11–20 of 289 posts
Municipal governments: the cause of, and solution to, your ISP woes.
It reminds me of housing. 1) Governments restrict new housing. 2) Housing becomes unaffordable. 3) Government builds public housing because "the free market has failed."
Municipal broadband is a great idea. A town near me, Olds, just rolled out gigabit fiber to the curb for $57/mo. Considering most of the other nearby municipalities have to live with dialup or (agonizingly slow) satellite internet, it's been a big draw to the area. I think it absolutely makes a ton of sense for rural areas; if I had a remote job it would be very tempting to head out there and get an acreage. I feel l…
What's the setup fee to run fiber 100 feet and into your house to set up the box? Because Verizon did it for free.
I still think private competition is better here. Verizon only did it for free because they're trying to tread on Time Warner, which is the way it should be.
Squandered his political capital on a shitty health care reform bill, got shell shocked by Republican opposition and crawled up his own ass for a couple of years. Now that he doesn't give a shit about elections anymore he's actually doing something.
Really, he's calling for the FCC to prevent rent-seeking by local ISP monopolies by allowing the option of municipal networks. It's a really good idea; you can tell because of how stridently Comcast/Verizon/AT&T oppose it.
Municipal governments are a big part of the problem. They make it nearly impossible for companies to build new ISPs. Municipal governments: the cause of, and solution to, your ISP woes. It reminds me of housing. 1) Governments restrict new housing. 2) Housing becomes unaffordable. 3) Government builds public housing because "the free market has failed."
In 2000, the Federal Communications Commission
endorsed municipal broadband as a "best practice"
for bringing broadband to under served communities.
The FCC also addressed the question of whether a
municipality was an "entity" under the
Telecommunications Act which mandates that "No State
or local statute or regulation, or other State or
local legal requirement, may prohibit or have the
effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to
provide any interstate or intrastate
telecommunications service." 47 USC 253(a). The
legal question revolved around whether a state could
prevent a municipality, as its subordinate
government body, from entering the telecommunication
market. In the case of Missouri Municipal League v.
Nixon, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that a
municipality was not an entity under the
Telecommunications Act and that a state could
determine what authority its own subordinate
jurisdictions had.
It's also possible that the FCC is considering using some different regulatory authority to preempt state laws this time.
(the rest is redundant)
Municipal broadband is a great idea. A town near me, Olds, just rolled out gigabit fiber to the curb for $57/mo. Considering most of the other nearby municipalities have to live with dialup or (agonizingly slow) satellite internet, it's been a big draw to the area. I think it absolutely makes a ton of sense for rural areas; if I had a remote job it would be very tempting to head out there and get an acreage. I feel l…
> to the curb for $57/mo. What's the setup fee to run fiber 100 feet and into your house to set up the box? Because Verizon did it for free. I still think private competition is better here. Verizon only did it for free because they're trying to tread on Time Warner, which is the way it should be.