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Obama calls for municipal broadband

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Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#71

Post by Torgo »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #36
Torgo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ten years ago my hometown built a municipal ISP. It since then has done the bare minimum to keep the network going, and is total crap. There is one other cable ISP, but they effectively have to compete with the terrible speeds and service of the muni, which conspires to improve nothing. State laws preventing municipal ISPs should be gotten rid of, but some people seem to think that a municipal ISP will solve all thei…

> but they effectively have to compete with the terrible speeds and service of the muni, which conspires to improve nothing Wait, shouldn't that be easy for them to compete with, then? You say it like terrible speeds and service are somehow challenging competition for the cable company? Of course, they would prefer no competition at all, as all companies would.

Muni had uptake mainly in the areas that commercial didn't service, and after that everything just kind of froze. They never, ever seem to try to compete on price, and I assume that upgrading equipment is expensive for either ISP. Wwhen it first started, it served unserved areas and was definitely better than commercial ISP by not being overutilized. Now that coverage is complete it just acts like there are two commercial ISPs. It seems like this a lot in the Midwestern rural areas, even with competition, they all settle into a low standard of service to avoid an arms race. My impression of what municipal Internet does, based on my experience, is they immediately implement state of the art, and then stagnate.

By the way, our municipal ISP is opposed to net neutrality.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#72

Post by jfb »

WillNotDownvote wrote: post #41
jfb wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares? The Feds here are not in the business of bandwidth provision; they're acting to counterbalance the elephantine mass of Comcast by preventing them from overpowering municipal politics.

A thought that occurs to me is that if the government is providing internet access, various pressure groups will leverage that for various kinds of censorship. Why is my government providing access to porn? To religious sites? To sites that violate copyright? To sites that contain many sorts of 'unsavory' content? Allowing children uncensored access to many things? I don't know how those complaints would fare, but I'…

It seems to me that the right level for government to be involved in these sorts of questions is the municipality itself, rather than running back to Federal statute. Which is, again, orthogonal to preventing Verizon-owned statehouses from passing laws preventing municipal broadband networks.

This is a very light touch intervention to increase market-based competition. How much more quickly would there be privately owned fiber networks if consumers had the option of going to City Internet for $150/GB/s?

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#73

Post by djrogers »

metaphorm wrote: post #63
cubano wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, personally, would not celebrate that outcome. I believe in the power in markets and price signaling, ala Hayek, and there is nothing unsophisticated about that. We agree on more then you may be aware...the HI industry is a giant problem, and must be fundamentally altered for the market-based solutions I prefer to do their magic.

so if you really do read a lot of Austrian economics and really do have a sophisticated view of political economy then why did you label ACA as "socialist"? at best that's ignorant, and at worst it's an actively deceptive slander of both ACA and real socialism.

People often (mistakenly) use the term socialism as shorthand for 'massive wealth redistribution', which is what he appears to be doing here. You are correct, this does seem to contraindicate the claims of a sophisticated view of economics.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#74

Post by jfb »

djrogers wrote: post #68
jfb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can do this now. Municipal ownership of some of the pipes isn't going to stop what is essentially an orthogonal fight from happening at a higher level.

Yeah - I think the point was that if the pipes are owned by the same government that's already in the pocket of hollywood, then the laws (more likely regulations written by bureaucrats, not laws passed by elected officials, but..) against torrenting/pirating/distributing would be easier to get written and enforced.

Well, then, you switch to Comcast/Verizon/&c. if these issues are important to you. Big ISP will be forced to compete for your business, rather than buying your acquiescence with franchise agreements and big steak dinners at your state capital. I fail to see any way in which this isn't a good thing.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#75

Post by ksk »

jfb wrote: post #50
ksk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you can tell because of how stridently Comcast/Verizon/AT&T oppose it. How so? Whether its good or bad, ISPs would be against it. Most companies do not want competition. (regardless of what they say) >by allowing the option of municipal networks. I personally think its rather unfair to ask a for-profit company to compete against a tax funded service. >Really, he's calling for the FCC to prevent rent-seeking You can…

The problem is that you have an asymmetry in resources between e.g. local officials who might want to stand up a fiber network and a company the size of Verizon, who very badly do not want this to happen. You need countervailing size, and in the US only the federal government has it.

The problem of asymmetry of resources exists in all domains that have high sunk costs. To reduce monopolies, using your logic ("you need countervailing size") the government would have to get involved in all of the other industries like shipping, oil refining, TV networks, etc.

Instead, why not change the law (if needed) to prevent monopolies from happening?

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#76

Post by skywhopper »

djrogers wrote: post #68
jfb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can do this now. Municipal ownership of some of the pipes isn't going to stop what is essentially an orthogonal fight from happening at a higher level.

Yeah - I think the point was that if the pipes are owned by the same government that's already in the pocket of hollywood, then the laws (more likely regulations written by bureaucrats, not laws passed by elected officials, but..) against torrenting/pirating/distributing would be easier to get written and enforced.

A huge portion of broadband in the US is already owned by Hollywood. At least we have a theoretical voice in the federal government's policies. Still, the ideal is for local municipalities to own the last-mile fiber, like they do with power, water, sewers, and streets most places.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#77

Post by untog »

debacle wrote: post #12
ayuvar wrote: post #5

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.

Where I live, I only have one choice of provider - Time Warner. And I can see why Verizon and the like don't get involved - they'd have to invest a ton of money before getting revenue from even a single customer. If the muni wants to step in and provide this service for the public good, I'm all for it.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#78

Post by remarkEon »

cubano wrote: post #58
metaphorm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you serious? you can't be serious. i usually assume that hacker news has a bit more sophistication than this. i would actively celebrate a legitimate socialized health care system in the U.S. but that's not what we got. ACA is basically a huge middle class tax with the proceeds paid almost entirely to health insurance companies. its a massive expansion of a deeply entrenched private industry.

I, personally, would not celebrate that outcome. I believe in the power in markets and price signaling, ala Hayek, and there is nothing unsophisticated about that. We agree on more then you may be aware...the HI industry is a giant problem, and must be fundamentally altered for the market-based solutions I prefer to do their magic.

How does profiting off of statistically rare yet catastrophic illness qualify as "magic"?

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#79

Post by [deleted] »

Torgo wrote: post #27
nostromo wrote: post #11

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."

Ten years ago my hometown built a municipal ISP. It since then has done the bare minimum to keep the network going, and is total crap. There is one other cable ISP, but they effectively have to compete with the terrible speeds and service of the muni, which conspires to improve nothing. State laws preventing municipal ISPs should be gotten rid of, but some people seem to think that a municipal ISP will solve all thei…

[deleted]

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#80

Post by davidgerard »

Someone1234 wrote: post #28

The ultimate solution is for the government (federal and local) to run the physical side of the internet (e.g. run wires to homes/business, manage the exchanges, etc) but let private companies actually sell the data access directly to the public. As an analogy this is like the Greyhound Bus Line. When you buy a ticket to go from A to B on Greyhound you pay the bus company money and they provide you the service (and s…

Yes. This works really well in the UK.

OpenReach, the bit of BT that operates the infrastructure, is part of a private company, but operates like part of the civil service. They are completely impartial. It is so illegal for OpenReach to offer BT anything they don't offer anyone else, that both BT Broadband and OpenReach staff cringe at the very concept.

tl;dr public wires that many ISPs can supply service over.

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