141–150 of 230 posts
I love to see cities exert their power. In some ways we’ve acquiesced to a powerful central government, whether it be federal or state, but its local governments that should be powerful. After all, they have the best handle on the needs and desires of their citizens.
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Preface: I think we should have municipal options in places with adequate service (as a backstop, because I also think we should eliminate build-out obligations that require private companies to serve insuffiently profitable subscribers.) That said, municipal governments are not sovereign entities, they derive all their authority from the state. States get to decide, as a general matter, what to make a public service…
The last argument there seems one that would appeal to people on the right only who would be against this because it's considered "big government" anyway.
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While I understand your sentiment, "free market" folk generally exclude "government-provided" from that notion. This is because those services are often coupled with sector-wide regulations that are counter to laissez faire principles, the government is able to subsidize operational costs against its tax base (unfair competition that distorts the market), and other such complexities.
Federal absurd regulations are commie-scandalous while lobby absurd regulation are just fine ? It's always the same. People don't see, don't control, when they try, resistance is so high they will cave before change occurs.
Laissez fair would generally say all regulations are bad. Regulations that help monopolies are one of the main reasons free market advocates are againt regulations. All regulations start with "good intentions".
Comcast and phone companies are great examples of monopolies that are protected by the State, not failures of free market advocates.
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All of your points are valid, but let me counter argue. Be careful — government is usually not a great runner of a customer-service focused business. Maybe, maybe not, but we know Comcast and TWC aren't a great runner of customer-service focused business. Further, do you really want government (municipal) or otherwise being your ISP? Having access to all of your traffic lines? No, but I'm assuming they already have a…
So, you chose the red herrings of the worst possible ISPs. There are great commercial ISPs too. What's more important is competition, which again is limited by government (government decides who gets access to build-out lines). I agree, federal government does have the resources to spy, and uses them very effectively. Why make it that much easier for our local governments to do that as well.
Right, and that's a key ingredient that is missing in Fort Collins. Two main providers, who have been operating in typical duopoly fashion. I.e. you get one or the other, not both, and even if you can get both, the other is no better.
Knowing so little about the situation in Colorado, why can't they just allow more competition in the city, instead of running it themselves?
I’m failing to think of a single reason why it would ever be legally acceptable for a government to ban municipal broadband. I understand the whole corporate shill stuff, I’m speaking literally from the arguments FOR the ban...how is it justified at all?
I'm playing Devil's advocate here, but if you believe in a strong free-market with a minimal state then you could argue that the government should not be providing a service that private individuals could provide. Now I think most people are more pragmatic and say "whatever get's the job done," but that's the reason why some people are against many municipal services, including broadband.
There is a matter of unfair competition, as the state can run any service at a loss forever.
I love to see cities exert their power. In some ways we’ve acquiesced to a powerful central government, whether it be federal or state, but its local governments that should be powerful. After all, they have the best handle on the needs and desires of their citizens.
So if some city wants to enact Jim Crow laws, it should be allowed to do that without interference from the state or federal level?
Wow they exchanged one monopoly for another monopoly that can use force. Genius voter population over there.
>another monopoly Comcast won't cease to exist. Other ISPs can form. >that can use force When was the last time your water/electric/gas company "used force" against public interest?
Everyday.
Think of it this way, people that don't want to use the service can't opt out for the tax loss incurred by the state running it.
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It's not necessarily superior; it's subsidized and doesn't have to actually make money, or even break even. Ultimately its costs can be hidden away in taxes or debt, where they're still present but unseen. Municipal broadband also often gets fast-tracked or special-cased in regulation; governments don't do a good job of regulating themselves . Private ISPs can't do any of those things; they actually have to pay for i…
Historically, most places with government owned telco's starting ISPs still had arms length regulation. If that was really the concern, looking at the dozens of countries with experience in regulating this would be rather simple. That said, I agree that you'd get far just by providing the last mile. In the EU, deregulation basically required the owners of monopoly last mile infrastructure to separate them out into se…
> There are still problems - e.g. BT is often accused of milking OpenReach rather than investing in the network.
The caveat is perhaps the opposite of what you suggest. Unbundling works okay in the U.K. because BT OpenReach has been allowed to be quite profitable. (Their profits as a percentage of revenue are between TWC and Comcast.) Unbundling in the U.S. failed, in contrast, because the FCC set wholesale rates so low there was basically no incentive to invest in DSL networks.
It's my theory that stuff that works in other countries fails in the U.S. because everyone is so ideological. In the U.K., the privatization of BT was preceded by tons of economic studies analyzing how to balance broadband availability and price against the need to make investing in broadband a profitable endeavor. In the U.S. it's entirely ideological. Pro-business free marketers on one side versus people who see broadband as a social justice issue, economics be damned. We lurch form one mode to the other based on who happens to be in power.
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In my observations, problems at the DMV are usually because of the public, not the DMV. People show up to register a car without a title, have missing paperwork to get a license plate, and are generally unprepared. The DMV spells out what you need online, but people show up and need every little thing explained to them. I'm at the counter for 5 minutes, pay my fees, and walk out the door. Why was this other goof-ball…
No need for heavy stats here, but let's look at popular opinion of the DMV. If there is broad variance in the amount of time it takes to tackle simple issues (such as paying a fine), then I'd suggest someone look at the process, the operations, or both. A "human behavior be damned" perspective isn't going to help anyone.
Let's look at popular opinion of Comcast!
In all seriousness, we are exiting (I hope) a time of anti-government fervor where no matter what the government did (unless it's the police and military) it was by default assumed to be done poorly. I no longer think this is the case, and there is a ton of stuff that our government does extremely well.