Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead • Hacker News Board

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#111

Post by zzzcpan » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

lambdadmitry wrote: post #71

inapis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I digress. In India, my local ISP owns the last mile and I pay approximately 14 USD each for two lines of symmetric and unlimited 100 Mbps. ISPs can own the last mile. All you need is extensive competiton. I went from paying $100(4M/250GB) to $50(20M/500G) to $30(50M/UL) to the current $15 (100M/UL). The prices decreased as more players entered the market. Of course, India doesn’t have excellent internet infrastructu…

So I am, too, from a country where internet is (was) great while ISPs own the last mile (Russia). It seems there are two prerequisites for that: 1. Low level of regulation (i.e. lawlessness) so small ISPs can just string cables in the air without any licensing 2. Relatively young infrastructure Both of those aren't true for most developed countries. And even if it's not (Russia isn't), at some point market dynamics i…

In Russia it's not market forces that push for internet access monopolization, but the government, as it wants Chinese-style mass surveillance and censorship.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#112

Post by ergothus » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #84

quasse wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this argument all the time, but I don't really see it. What value is the ISP providing here? They sell you service on physical infrastructure that you the taxpayer already paid for? Peering? It seems like it would be much more efficient for a municipality to just negotiate citywide peering agreements for everyone. Some people try to push the "value adds" line, like IPTV and phone service, but I don't see any r…

Some things tend to be outside the competence of government departments. Face-to-consumer business tends to be one of them. Public telcomms were the norm in most of the world (sans US) until the 80s-90s. It wasn't good. What an ISP is is customer support & infrastructure. These sorts of ideas make ISPs less infrastructure, more customer facing services. Btw, this is not some untested theory. It's been done a bunch of…

For areas where occasional failure and/or occasional required provider changes are tolerable (basic education, for example, may not qualify as one of these):

competitive market > govt control > uncompetitive market

to be more realistic, there's overlap at the ends of these - you can find some local govts that outperformed competitive markets and some uncompetitive markets that outperform local govts, but on average, the above generalization works.

The real pain is that all the incentives that make capitalism work well ALSO incentivize finding ways to break the market, so a competitive market won't stay competitive forever just by existing.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#113

Post by pathseeker » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

quasse wrote: post #54

takeda wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way is to let the city provide the last mile infrastructure (the connection between nearest POP and your house), and then lease it to ISPs for a fee to maintain it. That way we once again can have competition like during the time DSL was popular (telcos were required to lease their wires, that's why there was so much choice of ISP for anyone who remembers early 2000)

I hear this argument all the time, but I don't really see it. What value is the ISP providing here? They sell you service on physical infrastructure that you the taxpayer already paid for? Peering? It seems like it would be much more efficient for a municipality to just negotiate citywide peering agreements for everyone. Some people try to push the "value adds" line, like IPTV and phone service, but I don't see any r…

You do know that an ISP has much more equipment than the cables that run to your house right? Good internet vs bad internet can easily be entirely in mismanaged peering, qos, aggregation, etc.

IPv6, support for static IPs, etc all depend on much more than the wire. I'm not confident municipalities have any motivation to do more than the bare minimum when it comes to managing all of this stuff beyond the physical infrastructure.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#114

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Water, sewer, gas, electricity, and internet infrastructure should be owned by taxpayers. We'll have the same situation we do with police departments where they're basically impossible to punish for wrongdoing because you're just punishing taxpayers by proxy.

Water, gas, and electric utilities work great. What is different about internet?

Electric and gas are usually not municipally owned.

Water is usually municipally owned but it's intentionally subsidized to the point where even poor people can afford it with relative ease so I'm not sure it makes sense to compare it to internet because presumably internet would need to be approximately pay for itself.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#115

Post by bogomipz » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

mattmcknight wrote: post #73

bogomipz wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Local governments are notoriously corrupt, in both politics and police." And yet on the whole they are probably still far less corrupt and corrosive than monopolistic ISPs such Comcast, Verizon and Time Warner(or whatever their calling themselves these days.) I would argue they are more accessible and accountable as well.

Local governments are the ones that granted these companies the monopolies.

This comment is disingenuous at best. It also displays an ignorance of the history of Telecom in the US.

Cable companies were originally granted charters or franchise agreements in the 1970s and 1980s in the US. At that time cable companies were very much local and regional[1]. Also at that time television was delivered over the air and the monopoly was Ma Bell. Twenty years of consolidation happened at the national level. The victims of this hyper-consolidation were local.

Furthermore these municipal franchise agreements given to cable companies/ISPs are generally non-exclusive which is why there are some areas that actually have a duopoly instead of just a monopoly.

Municipalities will generally grant right away access to other interested parties which is why some places have both Verizon and Comcast or Comcast and Uverse etc. In fact the franchise fees collected by municipalities are a great source of revenue. I don't think there's a city in the US that isn't interested in collecting more money.

NYC recently sued Verizon for failing to fulfill its obligations of providing full coverage(and an alternative to the incumbent) to residents of the city[2]. So no local governments are not to blame for the corrosive and corrupt culture of these ISPs. Certainly not in any appreciable manner.

[1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/14/chart-of-the...

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/new-york-city-verizon-internet/

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#116

Post by stuart78 » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

bronco21016 wrote: post #86

I hate Comcast with a passion and have always fantasized about living in a progressive municipality that provides fiber to the home. However, a few years ago I bought a home and it’s only been over the last 6 months or so I’ve realized how horribly corrupt and mismanaged small city governments can be. We’re being sucked dry by our mayor who hired her cousin as city manager for an exorbitant compensation package. They…

I agree that there are risks, but at the very least you and your neighbors can a) identify corruption or mismanagement and b) work to vote corrupt leadership out. Much harder to do with Comcast.

(And for the record, I'm all for real competition in these markets. Let Comcast and the municipality battle it out. May the best provider win.)

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#117

Post by pathseeker » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:04 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78

craftyguy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> providing customer support It could be argued that they don't even provide this adequately in areas where they are a market monopoly. My local government provides far better customer support. When there is an issue or grievance, there is a place to file it and someone will always respond. As an added bonus, they don't try to sell me additional services every 5 minutes.

America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. Presently, the best-run municipalities are exploring municipal broadband. Their experiences will be positive. But not all municipalities are well-run. And today's well-run municipalities turn into tomorrow dumpster fires. Publicly-owned infrastructure rented to private provider-maintainers is a proven model. It isn't a fire-and-forget solution. But…

>America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative.

Blanket statements like this are pointless. I lived in Austin for a few years and had multiple fiber ISPs to choose from and was able to get 1 gbps for $70/mo.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#118

Post by cooperadymas » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:05 PM UTC

bronco21016 wrote: post #86

I hate Comcast with a passion and have always fantasized about living in a progressive municipality that provides fiber to the home. However, a few years ago I bought a home and it’s only been over the last 6 months or so I’ve realized how horribly corrupt and mismanaged small city governments can be. We’re being sucked dry by our mayor who hired her cousin as city manager for an exorbitant compensation package. They…

The mayor of my town won election with just over 300 votes. Even the nearby city of 100k people elected their mayor with only 10,000 votes.

It's a lot easier to rid yourself of corruption at this level than it is at a corporate or a federal level.

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#119

Post by all2 » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:07 PM UTC

roflchoppa wrote: post #94

bronco21016 wrote: post #86

I hate Comcast with a passion and have always fantasized about living in a progressive municipality that provides fiber to the home. However, a few years ago I bought a home and it’s only been over the last 6 months or so I’ve realized how horribly corrupt and mismanaged small city governments can be. We’re being sucked dry by our mayor who hired her cousin as city manager for an exorbitant compensation package. They…

You should run for Mayor, I believe in you.

> bronco21016 for Mayor 2019

Can we do this? How could we put this together? More generally, is he qualified? How do we tell?

Re: Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead

#120

Post by xoa » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 5:08 PM UTC

bronco21016 wrote: post #86

I hate Comcast with a passion and have always fantasized about living in a progressive municipality that provides fiber to the home. However, a few years ago I bought a home and it’s only been over the last 6 months or so I’ve realized how horribly corrupt and mismanaged small city governments can be. We’re being sucked dry by our mayor who hired her cousin as city manager for an exorbitant compensation package. They…

>is the panacea we all hope for

I have never seen "panacea" used by anyone except those opposed to any public infrastructure, and while you sound like you're speaking in all good faith and I appreciate that I still have trouble seeing this as something other then a strawman. Of course governments can have issues too. Public roads can have potholes. Bridges have not been kept up. Public parks aren't always maintained to the extent they're supposed to be. Etc etc. But at the same time there are plenty of good cases to show it can be done very well too, and the massive failures of privatized infrastructure are also in ample evidence. Fundamentally natural monopolies and basic floor level services for society (taking into account not just existing people but future generations and flexibility value to the nation overall) aren't great fits for a market. Some things really do make sense as an area of government.

Corruption is simply something that has to be fought, period, but we do have the tools to do so more easily at the local government level then for more widely distributed private entities. And whatever else the fact is that privatized information infrastructure simply has not worked overall. There will absolutely be cases of mismanagement and corruption in public information infrastructure should it become widespread, there will be fierce fights and politics and so forth same as with roads and everything else. That however doesn't make it worse then the alternatives, and long term in America at least citizens get the government they deserve.