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

arstechnica.com

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

#211

Post by empath75 »

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…

As someone who has worked for an isp I can assure you there’s no shortage of corruption and waste there.

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

#212

Post by Symbiote »

rayiner wrote: post #208
dudul wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what point you're trying to make. People in France or Germany have access to literally 12 different providers. Everywhere. Granted, it looks like the overall speed is below the US's according to the report, but prices are so much lower (my parents probably pay in the order of $10$/mo for their TV/Internet package) and access is way more homogenous. I suspect that US results are vastly skewed by hyper-c…

France and Germany have lots of cheap options because they rely heavily on DSL: https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.2.OECD-FixedMobileBB-20... (see the "Fixed Broadband" tab). 70-75% of France and German broadband connections are DSL, versus 22% in the U.S. The copper networks are mostly depreciated, and copper-loop unbundling has created a lot of competition. But that's also why internet in those countries is so sl…

What taxes would someone expect on the $105/month Comcast service?

Since all applicable taxes are included in the €70 Kabel Deutschland price.

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

#213

Post by greggyb »

sethrin wrote: post #207
greggyb wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your second point assumes that scaling some attribute of value by a factor of two should be associated with an exact doubling of price. These were literally the first three things I could think of, but I'm sure we could braistorm many more items where the price of a product or service that is twice as good along some axis costs more than twice as much. It is therefore not a strong argument to say, "Now, for fun, let'…

No, there was no assumption related to an exact doubling, and it's not reasonable to infer one, and arguing against it by means of analogies to unlike goods is unsound.

Well now we're two people on the internet arguing about what a third meant. This couldn't possibly end badly (:

So I have two questions.

1: I read the original parent comment's second point as indicating that a 2x in performance for >2x price as something that should be seen negatively. Do you disagree with this intepretation? Why?

2: My argument was not clearly stated, so I will first state it here. It is unreasonable to expect that performance/quality and price correlate linearly with a coefficient of 1. I offered examples of other disparate products where performance/quality do not double for an exact double price, and in fact doubling performance is associated with much more than doubling price. With the point that we should not expect double performance = double price, it seems that anyone positing that this should be the case for a specific product bears the burden of proof. The question is this: do you think that I am wrong and that we should expect in general to see double performance for double price?

Expansion on my position that the default should not be an expectation of "double performance for double cost": Diminishing returns are common in many optimization tasks. If we see diminishing returns, we should expect prices to more than double for a doubling of performance in general.

Additional point on pricing of broadband. A cousin commenter observed that most of the broadband in the countries in question is DSL rather than cable. If we see two different technologies in play, one able to double the performance of the other, it seems exceptionally unreasonable to expect such linear scaling of price.

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

#214

Post by greggyb »

Symbiote wrote: post #212
rayiner wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France and Germany have lots of cheap options because they rely heavily on DSL: https://www.oecd.org/sti/broadband/1.2.OECD-FixedMobileBB-20... (see the "Fixed Broadband" tab). 70-75% of France and German broadband connections are DSL, versus 22% in the U.S. The copper networks are mostly depreciated, and copper-loop unbundling has created a lot of competition. But that's also why internet in those countries is so sl…

What taxes would someone expect on the $105/month Comcast service? Since all applicable taxes are included in the €70 Kabel Deutschland price.

Depends on where you live.

My total bill for internet service is approximately $110. Of that $110 total, approximately $1.50 is tax/fee.

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

#215

Post by rayiner »

Symbiote wrote: post #210
rayiner wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It really doesn't help your argument to compare rail and water with communications infrastructure. They have very little in common. I struggle to think of anything they do have in common. Capital cost, operating cost, speed of innovation, the average American's interest in the level of service provided, the possibility for competition, the practicality of parallel infrastructures... does rail/water have anything in c…

Water/sewer hookups (1) have most of the cost recovered at construction time, via a $20-30,000 per-house charge; and (2) once built, don't require upgrades to keep up with advancing technology and higher per-user demand. If municipalities struggle to maintain infrastructure in the face of static or slowly growing demand, why on earth would you expect them to do better when it comes to infrastructure with rapidly advancing technology and exponentially increasing demand? Why would you trust government entities that can't simply keep 1970's-era automated train control technology working with infrastructure that improves dramatically every decade?

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

#216

Post by theptip »

microcolonel wrote: post #150
theptip wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never seen "panacea" used by anyone except those opposed to any public infrastructure 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. > 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 dist…

> 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. The problem is that in many cases, the common folk in a town have to pay at least somewhat for the municipal broadband even if they do not use it; so it'd better be worth using. I can understand municipal cable conduits and such, since they are somewhat anal…

> actively excluding competition

Is that what's happening here? Comcast bid "$462,123 plus interest" and the city decided that they would rather build themselves. Doesn't sound like they are being excluded. Am I missing something here?

> Comcast is actually pretty reasonable in competitive markets;

The problem as I see it is that most of the US (particularly rural areas) are not competitive, and the costs of entry typically prohibit new entrants from providing service. There are massive fixed costs involved in building a new cable/internet service. Elsewhere (e.g. the UK) this is at least partially avoided by having the ex-state-owned telcos provide mandatory unbundling of last-mile service.

Perhaps state-provided conduits would unlock more competition though; I haven't seen any analysis of that option (would be interested if you know of any).

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

#217

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #194
tcoff91 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#218

Post by ghostly_s »

ghaff wrote: post #181
ghostly_s wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like your small town is socially dysfunctional. If you think your neighbors are apathetic, why aren't you out doorknocking to get them to show up to these things, or bringing it up at the church potluck/what have you? I don't see how these things are different in cities except when people are wiling to do this civic engagement work.

The statistics I quoted referred to the OP article. I care about relatively few town issues and have attended meetings or signed a petition when there’s been something of interest. I don’t go to church potlucks or other town events in general nor do I care to for the most part.

Maybe you're arguing something else, but I was responding to the general sentiment on this thread that small towns are somehow more susceptible to corruption than other places. It reads to me like you were trying to provide causation for that. Important local decisions being made by a vote with pitiful turnout happens in towns and cities of all sizes, and if anything I would argue the greater bureaucratic complexity of a large city and the better salaries make them more susceptible to 'corruption', not less. (Though I'm also suspicious of anyone complaining about 'corruption' without clarifying what they mean, which seems to be happening a lot on HN lately.)

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

#219

Post by sethrin »

greggyb wrote: post #213
sethrin wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there was no assumption related to an exact doubling, and it's not reasonable to infer one, and arguing against it by means of analogies to unlike goods is unsound.

Well now we're two people on the internet arguing about what a third meant. This couldn't possibly end badly (: So I have two questions. 1: I read the original parent comment's second point as indicating that a 2x in performance for >2x price as something that should be seen negatively. Do you disagree with this intepretation? Why? 2: My argument was not clearly stated, so I will first state it here. It is unreasonab…

I do not see anything in the parent comment indicating a linear relationship. Making a more general comparison of prices is perfectly sound. If you must make an inference, you should construe the argument in the most favorable terms. Also, your choice of comparisons were of unlike goods, and "argument from analogy" is a weak form of argument.

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

#220

Post by nescoiquid »

microcolonel wrote: post #150
theptip wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have never seen "panacea" used by anyone except those opposed to any public infrastructure 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. > 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 dist…

> 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. The problem is that in many cases, the common folk in a town have to pay at least somewhat for the municipal broadband even if they do not use it; so it'd better be worth using. I can understand municipal cable conduits and such, since they are somewhat anal…

Given that the story said they rejected a deal in which the city would pay $462,123 plus interest for Comcast to come in, then I'd say the "common folk" would be paying for it in either case.

It's just in one case, the money is ceded to a private corporation.

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