Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Obama calls for municipal broadband

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 289 posts

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#221

Post by cbd1984 »

cpitman wrote: post #206
cbd1984 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because unlike companies, governments¹ can function long-term even if they don't balance budgets. Except that shouldn't matter if the private company can compete on technology and service. If your opponent has unlimited funds but the customer service policies of the DMV and the technological acumen of, uh, some very-non-technical government office of your choice, shouldn't you win?

The local government has plenty of other advantages. For one, they have a vested interest in not imposing costly requirements on themselves, while they continue to do so to private ISPs. In other words, they set the rules that everyone has to play by (ie you must cover this entire area, event the parts where no one can afford your service) while preferentially setting better rules for themselves. In the same way, I w…

ISPs can vote just like everyone else. Even more so, in fact, because they can influence others to vote their way by buying ads. Governments are constrained by those votes. ISPs therefore have leverage over the way in which governments have leverage over them; they just need to convince their potential customers to vote their way, much like they need to convince their potential customers to become actual customers.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#222

Post by bduerst »

ksk wrote: post #131
bduerst wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government already does, for regional monopolies (power, water, sewer, transportation, etc.) The problem isn't that the government should prop-up start ups in this specific industry to prevent a monopoly, but that the government should embrace communications as a regional monopoly - i.e. own the utility infrastructure and reduce costs for the entire economy. Obviously they can't nationalize the current companies,…

Classification of broadband as a public utility is a related, but separate argument.

Not when you try to extrapolate a natural monopoly to all industries with sunk costs - then it becomes a counterpoint.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#223

Post by driverdan »

mholt wrote: post #101

I live in Provo, which has Google Fiber. As the article says, Google took over their failed public fiber project. (Google purchased the infrastructure for $1.) Provo is a very unique city. It's a big city, but most of its residents are college students or young, newly married recent graduates. It's also a technology hotspot. Comparing the success of its fiber project to predict the success in other cities is hardly f…

The fact that the municipal fiber network failed shows that we shouldn't inherently trust the government to run these networks for us.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#224

Post by driverdan »

finid wrote: post #212

In cities with apartment complexes (most of the southern USA have those), ISPs like Verizon make deals with the apartment complex owners such that only one ISP is officially allowed to offer service to residents. Clearly illegal, but who's taking them to task?

Why would you think that's illegal?

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#225

Post by swatow »

rhino369 wrote: post #113
discardorama wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Municipal governments are a big part of the problem. They make it nearly impossible for companies to build new ISPs. And whose fault is that? Yep, that's right, the ISPs. The ISPs love to play this game of "shut the door after I've gone through it". They get the municipal governments to sign exclusivity clauses and various other laws to keep competition out. I mean, think about it: nothing gets done in the governme…

Exclusivity deals have been illegal for over 20 years. Munis really just want to take a pound of flesh from everyone who enters the market. If it was just cable companies owning the munis then the cable companies would have gotten a sweet deal. >Why the heck would the government go out of its way to set up roadblocks for ISPs if no one wanted it? People hate direct taxes on themselves and don't notice indirect taxes…

>People hate direct taxes on themselves and don't notice indirect taxes they pay.

I think this is the key. And any restriction can be an indirect tax, e.g. the requirement to serve the whole city, not just the areas that the ISP chooses.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#226

Post by justizin »

sanderjd wrote: post #188
curun1r wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would bite us later if we have a massive shift to municipal broadband. Municipal broadband doesn't mean shutting out ISPs. If done right, it means that the municipalities own the last mile infrastructure and charge a per-customer rate to ISPs that serve residents. But what that does is significantly lower the bar for ISPs to offer service. It can cost millions of dollars to build out that infrastructure in a cit…

Thanks for explaining this important point. Competition outside of the last mile would be good for everyone, and the last mile infrastructure makes a lot of sense to run as a utility.

That's exactly what I was trying to get across, if I did so poorly, I apologize.

This is _precisely_ the discussion I want to have.

Transit is not the same as interconnect, we should have some private competition, but if an entire city is all AT&T and Comcast, I'd rather just have it be municipal fiber.

I have no problem with AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc.. running their businesses over a combination of private and municipal networks.

I feel that's ideal.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#227

Post by kalleboo »

randyrand wrote: post #98

Municipal broadband has a serious problem. Namely, those that don't want it are still forced to pay for it. If you don't see how this is unfair competition well... I don't know what to tell you.

It doesn't have to be set up that way. Where I used to live, the municipal broadband network was run by the municipally-owned power company, who were required to balance their budget, so it was fully funded by fees.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#228

Post by jalfresi »

jzwinck wrote: post #184
ksk wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so you could to break down the ISP vertical into companies that only supply service and companies that only do the last-mile infrastructure. It would allow the government to regulate the industry without being involved in the supply side of things. One other option is to opt for a consumer ownership model where the each home pays for the bit of fiber that connects them to the neighborhood hub or w/e.

> break down the ISP vertical into companies The UK did this with British Telecom (BT). In a word, it sucks. It creates confusion for consumers: * "I get internet from Twinkle but they say they can't repair my line." * "I signed up for service with Floyd's Internet but a truck showed up at my house that says Ben's Broadband." * "Decker offered me fast fiber, but when I called to sign up, they said WestLane only has c…

Living in the uk all my life and having switched adsl providers pretty much every 12 months for the past 10 years I can honestly say the above is utter nonsense. Yesterday bt wholesale can be a pain sometimes (the company that manages the lines and exchanges) but then they are bt; they've always been awful at this sort of thing. Ever since ISPs have been taking advantage of llu though things are much better, especially if you use a provider who has their gear in the local exchange already.

I still find it strange that the U.S., which is such a bastion of the free market is so anti-free market In regard to internet ISPs.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#229

Post by LBarret »

not to troll and no expert on the topic, but from outside, the US broadband situation is really puzzling. Many countries have cheap broadband and seems to have found good systems to make its market work. The installed monopolies looks like a very wrong decision that cannot be changed without legal conflict.

Re: Obama calls for municipal broadband

#230

Post by justizin »

jacobwcarlson wrote: post #148
justizin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree, and this is one reason I advocate against overly harsh or vindictive rules that are unbalanced against ISPs because of our feelings about AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner - it would bite us later if we have a massive shift to municipal broadband. Sure, we can change the law, but we would have regulations in place that could interfere with the government entering the market, we might have gotten…

I was under the impression that SF's electricity came from Hetch Hetchy and that PG&E was just a backup. Is that not the case?

If you live or have an office in SF, my understanding is that you have PG&E. At least once per decade for several decades, there have been impassioned efforts to implement municipal power in SF, to transfer all of the PG&E assets and staff to SFPUC - not easy to implement perfectly, but an equitable goal.

Now that I've left SF after living there most of a decade, and I live in the east bay, I think it's also a concern that SF gets to own a power source so far away, because of the historical timing of when it was implemented.

The SF Bay Area's intertwining municipalities are a major impedance to certain types of progress, but I also think they are a valuable alternative to a region like NYC where you have a massive city with areas that aren't really like one another.

Anyway, my understanding is that the water power plant supplies muni and other SF public purposes, such as possibly some street lights. I know, though, when I lived in the TL, and we had a power outage, the street lights would go out, so this may all flow together and be metered, rather than be separate, redundant systems.

My point was, we could probably change that. :)

Post reply on HN