61–70 of 99 posts
That’s fairly amazing to me considering the billions of dollars that corporate monopolies have invested in advertising and PR, compared to zero in towns that haven’t done any promotion of the idea of municipal broadband.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_pipe
The entire purpose of their marketing departments to delay that happening for as long as possible.
I assume the percentage would be higher if it just showed an actual comparison of upload/download speeds, bandwidth caps, and price. This poll may be just showing whether the consumers even know what "municipal broadband" means. Probably also colored with people's perceptions of how sticky "bundles" they already have for TV and phone are, how they would get their cable channels, etc.
Surveys like these don't carry any useful information other than whether people who what municipal broadband is and their general view of government provided services.
How in the world can someone "prefer their current provider" without something to compare against? I think in any kind of survey like this, I would like to see the actual questions that were asked.
Not every city in America is terrible. I live in a city of ~250k, we have multiple competing cable companies here and we get very reliable, fast, gig internet for a good price. In my childhood hometown they have muni internet. It started out great as it was cutting edge. They have barely upgraded in over a decade. It's crap and the cable company in town has largely won. I also don't want the government tracking my in…
Fine, but MANY are. In the past 5 years I've lived in two of America's biggest cities and only had one ISP to choose from.
> I also don't want the government tracking my internet history in any fashion. Too many government services could tie into knowledge about you and I want the government to have only the minimum information necessary to provide those services.
As if the government can't/doesn't already subpoena your ISP for this information.
I assume the percentage would be higher if it just showed an actual comparison of upload/download speeds, bandwidth caps, and price. This poll may be just showing whether the consumers even know what "municipal broadband" means. Probably also colored with people's perceptions of how sticky "bundles" they already have for TV and phone are, how they would get their cable channels, etc.
Its also hard to discount how much American's distrust the government. "Send all your data through a government owned server" is going to have a negative knee-jerk reaction from many/most people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am. But the Planet Money episode on this topic mentioned municipal broadband has more failure stories than success. It's worth a listen if you have the time. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-bi...
>But the Planet Money episode on this topic mentioned municipal broadband has more failure stories than success. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/865908114 I'm not seeing that in the transcript. I'm seeing a story about corporations being so afraid of municipal broadband that they pay for laws to make it illegal.
> SAYRE: Christopher Yoo is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in technology and the Internet. And in his spreadsheet is essentially the story of what happened to other cities that tried to do what Wilson, N.C., was trying to do - build and run their own fiber-optic network.
...
> cities tend to assume these fiber-optic networks will pay for themselves. They borrow millions and millions of dollars and are often screwed because one of a million things goes wrong.
I believe the study is this one:
https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6611-report-municipal-f...
How in the world can someone "prefer their current provider" without something to compare against? I think in any kind of survey like this, I would like to see the actual questions that were asked.
Not every city in America is terrible. I live in a city of ~250k, we have multiple competing cable companies here and we get very reliable, fast, gig internet for a good price. In my childhood hometown they have muni internet. It started out great as it was cutting edge. They have barely upgraded in over a decade. It's crap and the cable company in town has largely won. I also don't want the government tracking my in…
The government already can compel your ISP to hand over that data.
I assume the percentage would be higher if it just showed an actual comparison of upload/download speeds, bandwidth caps, and price. This poll may be just showing whether the consumers even know what "municipal broadband" means. Probably also colored with people's perceptions of how sticky "bundles" they already have for TV and phone are, how they would get their cable channels, etc.
It bothers me that it's only available in the fancier (whiter) parts of the city, but I have no complaints about the service or price.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not every city in America is terrible. I live in a city of ~250k, we have multiple competing cable companies here and we get very reliable, fast, gig internet for a good price. In my childhood hometown they have muni internet. It started out great as it was cutting edge. They have barely upgraded in over a decade. It's crap and the cable company in town has largely won. I also don't want the government tracking my in…
> I also don't want the government tracking my internet history in any fashion. The government already can compel your ISP to hand over that data.
How in the world can someone "prefer their current provider" without something to compare against? I think in any kind of survey like this, I would like to see the actual questions that were asked.
I assume the percentage would be higher if it just showed an actual comparison of upload/download speeds, bandwidth caps, and price. This poll may be just showing whether the consumers even know what "municipal broadband" means. Probably also colored with people's perceptions of how sticky "bundles" they already have for TV and phone are, how they would get their cable channels, etc.
Its also hard to discount how much American's distrust the government. "Send all your data through a government owned server" is going to have a negative knee-jerk reaction from many/most people.
If you believe that we'll get legislation that enforces that municipal broadband must be a content-neutral dumb pipe and not every legislature trying to stick their hands in it for all sorts of random initiatives then I have 7 perpendicular red lines I want to show you.