member of society, notably to get a job (or keep it) and have a social life (we've found that depression doesn't help anyone).

Honestly, none of it is perfect, but as far as internet goes, yeah we've nailed it. I don't know of any better offer for the price (many Asian countries have a better infra, but costs are 2-3x for customers).

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