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Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

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Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#141

Post by mustntmumble »

pkaye wrote: post #114
renewiltord wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, one of the things that makes disasters impossible in the US is that we have real Professional Engineers with Iron Rings doing everything. If you don’t have an iron ring, you can’t really understand what it takes to build a thing in the real world. You can play with your software or whatever but you’re not going to reliably change the real world. Even Ghost Ship had no iron rings present. That’s what got them. Y…

Iron rings is for Canadian engineers.

Huh, today I learned about Iron Rings! Thanks!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#142

Post by plussed_reader »

SoftTalker wrote: post #130
tzs wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress could do it, either directly or by granting more authority to the FCC.

Does the FCC have authority over fiber and cable? That's not using any public airwaves/broadcast bandwidth.

Yes, see National Interest.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#143

Post by plussed_reader »

plussed_reader wrote: post #101
pc86 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are state laws, the Presidential election has nothing to do with this.

Yes, the 50 state solution is inefficient. Your point?

Yes, the 50 state solution is inefficient.

Thank you for confirming my point.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#144

Post by [deleted] »

swatcoder wrote: post #121
Brian_K_White wrote: post #58

A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…

> Unimaginable in the US. Not at all. Even in the US, rural folk have been beaming directional wifi to each other for a couple decades now (at least), and sharing utilities by personally running electrical, coax, telephone, or ethernet throughout a shared building or across houses stretches back for as long as those services have been available. Sharing ("stealing") Cable TV by just running coax around was huge befor…

[deleted]

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#145

Post by iforgot22 »

swatcoder wrote: post #121
Brian_K_White wrote: post #58

A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…

> Unimaginable in the US. Not at all. Even in the US, rural folk have been beaming directional wifi to each other for a couple decades now (at least), and sharing utilities by personally running electrical, coax, telephone, or ethernet throughout a shared building or across houses stretches back for as long as those services have been available. Sharing ("stealing") Cable TV by just running coax around was huge befor…

I've seen this in remote areas in the US too. There's a broadband ISP, but they only connect to one house for some reason, even though others would be willing to pay. So "neighbors" (separated by a thousand feet) share ethernet and wifi.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#146

Post by sangnoir »

bob1029 wrote: post #69
dv_dt wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That works out great until some capital pool decides to start acquiring smaller isps to roll them up into a larger corporate behemoth. As has happened in multiple other industries from groceries, animal vets, rentals, software niches, to hospitals and these days nursing homes Then the "efficiency" becomes how much can be extracted from the business and customers

Privately held companies have the option to reject these offers. A business doesn't have to be a non-profit or community-owned in order to do something principled. One good leader/owner is all it takes.

Everyone has a price. If you reject the offer but the ISP in the neighboring community doesn't, they'll grow into your area and use predatory pricing to get drive you out of business. A lot of roll-ups happen as the original owners retire, which happens regardless of how principled they are.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#147

Post by adabyron »

tivert wrote: post #116
adabyron wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also have a state owned bank. ND once had a very strong "Democratic Farmer Labor party". Not to get into R vs D here, as the parties have flip flopped a lot since then & the Limbaugh movement changed the state from a very purple state (all Congress members were D in the 80s-90s). The only way you win in the state now is with a R next to your name, so the Rs are having an identity crisis. The real good call out i…

> They also have a state owned bank. ND once had a very strong "Democratic Farmer Labor party". Not to get into R vs D here, as the parties have flip flopped a lot since then & the Limbaugh movement changed the state from a very purple state (all Congress members were D in the 80s-90s). The only way you win in the state now is with a R next to your name, so the Rs are having an identity crisis. Minnesota had the DFL.…

> Minnesota had the DFL. North Dakota had the NPL.

You are right. I blame my recollection of it being very "farmer based".

I believe Heitkamp lost to Cramer who was an early Trump backer, in a state that was/(still possibly is) in love with Trump - possibly due to him being 1 of few candidates to ever stop in the state due to lack of electoral votes.

The polarization of the state also gave her no chances of winning. She had won the seat from Sen Conrad (of the Democrat party & in-law of former Republican governor Ed Schafer). Conrad was senator for roughly 26 years. It'll be interesting to see if/when the Dakotas ever goes back to being purple.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#148

Post by sangnoir »

eqvinox wrote: post #80

Community-owned _ broadband networks _ I'm not sure about. Community-owned _ physical infrastructure _ (especially last-mile — fiber & copper going to everybody's house) … that needs to be the default. And if it's not community-owned, it needs to be regulated with open access requirements. Yes you can theoretically build a second fiber network and hook up people's houses. Yes it has happened in actual practice. But i…

> And if it's not community-owned, it needs to be regulated with open access requirements.

What kind of communist, socialistic talk is this? It's frankly anti-American and hurts the linchpin of the best country on earth, out job creators /s

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#149

Post by sangnoir »

pc86 wrote: post #43
plussed_reader wrote: post #12

And this won't change for at least the next 4 years. Regulatory capture is a bitch.

These are state laws, the Presidential election has nothing to do with this.

The FCC and FTC have a huge say on this. See the scandal with bulk-loaded, astroturfed public comments on broadband under the former Trump-appointed FCC chair.

The FCC determines what broadband is, and which companies get federal government subsidies for it. Federal subsidies > state subsidies.

Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks

#150

Post by salawat »

HPsquared wrote: post #72
sabbaticaldev wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TV made radio irrelevant, the internet made TV irrelevant. Both still exists but as money-losing mass manipulation tools

TV was always an advertising platform first and foremost. In other words a money-losing mass manipulation tool.

Believe it or not, Farnsworth, (inventor of the principles making Television possible) had no intention of it being used as an advertising or propaganda tool when setting out to figure out the problem. That's very much a "what people decided to do with it" thing. Bored farmer figures out thing, industry does horrible things with it is a tale as old as time.

It was supposed to be for recording and playing back images. That was pretty much it. His original aspiration was for it to be employed in educational contexts to help make tge spread of visual information possible.

Now if you're talking TV Broadcasting as an industry, then you're absolutely correct. That was the business model settled on, but not without some foundational hmmm'ing, haww'ing and experimentation in coming up with business models in the radio broadcasting space. The history is in itself an interesting piece of work to dive into.

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