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

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

#171

Post by darkarmani »

KZeillmann wrote: post #39
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government My point is that's a terrible baseline to settle for. If our metric for "should we do it" is solely "is it better than Comcast," we've got a problem. My specific concern is around local police having expanded access to locals' internet activity.

I don't see how the local police would have any more access than they would if Comcast were in charge. They'd still have to get a warrant to search anything.

> They'd still have to get a warrant to search anything.

Even better, anything they found without a warrant would be thrown out, unlike if Comcast volunteers to give up data about you.

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

#172

Post by guelo »

rayiner wrote: post #161
xoa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your post is based on a premise that is simply false: > And whatever else the fact is that privatized information infrastructure simply has not worked overall. "Worked" compared to what? The U.S. is in the top 10 for average connection speeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_... . It is far ahead of France, Germany, the U.K., Italy, and Spain (which is 70%+ of the EU population). That's al…

In those countries with better infrastructure there isn't as strong of a government-is-always-awful ideology as we have here. Our "conservative" politicians thinks of their job as destroying government. So we get bad government. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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

#173

Post by robocat »

rayiner wrote: post #74
takeda wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All ISPs need is to separate the last mile (the fiber between your house and nearest POP) from their service. Once that would be available, we would have a real compression in that market. In all countries which are known for having best internet experience the ISP don't own the last mile.

> In all countries which are known for having best internet experience the ISP don't own the last mile. ISPs own their own last mile almost everywhere. What you may be thinking of is unbundling, where an ISP may be required to let other ISPs use their last-mile facilities at regulated rates. That is a minority rule as well. Most broadband providers in South Korea own their own facilities: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict…

The alternative to unbundling (private ownership, any ISP can use) is treating the fibre as infrastructure (public ownership, any ISP can use).

In New Zealand (similar population and area to Oregon) a mixed private & public UFB project is well under way that cost the public about $1 billion. As of March 2018, the original fibre rollout is 89% complete, with fibre available to 1,300,914 households and businesses, of which 550,314 (42.3%) have connected. I think there are approximately 1.6 million households and 0.6 million business premises in NZ.

Getting connected is slow (the public company Chorus that manages connections is crappy) but there is plenty of choice of service (ISP) and good reliability once connected.

Looking at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiber_to_the_premises_by_cou... shows plenty of countries with private ISPs doing far worse than NZ.

Australia is also rolling out a similar multi-billion project - Australia is about the same size as continental US with 1/10th the population.

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

#174

Post by gwbas1c »

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 lived in a MA town for a few years, and had municipal broadband.

The people who installed it raved about how they preferred working for the town instead of Comcast.

Service was exceptional.

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

#175

Post by supercanuck »

xoa wrote: post #120
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…

The other point is that with a government, people have the opportunity to vote management out. Not so much with Comcast.

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

#176

Post by swoongoonz »

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…

This user has 0 comments, 0 submissions except related to this issue. I call bullshit. You're not a real person, you're a corporate insider.

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

#177

Post by noobermin »

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…

>Here's my personal example with my city government. Therefore, all the city governments must be bad.

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

#178

Post by rayiner »

guelo wrote: post #172
rayiner wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your post is based on a premise that is simply false: > And whatever else the fact is that privatized information infrastructure simply has not worked overall. "Worked" compared to what? The U.S. is in the top 10 for average connection speeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_... . It is far ahead of France, Germany, the U.K., Italy, and Spain (which is 70%+ of the EU population). That's al…

In those countries with better infrastructure there isn't as strong of a government-is-always-awful ideology as we have here. Our "conservative" politicians thinks of their job as destroying government. So we get bad government. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Except infrastructure is awful in solidly blue states as well as red states. What "conservative politicians" are to blame for the NYC subway falling apart? I think you've got the causation backward. There's a bigger "market" for anti-government rhetoric in the U.S. than in Europe because the governmental units closest to the people here are so awful.

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

#179

Post by dsfyu404ed »

bilbo0s wrote: post #107
bliblah wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that in this case because this is a more "local" power you, the consumer/voter, actually have the power to hold them liable. Imagine living in a Town with less than 2.5k people living in rural midwest and comcast screws you over, what are you going to do? They only answer to Stockholders and "big fish" markets. Elected officials care and respond to votes and the smaller the area of control, the easi…

> Imagine living in a Town with less than 2.5k people living in rural midwest... And: > Elected officials care and respond to votes and the smaller the area of control, the easier it is to get your voice heard... I think either you haven't lived in such a town, or small towns in Wisconsin, where I'm from, are atypical in this regard. Not sure which, since I've never personally lived in any small town outside of Wisco…

I generally agree with you about government being not inherently trustworthy just because a town is small. However, I think small town governments are generally less bad than larger town/city governments just because of the reduced number of people represented per elected official.

I've lived in small and smallish towns in four states and pay attention to local politics because I was raised to do that.

Local culture is the dominant term in the equation by a mile. How effective and efficient government is a reflection of how effective and efficient people (some of whom make up the government) expect it to be. A "highly competent" government from New Jersey would have people talking about tar and feathers in Maine.

Within a given state it seems like government effectiveness is inversely correlated with population and wealth. The more money you have the easier it is to justify pissing some of it away on boondoggle projects. The more people you have the less accountability there is.

Another thing I've noticed is that in the smaller government states the middle class poor don't hate the state government as much because it doesn't affect them as much or as often.

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

#180

Post by greggyb »

dudul wrote: post #44
rayiner wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Akamai ranks the US in top 10 for actual speeds, ahead of every large EU country: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwiS... Nobody asks “why does Germany and France have such terrible internet options?”

1) Norway and Sweden are as large as France size wise. 2) Now, for fun, let's integrate the price dimension to this report. Yes I have better (maybe 1.5 to 2 times as fast) Internet than my parents who are in Europe, but I also pay 3 times what they pay for it.

Regarding 2), that seems like an un-justified expectation that 2x in some category should be 2x price.

I can buy a Chevrolet Spark for $14K. Top speed is listed at 110mph. Here's a list of cars that can go 200mph https://www.automobilemag.com/news/all-cars-that-go-200-mph/. Find me a new one for $28K.

I can buy a $90 printer for 27 pages per minute: https://www.amazon.com/Dell-E310DW-Wireless-Monochrome-Print...

I can find a 50 page per minute at >$500, but none less on a quick search.

Here's one of the cheapest modern processors I can find: https://www.amazon.com/Intel-BX80677G3930-Celeron-Desktop-Pr...

Go find me a 5.4ghz processor for $70.

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