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Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

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Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#71

Post by cozzyd »

DangitBobby wrote: post #58
olyjohn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on Starlink for a few months. It's honestly been a pain in my ass, and nowhere near as reliable as Comcast. But I am being patient and waiting, because right now it's worth it to me just to tell Comcast to fuck right off. Starlink has been improving though quite a lot just since I got it... so I'll keep giving it time.

I thought starlink was for people living in rural areas with no real broadband alternatives.

Yeah, any place with comcast broadband is almost certainly a poor fit for Starlink due to the limited total bandwidth over a geographic region.

Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#72

Post by kixiQu »

DangitBobby wrote: post #58
olyjohn wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on Starlink for a few months. It's honestly been a pain in my ass, and nowhere near as reliable as Comcast. But I am being patient and waiting, because right now it's worth it to me just to tell Comcast to fuck right off. Starlink has been improving though quite a lot just since I got it... so I'll keep giving it time.

I thought starlink was for people living in rural areas with no real broadband alternatives.

So that tells you how someone feels about Comcast's "real broadband alternative"

Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#74

Post by Ericson2314 »

geodel wrote: post #68
vangelis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

So you are saying we better willingly give data, since govt can anyway get it if they want?

In fact, yes. C.f. there many laws about mail tampering for the post office. When the government has to deal with the data in "normal, non-criminal" situations, and not just "special investigative" ones, there tends to be better safe-guards in place.

Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#75

Post by Ericson2314 »

jonpurdy wrote: post #59
q3k wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're talking about is called Unbundled Access / Bitstream access [1]. Although that's currently mostly talked about in the context of copper/DSL access. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_access

Thanks for the clarification; that's exactly what I was referring to. I'd like to see fibre included in that since it's likely to be the physical medium that will last a century or more, regardless of the protocols on top of it.

This would be better, but exactly what is the purpose of last-mile-only competition? It feels like LARPing capitalism because we are embarrassed natural monopolies exist.

Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#76

Post by Ericson2314 »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #61
reilly3000 wrote: post #28

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.

The greatest fear of Telecommunications companies is being reduced to a 'big dumb pipe': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_pipe The entire purpose of their marketing departments to delay that happening for as long as possible.

From the article

> "In a world of dumb terminals and telephones, networks had to be smart. But in a world of smart terminals, networks have to be dumb." — George Gilder, The Coming of the Fibersphere, Forbes ASAP, December 7, 1992

> The Coming of the Fibersphere, Forbes ASAP, December 7, 1992

> 1992

sheds tear

Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#77

Post by tyingq »

Spivak wrote: post #70
dahfizz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean you should have some level of reaction at the thought of being subjected to network policy set by the US government. Encryption isn't magic and you're still giving the gov't a huge amount of observeability and direct influence that they don't currently have. 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 s…

"set by the US government"

It's usually a city government, right? People generally seem to have more concerns with Federal, State, or County level governments. Not to say it isn't a concern, but cities seem less likely to engage in that sort of thing.

Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#78

Post by pessimizer »

Spivak wrote: post #70
dahfizz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean you should have some level of reaction at the thought of being subjected to network policy set by the US government. Encryption isn't magic and you're still giving the gov't a huge amount of observeability and direct influence that they don't currently have. 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 s…

As far as I know, municipal broadband, not being federally run, isn't any more subject to federal inspection than any other broadband. I agree that mentioning the "government" vaguely in a poll out it would get the result someone anti-municipal broadband wanted.

Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#79

Post by spullara »

cozzyd wrote: post #69
spullara wrote: post #2

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 already have cheapish high-quality internet (Webpass). An alternative would be unlikely to improve my bandwidth (I only have gigabit ethernet on all my devices anyway..) or latency (1-2 ms to work). Maybe it would be cheaper...

If I was offered Chattanooga's municipal internet access, I would take it. But it really matters what the offering might be. They have had up to 10G symmetrical speeds since 2015!

https://muninetworks.org/tags-135

Re: Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

#80

Post by pessimizer »

spullara wrote: post #2

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.

It's the same way polls can find so many people who love their current health insurance company. "Would you like things to continue the way they are, or would you like to venture into the unknown with this service that is crucial to your current lifestyle?"
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