[HN Gopher] The number of cities with municipal broadband has ju...
___________________________________________________________________
The number of cities with municipal broadband has jumped over 4x in
two years
Author : sharkweek
Score : 402 points
Date : 2021-04-28 15:29 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gammawire.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gammawire.com)
| GordonS wrote:
| This is a little OT since the article is about the US, but I'd
| really like to see how feasible it would be to build a community
| ISP for the town I live in in the UK (Scotland).
|
| FTTC has only recently reached my town, and availability is still
| patchy. Knowing BT, it will be another decade before the whole
| town has the option.
|
| And upload speeds are still rubbish, and it's expensive too - the
| fastest deal BT will provide is 900/100 (although they only
| guarantee 450 down), and it's PS60/m (~$83), and you have to take
| a 2 year contract, _and_ the price rises by 3.9% a year _during
| the contract_!
|
| There have been smaller, full-fibre ISPs popping up all over
| England, offering much better packages than BT as half the price.
|
| Anyone have any information about getting started with something
| like this? If it makes a difference, it's for a small, rural
| town, population 10-15k.
| iptrans wrote:
| You can start your own community ISP if you can sign up enough
| neighbors.
|
| However, it'll take years to build out and they payback will be
| far longer than two years.
|
| There's even funding to be had, but it's no small undertaking.
|
| Hit me up by email if you want more information. Contact in
| profile.
| martinald wrote:
| Do you mean FTTP not FTTC? 900/100 isn't bad for PS60/month
| imo. Do you actually need 900 down? I used to have 1000/1000
| from hyperoptic in London but switched down to 150/150 as
| virtually nothing on the internet supports or needs higher
| speeds once you get bored of running speedtests for the fun of
| it. The only thing that can use it is large xbox game
| downloads, but even at 150 most are done in 10-20 minutes, and
| over wifi you struggle to push more than that throw a couple
| walls anyway.
|
| Other providers offer Openreach FTTH btw - not just BT.
| GordonS wrote:
| I meant FTTP; I've been on FTTC for several years, 80/20, for
| PS26/m. I realise there are others selling Openreach
| products, but prices are similar or higher, and still I don't
| see any products with a high upload speed.
|
| I don't really need 900 down, but I've really like higher
| upload speeds. Regardless, I'd like me and others to have the
| option. Really, I'm just so sick of how _slowly_ the UK 's
| fibre rollout has been - _glacial_! It 's really encouraging
| to see the various smaller English ISPs (like HyperOptic)
| building their own network and offering symmetric products at
| half the price of OpenReach, but I realise the economics are
| unlikely to make sense for small towns. I also realise that
| burying fibre without any existing ducting is going to be
| very expensive. Still, I'm interested to find out what would
| be involved, or if there are non-fibre options - not with the
| aim of profit, just providing more options for local people
| and businesses.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| > Do you actually need 900 down? I used to have 1000/1000
| from hyperoptic in London but switched down to 150/150 as
| virtually nothing on the internet supports or needs higher
| speeds once you get bored of running speedtests for the fun
| of it.
|
| I'd argue that symmetric links at 1000/1000 are actually
| incredibly important.
|
| The lack of decent upload speeds has created the enormous
| centralization of services that we see today.
|
| If most folks had gigabit (or more) upload capacity,
| decentralization would become a viable solution to the
| enormous centralization of content, data and services.
|
| There are a variety of tools that allow folks to self-host
| their content and many more would appear if there was
| widespread implementation of symmetric (multi-)gigabit ISP
| connections.
|
| If there were the ability to stream your puppy videos from
| your home internet connection to dozens of friends/family,
| what do you need Facebook, Instagram, etc. for?
|
| That's why high-speed symmetric connections are important.
| subtlestorm wrote:
| Is there a way to search addresses / cities by Fiber connection ?
| Say I want to move to a city while holding a remote job, I would
| love to have a fiber connection and I found its really to search
| by address.
| iptrans wrote:
| Alas, no such service exists.
|
| Even the FCC can't get proper broadband coverage data by the
| zip code, not to mention by address.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Redfin/Zillow/trulia/realtor.com should figure out now to
| scrape ISP websites and show what type of internet is
| available for a house.
|
| I had to manually put in addresses when I was searching for a
| home to make sure it had symmetric fiber.
| iptrans wrote:
| ISPs would more likely than not take exception to such
| scraping.
|
| Even if they weren't reporting accurate data, which they
| don't always do.
| mooreds wrote:
| I'm so envious of other cities in our county with fast municipal
| broad band.
| Hammershaft wrote:
| https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/02/gop-plan-for-bro...
|
| Remember that Republicans tried to ban municipal broadband
| federally only two months ago! Just an absurdly, transparently
| corrupt move.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| "In the face of compelling pandemic-driven evidence that
| affordable broadband Internet access is essential to modern
| life, that tens of millions of Americans are being left behind,
| and that an emergency requiring immediate action exists, five
| enlightened Arkansas Republicans recently persuaded their
| overwhelmingly Republican legislature to vote unanimously to
| give local governments significant new authority to provide or
| support the provision of broadband Internet access."
|
| We'd be better served by providing the names of the ones who
| introduced it instead of a blanket statement making it sound
| like all Republicans supported this, especially when at the
| local level where it really matters they did not support it,
| they did the exact opposite.
|
| Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Bob Latta (R-Ohio)
| Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.)
|
| The general idea that there should be competition is good, just
| not going about it by blocking attempts to create municipal
| broadband. I'd like to still have the choice to choose private
| companies if I feel the public option isn't meeting my needs.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| The republican point of view is that if something is
| government-supported, it's unfair to compete against, as the
| government option will offer better quality service at lower
| cost than is economical for a private company, since the
| government has no profit motive.
|
| (This somehow leads to the conclusion that government
| services are bad.)
| dcow wrote:
| It also doesn't even seem accurate. Private industries can
| compete with public ones on both quality and cost. The
| problem is that, in the face of municipal broadband,
| private companies have to compete to actually serve the
| public not "compete" to gouge consumers of as much money as
| possible in their comfy government protected monopolies.
| hooande wrote:
| It's hard to see how this is a negative with something like
| broadband. as long as they can offer better quality service
| at lower cost, it's a win for every citizen
| [deleted]
| fallingknife wrote:
| Free market / small government party, lol
| goatcode wrote:
| Opposing something that's government-controlled does not
| contradict that. I'm not arguing against it, by any means,
| though. If municipal services are governed by the Bill of
| Rights primarily, I'd be all for it, at this point. However,
| in world in which the FCC is in constant violation of the
| Bill of Rights, I'm not holding out any hope.
| IncRnd wrote:
| > Remember that Republicans tried to ban municipal broadband
| federally only two months ago! Just an absurdly, transparently
| corrupt move.
|
| The article you posted said something else, that the bill was
| to ban government-run broadband in an area that has private
| competition.
|
| From your link: The bill "would promote
| competition by limiting government-run broadband networks
| throughout the country" and States or
| municipalities that already offer Internet service may continue
| to do so if "there is no more than one other commercial
| provider of broadband Internet access that provides competition
| for that service in a particular area."
| tzs wrote:
| > The article you posted said something else, that the bill
| was to ban government-run broadband in an area that has
| private competition.
|
| Not quite. It bans new government-run broadband everywhere
| regardless of whether or not there would be private
| competition in the area. In areas that already have
| government-run broadband, it allows that to continue as long
| as that area does not have more than one private provider.
| Jotra7 wrote:
| You say this like it's a good thing.
| grecy wrote:
| How anyone thinks corporate lobbying is good for anyone other
| than corrupt politicians and corporate giants is a mystery I
| will _never_ understand.
| parineum wrote:
| Actual lobbying is such a small part of the money that goes
| to politicians that it's a red herring.
|
| The source of corruption is through PACs that support
| candidates without the candidates consent or guidance (either
| ostensibly or actually).
|
| You can either give a candidate a few thousand dollars
| directly or you can spend an unlimited amount of money
| telling people how great you think the candidate is. Only the
| former is lobbying.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Plus threats to pull or create jobs, fights for tax
| incentives or other 'free' stuff like special
| infrastructure or zoning changes. Messaging attacks &
| earned media are near free, healthcare industry is culpable
| here. Military seems to be the worst in all of this.
|
| Politicians care about getting re-elected. That's the power
| fulcrum or pressure point.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| A lot of people immediately think this type of thing is
| corruption, but consider that these people might actually
| believe in this stuff and that it's easier for companies to
| find and support like minded politicians than it is to
| convince someone who holds an opposite view.
| Retric wrote:
| Politicians around the world regularly flip flop on
| issues in lockstep with their party. That's not the
| behavior of someone that actually holds personal views on
| the subject, suggesting that something else is
| influencing decision making.
|
| Which shouldn't be surprising as politics covers such a
| wide range of issues it would be strange for most of them
| to have strong views on every issue. Frankly it's people
| who don't care one way or the other are who you try and
| influence.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| You're making a distinction where one doesn't exist.
|
| _Lobbying includes all attempts to influence legislators_.
|
| PACs are just a legal fiction to circumvent a law, the
| effect is the same: support those who's policies you
| prefer.
| grecy wrote:
| I'm not really interested in discussing semantics, but
| rather the root issue.
|
| Money in Politics, especially when it's perfectly legal, is
| a massive, massive problem. It's literally impossible to
| get fair and impartial leaders who will make decisions in
| the interest of the common person when corporations are
| spending millions and millions.
|
| Right now a judge sitting on the highest court in the
| entire country is hearing a case involving a company who
| openly and directly paid to have her elected into that
| position. I don't care if that person is from the right or
| left (or middle), there is no universe where that is a good
| thing, or should be allowed.
|
| Having a Supreme Court Justice you paid preside over your
| court case sounds like a very perverted form of Justice
| under Democracy to me.
| pkghost wrote:
| While lobbyists write actual laws and work for the same
| companies + industry groups that fund the PACs, I find it
| difficult to agree with you.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Well actually _repositions glasses_ , lobbying is a big
| part of it: you are a politician for a part of your career.
| If and when you quit, you can just go work for the lobby
| that had lobbied you while you were in office. It's an
| amazingly well planned out safety net that all but the most
| disgraced politicians (see Anthony Weiner) can rely on. It
| means that even if you and I and our closes 1000 friends
| got together and each kicked in $1000 to donate to a
| politician to, say, vote for municipal broadband, it might
| not mean nearly as much as $25k from a lobby group that
| later will hire the politician with a very cushy salary.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I see no difference between "We'll give you $X to vote for
| this bill" and "We'll spend $X on advertising for your
| campaign if you vote for this bill".
| parineum wrote:
| > "We'll spend $X on advertising for your campaign if you
| vote for this bill"
|
| That's illegal.
|
| The advertising is given no strings attached. The only
| incentive that you (the politician) have to vote for
| things that favor the company is that, if you don't, they
| may not advertise for you next time.
|
| The "fun" part of this whole thing is that the money
| those companies spend isn't really the issue, it's the
| fact that the money is helpful to influence people.
| Comparatively, if a person of non-political celebrity
| tweets that they like a candidate, they might muster much
| more influence than say, Exxon could for the same
| candidate. Now that candidate is just as beholden to the
| interests of that celebrity as one might be to a
| corporation.
|
| In effect, the PAC money really is just taking money away
| from influential individuals and commoditizing it.
|
| I, personally, don't really see a difference. It's not
| like pre-Citizens United America was some sort of
| paradise. Most people perceive it as worse but I just see
| it as different. I, personally, still have a similar
| amount of political power and influence.
| Cederfjard wrote:
| > The only incentive that you (the politician) have to
| vote for things that favor the company is that, if you
| don't, they may not advertise for you next time.
|
| And also that if you do, you may be able to go and work
| for them for good compensation when your political career
| is over.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Or your spouse/sibling/kid/niece/nephew get a nice
| internship or other position.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm inclined to treat "you got a million dollar ad buy on
| your behalf from Municipal Broadband Sucks PAC" as a _form_
| of lobbying, personally.
| anaerobicover wrote:
| To our misfortune the Supreme Court does not agree, and
| where they are the opinion that counts. (As you know no
| doubt already.)
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Being for a free market is great, if it's better than the
| government run internet won't it win out in the end anyway?
| I've yet to see anyone prove it's a better idea to not allow
| the extra competition. Seems like other countries have a mix
| and it's fine, what is so unique about the USA that we can't
| try what has worked in other countries? I'll never understand
| the Republican reptile brain feature that is so opposed to
| change.
| topspin wrote:
| In my state the Republican legislature passed legislation to
| enable both municipal broadband and require power companies to
| allow data services on utility poles, which power companies
| invariability blocked.
| cure wrote:
| Wow really! That is great. Those are some enlightened
| Republicans. Which state is this?
| sjg007 wrote:
| With permanent WFH municipal broadband is a major bonus. I live
| somewhere with fiber and it is glorious.
| grouphugs wrote:
| and the nazis use it to hurt us, so we learn the lesson, never
| give technology to nazis
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I wish my city offered it. I just signed up with Frontier's fiber
| which like yay for that (though it was a process to get them to
| realize they have a connection on my street as their internal map
| was apparently out of date). But...
|
| 1. I wanted to use my own router instead of theirs. Turns out
| they send DHCP responses with VLAN 0 ethernet tags (which I guess
| is for 802.1p) which apparently a lot of DHCP clients don't
| understand at all. I tried OPNSense and Mikrotik ones and ended
| up having to apply a patch manually to dhclient that comes with
| OPNSense and recompiling it just to get an IPv4 address
| (https://github.com/opnsense/src/issues/114).
|
| 2. They don't provide native IPv6, they don't plan to provide
| native IPv6, they have a 6rd setup that is inaccessible by new
| customers, and to top it all off, from what I can tell they
| actively block 6in4/protocol 41 so I can't even use a third party
| tunnel.
|
| 3. Their tier 1 tech support at least knows what IPv6 is (the
| thing they tell people they don't support; they don't understand
| it beyond that). Their tier 2 support guy called me once but he
| clearly was simply relaying messages from an actual network
| engineer he was getting via text chat, so I got nowhere. Their
| tier 3 is their network engineers who have no time to talk to
| people like me since I never got a call I was promised from them
| and have no way to follow up except starting with the 800 number
| again (a literal multi-day process).
|
| At least with city broadband I know exactly who works on the
| project and can go talk to the network engineer who can unblock
| protocol 41/unfuck the DHCPv4. /rant
| rektide wrote:
| just a reminder that the supreme court sided with Verizon,
| overturning the requirements that incumbent local exchange
| carriers (ilecs) offer unbundled loop elements for fiber. the fcc
| updated their rules in 2003. up till then, the 1996
| telecommunications act was in effect, and fiber & telephony
| lines, even if owned by one company, could be leased at wholesale
| rates by competitors. so now, if someone wants to compete, they
| have to dig their own lines, or ongoingly & unregulatedly find a
| way to lease lines.
|
| verizon made this problem. they told the court, we need a
| monopoly on our infrastructure or we will not do this. 20 years
| latter & there has been a massive slow down in roll out, rates
| have been stagnant & high, & municipalities are left doing what
| the supreme court dismantled: creating competitve offerings.
|
| i feel like at some point this may need to be revisited. alas,
| the most likely way it'll get revisited is municipal isps
| disaggregating, becoming local providers, but allowing competitor
| exchanges to lease their local loop elements. muni fiber, but a
| number of different isps. which is what we ought to have had, but
| with less rules of the road & more string things together.
| lizknope wrote:
| My city provides me clean water, treats my sewage, and picks up
| my trash. They seem to do a pretty good job at it, I would be
| fine if they provided Internet service too.
| bluGill wrote:
| My city does that too - for $120/month. At that rate well and
| septic would be paid off in 10 years, and they typically last
| much longer with minimal maintenance. (the bill is itemized, so
| trash is about $12/month - same as what is was at my old rural
| house even though the trash pickup has a lot more density)
| rohansingh wrote:
| If you are a software engineer, working on municipal broadband or
| starting a local ISP is a really intense way to expand your
| skills.
|
| For the past year, I've been volunteering at NYC Mesh
| (nycmesh.net), which is a non-profit that provides fixed wireless
| broadband in New York. I thought I knew a thing or two about
| networking -- hell, I've even given a talk in the network track
| at LinuxCon in the past -- but working on NYC Mesh really showed
| me the limits of that knowledge and has helped me learn a ton
| more.
| hpoe wrote:
| I've always wanted to expand my networking skills and
| understanding. Any suggestions on how to get involved in
| something like this?
| [deleted]
| rglover wrote:
| https://startyourownisp.com/
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Wow, that was straight and to the point breakdown of costs:
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jjUYOQMuZ4cRyTv1M5X
| 8...
|
| Honestly, this doesn't sound like a bad idea in my area. I
| can likely put the tower right on my own land and
| immediately cover a decently sized neighborhood.
| narwally wrote:
| It even has things like zip-ties and other miscellaneous
| items priced out. It's still a rough estimate for a
| minimal install, but I've undertaken DIY home improvement
| projects that were in this price range and my estimates
| weren't quite this detailed.
| rohansingh wrote:
| Sure, here's some ideas:
|
| 1. Join the NYC Mesh Slack (slack.nycmesh.net) even if you're
| not in NYC, just to see how it's run.
|
| 2. Read Brian Hall's post, "How to start a community
| network": https://www.nycmesh.net/blog/how/
|
| 3. Read Graham Castleton's "Start Your Own WISP" guide:
| https://startyourownisp.com/
|
| 4. Look around and find folks in your area with a similar
| interest. If you're in or near a city of any size, I bet
| there's somebody who's already started or is trying to start
| something.
| volkk wrote:
| how do you volunteer specifically at nycmesh?
| rohansingh wrote:
| I help out with planning and designing hubs, upgrading &
| installing equipment, troubleshooting network issues, and
| with anything else I can related to network architecture.
| jarboot wrote:
| We're trying to do this in Milwaukee right now and talked to
| Brian from nycmesh who got us in the right direction. It's
| going to be difficult to get things started but there's so many
| great resources. Thanks for adding so much documentation! It
| really helps a lot.
|
| If anyone's interested in helping in Milwaukee please reach
| out! We're looking for any technical talent we can get,
| especially in the networking space.
| chrononaut wrote:
| For those interested, there are other volunteer-run mesh ISPs
| in other cities in the US and in the world:
| https://jointhemesh.net/#!/list
|
| (There might be a better list somewhere else as well)
| permo-w wrote:
| Headlines like this are annoying
|
| 4x or "rose/fell by x%" is meaningless if you don't have prior
| knowledge of the figures
|
| yes it indicates some growth or decline, but why not use actual
| stats?
| minikites wrote:
| >Still, many people who have access to and use municipal
| broadband think rather highly of the service. In fact, in a 2019
| report conducted by PCMag, the authors of the study found that
| many municipal broadband providers offer some of the fastest
| internet speeds in the country.
|
| Maybe we can finally start chipping away at 40+ years of
| conservative propaganda about how useless and ineffective
| government is. Government projects and services are not evil,
| wasteful, or inferior, that's propaganda talking.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Government projects and services are not evil, wasteful, or
| inferior, that's propaganda talking."
|
| They _can_ be. There just needs to be the proper balance of
| oversight. The lower down the government chain the projects are
| run, the more control the people have over them. For example, I
| wouldn 't want federal or even state run internet, but
| municipal or even county internet would be easier to deal with
| since my voice would represent a larger share of the
| customers/votes and has a higher likelihood of being addressed.
| At the higher levels, one locality might have an issue but only
| represent 1% of the customers/vote, so you could end up with
| that minority being neglected.
| martin8412 wrote:
| That does make sense though. At city level people are way
| more likely to be interested, because they can actually make
| a difference, and it will help the community they live in
| minikites wrote:
| >I wouldn't want federal or even state run internet
|
| How is Comcast or any other large ISP meaningfully different
| from this? At least you get _a_ vote at the federal level,
| Comcast has zero reason to listen to you.
| giantg2 wrote:
| They aren't that much different in service quality and I
| don't like them either.
|
| You actually can get a vote at Concast if you buy stock,
| which can be more than what a single vote is worth at the
| federal level. The real difference is in how you can
| pressure them. Your single vote in the government covers a
| multitude of topics, in what is essentially a two choice
| system. You may need to vote contrary to your beliefs on
| one topic to protect your rights on another topic. In
| dealing with a single topic related to a company, you can
| concentrate your efforts through your voting stock,
| boycotts, etc.
|
| So, when a politician hears a minority complain about an
| issue, they have zero incentive to listen to you because
| they lose nothing due to the discrete nature of measuring
| sucess (minority votes no longer matter once you secure the
| majority to win). At least companies care about losing
| revenue because it's measured continuously. Look at how
| they fight to attract and retain customers through deals,
| competing with other companies, and even negative stuff
| like fighting municipal internet.
|
| The better choices are local companies and municipalities.
| This is because a person's voice is worth more and the
| concerns amongst the customers/voters tend to be more
| homogeneous than at higher levels.
| FredPret wrote:
| Any huge, old, unaccountable organization is going to suck,
| government or corporation.
|
| The key is being accountable to the end user. Local
| governments with rational and active voters and
| corporations with energetic competitors usually do very
| well.
| atotic wrote:
| Anecdote: I live in Palo Alto, and my entire neighborhood
| is on Comcast. In January, service got to be really bad,
| 1Mbs upload during the day. Comcast came out, said our
| local node was saturated at 92%, and that they have an
| upgrade planned a year from now, and that we can suck it
| till then.
|
| This is Palo Alto, the land of very vocal neighbors. They
| started a campaign where we all sent a complaint to the
| FCC. Within a week, we were personally contacted by a
| Comcast rep, techs came out, and suddenly I had 30Mbs up.
| And Comcast reps have been calling, emailing every week to
| make sure we are ok. Not sure what happened, the node did
| not get upgraded, but they fixed something.
|
| And another data point on how sad the situation is in the
| US: my brother lives in Belgrade, Serbia, in one of those
| concrete high-rises from the 70s. He got fiber this year
| from a private company, and his speeds beat mine, and it is
| dirt cheap. There is no logical explanation for the fact
| that his internet speeds beat mine, and I am a mile away
| from Google HQ.
| prophesi wrote:
| I think that's the point.
|
| City > State > Federal > Telcom Monopolies in terms of your
| voice being heard.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Telecom can vary in it's place. I would put a local
| company around the city level because they are often
| invested in their communities. Really, I would say that
| goes for companies or government - the bigger they get,
| the more removed they are from what is going on in the
| customer/voter lives.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I agree that City > State > Comcast. I think Comcast >
| Federal, though, in terms of service level and individual
| voice. (With Comcast, my voice is 20dB under the noise
| floor. With the feds, it's 10dB lower than that.)
|
| Plus, if you get something wrong federally, it's
| enormously difficult, expensive, time-consuming, and
| unlikely to get fixed. If one or a few states get
| something wrong, you have as easier time showing
| comparables and proving that a better way is possible.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Speaking of getting things wrong... if Comcast runs some
| half baked DB query to flag problem customers and it
| flags a false positive on you you're just gonna get your
| service turned off. When the states and feds make those
| mistakes there's a body count or at the very least lives
| ruined. Comcast, or other BigCo will generally do the
| right thing to make you go away, after all, every dollar
| spent on fighting people is a dollar that could be
| profit. When government does wrong and gets called on it
| digs in its heels much, much harder.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| What doesn't help is that thanks to 40 years privatization
| there is now very little in-house expertise left. Any kind of
| services are now provided by a local contractor and there is
| no one competent to supervise them. It'll be hard to get rid
| of the entrenched corruption and waste.
|
| _For example, I wouldn 't want federal or even state run
| internet_
|
| The government telco was _glorious_. They would provide
| service _anywhere_ for a two-digit hookup fee and the target
| time for service interruption was 48 hours, and they kept to
| that.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Is that the US and how long ago was that 2 digit fee?
|
| "...there is now very little in-house expertise left."
|
| I don't really see this being an issue. If they are taking
| market share from the private sector, then it's likely that
| private companies will make cuts to preserve profits and
| those people can be hired by the government. If not having
| in-house expertise was really a problem then no companies
| would ever be able to expand. Instead they hire externally
| and hire consultants.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| _Is that the US and how long ago was that 2 digit fee_
|
| Pre-privatization German telecom charged 40 marks for
| connection, that included laying cable to the demarcation
| point.
|
| For the lack of in-house expertise to supervise private
| parties, look no further than Boeing. They relied on
| self-certification, and we ended up with the 737-MAX.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "For the lack of in-house expertise to supervise private
| parties, look no further than Boeing. They relied on
| self-certification, and we ended up with the 737-MAX."
|
| That would require a major shift in mindset, policy, and
| even law for the US. Even stuff like drugs and medical
| devices are tested by third parties, not the government
| itself.
| avhception wrote:
| In Germany, there is a clear pattern:
|
| - a community (often, but not always, rural) pleads one of our
| big ISPs (almost always deutsche Telekom, since we gifted our
| tax-funded telephone network to them) to provide better service
| (or service at all)
|
| - dt. Telekom laughs in their faces and tells them to screw off
|
| - the community gets together and finances building a network of
| their own, sometimes even involving locals to dig the trenches
| for the fibers. They calculate with a sharp pencil and need
| customers to break even.
|
| - dt. Telekom notices this and quickly deploys their own network,
| steamrolling the new local ISP with their big marketing budget
| and brand name
|
| - the small local ISP goes bankrupt, city initiatives stop etc.
|
| And to add insult to injury, dt. Telekom then uses it's customers
| as leverage to bully content providers into crappy peering deals.
| They're also guzzling tax money by the millions in public-private
| partnerships all while screwing the public over.
| txdv wrote:
| Telekom is utilizing the German law system and companies in the
| USA are doing the same.
| _jal wrote:
| At least your monopoly responds to threats by providing the
| service they monopolize.
|
| In the US, step 4 becomes "pass a law banning muni efforts and
| lie about existing coverage", and local communities keep the
| same crappy, expensive service.
| mjevans wrote:
| It's been that way in WA State for like 20 years... and will
| hopefully soon end once the Governor signs into law one of
| the two passed bills recently discussed.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26803426
|
| (The better but not perfect 1336) https://app.leg.wa.gov/bill
| summary?BillNumber=1336&Initiativ...
|
| (The grand standing and barely a bone to the consumer 5383) h
| ttps://app.leg.wa.gov/billsummary?BillNumber=5383&Year=2021..
| .
| Wohlf wrote:
| >At least your monopoly responds to threats by providing the
| service they monopolize.
|
| True but the grass isn't really greener, Germany lags behind
| the US in average broadband speeds, mean and median for both
| directions.
| mirchiseth wrote:
| Has anyone documented the process on getting your city to adopt
| Municipal Wireless. Things like - Which department to approach -
| What kind of hurdles/prior agreements with big ISPs one would
| face and how to tackle those - Budget calculations and where it
| becomes self-sustaining
| iptrans wrote:
| Muni wireless is generally a bad idea. It has been tried many
| times and failed.
|
| What you want is a municipally owner fiber network.
|
| What you really need to start a muni network is grassroots
| support. If the constituents want it it will be built.
| jhayward wrote:
| Muni wireless is still a potentially viable model in the
| "last 200 meters" type design. The equipment and frequencies
| needed are just barely starting to be available.
| rosstex wrote:
| So, from 1 city to 4 cities? /s
| bogomipz wrote:
| Is there a link anywhere to the actual study this post
| references?
|
| I was surprised to read that there were over 100 cities in the
| U.S. offering municipal broadband as of 3 years ago and even more
| surprised to read there now would be 560 cities offering
| municipal broadband. I know there are at least 18 states that
| restrict cities from creating municipal broadband networks[1].
| Does anyone know if there's a comprehensive list of municipal
| broadband offerings? This lists a lot of municipal broadband
| providers but it's nowhere near even the 100 quotes from 3 years
| ago:
|
| https://www.allconnect.com/blog/cities-with-cheap-high-speed...
|
| [1] https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-
| roadbloc...
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| The city I live in voted for municipal broadband in 2017. Our
| local private internet provider Comcast fought it at every turn,
| Comcast spent millions fighting municipal broadband in a city
| with about 150,000 residents. We started rolling out our own
| broadband to residents in 2020. It took a couple of years for the
| city to hire and build up a department and lay the infrastructure
| to support it city wide and I finally got the service at the
| beginning of this year, and it has been awesome. We have gigabit
| internet up AND DOWN for $59.95/month. What really burns me is
| the private providers we have, Comcast and CenturyLink, have been
| here for decades and could have done exactly what our city has
| done: run fiber to every neighborhood and house. It would have
| been cheaper for them too, they already had the infrastructure in
| place. They chose not to make the investment and instead spent
| millions trying to prevent us from providing better service for
| ourselves. I hope everyone has the chance to get better/cheaper
| internet service for themselves and their community, so far it
| has worked out great for us.
| narwally wrote:
| At the moment I'm usually fine with my 200Mbps download speeds
| from Spectrum, but man am I jealous of those upload speeds and
| that price. I'm looking to move soon, and municipal fiber is
| definitely on the list of things that could get me to pick one
| area over another. It's not only a great deal on an essential
| service, but gives me a bit more confidence in the local
| government and the citizens that voted for it.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Counterpoint: a nearby city wanted to provide municipal
| broadband. Mayor, city council, majority of the public seemed
| on-board. The city realized they knew nothing about running an
| ISP, so they hired some consultants, who hooked them up with
| another contractor to build out and run it. Some time passed,
| nothing happened, the contractor went bankrupt. Every cent of
| tax money spent amounted to nothing. The big ISPs (Comcast and
| ATT) continued to operate and expand their services, which are
| better than they've ever been (which is not to claim it
| couldn't be better, but more people have broadband now than
| they did before).
| bproven wrote:
| Is this Fort Collins, CO? :)
| takeda wrote:
| What your city did sounds great, and I hope it will be
| similarly done in other places as well.
|
| I think ideally the city should allow for other ISPs to lease
| these lines (of course at price that would cover the cost of
| maintaining them) and still providing option to be one of those
| ISPs. This would lower the barrier to enter for other ISPs and
| perhaps further lower the price.
|
| I only hope that your city won't end up selling the
| infrastructure to someone in the future, because that will of
| course kill the whole effort.
|
| I believe the key to solve our ISP problems is unbundling the
| local loop. The bill that congress wants to pass to fix
| Internet will be a failure, unless the money is meant for local
| governments to do the same your city did.
| bombcar wrote:
| If providers would take the money they'd normally fight
| municipal broadband with and instead fight for access to the
| "last mile" they'd come out way ahead - offload a cost center
| to the municipality, get better access and speed, and be able
| to differentiate on services.
| takeda wrote:
| They would, but so would their competitors. Comcast and
| Spectrum have currently a great position, because cost to
| enter the market for anyone else is so high. Not even
| Google with their "unlimited" amount of money was able to
| get through it. It's crazy that currently the only way to
| enter the market is to deploy thousands of satellites (like
| Starlink) and once Starlink becomes a competitor to current
| ISPs other competitors won't be able to follow them.
|
| This situation can't be solved without changing laws and
| local governments.
| CerealFounder wrote:
| Gather around, this is good.
|
| How I sued Spectrum California for $1800...
|
| So my internet had rolling outages for weeks and Spectrum
| wouldnt do anything. So they sent a technician to my house.
| Three consecutive days, scheduled appointment, no one showed,
| or called (other than the automated attendant. This is
| important later). I was furious. I was talking to my father who
| did a bit of law school and he shared that California has a
| $600 a day no show penalty for companies with 25 or more
| employees.
|
| https://legalbeagle.com/7272842-service-noshow-penalty-calif...
|
| So I file small claims for the full 1800. I show up and theyve
| sent a person who professionally goes to court to fight these
| things. It also became clear the they use the auto dialer
| follow up to negate the "no call" portion of the "No show/now
| call" law. They've got it down to a science.
|
| So dejected by their treachery, I try a last second hail mary
| by asking the judge if I can speak to the court. I tell him "I
| am you, you, you (pointing at him and the people sitting in
| court), this company dosent care about providing the service
| they promised, theyd rather spend that money hiring henchmen to
| beat the consumer laws on a technicality. Their largest
| investment is in extraction, not service. Im just a guy who
| wanted his internet and to go back to work. If my experience
| hits home at all please, hold them accountable."
|
| Lonnnnng silence and the little Spectrum rat is visibly
| smiling. The judge starts to speak "Mr Cereal, I personally
| empathize with companies not respecting my time. Its so
| frusteratinfg" The whole court audibly gasps, this judge is
| gonna stick them. Judge flustered "Wellll, I dont mean Specturm
| specifically. That said, I find fully in favor of Mr Cereal and
| order a full judgement."
|
| Ive sold two companies for 9 figures in my life. I have never
| ever ever seen my jewish father as proud of me as when I called
| him and told him what happened. I got a check two weeks later.
|
| tldr: ISPs are evil, but you can get them if they dont show.
| Also, your dad will be proud.
| Hammershaft wrote:
| It sounds like a story but I'll give the benefit of the doubt
| if only because I so want to believe.
| CerealFounder wrote:
| What part? Its a law on the books and it all went down at
| the Stanley Mosk courthouse on the third floor. I was also
| late to roll call and I had to take a Bird scooter a
| quarter-mile from Chinatown because parking at the court is
| like $40/day.
| Svperstar wrote:
| If you sold two companies for 9 figures why are you
| concerned about paying $40 for parking?
| narwally wrote:
| I was half expecting the lawyer to no-show as well, but of
| course they finally show up when it's their money on the
| line.
| avarun wrote:
| This made my day. I don't even care if it's made up, I choose
| to believe this happened.
| kstrauser wrote:
| You're my hero. I'm not your jewish father, but I'm still
| proud of you.
| georgel wrote:
| Similar situation in Fort Collins, Colorado. Connexion (the
| city's brand for municipal ISP) is 60/mo for symmetric gigabit
| fiber, and for 300/mo can get 10Gb/s and near zero outages.
| Comcast and Century Link keep sending "deals" in the mail that
| are laughable. I am very happy with municipal ISP.
|
| https://www.fcgov.com/connexion/residential-internet
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| Yeah, I'm actually in Fort Collins, I was trying to be a
| little vague for anonymity but ya know. With Longmont
| Colorado having municipal broadband I think Comcast saw Fort
| Collins as a hill worth dying on. I've heard that Boulder and
| Denver are looking at putting municipal broadband on a ballot
| in the future. Certainly how things turn out in Fort Collins
| will be considered in other communities around the state.
| After 4 months on our community broadband I'm still fighting
| with Comcast over bills and charges.
| bproven wrote:
| Yeah I am in FC and I wish Boulder and Denver well, but it
| will be a hard fight Comcast _owns_ the city of Denver and
| most of its metro. Through influence and legislature that
| is all in their favor. As well as being a HUGE employer in
| the state.
|
| My only gripe is I really wish they would roll the FC
| Connexion to my neighborhood in midtown now lol
| beached_whale wrote:
| Can help a lot with the tax bases too. I know my municipal
| ISP just dumped $17 million into the municipal tax base of a
| city of just over a 100 thousand. They also pay well. So
| that's money that is not being taxed.
| jfengel wrote:
| Is it cheaper to run fiber to houses than to hang WiFi off
| telephone poles? I know WiFi isn't as good as a hard
| connection, but running cables sounds really expensive and
| cumbersome.
| linsomniac wrote:
| The parent is talking about Fort Collins, which decades ago
| went to almost entirely underground utilities. Partly for
| aesthetics, partly because of all of the lovely old trees in
| the downtown area which kept taking utilities out.
|
| There are some poles around, but most of the city is
| underground. So in this instance, yes, it was cheaper to run
| the fiber than to run the fiber _AND_ set up poles. :-)
| iptrans wrote:
| WiFi is really poor as a last mile technology.
| jfengel wrote:
| What about as a last 100 meter technology? (I'm sorry, I'm
| not being glib. I don't know much about networking at that
| level.)
| iptrans wrote:
| WiFi is really bad at anything but in home connectivity.
| ksec wrote:
| > It would have been cheaper for them too....
|
| Can some enlighten me, _why_ did they _not_ do it? For those of
| us outside US, we never quite grasp why US mobile network and
| ISP are so bad. All while refusing to do any improvement.
|
| Not only are they bad, they are ridiculously expensive. ( and
| healthcare... but we wont go into that. )
| apexalpha wrote:
| It's more profitable to collect $70 a month and not do
| upgrades than to do $500 per household Capex expenditures and
| then collect $70 a month.
| narwally wrote:
| And if they do it in city A, then city B down the road is
| going to start demanding the same treatment.
| ksec wrote:
| Well yes. But I assume they _would_ react once or even
| before competition like municipal broadband is available .
| Except from reading this doesn 't seems to be the case at
| all.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Capitalism is wildly inefficient for infrastructure, and it's
| really frustrating how often we have to relearn this as a
| society. There's a damn good reason why the city owns the pipes
| that bring water to and sewage from your house, and why the
| power lines are owned by a heavily regulated monopoly. The
| physical infrastructure to run internet to everyone's homes
| should be owned by the state and responsive to the citizens it
| serves and not the shareholders who profit.
| amelius wrote:
| What makes cable companies different from, say, a duopoly in
| mobile phone operating systems?
| tshaddox wrote:
| The general response would be that, because of barriers to
| entry and economies of scale, the optimal number of firms
| in some industries is 1, and thus that firm should be
| regulated or run by the government in order to prevent it
| from exploiting its immense market power.
| goodpoint wrote:
| The whole concept of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market requires being
| able to purchase interchangeable goods on the global
| market.
|
| Yet, you cannot buy a service like broadband or sewage, put
| it in a box and sell it to someone living in another
| continent.
|
| Location-bound services usually become quasi-monopolies,
| where free market does not apply. The quasi-monopolist is
| able (and happy) to charge the maximum price that people
| can pay.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Land usage, mostly.
|
| Cell companies need space for towers and fiber to those
| antennas. It turns out that these don't take up all that
| much space, so it's trivially possible for multiple cell
| phone companies to setup towers covering the same
| customers.
|
| Cable companies however have to deal with the "last mile"
| problem, which is both massively more expensive than
| installing more centralized infrastructure, but also
| involves installing infrastructure on much more restricted
| areas.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| @amelius asked about phone _operating systems_. But your
| comment is a very good point about mobile phones vs home
| internet.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Isn't there a spectrum license/conflict issue for mobile
| network operators?
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Absolutely, that's part of why T-Mobile and Sprint joined
| together. But there's enough spectrum available to run a
| few different cell phone companies, while last mile
| issues are pretty much permanent for cable companies.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| There may be a duopoly, but I can still get what I want
| with jailbreaking or rooting (although that is getting
| harder over time). With ISPs, if they both suck, I'm SOL.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is like saying that you can get away from your ISP
| monopoly by using your neighbors' WiFi.
| missedthecue wrote:
| This is just competition. Nothing anti-market about that
| user3939382 wrote:
| Even famous libertarians like Hayek agree that infrastructure
| is a necessary duty of the government. To me, it's the plate
| on which the free market rests and operates. It is the wiring
| of the market itself.
| m463 wrote:
| I think regulatory capture is one of the most profitable
| loopholes in capitalism and I don't think there are adequate
| checks and balances.
|
| I wish there was a better way to regulate internet service
| that wasn't subject to these kinds of shenanigans.
|
| I suspect long-term it is competition that ends up fixing
| this, but think of the drag on the economy when good
| communication is fouled up like this.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Capitalism isn't at fault here; spineless municipal
| governments are. Since the federal government is also
| spineless, it's refreshing to see some starting to wake up to
| the hellscape that is our Internet infrastructure.
| martin8412 wrote:
| It's not even capitalism to begin with. It's corporate
| socialism. Where you have companies actively using the
| government to secure their own payday. If a company has
| millions and utter millions to throw at not having to
| compete..
|
| That being said, I agree that natural monopolies should be
| considered an issue for the state.
| ronnier wrote:
| Comcast makes me sick. I spent months getting off of them and
| it was worth every bit of it by switching to Ziply fiber in the
| Seattle area. I went from this to this:
|
| * Comcast 1000/35 Down/up to Ziply 1000/1000 down/up
|
| * Monthly bill cut in half
|
| * Comcast monthly data caps, to no data caps with Ziply
|
| And that's right, Comcast gives 35 Mbps upload, if you are
| lucky! And data caps.
| ortusdux wrote:
| My best option currently is Wave Broadband, with 940/20
| costing 100$/mo. I pay an extra 8$/mo for 940/25. The tech
| installing my line checked my signal and said that they could
| support 940/940, but they wont offer it in my area. I am
| pricing the cost of a fiber run that after install will be
| 1000/1000 for 60$/mo. I would gladly pay $3k to hook-up.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Wave Broadband literally doubled my bill out of the blue
| last November-- not because a trial pricing period ended or
| anything, but just because they could: I was in an
| apartment building where they were the only option. It's
| irrelevant now because shortly after that I moved to a
| different location, but they're just as bad as Comcast.
| Private ISPs delenda est.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| With comcast in my area the unofficial strategy is to
| require you to sign up for a new plan every year to slowing
| tick down your speed and increase costs. If you stick with
| your old plan the monthly doubles. Right now I'm paying $60
| for 60/3.5 with comcast. A few years ago it was $30 for
| 100/3.5 I have no other real options, it's gross.
| Alupis wrote:
| My comcast bill is $70 a month for 1000Mbps down / 36Mbps
| up. Pretty happy actually... and my area has no municipal
| ISP, and the only other option is AT&T's DSL variant.
| mjevans wrote:
| Your area has no Broadband Internet competition. You have
| extremely poor upload and presumably a cap that you can
| go over by accidentally leaving a video streaming service
| tab open on.
|
| How are you happy again? It sounds like you're happy to
| be in an abusive relationship rather than none at all.
| Alupis wrote:
| I'm happy because it satisfies my needs for a reasonable
| price. I don't have a use for 1Gbps uploads... mostly
| nobody does actually... and I stream a lot of 1080p
| content, which comes nowhere near the "data cap" any
| month of the year.
|
| Perhaps things would be different if I were streaming 4k,
| but I'm not - and that would only be an issue with a data
| cap (I agree, data caps are absurd).
|
| BTW, the limit on the upload is a physical issue with
| cable lines and the DOCSIS protocol... I don't feel it's
| realistic to demand fiber to everyone's home when nearly
| nobody has an actual use-case for symmetrical home
| connections...
|
| Lastly, getting the government involved in maintaining
| lines to everyone's homes is a disaster waiting to
| happen. What infrastructure is the government doing an
| excellent job maintaining as it is? With salary caps on
| staffers, and the inability to terminate underperforming
| employees - municipal-owned lines and/or ISP's will start
| out great, and over time suffer the same bureaucratic
| disease the rest of the government already has.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >BTW, the limit on the upload is a physical issue with
| cable lines and the DOCSIS protocol... I don't feel it's
| realistic to demand fiber to everyone's home when nearly
| nobody has an actual use-case for symmetrical home
| connections...
|
| Nobody had a use case until a family of 4 needs to work
| and school from home simultaneously or upload video.
| Somehow, we had a use case for delivering people ad laden
| garbage tv shows via cable, but something like fiber
| internet which might actually be used for productivity
| and creativity is not worthy of public support?
| Alupis wrote:
| Are you so sure the government can run a high tech ISP
| better than the private sector? That they will employ the
| best and brightest and pay them market rates or better?
|
| Or will it just turn into yet another jobs program,
| filled with sub-par employees that can never be fired for
| poor performance... While the infrastructure rots away?
|
| Say what you want about Comcast... But my internet never
| goes down, is always fast, is a reasonable price, and
| support is readily available within a couple minutes if
| needed.
|
| Can you say the same for any government run program or
| infrastructure project?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Say what you want about Comcast... But my internet
| never goes down, is always fast, is a reasonable price,
| and support is readily available within a couple minutes
| if needed.
|
| I've dealt with Comcast in 3 states on both coasts, and I
| can't share any of those sentiments. The upload is always
| garbage.
|
| > Can you say the same for any government run program or
| infrastructure project?
|
| Yes, I've never had to call anyone about my electric,
| gas, sewage, water, roads, parks, or air. Also, FYI, a
| government org came up with the internet in the first
| place.
|
| This trope of "all things government bad" is so lazy. We
| are lucky in the US to live in a relatively trustworthy
| society, where the FAA/FDA/CDC/etc have done quite a few
| things to make our lives pleasant. Obviously they're not
| perfect, but by and large the civilian agencies have
| undoubtedly pushed our quality of life up.
| Alupis wrote:
| Electric - burned down several towns in California 2
| years back due to failure to maintain the lines over the
| last _30 years_.
|
| Gas and Sewage rarely require infrastructure upgrades...
| ie. there's no new home appliance that requires "more"
| gas than the lines can currently provide (or provided 30
| years ago).
|
| Water? What about all the lead in the water issues that
| were exposed a few years back? Do you think they would
| have just fixed that if nobody made a big stink about it?
|
| ARPAnet has literally nothing to do with how commercial
| (or municipal) ISP's operate today... not sure what point
| you're trying to make.
|
| FAA has been attempting to upgrade ATC services nation-
| wide for years and years... still hasn't happened. Plus
| they've outsourced certifications of new aircraft to the
| manufacturer (because they don't have the staff to do it
| themselves, because they don't pay as well as private
| companies) which led to the Boeing 737-MAX thing...
|
| CDC is now a political organization spouting whatever the
| current president wants (at least under Trump and Biden)
|
| FDA - shills for the beef and corn industries...
|
| None of your examples are good.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I do not understand what the purpose of pointing out
| specific deficiencies is after I already pointed out that
| there were deficiencies.
|
| I know myself and many other people feel safe traveling
| via air, buying food at the grocery store, drinking tap
| water, are not worried about our houses burning down, and
| trust the vaccines will help protect us.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Electric - burned down several towns in California 2
| years back due to failure to maintain the lines.
|
| That was a private entity. (The same one that also was on
| proabtion for felonies for killing people and causing
| widespread damage with its gas operations not long
| before.)
| Alupis wrote:
| Is it though? They can't do so much as paint their trucks
| without government approval.
|
| I'll admit, utilities are a bizarre hybrid at best -
| however it was the government's state level utility
| commission that approved the non-maintenance plans for
| decades.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I consider utilities as part of government. They private
| part is just so government officials can use them as a
| scapegoat. For example, not letting PGE raise prices to
| do proper maintenance, but then also blaming them when it
| caused wildfires. Of course, voters will vote for the
| politician that promises to keep costs down and keeps
| more money in their pockets.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| I heard threw the grapevine Xfinity (comcast) has given
| up on trying to compete with streaming services.
|
| Their strategy is just charge more for everything, and
| make ordering services compliced.
|
| Going on their website to just get basic cable, and low
| speed internet is very hard.
|
| They push packages--hoping you will never realize when
| the deal ends.
|
| They rely on senior citizens who just pay the bill, and
| are not technical enough to even shop around--if they
| have a choice? Most households don't.
|
| Comcast should be required to have have simple billing,
| and simple ording of service
|
| That could be taken care of the next time your local
| government ok's their next franchise agreement. It's not
| a franchise. It's some agreement government has with
| them.
|
| Be careful calling Xfinity (comcast) for anything. The
| calls are routed overseas, and those employees main
| function is pushing package deals. Don't fall for it.
| They try to get the customer to agree on voice, so they
| have evidence.
|
| 1. I'm ok with their internet service, except for the
| price, and lack of competition.
|
| 2. The cable tv service is subpar. I have had checkering
| for ever. I gave up on getting it corrected. After three
| visits from third party vendors it's still not right.
| (This third party vendor was working 6 days a week, and
| was required to lease his service truck for $250/week.).
|
| 3. If you do have a lousy connection, it might be
| partially related to a filter Comcast put on years ago,
| but never took off. (The new filters are fine, but a
| certain brand of an older one is bad. I just threw it out
| so I can't give the part number. If you have voice
| remote, make sure it's on the right three splitter. I
| vagly remember it on the outlet with the lowest
| resistance?
|
| 4. I believe Comcast knows they are pushing too much
| through that coaxial. I believe they preparing for a
| class action lawsuit, but might not care?
|
| 5. I only put up with Comcast because there's no real
| competition where I reside. Xfinity's agreements with
| local municipalities needs to be nixed.
|
| 6. Comcast promised to not cut off service during the
| pandemic, but lied.
|
| 7. Comcast offers Hotspots. Your router could be the
| hotspot, and they don't have to tell you. (I don't
| believe their is any danger to this practice though.)
|
| I would love it that infrastructure bill did away with
| Xfinity. They provide very few good paying jobs. I would
| like to see free internet provided to every American,
| even the wealthy.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _And that 's right, Comcast gives 35 Mbps upload, if you
| are lucky! And data caps._
|
| Before I switched last year, I only got 10Mbps up from
| Comcast.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| In NYC, I have exactly one broadband provider. Spectrum
| (formerly Time Warner). Their highest end package is 500 down
| / 20 up. I can't get FiOS because, even though Verizon
| contractually agreed to wire all of NYC up for fiber, they
| lied and didn't. So, my only other option is Verizon DSL with
| offers 'up to 7Mbps' down.
|
| T-Mobile is rolling out their home 5g internet now. It
| doesn't support streaming yet, but it hits around 200+ down
| and 25 up on my phone, so it may get there.
| sinak wrote:
| If anyone is considering T-Mobile Home 5G Internet, you can
| dramatically improve your connection speeds by getting the
| devices to connect on the 5G n41 band, where T-Mobile has
| much more spectrum. Unfortunately n41 is 2500 MHz, which
| means it's readily absorbed by building materials. Hooking
| up external antennas to the hotspot requires a bit of
| playing with the device [1], but can be a big help.
|
| https://www.waveform.com/a/b/guides/hotspots/t-mobile-5g-ga
| t...
| ep103 wrote:
| nyc has sued verizon multiple (?) times for failing to roll
| out fiber into the city and just keeping the money. Each
| time verizon does some update, or rolls out a little bit
| more, and the story repeats. Telecom is a utility, end of
| story.
| toss1 wrote:
| NYC needs to get serious
|
| Tell Verizon and the others that if they fail to fulfill
| their contract, the will get their license pulled, or, at
| the very least, they will operate their own local
| municipal broadband.
|
| Of course the incentives are probably for each individual
| politician such that with enough graft, campaign
| donations, etc., that they just stick with the status
| quo, but I'm not familiar with the local situation.
|
| [edit: typo "fulled" => "pulled"]
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| It sounds like that is what they have been doing.
|
| What they need to do now is tell Verizon that they
| _failed_ to fulfill their contract, pull their license,
| and operate their own municipal broadband.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| New York City government has been all talk and no walk
| because they also do not want to pony up the sufficient
| funds to make it happen.
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup. Although, while I'm no longer familiar with the
| local situation, it seems that the action has more been
| to sue Verizon and pocket the proceeds from the lawsuits
| into the general fund, while keeping their actual
| regulatory big gun in the holster.
|
| Managing lawsuits and paying fines is apparently still
| cheaper for Verizon than actually installing the fiber.
|
| What I want to know is WHY no regulator or judge has seen
| fit to actually enforce the requirement sufficiently to
| change Verizon's behavior.
|
| (Or why they just don't use your suggestion, say they
| failed, repeatedly, pull the plug, and make their own
| system. They could pay for a LOT with the profits, even
| providing better and cheaper service)
| meragrin_ wrote:
| > It doesn't support streaming yet, but it hits around 200+
| down and 25 up on my phone, so it may get there.
|
| Does that mean the 5g internet is really slow(DSL speed?)
| or do they actively block streaming? Is there another
| reason streaming wouldn't be supported even at a decent
| speed?
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| I misread the announcement. They don't support a couple
| specific services (Hulu Live TV) but everything else
| streams just great from reviews I've read (Netflix,
| YouTube, regular Hulu, etc).
| JonLim wrote:
| Depending on where you live, check and see if you have
| Natural Wireless[0] available in your building/residence.
| Recently moved into an apartment that is lucky enough to
| get their service, and we get gigabit for ~$70 a month.
|
| Have had almost zero issues, and their support has been
| tremendous.
|
| [0]: https://naturalwireless.com/
| 310260 wrote:
| Spectrum (TWC) also likes to get exclusive rights to
| certain buildings too. Making the problem worse.
|
| On the topic of T-Mobile home internet, it does support
| streaming. Availability is determined by the network in
| your local area though.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| I misread the announcement. They don't support a couple
| specific services (Hulu Live TV) but everything else
| streams just great from reviews I've read (Netflix,
| YouTube, regular Hulu, etc).
| xedrac wrote:
| I've found that I almost never get the rates I pay for with
| Comcast. I'm currently on their 600/35 plan, and I'm lucky to
| get 200 down and 15 up. So even if Comcast were to roll out
| "gigabit" everywhere, it would likely be very inferior to
| municipal fiber.
| tzs wrote:
| Have you considered switching to a lower speed plan?
|
| If you are only actually getting 200, you might as well
| switch to the 200 plan and save $20/month.
| philote wrote:
| It's nuts. I used to live in a major city, 10 minutes from
| downtown, and the only high speed internet I could get was
| Spectrum cable internet. I recently moved to a rural, mountain
| area in the same state and there is a small ISP that provides
| fiber to the entire county. They even have good pricing.
| r00fus wrote:
| Just to note: Sanders 2020 "Internet for All" plan would have
| given municipalities the blueprints to a) fight Comcast and
| entrenched providers and b) funding to do so, thereby enabling
| more freedom. Unfortunately he did not prevail in the primary.
|
| More municipal and small internet providers could act as a
| bulwark against centralization and corporate dominance of the
| backbone of our communication infrastructure.
| tgb wrote:
| Biden's infrastructure plan includes similar verbiage.[1]
|
| > support for broadband networks owned, operated by, or
| affiliated with local governments, non-profits, and co-
| operatives
|
| Anyone know if it would work? Note that this is the bill
| getting criticized as not being about "real infrastructure"
| due to daring to have non-transportation infrastructure, like
| this.
|
| [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-
| releases...
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| The reasonable scale for a municipal fiber deployment is,
| as the name says, at the municipal level. There is already
| a reasonably competitive Tier 1 provider market, because it
| isn't a natural monopoly, and there is no need for the
| government to enter a market segment which is already
| working.
|
| Which means the biggest thing you need from the feds (and
| for that matter the state governments) is to get out of the
| way and stop actively interfering with cities that want to
| do this. Which doesn't seem like much to ask, but the
| incumbents have spent the last hundred years capturing
| every level of government in the US, and then we got the
| likes of Ajit Pai running the FCC, which was an impediment.
|
| The other thing to watch out for is the classic regulatory
| capture move where the government is about to spend money
| on municipal infrastructure to compete with the incumbents
| and the incumbents lobby instead to give the money to them.
| In this context here you're looking for money that goes to
| "5G" instead of fiber. Because "5G" means incumbents who
| own wireless spectrum and/or want to "buy" it from the
| taxpayer using tax money and then sit on it to exclude any
| other competitors from having it. Or have the taxpayer pay
| for their privately-owned infrastructure, providing a
| permanent cost advantage so that no one else can ever
| competitively enter the market in the future.
|
| First rule of the game is never give tax money to the
| incumbents. History has shown that it's a black hole that
| produces no results, and anybody who doesn't understand
| this is either captured or not paying attention.
| notyourwork wrote:
| If most of society can work from home and conduct business
| via the internet, I'd argue the internet is clearly
| infrastructure. There weren't traffic jams and cars all
| over the highways last year, we were cruising the internet
| superhighway.
|
| Would love it for dinosaurs in politics to get with it and
| understand the implications of technological investment (or
| lack thereof).
| richwater wrote:
| Government intervention is what gave providers local
| monopolies in the first place.
|
| More legislation from the federal and state level is not
| needed, unless it's literally "All local agreements are now
| null and void" which isn't even legal.
| munk-a wrote:
| Government intervention is constantly needed to keep a free
| market in balance - there certainly is poor spirited
| legislation that's designed to assist in market capture but
| there is a lot more legislation out there that's protecting
| small markets.
|
| Anarcho-libretarianism isn't the solution here and neither
| is rejecting balanced legislation out of a force of habit.
| SlowRobotAhead wrote:
| I'm not shitting on your comment, but are you saying _"we
| need government involvement (regulatory oversight) to
| solve problems made from previous government involvement
| (poor spirited legislation)?"_
|
| I don't think anyone is suggesting no laws at all, but
| perhaps we can have some foresight and not legislate
| ourselves into oversight which will only make more
| legislation which will only make more...
|
| I'm happy to see municipal internet IF the service
| quality and price is competitive. While we're dealing
| with the Verizon's and Comcast's of the world, this is
| usually working, what do we do when we've destroyed the
| market and the local service sucks?
| nickysielicki wrote:
| > Government intervention is constantly needed to keep a
| free market in balance
|
| "Constant government intervention" is incompatible with
| the definition (literally) of a free market.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Only the kind of free market that has no rules against
| fraud and robbery.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This is just daft, is your idea of free markets the drug
| cartels of columbia? Because thats what you get wuthoit
| government intervention
| nickysielicki wrote:
| Hey, if you don't like free markets, that's fine, I'll
| respect your opinion.
|
| I'm just saying that:
|
| Oxford defines a free market as: "an economic system in
| which prices are determined by unrestricted competition
| between privately owned businesses."
|
| Wikipedia defines it as: "a system in which the prices
| for goods and services are self-regulated by buyers and
| sellers negotiating in an open market. In a free market,
| the laws and forces of supply and demand are free from
| any intervention by a government or other authority, and
| from all forms of economic privilege, monopolies and
| artificial scarcities."
|
| Investopedia defines it as: "an economic system based on
| supply and demand with little or no government control."
|
| Words have meaning, god damn it.
| munk-a wrote:
| But that's just folks giving the benefit of the doubt to
| your earlier statement - the technical definition of a
| free market is incompatible with our modern society.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Words do have a meaning, so tell me what is "unrestricted
| competition"? Because columbian cartels think it means
| murdering your competitor along with his family. Is that
| too unrestricted for you? Okay, let's leave out murder.
|
| How about paying random people to leave bad reviews for
| your competitors. Or paying shops so they don't stock
| competitors products. Or agreeing with banks that your
| competitor should not get a loan. Or making a deal with
| railroads where they will only transport your product,
| and not your competitors? Because all of the above have
| happened. Is that "unrestricted"?
| smolder wrote:
| Anarchical, intervention-less markets are where cartels
| and monopolies form and destroy competition, and then
| there stops being anything free about it. By that strict
| definition of free markets, they are ephemeral, self-
| defeating things.
| billytetrud wrote:
| Government intervention is only needed to settle
| disputes. Governments are already constantly intervening
| by barring isps other than eg Comcast from building. That
| government intervention has to stop. Government enacted
| monopolies are what caused the problem in the first
| place. Yes government has to act to stop it, but probably
| at the state level.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| That's a fun idea, but we're well past that now. In
| reality, monopolies _do_ exist, and the government needs
| to step in to resolve the dispute the people in a given
| area now have with the monopoly for its anticompetitive
| practices.
|
| Also, infrastructure isn't easy to build and is
| oftentimes not even profitable. Are you suggesting only
| places where an ISP can make money should have Internet
| access?
| billytetrud wrote:
| ISPs are _government-granted_ monopolies. It 's so
| disappointing how many people here don't seem to
| understand that. Look up regulatory capture and then down
| vote me...
| fouric wrote:
| The ISPs got into a monopoly position due to government
| intervention, yes. That was a mistake. Unfortunately, now
| that we're in this position, it's too late, we're stuck,
| and we need the government to get us back out -
| "activation energy", so to speak, to get us over the
| energy barrier from our current high-energy position (ISP
| monopolies) to a low-energy position (competitive
| market).
|
| Ideally, at that point, the government would then step
| back and merely enact rules to keep the market fair and
| competitive.
|
| Whether that _actually_ happens is another matter. My
| prediction is that the past trend of the government never
| letting go of power that it has acquired will continue.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Yes, but the granting of monopoly status already
| happened, that part is over. You can't unring that bell,
| is my point.
| takeda wrote:
| Actually government intervention is the only way to solve
| it.
|
| The problem is that in a city there's limited space to run
| the wires to each home.
|
| Also if you want to have 10 competitors is really silly to
| expect having 10 fiber optic cables going to every home
| when majority of people wouldn't use more than one ISP at
| the time. Then 9 fibers will be then unused and degrading.
|
| When Internet was reclassified to Title II, Wheeler
| specifically excluded Title II's provision that required
| existing ISPs to lease their infrastructure to competitors.
| Back in late 90s, early 2000s we had tons of ISPs to chose
| from, exactly because of that provision.
|
| This needs to change if we want to get competition back.
|
| Or we would need cities to build such infrastructure which
| is even harder and more expensive thing to do.
|
| Either way it requires government intervention.
| kevincox wrote:
| In Canada the network owners are also required to lease
| the infrastructure to other operators but the situation
| is similar (although IIUC not quite as bad).
|
| It seems to me that city-owned is actually the best
| option in this case. If it is optimal to have one set of
| infrastructure than it makes sense to have that
| infrastructure owned by the city which operates for the
| common good. As much as I am hesitant to trust the
| government to run the network I have no issues with my
| water or electricity utilities and the prices seem quite
| fair.
| jollybean wrote:
| Owning 'infrastructure' is a different than being service
| provider.
|
| I actually would strongly support municipalities owning
| the last mile as part of their services, but I'm less
| interested in them actually providing service.
|
| The problem is the monopoly still exists. My father lives
| in a small town ironically with a tiny little ISP not
| owned by one of the majors. But the water - they pay $200
| a month for water (!), because they are making major
| expansions to the water stations to support new building.
| The town council was pushed to do this by the builders
| with a lot of wining and dining. So the local, fairly
| poor townspeople are paying ridiculous rates. Since
| amalgamation, the town does not have it's own mayor, they
| do 'regional' groupings, so the individual town can't
| punt the program.
|
| Due to monopoly situation in the town, the townspoeple
| are stuck paying massive rates to subsidize a rich
| builders exploits.
|
| These things are common and guaranteed to happen.
|
| The idea is to have some degree of socialization where
| absolutely necessary, and then to try to provide real
| competition on that infrastructure. If the construction
| and maintenance of the infrastructure can be competitive
| (like roads) then great. For electricity transport, it
| can become a problem, as the semi-private agencies that
| manage the electrical grid are often very inefficient.
|
| Every town should take control of the 'last mile gear'
| but I suggest your ISP actually should be one of many
| private players. Definitely more than the physically
| limited Choice of Comcast + 1 other.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > I actually would strongly support municipalities owning
| the last mile as part of their services, but I'm less
| interested in them actually providing service.
|
| Exactly. Municipalities should run fiber to the nearest
| meet-me room, and license at a defined rate to anyone who
| wants to light up that fiber.
| billytetrud wrote:
| Limited space? For wires? You know how small wires are
| right?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Individually? Sure.
|
| They add up, though. https://www.ecmweb.com/safety/media-
| gallery/20902083/crazy-w...
| majormajor wrote:
| Take away the government intervention and you take away
| the property easements that allow utilities to put up
| poles and run wires through yards, etc, to get to all the
| houses.
|
| Good luck with your "let everyone run their tiny wires
| wherever without the government being involved" plan.
| You've heard of NIMBYism, right? How many times do you
| think you'll be allowed to rip up the street?
| smolder wrote:
| In countries that are very light on regulation there (I
| think I recall Brazil having this) you'll see messes of
| Ethernet hanging around, with dead cables still present.
| Unsurprisingly, they do provide a lot of bandwidth for a
| small price, comparitively.
| takeda wrote:
| That's also how Romania is (or at least was) one of
| countries with fast and cheap internet.
|
| It started with the government telco not being interested
| in Internet. So people started running Ethernet cables,
| first to neighbors, then to other buildings. It started
| as having local networks to share files. Eventually those
| network got connected to Internet. If the price or
| quality of service provided is not satisfactory they can
| switch to another ISP. The bad part as you said is the
| huge number of ugly looking wires[1]
|
| [1] https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-many-internet-
| cables-on-la...
| zaphar wrote:
| For wires that need too run out in the elements around a
| quarter inch or higher, plus you need conduit, and backup
| wires. So about an inch or more with just naive napkin
| estimation. I'm probably underestimating it actually.
| Ekaros wrote:
| They probably won't share conduits, and probably just in
| case want more than one pair... So it does add up.
| blt wrote:
| > Conversely, the specter of governments operating broadband
| networks in competition with the private sector, or of state or
| local governments serving as both regulators and owners of
| competing broadband networks, could stifle investment or reduce
| private-sector access to capital.
|
| > Larry Irving, 2014
|
| Oh, no! Reduce private-sector access to capital? How will society
| continue?
|
| Seriously though, there is plenty of money to be made in private
| sector manufacturing and installation of networking equipment.
| The point of public internet is to place the infrastructure
| planning and the mediation of access under control of a body that
| is interested in long-term societal benefit instead of short-term
| profit.
| ouid wrote:
| I believe that the ISP monopolies are also interested in long
| term profit.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Sure, consequently they invest in lobbying instead of
| physical plant, it provides a better return on investment.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| But there's a way to do that: invest in infrastructure. If
| everyone in town offers 50/10 and you build out fiber for
| 1000/1000, you'll get customers from the other companies. But
| no one does that; they just don't compete.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If Comcast then offered 150/10 at a discount if you bought
| cable TV services from them, they could still compete
| favorably against municipal broadband for many households.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| _Conversely, the specter of governments operating water and
| sewage plants in competition with the private sector, or of
| state or local governments serving as both regulators and
| owners of competing water and sewage plants, could stifle
| investment or reduce private-sector access to capital._
|
| One shudders to think what Comcast Water and Sewage would be
| like.
| cure wrote:
| > One shudders to think what Comcast Water and Sewage would
| be like.
|
| It's funny, caps on Comcast Water and Sewage would be illegal
| in many states!
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| _Our records show that you've flushed your toilet more than
| 100 times this billing period. Each addition flush will incur
| an addition $10 /flush fee._
|
| _Thank you for choosing Comcast!_
| aksss wrote:
| Or you can opt for throttled flushes.
| sokoloff wrote:
| At least we could crap on them for a change.
| dv_dt wrote:
| I would say under-investment by private holders of last-mile
| infrastructure holds back a lot of other business sectors as
| well as quality of life for people in those cities. This from a
| city dweller who watched the mega telecom extract profits while
| installed infrastructure decayed to unusable in my last
| neighborhood.
|
| I recall getting sent technicians telling me, well they don't
| have enough diagnostic units to actually figure out this
| problem, but I'll switch you to another pair and you can see if
| that works - call us back if it doesn't.
| linsomniac wrote:
| In our area we had two choices: Copper cat-3 that was installed
| in 1971, or coax that was installed in the '80s. The first
| provider got billions of dollars of increased tariffs by
| promising to deliver fiber to the home by the year 2000.
|
| They had their chance to demonstrate they were interested in
| investing in the infrastructure.
|
| 3-4 months ago we got our municipal fiber connection, gigabit
| symmetric, no caps, and it's glorious! We can also get 10-gig,
| but that's $300/mo and I don't have the internal network to
| handle it.
| aksss wrote:
| This sounds exactly like the residential situation in my
| city, minus the happy ending.
| judge2020 wrote:
| It'd be nice if there were a registry of cities/companies
| with a 2 or 10 gigabit residential fiber offering. Google has
| 2gbit but (for Atlanta) it's only at specific apartment
| communities:
|
| https://fiber.google.com/2gig/
|
| https://fiber.google.com/cities/atlanta/#:~:text=Find%20a,Fi.
| ..
| legutierr wrote:
| This sounds great. Where are you? It seems like a promising
| place to open a business.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Bismarck AR and several surrounding communities have fiber
| through a Coop. They ran 12 strands to my wall. Plans only
| show 1Gb on their sales brochure. Maybe they don't have
| infra for 10G yet... I haven't bothered to ask.
|
| https://www.catc.net/services/internet
| linsomniac wrote:
| Much of the Northern Front Range of Colorado has this sort
| of setup rolling or rolled out: Longmont, Loveland, Fort
| Collins. I'm in the latter.
|
| I'm one of the earlier deploys, but they plan to have the
| whole city deployed in the next year-ish. My office is
| expecting to be built out in around 4 months.
|
| Pricing for residential is: $59.95 (landed) for gigabit
| (symmetric, no caps), or $299.95/mo for 10-gig. This is
| Internet only, they also have phone and TV.
|
| For businesses, the pricing is different: 250M/500M/1G is
| $99.95/199.95/399.95. Pretty much directly competitive with
| Comcast Business pricing we've been paying, but with much,
| much more outbound bandwidth.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Oh, no! Reduce private-sector access to capital? How will
| society continue?
|
| All that private sector access and 95% of people still have the
| same 3Mbps upload and slow latency as 20 years ago when cable
| broadband first came out in the US.
|
| Zero reason to not have fiber be delivered the same way as
| electric, gas, and water.
| gruez wrote:
| >Zero reason to not have fiber be delivered the same way as
| electric, gas, and water.
|
| ...provided by private companies? eg.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_Edison, https://en
| .wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Compa..., or
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Water_Works
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Utilities have government oversight. I'm not sure why they
| even bother with the distinction, since pricing and whatnot
| has to go through government approval. In contrast to
| internet, where Comcast and their peers can do whatever
| they want whenever they want.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| If we can have Comcast provide service and regulate is
| aggressively as we do power companies, that seems like a
| great deal to me.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Isn't Con.Ed. the one with the continuous transformer
| explosions because they cut maintenance to the bone?
|
| As far as I know in Berlin they are considering re-
| nationalizing the waterworks because the current owner
| fails to adequately maintain the infrastructure.
| [deleted]
| orliesaurus wrote:
| I remember some other HN user who started their own Fiber ISP and
| did a "show HN" a couple of years back. It was super insightful
| how they started as a moonshot project for their own benefit and
| the one of their community. Forgot your username (and even
| searching I couldn't find the specific thread) but if for some
| reason you read this I hope you're still successful!
| sangnoir wrote:
| Are you referring to
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24952040 ?
| cronix wrote:
| After reading many comments, I wonder why more people aren't
| looking into Space X's Starlink. Broadband speeds, no wired
| infrastructure, portable, no caps and $100/mo. It seems to be
| about $30 more/mo than most here are paying, but their broadband
| is tied to a physical location and not easily movable. Soon it
| will be mobile, as in dish corrects itself in realtime while
| driving a motorhome [1], etc. You can take them out in the middle
| of nowhere, as long as you don't leave your region, like I did 2
| weeks ago as a test in the Willamette National Forest in Oregon,
| 20 miles out on a logging road. Didn't even get 1 bar of cell
| service, but was watching movies on Netflix in 4k and even played
| a bit of COD. You can change your region with Starlink, but it
| takes a day or two as you have to call and tell them the "new
| address." It's all manual. They are working on a way to automate
| those requests via the web so they take minutes to change instead
| of hours or days, and when mobile comes out you probably won't
| need to do that either.
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2021/04/dishy...
|
| Laying fiber is expensive, and the more rural you go the more
| expensive it gets.
| afavour wrote:
| Part of the reason people are very excited by municipal
| broadband is the ownership part. No giant corporate entity
| standing between you and your internet connection.
|
| The connection being mobile is nice but it's not something I
| require from my broadband connection, I already have a
| cellphone. And I live in an apartment building where installing
| a dish will be all but impossible.
|
| Don't get me wrong, Starlink is amazing tech and in rural areas
| it'll be a huge deal. But in reasonably sized towns and cities
| a wired, locally owned internet connection is also huge.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| You just have extremely slow ass local government/regulation
| to deal with instead...
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| Which is better than an actively malicious oligopoly.
| afavour wrote:
| I'd argue that's one of the reasons municipal governments
| are the best place to do this. If you tried at the state or
| federal level it would be slow as molasses but cities can
| move quicker.
| iptrans wrote:
| Starlink is only an option for a very, very small portion of
| the population.
|
| The Starlink constellation has less total bandwidth than a
| single strand of fiber. It simply does not scale.
|
| Starlink only has permits for about a million terminals or so
| and they must be very careful in where and how many customers
| they sign up so as to not overwhelm the system.
|
| Elon himself has said that Starlink is only an option when you
| have no other options.
| INTPenis wrote:
| A little anecdote about municipal broadband in Sweden. Normally
| it's great and I love it. The ones I've seen have been run by the
| municipal real estate owner. They're the ones who build apartment
| buildings in a certain municipality but they're sometimes half
| privately owned.
|
| In my current hometown they branched off a separate private
| company to manage the broadband.
|
| Anyways, in a little town where I lived, a street of about 6-7
| apartment buildings banded together and contacted Telia first
| about digging fiber to their buildings.
|
| Telia gave them a disgusting deal which would have restricted all
| the tenants to the Telia ISP. They've done this before even in
| bigger cities where they sign a deal with one real estate company
| so all their buildings only have Telia.
|
| My SO at the time actually worked for Telia but she was a clever
| girl because she realized you could go directly to the municipal
| broadband and have them dig the fiber. That way all the tenants
| could choose from any ISP in the country and not be restricted to
| just Telia.
|
| This even raises the desirability of the building for young
| people who favour Bahnhof as ISP for example.
| pottertheotter wrote:
| A lot of the apartment complexes here on the U.S. have started
| doing these exclusivity deals with an ISP so you can only buy
| from one, even if more options exist in your market. The real
| estate owners make money off it.
| atlgator wrote:
| Chattanooga allegedly has 10GB municipal fiber.
| pottertheotter wrote:
| There's quite a few that do. Utopia, which covers several
| cities in Utah, has offered 10Gbps for 3 or 4 years.
| maxharris wrote:
| I moved to Tennessee recently, and we have municipal broadband
| from EPB. On the one hand, it's offered at a fair price
| ($68/month for a symmetric gigabit connection). On the other
| hand, they have been promising IPv6 support for years but have
| completely failed to deliver. Unfortunately the sales people are
| every bit as non-technical at EPB as they are anywhere else, and
| they don't seem to understand the issue at all.
|
| Does anyone else have the same experience, or is just EPB in
| particular that's bad on offering IPv6?
|
| Obviously, I still prefer EPB's service over that of Comcast,
| AT&T or Cox. I'm not complaining about municipal broadband in
| general. (I would like to see a NAT-free internet in my lifetime,
| that's all.)
| p1mrx wrote:
| It would be nice if municipal fiber just provided a dumb "layer
| 2" pipe to some nearby PoP where you can shop around for an ISP
| who knows how the internet works. Basically the dialup model,
| but 10000X faster. Then municipalities wouldn't have to worry
| about stuff like IP addressing and DMCA notices.
|
| The main disadvantage is that packets to your neighbors need to
| hairpin through the PoP instead of staying local, but that's
| probably not a big deal for residential traffic.
| xyst wrote:
| There's a municipal ISP in Chattanooga, TN that offers their
| residents gigabit internet at ~$68 per month. They even offer 10
| gigabit internet (symmetrical) to the home. These offerings blow
| the major ISPs out of the water, and even in some cases are on
| par with Google Fiber (at a cheaper price).
|
| The way the system is now, most areas/communities are only served
| by a single ISP. In the past 5 years of moving in the city, I
| have only had the choice of selecting Spectrum.
| aksss wrote:
| What are the financials behind this? I only ask because it's
| pretty damned expensive to build a network and then do the O&M.
| $68/mo sounds like very old broadband prices that were
| subsidized by revenue from other channels (bundling). Does $68
| get the city to a break even or is this running at a loss? Not
| criticizing, just curious how that pencils out - what true cost
| is.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| IIRC they ran fiber with the power lines in order to enable a
| smart grid. They realized they had so much spare bandwidth
| that they could sell internet service. Basically everyone
| with a power connection to EPB can get fiber internet?
|
| Brilliant move. I'm considering Chattanooga as a retirement
| location. Lots of outdoor recreation, no state taxes and I
| can supposedly get fiber internet anywhere I can get
| connected to the power grid? Sign me up!
| williesleg wrote:
| That's what I want more politicians snooping on my porn surfs
| asiachick wrote:
| American's infrastructure is crumbling
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/americas-infrastructure-is...
|
| Plenty of other article to reference on that.
|
| Why would we expect municipal broadband to be any different?
| Network tech jumps up speed every ~5yrs, unlike most other
| infrastructure that hasn't changed in decades.
|
| The current government sanctioned monopolies need to stop but I'm
| pretty confident that municipal broadband will being net negative
| in a few years as it kills commercial investment therefore
| leaving places that have it struggling to keep up with those that
| don't. See Korea, Japan, Singapore, etc... All have market based
| solutions. I expect in 5-10 yrs they'll be running terabit
| connections for VR or AR 3D video/telepresence and municipal
| broadband will be stuck only able to stream Netflix and take
| years to get the government to approve for upgrades.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Also American's current broadband providers are shit.
| vladmk wrote:
| It should be criminal for those behemoths to restrict people of
| internet. As I've said in the past internet is too common to be
| monopolized by these companies if anything they should seek to
| enhance internet for all vs constricting it.
| billytetrud wrote:
| Government run utilities like this look really good at the start.
| They naturalize existing infrastructure that was built privately
| and simply run it at lower cost. However they are really bad at
| investing in the future. 20 years down the line, municipal
| internet will likely be far worse quality and probably more
| expensive than private ISPs. Comcast and other Monopoly holders
| are evil, to be sure, but the answer is to take away their
| government granted Monopoly agreements, not to have state run
| internet services. Governments are not good at running companies.
| Business simply isn't the business of government. I fear these
| municipal internet operations are very short sighted. The problem
| is that they'll look like they're working well for years and
| years until the infrastructure becomes outdated.
| ravedave5 wrote:
| This exact thing is occurring with existing private providers
| read the other comments about poor support in people's cities.
| So yes it will probably happen with municipal too, but at least
| the citizens can do something about it.
| billytetrud wrote:
| The best solution is for states to ban local municipalities
| from enacting monopolies of any kind. Municipal ISPs are fine
| as long as private ISPs are allowed to compete.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >The best solution is for states to ban local
| municipalities from enacting monopolies of any kind.
| Municipal ISPs are fine as long as private ISPs are allowed
| to compete.
|
| An even _better_ solution is for municipalities to own the
| last mile, then sell access to that last mile to private
| ISPs.
|
| This lowers barriers to entry, enables additional
| competition on price, bandwidth, service, etc. and provides
| a revenue stream to maintain, manage and upgrade the last
| mile infrastructure.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-04-28 23:00 UTC)