Missouri's law was "reinterpreted" to allow broadband networks. The article even mentions KCFiber, a wholly owned fiber network (owned by the city of North Kansas City) which provides free services ($300 one time activation fee) to the entire city! Another one is Springfield, which built a fiber network which it owns but leases to ISPs (currently only one offers service, but in theory others could participate as well).
Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
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Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#62Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#63A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…
> Unimaginable in the US
With good reason. Building codes in the US prevent disasters like the one that happened at Grenfell Towers in the UK. Run plenum-rated wires through an appropriate space for safety's sake.
Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#64Once space-based broadband Internet becomes widely available, I predict shortsighted ISPs will join the ranks of Kodak and Blockbuster.
AFAIK, latency sensitive games like CoD and Fortnite suffer badly on Starlink. Don't you think that would have a massive impact on adoption in areas where you can get "wired" internet?
Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#65A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…
There was a great book (that I thought was called Nerds 2.0, but now I can't find it again) that I read decades ago that described how Cisco got there start. Running wires through gutters on Stanford's campus and hoping no one asked any questions. Built their own routers and what not. The official story now looks like Stanford knew what a great idea that was, but the history that Lerner provided in the book suggests that their initial response was pretty negative and only positive once they formalized the project and made a company around it.
Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#66Sixteen states (down from 21), detailed here: https://communitynets.org/content/state-state-preemption-sta... Despite this ban, many communities in these states have pushed forward.
If I recall the original law in North Carolina to limit community-owned broadband was called "Saving North Carolina Jobs Act" or something similar. It came about as a backlash to powerline broadband. Ironically all the people that seem to be laying fiber are contractors from Florida.
Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#67Once space-based broadband Internet becomes widely available, I predict shortsighted ISPs will join the ranks of Kodak and Blockbuster.
If that happens, wouldn't it be potentially worse than the current situation? Surely your local neighborhood isn't going to deploy its own dedicated satellite constellation. If/when satelite broadband becomes widespread, it will likely be consolidated and provided by 1 provider (maybe 2?) which might end up resulting in higher costs for everyone all around.
They could be considered as infra provider in this case. Like for ground phone lines and required to lease those to competitive service providers. If this happens here will be a pressure from such providers to lover the price.
Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#68A hundred years ago on irc someone from Russia was describing their internet connection, which was ethernet, while I had only ever heard of dial up outside of large companies. It was just people had set up their own hubs and switches in their appartment buildings and strung cables between buildings. This blew my mind. They just ran themselves ethernet and everyone got a drop from a switch in their building. It wasn't…
> Unimaginable in the US With good reason. Building codes in the US prevent disasters like the one that happened at Grenfell Towers in the UK. Run plenum-rated wires through an appropriate space for safety's sake.
UK building codes (we call them building regulations) should also have prevented Grenfell. A large issue was that the companies involved were using materials which weren't up to code.
Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#69I am on a small fiber ISP in one of these states. I don't think it is community owned, but the distinction doesn't seem that important from a customer experience standpoint. The scale and locality of the business is what makes it great. They can care a lot about the network quality because there isn't so much of it that they need to outsource everything. All elements of their infrastructure are not only on battery ba…
That works out great until some capital pool decides to start acquiring smaller isps to roll them up into a larger corporate behemoth. As has happened in multiple other industries from groceries, animal vets, rentals, software niches, to hospitals and these days nursing homes Then the "efficiency" becomes how much can be extracted from the business and customers
Privately held companies have the option to reject these offers. A business doesn't have to be a non-profit or community-owned in order to do something principled. One good leader/owner is all it takes.
Re: Sixteen U.S. states still ban community-owned broadband networks
#70Once space-based broadband Internet becomes widely available, I predict shortsighted ISPs will join the ranks of Kodak and Blockbuster.
We don't even need space based broadband for this. Terrestrial radio (5G and LTE) already will gradually drink the milkshake of most cable and fiber based ISPs.
Maybe if you have an antenna on top of your house? As it is, I regularly lose internet connectivity (2 bars or LTE or 1 bar of 5g) on my phone when I step into many buildings that are within .25km of highway 80 in a large CA city.