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The internet should be a public utility

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Re: The internet should be a public utility

#171

Post by anderspitman »

zbrozek wrote: 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…

If you have LOS to GOOG headquarters, you probably have LOS to someone with fast internet. You can set up plug-and-play directional internet bridge over several km for a couple hundred USD, and split their internet bill with them. Yeah there's a lot of hurdles, but if you don't have another option might be worth looking in to.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#172

Post by Reelin »

sneak wrote: post #47
coldpie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a blatant violation of the 1st amendment. You are at more risk of this from private entities, who are not bound by the 1st amendment.

Perhaps. Competition is a realtime mechanism for stopping this sort of fuckery on a provider level presently. I can switch ISPs immediately (provided that there is more than one around). Remediations for 1A violations are anything but realtime. You could suffer rights abuses for a very long time with no immediate or cost-effective recourse. Also, such a circumstance in which your 1A rights are violated by your govern…

As a counterexample, authoritarian regimes in countries with private ISPs have cut off or filtered internet access by fiat. A private ISP isn't magically exempt from government demands. I believe Turkey is a recent example of this.

Iran is a particularly good one. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Iran)

> Every ISP must be approved by both the Telecommunication Company of Iran (TCI) and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and must implement content-control software for websites and e-mail.

More competition in physical last mile infrastructure just isn't feasible given the costs. A single physical provider (ie fiber as a utility) with legislated common access (ie ISP competition) has worked out quite well for the rest of the western world.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#173

Post by threentaway »

kekeblom wrote: post #64
zbrozek wrote: 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…

The city of Zurich has what to my understanding is public fiber which is available to most buildings. (I assume there are some exceptions). It is managed by the electricity company run by the city. https://zuerinet.ch Setting up routers, billing etc. has been delegated to any third party ISP willing to do the job. I think they can charge what they want, as there are some very small differences in price. I pay ~44CHF/…

> ~44CHF/month for 100mb/s. While not dirt cheap

That _is_ dirt cheap by US prices. Comcast (my only option) is $75/mo for 250/5 (yes, only 5 megabit up!).

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#174

Post by Reelin »

dylan604 wrote: post #21
pinacarlos90 wrote: post #13

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 serv…

In the US, 3 (content freedom) is a clear first amendment guarantee. It also seems to be working out just fine elsewhere in the western world.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#175

Post by tzs »

tarde wrote: post #143
coldpie wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from the bush-omaba-trump admin become the most corrupt organization one can think of I don't know whether they were corrupt, but Tom Wheeler did a fantastic job from a consumer rights & Internet health perspective during the Obama admin. Most notably he implemented Title II regulations to enforce net neutrality (since undone by a Republican), but also supported municipal broadband (since undone by a Republican), f…

on his first year he passed the "internet fast lane" regulation, against net neutrality, and made lots of profits for his cable and wireless business. only to four months later start a huge campaign with obama pro net neutrality for the classification of ISPs as utilities under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (with profitable exceptions). Opening the floodgates on direct white house influence on the FCC an…

> on his first year he passed the "internet fast lane" regulation, against net neutrality, and made lots of profits for his cable and wireless business

No, he proposed a net neutrality regulation that would allow fast lanes, and said he was open to a stronger rule if it had enough support. The comments on the first proposal overwhelmingly favored a stronger approach, and so the final rule that he actually passed was the Title II reclassification.

He took this approach because the courts had struck down the Open Internet Order of 2010, and this was the safest way to restore as much of that as possible without doing a very politically difficult and risky Title II reclassification.

And what do you mean "his cable and wireless business"? In the distant past he had held executive positions in first the main cable trade group, and later the main wireless trade group, but the first was something like 30 years before he was on the FCC and the second something like 10 years before he was on the FCC.

The cable stuff was so long ago that it was just television--the cable modem had not yet been invented. It was also a time when the cable industry was the disruptive new kid on the block trying to bring competition for the big entrenched OTA broadcast networks.

Same thing when he worked for the wireless industry. It was when they were the new thing trying to make inroads against the big landline telecom companies.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#176

Post by hkmurakami »

zbrozek wrote: 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…

There are some efforts in LAH at the grassroots level.

https://lahcommunityfiber.org/

I imagine the low density of LAH makes the cost of installing fiber throughout town more of a barrier than other areas.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#177

Post by threentaway »

Reelin wrote: post #165
EB66 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the municipality lays the fiber and provides the internet service, the result may be poor. But that doesn't have to be the arrangement. The municipality can lay the fiber and allow multiple companies to offer internet service over that infrastructure. In Chelan County, WA they've blended the best of public and private. The government took on the large upfront costs and laid municipal fiber down all over the place.…

In Washington state, this is only permitted in rural counties. The public utility district is allowed to lay fiber, but not to sell access to it directly to consumers. The law requires them to provide common access to the infrastructure at a rate that reflects their operational costs, but only to ISP companies. Someone wrote about their experience here ( https://loomcom.com/blog/0098_fiber_optic_bliss.html ). Meanwhi…

Can you link to the laws around this? I'd love to look into this more.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#178

Post by threentaway »

cactus2093 wrote: post #14
legitster wrote: post #9

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 don’t even understand what the distinction is. For instance PG&E in California is a private company but regulated by the government. I pay for service and if I stop paying they cut me off. Isn’t Comcast internet service the same thing? A private company but regulated by the FCC. The only difference I can think of is there are still multiple providers for internet service available in most places. Would making inter…

> of is there are still multiple providers for internet service available in most places

No there aren't. There's generally one cable provider (100Mbps+) and one DSL (10-20Mbps down max). These services aren't comparable.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#179

Post by hanniabu »

zbrozek wrote: 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…

> She makes a good point: the residents don't care. Her argument is that ~20 mbps DSL is good enough for the elderly population.

I'd say that's a horrible point. Many people don't care about having guns or being monitored 24/7. That doesn't mean we shouldn't provide those as liberties.

Re: The internet should be a public utility

#180

Post by jessriedel »

cbhl wrote: post #95
zbrozek wrote: 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 daresay, it's even worse than that. Your neighbors are actively fighting against the installation of infrastructure that would enable faster internet speeds. AT&T tried to bring FTTN to San Francisco years ago, but neighbors decried the "ugly" green boxes that would run down the street. Boxes that are standard in literally any suburb with fast internet. There are limited parts of the bay area with gigabit fiber, in…

It's so crazy because if you have ever seen the same neighborhood with and without power lines, the difference is dramatic. Power lines are horrendously ugly. But after people got use to them, they can barely be bothered to pay 10% extra on their power bill for the lines to be buried.

Likewise, people would instantly forget about the green boxes after a few year.

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