The internet should be a public utility

Another, simpler solution would be to have the government stop promulgating/supporting the lies regarding fictional competition spread by companies like Comcast. There are lots of places where you have only one or two options, but the large national incumbents who have the ear of regulators will lie and claim that there are three times as many. The government grants them their moat.

There are lots of people who would like to be ISPs (including municipalities) who simply aren't allowed to be, because the regulators and the large national ISPs have conspired to pass lots of regulation that outlaws any real competition. It's absolutely shameful.

https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcas...

https://boingboing.net/2019/04/19/comcast-vs-america.html

Depends how we do it.

What if the infrastructure was government owned but you bought service through a reseller. This is the US cell phone model for many carriers. Also old school AOL / dial-up style. Perhaps your reseller provides your modem/router (or states what modems(/+router) you can configure for their service)

Want everything managed for you? Get AOL. They send you a box, it had their configurations and management tools so they can monitor your traffic and ensure good service... Read your emails, whatever. You had a thousand options and trusted this provider.

Want a security focused provider? Sign up for one that provides a setup that VPNs traffic to your specification. You had 30 different options here, so you pick the right balance for you.

Want to trust the government and just pass through? Will that might not be allowed... But someone will probably provide you an option for bare minimum pricing.

With these options, perhaps you get your government provided service, but if there's issues you get support through that private entity that escalates issues or perhaps does doorstop support (or remote testing) and then they escalate to government-run infrastructure system. If the government needs work done, they contract out work to a vendor appropriate for the type of work and area of the service request (assuming the issues is outside the home.. inside the home is on your reseller).

NOT saying this is the way to go, just that this is an option for public-private partnership.

With this style of service, the fiber will probably have issues, but how often does a bridge actually collapse and not get cleaned up/ fixed? Currently we play hot potato with decaying lines, selling the infrastructure praying they're not holding the asset when it actually fails massively.

In response to your questions: 1) if you want security/encryption, this model could allow you to get that by your ISP through the in-home equipment. 2) let people buy bandwidth plans, your ISP marks it up for their service and support fee, and passes it to you. Government could adjust what's available based on the capacity of the area/infrastructure with the same options being available regardless of your ISP. If you're a business and you need more than what a single fiber line can provide, perhaps offer an additional service to run additional lines with additional costs. 3) traffic should be encrypted, so government can't see in the first place, but when if it wasn't.. if you're accessing illegal material they should have just cause.. and should then make a request to your ISP (much like they do to access your cell phone records). Pick an ISP that meets your morals/concerns. 4) not sure exactly what your mean here.. but given shouldn't be directly serving people. They have the mailmen driving to your house delivering packets hopefully in sealed safes... But your service provider (easy mode) or your personal hardware (advanced) handles opening the safe.

Again, this is a 30 minute free flowing thought. Not at all a proposal... Just an idea.

> 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.

If that were true, it'd be great. But which is the party that supports municipal broadband for all residents as a public utility? California has a Democratic governor, Democratic legislature, and in the most populous areas Democratic local government, and yet no municipal broadband.

There's a map here of which state legislatures have passed restrictions on municipal broadband, and it seems pretty idiosyncratic relative to blue/red politics: https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc... E.g. WV, OH, IN, IL, KY, GA, NM, VT are friendly to it, while WA, OR, TX, CO, AL, PA, FL, MA are unfriendly.

I don't think her DSL argument is coherent. The only reason DSL is available to most houses is that those wires were put in by a municipal phone company or highly regulated monopoly. Anybody who has talked to a DSL tech knows that a lot of that infrastructure is creaky, many decades old. We need to figure out what to do for the next century.

Personally, I think we should at least look at the local loop as a natural monopoly. Just like the city is expected to own and maintain the road to your house, it should own and maintain the digital equivalent. From your house to the POP, it's city fiber. From the POP onward, sure, let that be run commercially, with a free minimum tier, say 5 mb/s. If you want anything more, you can contract with any ISP who has a presence in your POP. That way we get both a truly competitive marketplace and universal access.

> nothing about public internet in any way implies anything even remotely related to your strawman argument

Why not? If the government has a monopoly on internet access, it becomes easier for voters to call for certain sites being blocked or certain sorts of traffic be monitored and/or intercepted.