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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

#31

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26
49531 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government.

> 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.

>My point is the is a terrible baseline to be settling for

No it's not. If government can do it better than the corporate sector, why worry about other baselines?

>My specific concern is around local police having expanded access to locals' internet activity.

Except Comcast can already collect your data and sell it to local police or anyone else they want and you have no recourse. In the case of government there is at least a possibility you will be able to change a policy like that.

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

#32

Post by ams6110 »

walrus01 wrote: post #22
rayiner wrote: post #16

I feel like people are being shortsighted about municipal fiber. It’s not a one time and you forget it thing. Verizon has upgraded the FiOS network several times since 2005. We have some towns on the eastern shore of MD that did municipal cable, back when that was the state of the art. Those systems are lagging far behind Comcast now because nobody wants to raise rates to generate cash for upgrades. Municipal fiber i…

A properly designed dark architecture for fiber, with small neighborhood powered nodes, can have a 50+ year life... It's the electronics that are going to need replacing. Same whether you build for 1 strand active Ethernet to each CPE or a 1x16 split gpon.

And who in the government of a small town is competent to design such an architecture? Who is competent to hire a competent company to design such an architecture? In the case of my town the answer is nobody. Our municipal internet project has been a boondoggle of incompetence, false starts, and mismanagement. Going on a decade. Meanwhile the people using Comcast or AT&T generally have usable service. I'm not a fan of either company, but at least they're getting the job done.

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

#33

Post by jermaustin1 »

wetpaws wrote: post #9
java-man wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

corruption.

To people who downvoted op - it's absolutely corruption. Comcast lobbies the government, sues competitors and hogs taxpayer money to remain in power.

In my home town, Comcast actually FINALLY got the approval to buy up a cable provider's lines a couple of years ago. The old cable provider only provided television. They would also never would expand their lines. I had a friend who's house was built between two others who had TV provided by this company, and they wouldn't run the line to their house.

In my town and I'm assuming most, whoever laid the lines, gets the monopoly. Maybe Comcast could have gone around and buried new lines, but it would have been too cost prohibitive, so they waited for this company to finally die (people would switch to DirectTV and AT&T DSL), and now everyone in town can get actual high speed internet and television.

This is the biggest problem I have with cable companies, they go into a town, lock it up, and don't innovate.

But I also understand wanting to protect your investment of 10s-100s of millions of dollars in a town, expecting to earn it back over 30+ years.

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

#34

Post by takeda »

epoch_100 wrote: post #2

Good! By allowing individual municipalities to manage their own Internet infrastructure, we can help keep the Internet from becoming effectively owned by the likes of Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

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)

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

#35

Post by java-man »

stevehawk wrote: post #11
java-man wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

corruption.

Just to elaborate on this since he's getting downvoted.. Internet access, like a lot of "free market" items in the USA are really a "capture" market. You grab your share and then get the government to keep out competitors.

exactly. thank you.

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

#36

Post by Angostura »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26
49531 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government.

> 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.

OK, do you're rejecting both the idea of the local municipality and corporates. What's your preferred solution?

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

#37

Post by nicoburns »

seniorivn wrote: post #20
epoch_100 wrote: post #2

Good! By allowing individual municipalities to manage their own Internet infrastructure, we can help keep the Internet from becoming effectively owned by the likes of Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon.

how is it any better then current olygopolly? The solution should be raising competitiveness of the market. Like in countries with a lot better internet, especially per dollar.

Internet infrastructure in most countries is publicly owned... Market competition isn't the only way to produce socially desirable outcomes.

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

#38

Post by ryandrake »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #18
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By allowing individual municipalities to manage their own Internet infrastructure, we can help keep the Internet from becoming effectively owned by the likes of Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon I'm nervous about how thoughtlessly we're embracing public ISP ownership. Local governments are notoriously corrupt, in both politics and police. These referenda expand their power without rebalancing any checks or balances. We ju…

I'm not nervous at all (disclaimer: I support public ownership of infrastructure over private/commercial ownership, stakeholders > shareholders). Local governments are governed by local citizens . I have no impact on Comcast or Time Warner's governance, as either a shareholder or customer. If I don't hold my local government accountable, that's my fault . My local community owning my roads, sidewalks, water, sewer (s…

I think OP’s fear is that the quality of local governments varies enormously. Your local government might be awesome. If so, congratulations! Not everyone lives in places with great oversight or has access to the legal means to keep their local government in check. A local government one state over might decide to ban search terms about contraceptives or keep a list of customers visiting LGBT sites for various persecution/blackmail purposes. I grew up in a backwards small town and I could totally see Billy Bob the municipal broadband administrator “sharing his list of fags” with his hillbilly friends. I’m always skeptical when politicians call for local control of something.

As evil as Comcast is, their scale and need to operate in markets across all political/cultural spectrum makes me more confident that they won’t be messing with my browsing for petty reasons—they just want my wallet.

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

#39

Post by KZeillmann »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26
49531 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're no more corrupt than large corporate players, but I can vote for my local government.

> 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.

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

#40

Post by magduf »

ams6110 wrote: post #32
walrus01 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A properly designed dark architecture for fiber, with small neighborhood powered nodes, can have a 50+ year life... It's the electronics that are going to need replacing. Same whether you build for 1 strand active Ethernet to each CPE or a 1x16 split gpon.

And who in the government of a small town is competent to design such an architecture? Who is competent to hire a competent company to design such an architecture? In the case of my town the answer is nobody. Our municipal internet project has been a boondoggle of incompetence, false starts, and mismanagement. Going on a decade. Meanwhile the people using Comcast or AT&T generally have usable service. I'm not a fan o…

I don't see the problem here. The government doesn't need to be competent to design anything; the job of government is to control the funding and legalities, and contract with companies that can do the work. If the government isn't competent to hire a competent company, that's the government's fault, and by extension, the voters'. If the voters can't elect competent people to run their government, that's really OK: they're getting the government they deserve. If they're not competent enough to vote for decent government officials, they're not going to be competent enough to purchase service from good companies themselves either.
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