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Obama calls for municipal broadband

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Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#111

Post by bduerst »

smallerize wrote: post #60
hawkice wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ability to encrypt torrent traffic (requiring encryption is tremendously easy to do through the guis I use, and might even be the default in many clients) combined with the American reflexive response to government censorship leads me to think this won't be as big an issue as you imply.

If you use a tracker, anyone on that tracker can get your IP address. Not to mention querying the DHT and busting everyone with a matching hash. I once downloaded a file with all the encryption buttons checked (Deluge interface) and some enforcement agency still sent a warning notice to my ISP with my IP address.

Couldn't that be because they seeded the file to directly?

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#112

Post by shmerl »

justizin wrote: post #21
jfb wrote: post #6

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.

I definitely agree, and this is one reason I advocate against overly harsh or vindictive rules that are unbalanced against ISPs because of our feelings about AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner - it would bite us later if we have a massive shift to municipal broadband. Sure, we can change the law, but we would have regulations in place that could interfere with the government entering the market, we might have gotten…

> Even if private companies end up contracted to provide it in some cases, those would be regulated monopolies, not regulated free market businesses.

I guess you meant those would be regulated monopolies and not unregulated monopolies ;) ISP scene is quite far from free market at the moment.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#113

Post by rhino369 »

discardorama wrote: post #97
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."

> Municipal governments are a big part of the problem. They make it nearly impossible for companies to build new ISPs. And whose fault is that? Yep, that's right, the ISPs. The ISPs love to play this game of "shut the door after I've gone through it". They get the municipal governments to sign exclusivity clauses and various other laws to keep competition out. I mean, think about it: nothing gets done in the governme…

Exclusivity deals have been illegal for over 20 years.

Munis really just want to take a pound of flesh from everyone who enters the market.

If it was just cable companies owning the munis then the cable companies would have gotten a sweet deal.

>Why the heck would the government go out of its way to set up roadblocks for ISPs if no one wanted it?

People hate direct taxes on themselves and don't notice indirect taxes they pay. The guy who proposes a 50 cent increase per 1000 dollars of house gets kicked out of office. The guy who builds a new school because he gouged comcast is popular, even if its the same money.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#114

Post by rhino369 »

imgabe wrote: post #108

> The president is asking the Federal Communications Commission to preempt those laws. Can someone explain this? The FCC is part of the administrative branch right? Don't they work for the President? Why doesn't he just tell them to preempt the laws?

FCC is an independent agency. He can't tell them to do anything.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#115

Post by vlunkr »

I can understand the Republican point of view here: the government doesn't care about customer satisfaction or uptime because they can't go out of business. However, american ISPs have proven over and over they are unfair and incompetent. It's 2015 and I can barely get speeds over ~1mbps (I live in Idaho, but still). Maybe they would try a little harder if they had government competition.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#116

Post by shmerl »

ksk wrote: post #75
jfb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Isn't there Sherman act already? Why can't it be applied to ISPs? I.e. there are existing laws which can put an end to anticompetitive behavior of ISPs, but no one applies them. So why would adding more laws improve anything?

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#117

Post by biot »

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.

  > Wait, shouldn't that be easy for them to compete with, then?
Oh, but it is. If the municipal service can only offer 1.5Mbps for $40/month, the private ISPs can offer 2.5Mbps for $70/month, 5Mbps for $125/month, 10Mbps for $199/month, or the ultimate in performance of 25Mbps for $350/month. They're effectively free to gouge people if the only alternative is the crappy, low-speed government service.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#118

Post by derekp7 »

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'…

They already do this, with these things called roads. In fact, I saw a tax-payer funded road that gave access to a church, a bar, and an adult store.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#119

Post by sliverstorm »

NoPiece wrote: post #14
jfb wrote: post #6

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.

What do you think the federal policy on torrents will be? Ask Disney.

I'm more than prepared to give up pirating movies in exchange for modern broadband and competitive providers.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#120

Post by msandford »

discardorama wrote: post #93
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…

I agree. Another example would be power (electricity). In some states, you can choose to buy power from solar, renewable sources, etc. The underlying infrastructure is the same; but the offerings change. In the case of Internet, the government basically would give you access to some NAP or exchange; to get onto the Internet, you would have to buy access from some provider. Providers could differentiate themselves by…

What you mentioned exists in Houston for sure, and quite possibly elsewhere. It's probably not perfect but it's HUGELY better than state approved utility monopolies.

http://www.powertochoose.org/

Two anecdotes:

1. In FL I was in a fairly small college town, 150k people. GRU was the utility company. We paid $13/mo connection fee plus a marginal rate of $0.084/kWh (plus the "fuel adjustment" which is of course never in your favor) since it was basically impossible to use less in the heat (https://www.gru.com/Portals/0/Legacy/Pdf/RatesCharges.pdf). In TX I now pay $0.08 with no connection fee or adjustments of which about $0.02/kWh goes for line maintenance and if I commit to buying at least 2MWh/mo I can pay even less.

2. A friend from Florida had a brother who was working for the Florida Utility Commission (http://www.psc.state.fl.us/) approving or denying utilities' requests to raise their rates. Once he's been there for a few years his plan is to become a consultant to help the utility companies game the system and raise their rates.

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