[HN Gopher] My multi-decade quest for rural broadband
___________________________________________________________________
My multi-decade quest for rural broadband
Author : mad_ned
Score : 198 points
Date : 2021-05-12 11:01 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (madned.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (madned.substack.com)
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| This is exactly why Starlink is poised to become a revolution for
| rural towns. For decades, just like this story tells,
| communication conglomerates have mixed with local town idiots to
| stop infrastructure roll-out. Starlink can expect millions of
| thirsty subscribers if they can pull off a broadband connection.
| EricE wrote:
| Starlink's problem is going to be capacity. Price it reasonably
| and everyone wants on - dial up modem will be speedy by
| comparison. Price it where you balance supply and demand and
| you don't get to play up the humanitarian universal access
| story.
|
| Fun times :)
| aantix wrote:
| Isn't the speed of light their only constraint?
| linsomniac wrote:
| Citation for the capacity problem? I'm skeptical because this
| sounds a lot like the speculation around DSL when it rolled
| out in my city back in 1997 (IIRC), and the "crosstalk
| killing throughput of the entire cable bundle" issues never
| seemed to come about.
|
| The real killer to the telco behind DSL seemed to be that
| they would never deploy DSLAMs in remote terminal boxes,
| because they didn't want CLECs to come in with their own
| DSLAMs to serve the rural areas, so if you weren't a couple
| miles from the fairly rare Central Offices, you were limited
| to 128Kbps IDSL (ISDN data-only) service.
|
| Then the just sat on their copper infrastructure while the
| world moved on past them with terrestrial wireless and cable
| modems.
|
| Their last gasp was a million dollars spent on advertising to
| oppose the municipal fiber network, along with the cable
| company, but the city is installing those lines as we speak,
| and it's glorious!
| raptor99 wrote:
| I know this is a tech site, and I am a tech guy. It seems the
| simple solution that would have avoided this entire story and
| situation: why didn't this guy just move elsewhere instead of
| trying to convince/force an entire town in which he never
| meaningfully contributed anything to pay money for something that
| most of them didn't really care for or want to begin with? I
| think the general attitude in the article is sickening.
| w4 wrote:
| The town government exists for the benefit and service of its
| residents. It is not a take it or leave it proposition. The
| author is a resident, and it is therefore entirely reasonable
| for them to petition the town government for some service, and
| ask that it be put to a vote. If the other residents in the
| town vote it down, no harm no foul, no one is forced to do
| anything. But if the residents vote in favor (and they did in
| this article, by an overwhelming _90%_ majority) then no one is
| "forcing" anyone to do anything. Everyone agreed to do it in a
| vote. It's how Democracy works.
|
| The majority of people won't bother with all of this, though,
| because it's hard. They will instead do what you suggest: pack
| up and move to somewhere that has the services they desire.
| That can kill a community over time. Indeed, people moving like
| you suggest has caused rural communities to whither and decay
| over the past decade, as people leave them for cities with more
| services and greater opportunities. It's not a desirable
| outcome, and the accessibility of town government to petitions
| like these doesn't hurt the community, it helps to protect it
| by keeping it responsive to its residents' needs.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I don't see why people should have to get involved in any
| way. They already pay their taxes. They shouldn't have to pay
| with their time and work as well. It's the government's job
| to figure out what people need and how to implement it.
| EricE wrote:
| lol - have fun waiting for the roast duck to fly into your
| mouth!
|
| BTW - this is why I hope to hell we never get the
| government involved in healthcare in this country (US). If
| you think screw ups around cable internet are fun, have fun
| trying to get decent health care in a timely manner. I have
| too many close friends who are vets and watching how the VA
| jerks them around is disheartening. If you think average
| citizens are going to rate any better - ha!
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > lol - have fun waiting for the roast duck to fly into
| your mouth!
|
| At this point I don't really expect much from the
| government. Honestly I wish they'd stop trying so hard to
| do everything. When company services suck at least I'm
| not forced to pay them every year.
|
| > this is why I hope to hell we never get the government
| involved in healthcare in this country (US).
|
| I have government health care in my country. Forced town
| meetings and everything. It's a huge mess. Poorly managed
| and lacking in resources. In some places you can't even
| wash your hands because there's no water. Politicians are
| so corrupt they steal money meant for COVID-19 vaccines
| and masks. Health insurance is still necessary for high
| quality care.
| EricE wrote:
| >At this point I don't really expect much from the
| government. Honestly I wish they'd stop trying so hard to
| do everything. When company services suck at least I'm
| not forced to pay them every year.
|
| Bingo - the crux of why government services often suck:
| because they can.
|
| Which is why if you don't want government to suck, you
| have to actively push on it from the outside. Most people
| can't be bothered to get involved so you get the freaks,
| charlatans and otherwise batshit crazy people driving the
| train - which further exacerbates the problem :p
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Which is why if you don't want government to suck, you
| have to actively push on it from the outside.
|
| The only reason they suck is their payments are
| guaranteed and they have no competition. If we get rid of
| this comfort, they'll have to stop sucking. Not that I
| expect this to ever happen.
| w4 wrote:
| How does the government determine what the people need if
| the people do not engage with it, and vice-versa?
|
| The government is not a foreign occupying power, and we are
| not its passive consumers. In the US the citizens _are_ the
| government, and the government governs with their consent.
| With this comes the responsibility to engage and spend our
| time every so often to ensure that the government runs to
| our satisfaction.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > In the US the citizens _are_ the government
|
| I remember a video of a US politician making a speech
| about how "we are not them". Probably referring to the
| fact the US government routinely does questionable things
| such as violating the rights of its own citizens in order
| to protect its own interests. Not sure what his name
| was...
|
| > and the government governs with their consent
|
| Not really. Consent implies the right to say no. US
| citizens can't just tell the US government they don't
| accept it. Governments use force to impose their rule so
| if citizens don't accept the government their only choice
| is armed insurrection.
|
| I've been told that the threat of insurrection against
| the government is a huge reason why americans enjoy their
| right to bear arms. Those who actually try it though will
| probably be labeled terrorists and everybody knows how
| the US treats terrorists.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better if people were in fact obliged to be
| involved? Once a quarter, everyone goes to meet everyone
| else in a hall, they have the issues presented, and then
| whoever wants to comment or volunteer can do so.
|
| I see it like organ donation. A lot of people would do it
| if were default-donate (like recent changes in the UK), but
| if you don't want to you can opt out.
|
| Likewise you would be forced to hear the issues, and then
| you can go home after if you don't care.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Wouldn't it be better if the government simply did it's
| job? They're supposed to take care of things like basic
| infrastructure so that people won't have to care about
| this stuff. Internet is part of infrastructure.
|
| Nobody wants to be forced to attend government meetings.
| People have better things to do. If the government can't
| do its job, then people should not have to pay taxes.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Assuming we are talking about the type of government that
| listens to what the governed want, how are we to ensure
| that happens without participation?
|
| The current way is very top-down, big-media heavy. "Hey I
| want to talk about healthcare" from the top leader.
| That's great if it's what people actually care about, but
| there might be other issues, esp local ones.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I don't know. How do corporations manage to know what
| people want? I don't see why governments can't do
| whatever it is that they do.
| mad_ned wrote:
| just for the record, yep I did think about moving, on more than
| one occasion. (I mentioned it in part 1, a little.) As for
| whether we were trying to force the town to do something only
| we wanted - it seemed like that to us at times for sure. But
| our belief was that having high speed internet service in town
| was something most people did want, not just us. and although
| we never built the system we thought we would, a very large
| majority did vote to create that muni system...
| akulbe wrote:
| I'm ready for the rest of the story, OP! :)
| mad_ned wrote:
| If you mean "Thin Pipe, part II" - its there. hackernews
| moderators did something weird - this original post and
| early comments were just part 2 of the story, since i had
| posted part 1 separately last week. they relinked this part
| 2 post back to part 1, which was the earlier stuff leading
| up to the municipal broadband part. but the comments for
| part 2 remain. anyway sorry for any confusion - direct link
| for part 2 is here: https://madned.substack.com/p/thin-
| pipe-part-ii
| dredmorbius wrote:
| FYI, mods do get actively involved in adjusting titles
| and links. I don't know what happened here specifically,
| but it may have been that they thought that 1) this
| submission was getting traction and 2) part 1 would be a
| better introduction to the story than part 2.
|
| Interventions are made with the quality of the site in
| mind.
|
| (I'm just another reader, but have had many interactions
| with mods as well as watching what they do and why.)
|
| Submitting Part 2 in a few days would probably be a good
| idea.
| gpm wrote:
| > for something that most of them didn't really care for or
| want to begin with
|
| The evidence in the article seems to support the opposite. The
| only actual vote (that was discussed in the article) showed
| that the majority _did_ want it.
|
| Moreover your role as an honest politician, is to figure out
| how to improve the average persons life and advocate for that
| position. That position is not always (and is in fact
| frequently not) a position of inaction.
|
| I highly doubt that the author (or anyone else, except perhaps
| someone running a municipal broadband contractor) has gone into
| municipal politics advocating for municipal broadband with the
| idea that it's going to be a direct net gain for them. As you
| suggest, the amount of time you have to put into it far exceeds
| your personal benefit. People like this almost always do it
| because they believe that this is the best course of action for
| the public good, not their own.
| orzig wrote:
| Agreed - the real mark of leadership (whether heroic or
| mundane) is when you're pushing to the next cliff's next
| handhold, not coddling the lowest common denominator.
|
| There exist disasters caused by self-dealing dressed up in
| aspirational language.
|
| But too often ignored is the silent, massive, and insidious
| weight of missed opportunity cause by cowardice dressed up in
| bureaucratic language.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| He'd lived there for 20 years, that should count for something.
| triceratops wrote:
| > an entire town in which he never meaningfully contributed
|
| FTA: "I had lived in this town for twenty years". That means 20
| years' worth property taxes and sales taxes, at the very least.
|
| > I think the general attitude in the article is sickening.
|
| Of trying to improve the town in which you've lived for 20
| years?
| Ciantic wrote:
| I didn't see it sickening. It seemed like a story from small
| town politics. What is neat that in the end they did get
| upgraded poles which lead to companies bidding for a service,
| and 90% of the city supposedly subscribed to Spectrum.
|
| Did they end up paying more than funding it with the taxes?
| Maybe.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >I think the general attitude in the article is sickening.
|
| Huh? Did you read both parts? (or the first part even?).
|
| I thought it worked out remarkably well.
|
| Our local small town has cohesive activist mafias, with a lot
| of overlap in membership, who are happy to make the city
| council's life hellish and have outsized power. I could write a
| much more crazy-making substack article.
|
| OTOH, the inevitable individual cranks that go to all public
| meetings in order to be heard don't seem to have much in the
| way of persuasive abilities.
|
| Remember that the next time you are trying to sell something in
| a company at a meeting. Go into the thing with a nailed-down
| ally or two who share talking points with you.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| Well first, "sickening" is a fighting, somewhat hyperbolic
| word. Second, I wouldn't call your attitude sickening, but I
| would call it unfortunately fatalistic. First off, politics
| happens one step at a time. Second off, if you read to the very
| end of the article, his efforts weren't completely in vain. At
| the end, the big providers came through and delivered some form
| of fiber, which let him sit with a very comfortable and
| serviceable 85 mb/s. Not a complete victory, but certainly a
| minor one.
| burlesona wrote:
| The guy lived in a small town for 20 years, and it's clear that
| he was a relatively private person. There's nothing wrong with
| being introverted / private / withdrawn etc.
|
| More to the point, when something came up that was meaningful
| to him, he stepped up and did a lot of work to try and make it
| happen, and in the end things did get meaningfully better even
| if not in the exact way the author had hoped.
|
| I think you severely misinterpreted this story.
| joncrane wrote:
| Anyone else find it kind of convenient that the town ended up
| paying for the upgrade to the telephone poles, which was the
| prerequisite for private companies to expand into the town, and
| then all of a sudden ran out of steam, setting up the for-profit
| cable company to swoop in and reap the benefits?
|
| I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist but the story dedicates so
| much time to the pre-planning, then all of a sudden trails off
| and glosses over the part where the initiative loses momentum and
| the private company ends up making money?
| mad_ned wrote:
| the unevenness of the level of detail in the story, especially
| the part at the end, is my fault. I did indeed gloss over it.
| You have in some senses an unreliable narrator, because I was
| not privy to what went on with the Municipal Light Plant
| decisions once the Broadband committee was dissolved and so
| cant go into as much detail. But my best guess here is that we
| got renewed interest from the cable companies once the poles
| were done (the poles had to be done, no matter what approach we
| took), and then when unrelated issues with the chosen build
| contractor came up, the Municipal Light Plant decided to go the
| private route. The makeup of that body was different that the
| Broadband committee, and maybe prioritized the cost/benefit of
| going the municipal route differently than us.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| I was told that in politics "never write what you can just
| say, and never say when you can just nod" .. in other words,
| many deals are certainly and purposefully not what they
| appear to be from written records. Its like a "first week on
| the job intro" fact, among political people it seems.
| [deleted]
| burlesona wrote:
| Speaking to US readers:
|
| The big takeaway here is how municipal politics works. There's a
| tiny number of people - largely volunteers - working on the
| issues that have a huge impact on everyone's daily life - and how
| much they deal with a very motivated and angry opposition all day
| long. The opposition size is never truly known, and the problem
| is it usually _feels_ enormous and is actually _tiny_. It is not
| unusual for big city projects to be shut down literally by the
| angry screaming of a dozen people.
|
| Lest you think this is just a small town thing, I have first-hand
| experience working in a local committee when I lived in Houston,
| and it was basically identical to what this author described.
|
| Care about our national housing shortage? In nearly every city
| there exists a small angry mob that works to block every
| development project, and this job tends to be loudest and
| angriest about middle to low income housing and apartments. If
| you want that to change, the single best thing you can do is show
| up to local meetings and say "I support this apartment building."
| Even better if you can mobilize a few friends. You would be
| shocked at how little it takes to have a big influence.
| rwmj wrote:
| One person in our village who happened to live next to the
| telephone cabinet had a campaign against the installation of a
| DSLAM which would have made the cabinet slightly larger. As a
| result the whole village couldn't get FTTC for a couple of
| years. The village is miles from the exchange and DSL speeds
| were really slow (1-2 Mbps on a good day). It was only resolved
| when our campaigner moved away.
|
| (Thankfully that was a few years ago, now I have FTTH, yay!)
| alistairSH wrote:
| To be fair, if it was that important to the rest of the
| residents, they could have bought him out, or offered up an
| alternate location for the DSLAM.
| codingdave wrote:
| To add to that, in the US, municipalities, school districts,
| and many other government entities fall under Open Records laws
| - the agendas for meetings must be published with enough
| advance notice that you can decide whether or not the decisions
| to be made at any given meeting are relevant to your interests.
| Check your local town's web site for where they publish the
| meeting notices and agendas.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Be aware that the actual recorded minutes can be amended to
| erase any mention of opposition, so you need to attend
| meetings and not just request the minutes.
| codingdave wrote:
| True, but if you are so mistrustful of your elected
| officials that you are worried about the paper trails they
| write, you should be more concerned with voting them out at
| the next election than watchdogging every document they
| post.
| parenthesis wrote:
| From a UK perspective, my mother was kind of complaining about
| a large boring task she was doing in relation to her local
| community council
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_council) of which she
| is a member.
|
| I asked her how long she's been on the community council (a
| long time) and suggested it might be someone else's turn, to
| which she replied that there isn't anybody else (there are
| other members, but they are few and old).
|
| So if this is typical, then if you are in the UK and care about
| / have strong opinions about what's right or wrong or needed in
| your local community: join you local community council.
| imgabe wrote:
| Very very true. In Washington, DC - not a small town by any
| standard - there were numerous, large multi-family development
| projects that were thwarted by a _single_ crank going to town
| meetings and making noise.
|
| Get involved in your local politics, people. It matters much,
| much more than whatever the NY Times and CNN are trying to get
| you riled up about.
| ehnto wrote:
| Bicycle infrastructure is routinely shot down by a handful of
| business owners.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| In my area they installed 100 foot bike lanes to nowhere to
| scam for federal transport funding.
| HarryHirsch wrote:
| Ah, yes, the old Boston Busing method. A patently
| ineffectual solution to a serious problem is implemented,
| so one side can point at it, saying "it doesn't work" while
| the other says "we did our best". The political class
| profits, while the best outcome for the citizens is no
| improvement.
| iso1631 wrote:
| business owners who want to benefit from the public paying
| for parking near their stores so they don't have to?
|
| It's amazing how socialist america is.
| ehnto wrote:
| That is typically the argument yes. The business owners
| feel that the meager street side parking is integral to
| their business, and that their business' needs are more
| important than that of the thousands of daily commuters.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Why not sell privitize the road space? City could auction
| it off to the highest bidder, perhaps as a lease.
| vel0city wrote:
| Some cities do sell street parking spaces as real estate
| deeds.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _The business owners feel that the meager street side
| parking is integral to their business_
|
| They're probably right. Have you ever tried to drop off a
| package at a UPS store that has no parking anywhere near
| it?
|
| Local businesses pay taxes and provide jobs. They are
| there on the street all day every day, while any commuter
| is there for a fraction of a second. Shafting them should
| be an obvious political non-starter.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Then the businesses should pay for customer parking. Why
| does that have to be socialized at the expense of
| everybody else?
|
| A commuter may only be at one point briefly, but, they
| pass through many points on their route to work. And they
| do it daily across the span of years. Multiplied by
| thousands of commuters.
| duggable wrote:
| As someone who just moved to a small town, I appreciate this
| insight. You've motivated me to take action. Thank you for
| sharing.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I agree with you but the other issue is the huge amount of
| pressure corporate concerns have. The regulatory capture game
| is strong. There are a lot of states that have passed laws that
| say it is illegal to run municipal broadband because of
| pressure from Comcast via campaign contributions. Everyone only
| cares about getting theirs. Very few public servants actually
| care about serving the public.
| nerdponx wrote:
| It seems to me that state laws like this can't be passed with
| strong opposition from municipalities. I imagine that it's
| harder to ban municipal broadband at the state level if a
| medium-size city already has municipal broadband, or has
| strong local support for it.
|
| Maybe there's some interesting political science research on
| this.
| gnopgnip wrote:
| That isn't really how it works. The cities don't have a say
| in the state level government. The state level senators or
| assembly members make the laws.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Yes, I know how it works.
|
| I'm not claiming that there is a formal legal obstacle
| here. I'm hypothesizing that a state government would be
| less interested in banning something which has popular
| support in a medium-size city in that state.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Utah's UTOPIA fiber network was already established, but
| blocked from growth for over a decade by incumbent
| lobbying. Conveniently the Wikipedia page has no mention of
| the Comcast and Qwest/CenturyLink meddling in Utah state
| and municipal politics that derailed funding and
| subscription.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Maybe. The municipalities have no money and some small city
| council has no leverage over a US senator. How can they
| compete against the bankroll of Comcast in court, PR, etc.
| ?
| dantheman wrote:
| The municipalities agree to these rules to subsidize
| those who live in unprofitable areas. Those people don't
| want to pay for the actual cost of their service, so the
| town grants a monopoly and subsidizes the cost for those
| who live in the outskirts.
| dbingham wrote:
| Can confirm. I live in a large town/small city (80k people,
| 140k in the county with 30k commuting in to the city) and this
| is exactly how every issue goes. I've been organizing around
| climate and sustainability, housing (affordability and
| density), economics, you name it and this how it all always
| goes.
|
| It's really hard, as one of those activists, to not burn out
| and get cynical. Those who have theirs, are quite comfortable
| with the way things are, and do not want the smallest amount of
| change are often also retired and have infinite time on their
| hands - which they can use to great effect to lobby local
| governments and organize with their friends.
|
| It's really hard to effectively organize against that among
| people who are trying to get themselves established in their
| careers, or who are starting/raising young families, or who are
| on the career grind. None of us have the time or energy to stay
| on a council meeting until 3 am every week.
|
| But we've finally gotten fed up to the point where we're
| starting to put together an organization that looks like a
| political party with in a political party (our city is a one
| party town so we have to operate with in that party). It will
| canvas and organize volunteers and build a database we can use
| to simply overwhelm that loud minority. It's going to be a fuck
| ton of work, and it may fall apart before it gets going, but
| this seems like the only way forward.
| alexose wrote:
| I think you've hit the nail on the head with regards to the
| "infinite time" problem. Time is the currency of local
| government, and those of us with other commitments simply
| can't go up against folks who make it their sole purpose to
| be loud at meetings.
|
| The only leverage we have is our greater numbers, which
| doesn't count for much if we don't organize.
| LanceH wrote:
| The government also tends to only operate during business
| hours without any care for anyone else.
| dv_dt wrote:
| That's where I think overwork at almost all levels of pay
| scales is an insidious negative on our lives but also as a
| side effect our governments too. Less socialization, more
| isolation, less goverment oversight and participation.
| matz1 wrote:
| Thats why goverment all over the world likes lockdown so
| much.
| giovannibonetti wrote:
| I Hope governments find a way to bring this conversations
| to the digital world, with some kind of voting scheme.
| This way, even people with scarce time can participate in
| important discussions.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This is definitely possible. Accela [1] [2] is a company
| that makes software for cities to administer their
| operations, and quite a few cities in the US use it.
| Login.gov [3] is available for identity proofing and
| authentication services to cities and local governments.
| It would be straightforward to implement a system where
| voting issues could be created, citizens notified (sms,
| email, or paper mailing with a QR code), and votes
| collected during a window of time. I'm aware of the
| significant infosec challenges online voting is up
| against, but I do believe headway can be made to enable
| broader citizen participation and equity in these issues.
|
| Tangentially, the NREL recently developed an app that
| streamlines the rooftop solar permitting process by
| integrating with the Accela city administration product.
| Permitting time has gone down from weeks to days (or
| sometimes minutes). [4] Progress is possible.
|
| [1] https://www.accela.com/
|
| [2] https://developer.accela.com/
|
| [3] https://www.gsa.gov/blog/2021/02/18/logingov-to-
| provide-auth...
|
| [4] https://www.utilitydive.com/news/nrel-solar-app-
| rooftop-resi...
| notJim wrote:
| One simple thing governments are doing is reaching out to
| people with surveys and stuff, rather than relying only
| on the people who come to them. There are a lot more
| people who can spend 15 minutes filling out a survey on
| their phone than there are who can spend hours on a
| weeknight waiting to testify at a meeting. Around me, the
| government buys Instagram ads and sends out mailers to
| show off new bridges they're working on, and gather
| opinions, among other things. It's not perfect, but I
| think it's a step in the right direction.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Same here, I'm in a ~90K town on the outskirts of the Bay
| Area, and there is a proposal to build a handful of
| "affordable apartments" in the downtown area. I get the
| feeling that most people are apathetic, maybe slightly for
| it, since more housing is probably, in the balance, good for
| the Bay Area. But, man, the few people against it are
| _really_ against it, they are organized, retired (so they
| have infinite time to fight it), have seemingly infinite
| funds, and are really, really angry. If you just looked at
| the surface, you 'd think it was a huge angry mob. But, it's
| actually the same tiny group of people writing their letters
| to the local paper and attending the council meetings over
| and over. They are very good at projecting strength and
| amplifying their message through various media. If I was
| actually passionate about building affordable housing, I
| would definitely burn out and get cynical, having to face
| this every time.
|
| It works exactly like this all the way up from local through
| to federal politics. We Can't Have Nice Things in
| democracies, because of a small number of people willing to
| commit their entire souls, lives and money to some niche
| cause that's a net-bad, and they won't quit, even after
| losing 50 times. All it takes is that 51st time, and they'll
| definitely be at the fight.
| mikem170 wrote:
| > But, it's actually the same tiny group of people writing
| their letters to the local paper and attending the council
| meetings over and over.
|
| > We Can't Have Nice Things in democracies, because of a
| small number of people
|
| I wonder if this is more a problem with representational
| government. In a democracy there would be no council to
| influence, instead everyone would have an equal vote on the
| issue.
| mountainboy wrote:
| A democracy is two wolves and a chicken deciding what to
| eat for dinner.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Counterargument: the problem is not the form of the
| government. Rather, the problem is that the government
| has a say in whether you can personally construct a
| building on "your own" land.
| mikem170 wrote:
| My comment was more directed towards the generic problem
| of a small (loud? rich?) minority having undue influence
| over the local representatives who decide on issues.
|
| I personally would tend to agree with you on the specific
| issue we were talking about. I'm personally a fan of the
| way Japan does zoning, which allows for growth (more
| height and more retail) when the population density grows
| (industrial separate).
|
| The documentation I had showed that the Swiss set the
| principals for zoning at a federal level, and zoning is
| actually administered at the most local municipality
| level.
|
| I'm not sure of the Swiss implementation details. But in
| my ideal world that would mean a Japanese style zoning
| principals at the federal level, administered locally. A
| municipality can decide where they want industrial areas,
| and how to tax for their infrastructure, but local NIMBYs
| would have no power over what can be built on a specific
| plot (the federal principals would control that).
| bluGill wrote:
| It is worse in a democracy. In a representative system
| you only need to find one person who shows up for a bunch
| of like minded people. In a democracy you personally need
| to show up every meeting not matter what else might go on
| in your life. There are some small town democracies where
| the meeting starts, does good business, but nobody will
| agree to adjourn for the night, when the people with
| things to do the next day go home the remainder just
| revote everything that happened earlier in the night,
| this time getting it to go their way. As a resident you
| have to stay the whole meeting to stop that - even if it
| means you will be fired for falling asleep at work the
| next day.
| mikem170 wrote:
| In a democracy everyone needs to vote. Which can be at
| the polls. Why do you assume that everyone needs to sit
| in on every legislative session? It could be that way,
| but I don't see where it has to be.
|
| There's a lot of ways to be democratic. For example,
| perhaps our block elects a representative to attend
| council meetings, who will inform our group on issues in
| front of council, maybe someone else contributes with
| some extra research, etc, then we decide how our block
| will vote in council. Just one of many possibilities.
| bluGill wrote:
| The devil is in the details. The only democracies I know
| of are in person meetings, though you are correct there
| are other ways.
|
| The problem is how to get people to think about the
| issues? Too many fail to realize the unintended
| consequences of their vote. Too many vote for what they
| think is popular not what is right.
| dbingham wrote:
| I think it would still be a problem, but a lesser one. A
| loud minority can still influence a majority. But it's
| harder.
|
| The thing with direct democracy is that we'd really need
| to implement like a 20 hour work week to make it work.
| Everyone would need to find the time to get up to date on
| all of the issues. Or you'd end up with a minority of
| people who happen to know and care about each issue
| controlling that issue... which maybe that's okay,
| actually.
|
| It would be really interesting to see how a true direct
| democracy behaved at the government level. I've seen it
| work at the level of a workplace or a housing
| cooperative. And it does work, it's effortful, but it
| works. But I dunno if it's ever really been tried at the
| level of a government.
| DylanDmitri wrote:
| I've wondered if you can get a system where groups of
| 20-30 people (so extended family, maybe a group of
| friends, parents at a school) appoint one of their
| members to research issues and vote on their behalf. I
| already do this by default, deferring on most local
| decisions to my friend who's really into politics.
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Liquid Democracy is a quirky concept that would probably
| resolve the problem you're describing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_democracy
| oftenwrong wrote:
| There is a candidate for mayor in NYC that is running on
| a direct democracy platform:
|
| https://www.seidmanformayor.com/
| mikem170 wrote:
| Could be that a lesser amount of people negotiate on an
| issue, which then gets voted on by everybody? I agree
| that the voters would need more time to learn about the
| issues they are voting on, but not everyone needs to be
| involved preparing an issue for a vote.
|
| Switzerland has a lot more democracy than any other
| western government that I know of. Switzerland is a
| federation of cantons, each averaging 300k people, each
| with it's own constitution and parliament, collecting its
| own taxes, administering its own health care, even
| entering into certain treaties with other countries, etc.
| Each canton is subdivided into municipalities, some as
| small as a few thousand people, that decide more local
| issues including police, schools, etc. Divide and
| conquer, so that people can decide things for themselves.
| The magic seems to be that the people, via referendum,
| can add and/or delete laws they don't like [0]. So they
| have representatives but the people have ultimate direct
| power over them. Higher levels of government are involved
| only where necessary, for issues involving multiple lower
| levels of government. Seems to work well for them.
|
| Many people seem to believe that government needs to be
| big to be effective. The opposite may be the case, as
| Leopold Khor convincingly argues [1], that "bigness" is
| the cause of many problems.
|
| [0] https://wolf-linder.ch/wp-
| content/uploads/2010/11/Swiss-poli...
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaszpQaNwAU
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The magic seems to be that the people, via referendum,
| can add and/or delete laws they don't like.
|
| This is also true of California; that's not the magic.
| I'd say identifying bigness as the problem is much more
| on target.
| mikem170 wrote:
| The document on Switzerland said that at a federal level
| the ability of the people to remove laws forces
| representatives to proactively compromise with possibly
| offended groups of people before passing a law, knowing
| that enough signatures could force a vote to stricke any
| given law (I believe that a double majority is required
| to keep any a federal law, something about a majority of
| people in a majority of cantons). Similar powers exist at
| the local levels, also.
|
| I would think that this would tend to force issues that
| are not agreed upon down to a more local level, which
| doesn't sound like a bad thing.
|
| However I do not disagree with you that the scale
| California often operates at may be too large.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The document on Switzerland said that at a federal
| level the ability of the people to remove laws forces
| representatives to keep this in mind and compromise with
| possibly offended people before passing a law, knowing
| that enough signatures could force a referendum requiring
| a double majority to pass or the law may be stricken by
| the people (something about a majority of people in a
| majority of cantons, I'm a little fuzzy on that from
| memory).
|
| I don't understand what you're trying to say. This is
| also true of California. (Well, not the part about
| representatives worrying about it, but all that that
| demonstrates is that the claim you repeat is not true.
| The ability of the people to remove laws isn't forcing
| representatives to do anything.)
| mikem170 wrote:
| I was adding more info about Switzerland's referendums,
| as compared to California's. Maybe I did not understand
| your comment on California.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| We have the claim:
|
| > The magic seems to be that the people, via referendum,
| can add and/or delete laws they don't like.
|
| I'm saying that this cannot be the magic, because this
| state of affairs obtains in California, and it does not
| have the results which are, in Switzerland, ascribed to
| it. Those results do not come from this; they come from
| something else.
| mikem170 wrote:
| I agree that my use of the word "magic" there was over-
| enthusiastic. The preference for local governance in
| Switzerland is a key factor, as you pointed out.
| mprovost wrote:
| An option that Kim Stanley Robinson explored is his
| novels is a kind of draft/jury service model where voters
| are randomly selected to serve in government. Sometimes
| for a whole term, but you can also imagine something like
| jury service where a group is brought together to decide
| a single issue. They would have the time to hear both
| sides of the arguments, make a decision, and then
| disband.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| This is actually how Athenian democracy worked.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Select
| ion...
| watwut wrote:
| Yes, but the citizens were only subset of population and
| the city was smaller then current states.
|
| It is quite possible that it would not scale to larger
| population and general voting rights.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Sure, I was just addressing my parent comment's proposal
| and providing more context.
|
| I don't really care for it, although I will have to say
| it would probably work better in the case of opaque
| public bodies very few people vote for elections in (e.g.
| a local American school board)
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >our city is a one party town so we have to operate with in
| that party
|
| I think that matters less than you might think.
|
| Most decisions of any import are done by city and county
| staff, a few by appointed organizations like planning
| commissions (usually filled with yet more activists, each
| with their own activist kink), and finally an elected
| official(s) who spends most of their time handing out awards
| and declaring civic festivals.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > Care about our national housing shortage? In nearly every
| city there exists a small angry mob that works to block every
| development project, and this job tends to be loudest and
| angriest about middle to low income housing and apartments.
|
| Somewhat tangential story, but I thought it was interesting in
| this context.
|
| A former landlord in NYC told me a story where some local
| community board was required to approve a new 3-story apartment
| building with some kind of public/community space on the first
| floor, which was replacing a couple old 2-family homes.
|
| There were two groups in opposition: the "old white men" who
| own property in the area, and the young DSA board members who
| stuck to their hard line of "no new development". Apparently
| the old white men didn't always get their way in the past, but
| their new coalition with the hipster socialists was enough to
| block the development.
|
| Said landlord had lived in the area for ~40 years so he was
| pretty annoyed at the blockage of what he saw as necessary and
| beneficial development, that (IMO) was also perfectly in-
| character with the area. Then again, the same landlord was
| strongly in favor of the Amazon deal in Long Island City.
|
| Axiom: "all politics are local". Theorem: "local politics are
| more important than you think". Corollary: "if you care about
| improving other people's lives, get involved in local
| politics".
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| A few years ago (pre trump election) I took an uber with a
| driver who was very engaged in politics. I cared a lot at the
| time and we had an interesting discussion about national
| politics. Then I asked him about Chicago and Illinois
| politics (where we were) and he said he didn't follow local
| politics.
|
| I was shocked. While Trump getting elected certainly impacted
| that persons life, their actual ability to make change in
| their community would be far more impactful if they focused
| on the local level.
|
| But local politics do not provide as much fun political us vs
| them talk which is what it feel like most people actually
| enjoy about politics.
| EricE wrote:
| The focus on national politics by the media and both
| parties is the greatest scam perpetuated by an
| (unfortunately) all too willing populace.
|
| As the old saying goes, All politics are local. And the
| last four years in particular have been a huge wake up call
| to me that I need to get WAY more interested and involved
| in local politics.
|
| Utter BS like critical race theory would never get a toe
| hold in our schools, for example, if people paid attention
| at all to what was going on in their literal back yard. In
| one way COVID and kids attending school remotely has been
| hugely beneficial in that a lot of people have started to
| pick up on the utter garbage being routinely foisted on our
| kids.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Consider that some people pick up critical race theory
| _because of_ what they see in their literal back yard.
| andorxor wrote:
| Some things really can't be changed on the local level.
| Take forced arbitration in contracts for example. This
| was made possible by a federal law passed in the 1920's,
| and further cemented by a series of supreme court rulings
| in the past couple of decades. No amount of desire or
| political will by individual states can ban the practice.
| The federal law trumps all, and this must be changed at
| the national level.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Sure. There are a large number of items that are national
| law that can have great change. But the average persons
| ability to impact those things is very very very small.
| The average persons ability to impact their own local
| politics and make change is much much much larger than
| many think.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Utter BS like critical race theory would never get a
| toe hold in our schools, for example, if people paid
| attention at all to what was going on in their literal
| back yard.
|
| The toeholds would still be there. This stuff seeps into
| schools because it is taught in university education
| departments, which provide required credentials for
| schoolteachers. If people paid attention to what was
| happening in their backyard, none of that would change.
|
| But if people paid attention to their local schools, they
| might do a better job preventing educational fads from
| growing in them.
| nerdponx wrote:
| As far as I can tell, it seeps into schools because well-
| intentioned educators are seeking an alternative to the
| failed program of "colorblindness" which persisted for
| decades and raised generations of privileged people who
| think racism was eradicated in the late 1960s. And young
| people are themselves actively interested in repudiating
| and reversing the mistakes of their elders.
|
| Maybe it's an extreme reaction. Critical race theory is
| certainly an extreme way of looking at the world if you
| take it literally and not as a thought experiment. But I
| just see it as a swing of the pendulum. I wish people
| wouldn't get "canceled" over it, but I don't think it's
| the slippery slope to Maoism that people seem to think it
| is.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| > This stuff seeps into schools because it is taught in
| university education departments, which provide required
| credentials for schoolteachers.
|
| Dont states give certifications for teachers, not
| colleges/universities?
| alistairSH wrote:
| Why were the young liberals against an apartment building?
| That sounds way out of character, unless what they really
| wanted was an even taller (and more affordable) apartment
| building.
| fossuser wrote:
| See this: https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-left-nimby-
| canon
|
| There's a new form of NIMBYism that's pretty extreme and
| comes from the left.
|
| The only group interested in building housing seems to be
| the neoliberals/moderates/center - people that believe in
| markets/supply and demand?
|
| The politics around this stuff is a mess. I wish there was
| just a way to incentivize building.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > neoliberals/moderates/center
|
| The only groups interested in building extremely dense
| housing in medium-density residential neighborhoods are
| large property investors and people who believe that the
| price of housing is due to a lack of supply rather than
| property being used as a place to park money in a low-
| interest rate environment.
| kube-system wrote:
| The reason that property is a good place to park money is
| precisely because of the restricted supply and reliable
| demand.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Thanks! I wasn't thinking of opposition to
| gentrification/displacement.
|
| We hear similar arguments in DC, but they tend to come
| from current residents, who are often Black or other PoC,
| and not traditional (young, white) liberals.
|
| Related anecdote: After gentrification, DC gets some
| interesting side-effects... there are several
| "neighborhood" churches where most of the congregants
| live 30+ minutes away in the suburbs, due to being priced
| out of the local rental market. And these church-goers do
| everything in their power to block bicycle lanes
| downtown, because they need the street-side parking for
| the church.
| EricE wrote:
| "gentrification" is just a way for people to be NIMBY
| while feeling noble at the same time. It would be pretty
| freaking hilarious if it didn't harm so many people -
| especially those at the lower end of the housing
| spectrum.
|
| It's the ultimate in selfishness "I'm secure with my
| affordable housing - screw everyone else" :p
|
| Two things can be true at the same time - you can be
| economically disadvantaged and also be a selfish asshole
| too. I'm so sick of people giving groups a total pass on
| not being toxic, selfish assholes because they also are
| also part of a "protected" class.
| alistairSH wrote:
| I didn't give anybody a pass. :shrug:
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN?
| We're trying for a different sort of conversation here.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| fossuser wrote:
| I don't think it's the building that creates
| gentrification - it's the lack of supply. Increasing
| supply to meet demand should reduce prices. Not building
| to keep housing crappy enough to reduce demand doesn't
| work (and doesn't everyone prefer to live in a nicer
| place?).
|
| If that fails they fall back on generic environment
| arguments, "taking down any building is bad for the
| environment".
|
| I think it's all just status quo bias and resistance to
| change, resistance to building.
|
| All of the arguments that come after that are driven
| entirely by motivated reasoning. If you lean left it's
| the left nimby canon, if you lean right it's the right
| version of that.
|
| I just want more housing supply.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _I don't think it's the building that creates
| gentrification - it's the lack of supply. Increasing
| supply to meet demand should reduce prices._
|
| Over long enough time-spans and large enough areas of a
| city, I agree. But, that doesn't change the impact on
| individuals who get priced out of their specific
| apartment (where that apartment was rented below market
| because it was run-down, and was replaced with a market-
| rate apartment).
|
| Which isn't to say its right/correct that the individual
| can potentially block development to the detriment of the
| city as a whole. We would all be much better off with a
| different approach to zoning/development.
| fossuser wrote:
| > "where that apartment was rented below market because
| it was run-down, and was replaced with a market-rate
| apartment"
|
| I'm going to be a little pedantic, but I think we're
| mostly in agreement. A rundown apartment is not priced at
| 'below market' - it gets the price the market supports
| which is just lower than a nice place that more people
| want. That demand still exists, it just prices up other
| stuff even higher.
|
| In a restricted supply environment that price will still
| be very high, it just won't be as high as a place that's
| actually nice (which will be even higher). It's why awful
| places in Palo Alto are worth $2M (see:
| https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-
| Blvd-94306/hom... - in case that link goes away it's a
| basically condemned house for $1.7M next to train tracks.
| It's dirty and they didn't even clean up before taking
| pictures.)
|
| I'll concede that if you replace crappy housing with
| nicer housing (and don't increase the number of units
| overall) some of the demand that wouldn't consider it
| before now will so the market price goes up (and the
| market price of other fancier housing likely reduces a
| bit).
|
| > "Which isn't to say its right/correct that the
| individual can potentially block development to the
| detriment of the city as a whole. We would all be much
| better off with a different approach to
| zoning/development."
|
| In total agreement here - I wish there was a way to align
| incentives such that we built a lot more housing. It'd be
| cool if there was a way to have people have vested
| interest in a city's success rather than their own home
| asset price via scarcity. Maybe a way for people to
| recognize increased city GDP directly or something? I'm
| just making stuff up, but clearly the current set up
| causes a lot of problems.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Yep, we're in agreement.
|
| _I 'll concede that if you replace crappy housing with
| nicer housing (and don't increase the number of units
| overall) some of the demand that wouldn't consider it
| before now will so the market price goes up (and the
| market price of other fancier housing likely reduces a
| bit)._
|
| This is the crux of the problem. There is just so much
| pent up housing demand that the market is totally out-of-
| kilter and below-average units get replaced with above-
| average units. And even if that nudges the average down
| marginally, the residents of the below-average units are
| now priced out of town.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _Increasing supply to meet demand should reduce prices._
|
| That is the argument and the desire. Have any cities ever
| proven that it's true? My experience has universally been
| that prices go up indefinitely, until the local economy
| dies and there is no money left to pay the rent.
| fossuser wrote:
| Tokyo and Singapore come to mind - it requires proper
| incentives to be in place.
|
| The US is a mess given the incentives towards home
| ownership as an investment. The Bay Area and California
| make this incentive worse with Prop 13.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| I don't have a link to hand but I remember reading that
| rents in Seattle dropped after they started approving
| more rental buildings.
|
| If 10,000 yuppies move to town and 1000 apartments' worth
| of old buildings are torn down to build new apartments
| for them, then 1000 people are displaced. But consider
| the alternative: if 10,000 yuppies move in and no new
| housing is built, they'll bid up the price of run down
| old buildings until nobody else can afford them, and
| 10,000 people are displaced.
| nerdponx wrote:
| For what it's worth, they'd chafe at the term "liberal".
|
| I think their idea is that development inevitably means
| gentrification, so they are opposed to development in order
| to stop the advance of gentrification.
| tbihl wrote:
| >Care about our national housing shortage? In nearly every city
| there exists a small angry mob that works to block every
| development project, and this job tends to be loudest and
| angriest about middle to low income housing and apartments. If
| you want that to change, the single best thing you can do is
| show up to local meetings and say "I support this apartment
| building." Even better if you can mobilize a few friends. You
| would be shocked at how little it takes to have a big
| influence.
|
| The flip side of this is that building middle- to low-income
| housing shouldn't be much of a thing. If there were enough
| development, the low-to-middle income housing would be the
| small units with the bad views and the laminate counters and no
| dishwasher and creaky floors, which is to say the older stuff
| that wasn't seriously maintained. Constrain supply and new
| construction enough, and all that stuff is intensely maintained
| because building new is not an option.
| huevosabio wrote:
| > Constrain supply and new construction enough, and all that
| stuff is intensely maintained because building new is not an
| option.
|
| Anecdotally, from San Francisco, my experience is the
| opposite. Most units are in terrible conditions, barely
| painted over. There is no incentive for landlords to put
| extra money on the place, it will not increase the price at
| which it will rent.
|
| You end up with high income people moving into shitty
| housing, middle income moving to the outskirts and low income
| people moving to the streets. Only the landlords win.
| zamfi wrote:
| > There is no incentive for landlords to put extra money on
| the place, it will not increase the price at which it will
| rent.
|
| Oh, it definitely will. The well-maintained places rent for
| astonishingly crazy amounts, which is why most people don't
| see them.
| dantheman wrote:
| It's always someone trying to get someone else to subsidize their
| lifestyle.
| gitowiec wrote:
| It is sad that the author and his family were excluded from the
| reliable and fast internet connection. Knowing that other places
| have good internet connection could bring frustration on them. I
| never was in such situation with the Internet but, I can
| sympathize. Now I am also in exclusion. In my country there is
| lack of good quality and performance laptops. I don't understand
| (it must be money) why only lower end laptops (bad displays, low
| quality cases, mostly plastic, lower end CPUs) are sold here in
| Poland. I feel excluded from the tech I always was a geek
| follower and a user (developer). Companies selling hardware
| prioritize markets with bigger purchasing powers. But it was not
| so visible back in the day.
| imgabe wrote:
| This gave me flashbacks to my own Internet struggles as a
| teenager in rural Pennsylvania in the 90s. AOL was exciting and
| new, but the nearest dial-in number was in the large town ~30
| miles away, which meant it was a "long-distance" phone call. My
| parents were not happy with that $700 phone bill.
|
| Internet was carefully rationed after that, at least until our
| small town got its own local ISP.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| in France we solved that problem by requesting anyone laying down
| fiber to allow any other operator to use it.
|
| You get some benefits from laying down the cable (enough to make
| you want to do that) but then companies compete for the customer.
| The regulation authority puts a 3 months ban on offers when a
| cable is available to leave time for the interested companies to
| provide service.
|
| To some extend, the one who lays down the cable has some
| advantage as their logo is on the cable. They are also the ones
| who will always give you an offer after the 3 months period.
|
| this is how I moved forma a company I liked a lot (Free) to the
| one who brought the fiber (Orange) because they had an offer
| immediately. Free and others came 2 YEARS later and now they are
| surprised that they hardly get customers in the area.
| EricE wrote:
| Yes, I think this is by far the most equitable solution - for
| the privilege of getting right of way to lay cable, you should
| be forced to allow others to leverage the infrastructure too.
| Which is why so many companies fight it :p
| gjhr wrote:
| But that wouldn't have helped here. No companies wanted to lay
| down cable even when they would then get a monopoly on the
| customers in the town.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| That was also the case for some remote places in France. The
| deal was that a company can operate only if they also fiber
| low density places.
|
| This comes from the time where there was a monopoly on wired
| phones, but everyone was entitled to one, even if you were 10
| km away in your house over the cliff.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I've worked remotely for 20 years. Fortunately on DSL because I'm
| within 3 miles of my central office. Also a stockholder in the
| local phone company providing the service. Get 40MBit when I'm
| lucky; 1MBit when its busy.
|
| But they just buried a fibre optic cable down my gravel road
| ditch! Heading toward a small rural business that paid ~20K for
| the cable. And they offered to let me in on it!
|
| So fibre here I come. So far a rut next to my driveway and a coil
| of black plastic 'cable' hung next to my house's service box. But
| soon!
| crazy1van wrote:
| Is there a way to search for fiber optic cables nearby? Calling
| the local telco has always been a dead-end -- I can't get
| beyond the sales-rep who's computer shows fiber service isn't
| available at my location.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Local permitting / regulator's office should be a good place
| to start.
| wmil wrote:
| You'll get better results writing letters. As in actual
| formally written letters on paper sent in the mail.
|
| Written requests for information get handled better.
|
| Write to the telco, also write to your municipal and state
| government. Try to find the relevant office.
|
| Someone will get back to you with the info.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| No idea about bigger cities. I'm in a rural community, with
| 300 subscribers to our local telephone office. We can get
| service just by calling the manager.
|
| My grandfather was an initial stockholder in the company when
| it was formed. See, back then you bought a share, you got a
| line run to your farm. He needed the line so when the federal
| liquor tax man came into town, his friend could call and let
| him know. He'd throw the still in the wagon and head for the
| woods until the coast was clear.
|
| When I was a kid, we still had a wooden box on the wall with
| a horn coming out the front (microphone) and a cloth-covered
| wire to an earpiece hanging on the switchhook out the side.
| You took the receiver off and rattled the switchhook to get
| the operator's attention - a little light would flash on her
| board. Told her who you wanted, she'd plug you to them and
| operate the ringer crank.
|
| It's all automated now, and most of their revenue is cable
| services and internet. Plus fees for all traffic crossing our
| territory, which is between several middle-sized communities
| so that's a big deal. Amounts to some millions a year
| revenue! But not enough to install fibre until now.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| Walk around and look for the junction boxes in alleys and on
| road easements. Often they will be labeled as to what they
| contain.
| hyko wrote:
| Lack of universal infrastructure is an avoidable travesty caused
| by privatisation.
|
| What sort of country would have roads only going up to some
| select houses? A pretty shabby one.
| dd36 wrote:
| That was a well-written, fun read.
| a2tech wrote:
| So after all that, the city paid for new telephone poles out of
| their own pocket and then Charter was interested in running lines
| on them and charging the residents.
|
| So in the end, the city got the worst of both worlds--they spent
| a bunch of money on upgrading things only to let a private
| company become a defacto high speed monopoly in their town.
| mad_ned wrote:
| That is a valid way to look at it. I and probably a lot of our
| former Broadband committee would tend to agree with you.
| However, the last time I spoke with any of them was spring of
| 2020, to thank them again for their efforts - because I was
| thinking about how supremely screwed we all would have been
| going into Covid without high speed internet in town. I think
| all things considered now, they were more or less equally happy
| with our (imperfect) outcome as I.
| a2tech wrote:
| Hopefully the city was wise enough to not sign a monopoly
| agreement with Charter--my city owns our own poles and it
| allowed us to let in a small fiber ISP who's competing with
| ATT and Comcast (and I think winning handily). 1gpbs
| symmetrical Internet access for ~50USD/month. No caps.
| rayiner wrote:
| There's no such thing as a "monopoly agreement." Monopoly
| franchise agreements are banned under federal law. If you
| read one you'll see a provision that makes clear it's "non-
| exclusive."
|
| Providers end up with _de facto_ monopolies for two
| reasons:
|
| 1) Many places (like the one here) are marginal in terms of
| whether it's worth building anything at all. A second
| provider coming in is unattractive.
|
| 2) What's legal is build-out requirements, which force a
| provider to serve every (or nearly every) home in a town.
| That torpedos competition except in the largest cities,
| because a second provider can't just wire up the areas
| where it makes sense to overbuild.
| jjeaff wrote:
| As long as the city continues to own the polls and they can
| allow more than just one provider in the future, I think that's
| a win. They may have a defacto monopoly, but if they charge too
| much or provide too poor service, then someone else can start
| competing.
| gpm wrote:
| Without the town investing, it appears that wouldn't have
| happened at all. Without charter, it appears it would have cost
| the town more money (and money on an ongoing basis too).
|
| It's not obvious that this is the worst possible outcome, it's
| conceivable that it's the best possible outcome.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Except you are stuck with charter. There is no world in which
| charter is the best possible outcome. With a bit of luck,
| though, it is better than a 4g lte mvno
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Charter is better than nothing.
|
| In the real world you hardly ever get "best possible"
| because everyone has a different view on the defintion of
| that.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I have had charter, Comcast and others. Charter takes the
| cake for terrible service, technical and personal, in my
| experience.
|
| I was actually very pleasantly surprised by what i was
| able to do with a mvno over cell connection- OS updates
| and downloading VMs were really the only major pain
| points. Of course, I have since gotten fiber, which wins
| hands down.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Well don't take "better than nothing" at anything more
| than face value. I wasn't endorsing Charter.
| bsagdiyev wrote:
| Anecdotally I just moved from California to North
| Carolina and Charter (Spectrum now I guess) is actually
| doing all new builds with fiber, RFoG, out in this area.
| Seems to be leaps and bounds more reliable.
|
| So their reliability might depend on the locale.
| driverdan wrote:
| Good story, thanks for sharing Ned.
|
| What's funny is that I know where this took place because I grew
| up in a neighboring town. I recognized it by the wind turbines
| and mountain. My parents still live there and you may have worked
| with my dad at DEC.
|
| We had many of the same problems. Their phone lines run
| underground and still have terrible noise when it rains. The
| fastest dialup speeds we could get were in the low 20kbit range.
| They're too far out to get DSL. Cable was available elsewhere in
| town but not on their road because the power lines came in from
| the neighboring town.
|
| Eventually enough people built houses on their road to put in
| poles, cable, and even some pavement. They didn't have to suffer
| through the issues you had.
| EricE wrote:
| https://members.wispa.org/members/directory/search_bootstrap...
|
| WISPA also has a great advocacy section - if you want to see more
| choices in broadband support them in any way you can!
| metalman wrote:
| Hey wow and ya. My choices for conectivity are dial up,ok
| ok,enhanced dial up, satelite which no one has,internet over cell
| ,via dongle or turbo hub and just a phone with data,which I use
| and can live with and some sort of wireless rural broadband that
| can not handle two users in the same house,and the antena looks
| funny. Litteraly next door is a huge horsey property that was
| bought site unseen by a sofware engineer startup guy and his
| young family and then they discovered no internet,could not move
| in,bad,real bad. Exactly the sort of people who are needed in
| struggling rural places. We got eagles and whales in the bay
| ocean front and views for days. They are unrolling the fibre now
| closer to town,dont think its going to make it this far out,which
| is fine,data has gotten affordable and having one device or two
| (phones) is easyer. If they do run the fibre out here I am going
| to crunch the numbers and see if running a bit miner off solar
| power and recovering the heat in a hot water pre heat tank can
| earn its salt.
| EricE wrote:
| You may have more options you didn't know about:
| https://members.wispa.org/members/directory/search_bootstrap...
| bel_marinaio wrote:
| ITT some guy that lives out in the country complaining that he
| can't get the same amenities as much higher density population
| areas.
| sumanthvepa wrote:
| Here I am in far away India, marvelling at how similar politics
| is in every place. Local politics at the community level in our
| town is remarkably similar.
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| Makes sense. Politics is just the study of power and a
| political system is just a codified process for transferring
| and leveraging power, but it's all based on human nature which
| is universal.
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