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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

#191

Post by sokoloff »

tcoff91 wrote: post #187
rayiner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a good point; seems like an isolated demand for rigor. The bar we should be aiming to be above is "better than Comcast", which is a quite low standard. Is it really? Compared to what? If the government-run train I use to get to work were as reliable as the Comcast service I've had in the past, I'd be so so happy. I'd cry with happiness. Where do people live that they think Comcast is as bad as it gets in te…

how on earth does it make sense to compare a rail network to an ISP?

When considering handing over a [n effective] monopoly on ISP services to a local government, it's reasonable to look around and see if they're generally managing other things that they do have a monopoly on well or poorly.

While I don't love Comcast, their uptime and consistency for me has been excellent for me over the last decade and their value-for-money acceptable-[0]. I would not have the automatic expectation that municipal broadband would be "better" in any meaningful way, despite the ire that many have for Comcast.

"The bar is better than Comcast" invites comparisons to other local government systems, IMO.

[0] - Though it's a huge waste of time for both sides for me to call up every two years to threaten to cancel and negotiate the re-addition of the (reasonable) promotional rate to my account.

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

#192

Post by sokoloff »

stuart78 wrote: post #116
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.)

I strongly suspect that what you'd find is that Comcast would simply "pass" on trying to compete in those towns. Comcast loves towns where they can be a monopoly provider (like mine) and in a case where there'd be bloody competition against a municipal provider, I suspect they'd rather fight on another front.

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

#193

Post by jaxtellerSoA »

jkingsbery wrote: post #186

A few things I don't get (genuinely, I wish someone would explain to me): 1. Why would the town pay Comcast for Comcast to wire up the town, when Comcast would then turn around and charge residents? It seems like if Comcast wants to provide customers, they should make the investment, no? 2. If Verizon DSL is in town, how is there a monopoly? Would Comcast wiring the town prevent another provider from also wiring the…

> If Verizon DSL is in town,

apples and oranges. Sure technically they are both provide "internet", but this day in age DSL speeds are just plain unacceptable. You might as well make the argument that residents don't have to go with Comcast, they can get AOL.

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

#194

Post by rayiner »

tcoff91 wrote: post #187
rayiner wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a good point; seems like an isolated demand for rigor. The bar we should be aiming to be above is "better than Comcast", which is a quite low standard. Is it really? Compared to what? If the government-run train I use to get to work were as reliable as the Comcast service I've had in the past, I'd be so so happy. I'd cry with happiness. Where do people live that they think Comcast is as bad as it gets in te…

how on earth does it make sense to compare a rail network to an ISP?

Would you rather compare it with the antiquated sewer systems that dump untreated sewage into local rivers every time it rains? https://wtop.com/dc/2017/07/heavy-rain-raw-sewage-potomac-an...

ISPs are closer to rail than say water. Most municipalities get along fine with water systems built a century ago. But broadband networks require active maintenance and continual upgrades. Rail technology moves incredibly slowly--D.C.'s system featured automated train control when it was built in the 1970s. But the government couldn't even keep that system working so they had to turn it off. I have zero faith these same people could keep up with upgrading switches, routers, etc.

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

#195

Post by dugmartin »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #130
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…

Keep in mind, Charlemont has no mayor and most issues, including this one, are decided by open town meeting, which is literally direct democracy where residents show up and everyone gets one vote. No one has the ability to hire someone for an exorbitant salary without literal approval by a direct vote of all residents who show up at a meeting. This isn't to say open town meetings are perfect. There is a definite skew…

One note: this was a special town meeting just for this issue and not the general town meeting which is in the spring. A lot more people show up for the general meeting.

I live one town over from Charlemont and as a now 20-year New England transplant I've grown to love town meeting. Everyone's voice is heard and you can make a real difference with just a simple speech. I was able to help defeat some ordinance language against WISPs at last years town meeting that another resident with "electromagnetic hypersensitivity" had tried to get passed.

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

#196

Post by CountSessine »

stuart78 wrote: post #116
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.)

How badly do you want to be a taxpayer in a city with a government that’s determined to spend out of the bottomless public purse to compete with Comcast?

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

#197

Post by takeda »

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…

The ISP provides the Internet access, while another organization provides the infrastructure to talk to the ISP.

This model is used in data centers where a single company is selected by the owner of the building and they are responsible for all the wiring (it would be very expensive and a lot of redundant wiring if multiple companies could do that), but selecting an ISP is a matter of just using a short patch panel in exchange room. You can easily switch ISPs or use several of them.

Currently when ISPs own the last mile they are only motivated to have speed that's marginally faster (typically DSL) and cheaper (typically wireless). There's no motivation to improve especially after FCC killed net neutrality, since slow speed can actually make them money by prioritizing traffic.

If last mile is separate, ISPs always will be motivated to be fastest and cheapest because the customer can easily switch between them.

The last mile is primarily responsible for laying fiber cable and do repairs if it is broken. If they won't do their job, both ISP and users won't be happy and they might end up being replaced by someone else.

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

#198

Post by takeda »

pathseeker wrote: post #113
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…

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 infr…

By last mile I'm talking about the physical wire between your house and POP. Layer 1-2 none of the protocols you mentioned work on that level, those would be provided by the ISP.

The issue is city, users, ISPs can't afford to have a separate wire per ISP per house. It's extremely expensive and wasteful, because most of the time most houses will use at most a single ISP.

What I'm saying is that city should be responsible for providing the physical connectivity, think of it like roads. It would be crazy to think that every store, office etc would have to build their own roads to every house.

All what's needed is a fiber between your house and POP. What's plugged in on both ends is up to ISP. The city only needs to worry that fiber is there and it works. Same as the city needs to worry there is a road and it is usable. The city then can lease that fiber to ISP for a fee to cover the maintenance.

Off topic: I don't want to ISP to do QoS for me so if we could chose between different ISPs I would shop for ones that don't do it. I know better which traffic is more important to me than my ISP.

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

#199

Post by bogomipz »

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…

>'But our public, government-run infrastructure is total shit in comparison. After riding Japanese trains around, I get on the D.C. Metro and it makes me actively mad."

It's worth noting that many of those wonderful trains in Japan are are actually privately owned though:

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-pr...

But I agree with your points.

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