If it was, there would be no starlink
The internet should be a public utility
201–210 of 265 posts
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
AT&T can put those under the ground. They are ugly. And they take up already limited sidewalk space in many areas.
Do you want to put up taxes for additional trenching, nevermind the overhead associated with the different agencies when digging is involved?
Taxes paid for the initial cost of not only most of the infrastructure of internet but also cable. This was "paid back" at zero interest loan payments over dozens of years, in most municipalities.
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#203[deleted]
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#204I 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…
> Her argument is that ~20 mbps DSL is good enough that is insane. How having no internet is fine because 20mbps is enough? That could be a good argument against fiber (which i also think is overkill, decent cooper is lower maintenance and with enough repeaters as good as) but it is hardly an argument against it being available to all as a public utility. > And, by the way, the FCC thinks I have a dozen options for b…
> decent cooper is lower maintenance
This is interesting. Do you have a reference for that? Everything I've read seems to claim that fibre is lower maintenance than copper -- but I'd love to read something to the contrary.
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, and 40A was good, so let's deliver 400A to every house. Actually 4kA. 4MA! Yes, every house needs a little mini-nuke, tear up everybody's backyard to put in a coal plant - no wait, that didn't happen because it turns out "enough electricity" is good not "more electricity is better". Always On Internet access matters. But bandwidth, like electricity, is something that you can just have enough of and then more d…
You snark, but what happens when EV adoption picks up and suddenly those houses need to move a lot more electrons?
A large (probably over-size for most users) EV battery is 360MJ.
It seems reasonable we should be able to fill the EV battery overnight, let's say 10 hours between we plug the EV in to charge (empty) and expect to find it full.
So that 36000 seconds, and conveniently that gives us 10kW power input. Which sure enough is about 40A.
So, not "a lot more" electrons. Transitioning other energy uses to electricity will increase the load at individual homes and to the grid but it isn't an order of magnitude thing.
A mistake commonly made here is that people look at energy equivalence charts and they assume that 10GJ of gasoline means we'd need 10GJ of electricity to do the same job. But in fact ICE is hideously inefficient, we used it because it was convenient and for no other reason, so electric cars have always been several times more efficient than 1:1 on that basis - that just wasn't good enough reason to switch before.
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 $75/mo for 250/5 (yes, only 5 megabit up!).
I get att fiber 1g at 70$. It's even cheaper now at 50$
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
You snark, but what happens when EV adoption picks up and suddenly those houses need to move a lot more electrons?
A large (probably over-size for most users) EV battery is 360MJ. It seems reasonable we should be able to fill the EV battery overnight, let's say 10 hours between we plug the EV in to charge (empty) and expect to find it full. So that 36000 seconds, and conveniently that gives us 10kW power input. Which sure enough is about 40A. So, not "a lot more" electrons. Transitioning other energy uses to electricity will incr…
Multiple cars. 2 is pretty standard,3 is not unusual.
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#208I 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 mean, you would also expect one of the richest cities in the country to have sidewalks and street lights. They have different priorities.
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
A large (probably over-size for most users) EV battery is 360MJ. It seems reasonable we should be able to fill the EV battery overnight, let's say 10 hours between we plug the EV in to charge (empty) and expect to find it full. So that 36000 seconds, and conveniently that gives us 10kW power input. Which sure enough is about 40A. So, not "a lot more" electrons. Transitioning other energy uses to electricity will incr…
Multiple cars. 2 is pretty standard,3 is not unusual.
An average US home has 240 volts at 40 amps which is 24,000 watts.
Re: The internet should be a public utility
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> Power lines are horrendously ugly. So is the 20 foot wide expanse of dirty tar next to the power lines. But people have lived with that all their lives, and barely notice it.
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