Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for municipal fiber instead • Hacker News Board

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

#91

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:38 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #42

ams6110 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The obvious solution seems to be a public entity at federal level. They would be big enough to have the relevant expertise without the misaligned incentives of the big corporate companies.

> public entity at federal level

> without the misaligned incentives of the big corporate companies

There's plenty of misaligned incentives at any Nth level of government. They're just more diverse. Some are political instead of financial.

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

#92

Post by briandear » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:39 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #37

seniorivn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is “most countries?”

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

#93

Post by rmrfrmrf » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #67

Spivak wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my ideal world we would be talking about the public utility of having network cables (of some baseline quality) running to every building in a municipality that any number of ISPs can provide the actual service for.

> we would be talking about the public utility of having network cables (of some baseline quality) running to every building in a municipality that any number of ISPs can provide the actual service for Me too. And I think municipal broadband is the right first step--I'm lobbying for it in New York. But as it scales, we'll move from competent municipalities to incompetent one to evil ones. I'd prefer we figure out the…

I'm kind of shocked that you'd openly admit to this kind of behavior. You're lobbying for the public to foot the bill for public infrastructure to be used solely by private entities, then intentionally introducing inefficiencies by leasing usage out to said private entities. I'm guessing after customers pay more taxes and still have the same internet bill, you'll then lobby that public internet is a failure and advocate for divestment for some massive discount that will be happily picked up by whatever local monopoly is extorting citizens. Truly disgusting.

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

#94

Post by roflchoppa » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:42 PM UTC

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…

You should run for Mayor, I believe in you.

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

#95

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10

StreamBright wrote: post #6

When the company offerings can be beaten with local government offerings you know something is bad. Wondering why US has such terrible internet options.

It's inevitable when a private entity has monopoly of infrastructure. The people have no choice but to buy from it, the private entity has minimal incentive to invest in the infrastructure since it has a guaranteed revenue stream. The only thing they have to do is keep the population placated just enough so that enough voters don't get mobilized to make a stink out of it. For utilities, there is no reason why a priva…

>Water, sewer, gas, electricity, and internet infrastructure should be owned by taxpayers.

We'll have the same situation we do with police departments where they're basically impossible to punish for wrongdoing because you're just punishing taxpayers by proxy.

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

#96

Post by AsyncAwait » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

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…

> My point is simply that I’m not sure a purely municipal broadband is the panacea we all hope for. In some cases it may be better to stick with the devil you know

No, the answer is to elect better politicians, like AOC, resigning yourself to a corporation is a TERRIBLE idea!

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

#97

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #77

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It seems like the best solution would be to do both. Have a municipal network that serves everybody so that you don't need build out requirements for anyone else, then stop having them. The…

I think it's important to have internet access as a safety net, but building a whole municipal network for that seems like a waste of public money. It would be much cheaper to subsidize commercial 5G service for those folks who can't get wired broadband.

There isn't any reason a municipal network couldn't reach rural customers using wireless.

The trouble with subsidies is, what happens if there is nothing to subsidize? In sufficiently rural areas there may be zero existing providers, and still be zero providers even if you offer a modest subsidy. But if you offer a large subsidy then the costs quickly get out of control as less rural areas that needed some but not that much end up claiming more subsidy than was actually necessary, and regulatory capture encourages the government to shovel more public money to private providers.

You also have trouble with suburban areas that can justify fiber but not twice. If there is only going to be one provider with no competition, better the municipality than Comcast.

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

#98

Post by bliblah » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

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…

The difference is that in this case because this is a more "local" power you, the consumer/voter, actually have the power to hold them liable. Imagine living in a Town with less than 2.5k people living in rural midwest and comcast screws you over, what are you going to do? They only answer to Stockholders and "big fish" markets.

Elected officials care and respond to votes and the smaller the area of control, the easier it is to get your voice heard.

I wish competition would be enforced rather than this all-or-nothing approach.

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

#99

Post by rmrfrmrf » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

quasse wrote: post #57

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you're rejecting both the idea of the local municipality and corporates. What's your preferred solution? Municipality builds and owns the infrastructure; competitively leases it to private operators for fixed periods of time.

That just seems like choosing the worst of both theoretical worlds you described. The local gov't still has final control over your infrastructure but you also have private industry skimming profits off something you already paid for with taxes.

That's entirely the point and I wouldn't be surprised if this person were a Comcast lobbyist. The goal is to have the public enthusiastically absorb the cost of infrastructure, then introduce inefficiencies designed to sour the public's opinion of municipally-owned internet. The lessees would be able to throttle their own service and blame the infrastructure while raising prices and blaming the cost of leasing. This plants the seed for the public to consider divestment of infrastructure to "lower costs" and "improve efficiency". Then your telco du jour swoops in and offers to buy it all at a fraction of what it would have cost them to invest in the community themselves. In the end the telco ends up with a steal and the residents end up holding the bag.

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

#100

Post by mmsimanga » Wed, Dec 12, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

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 thought you might be my neighbor but since you talk about Comcast and I am in Africa I guess we just have the same issues with local government.