Municipal Networks as Alternative to Commercial Broadband? 291
"Universally, it seems, people get better service and prices when such networks are implemented. It also forces telecom companies operating in the area to offer better service and prices as well, in short, to compete. But it's also increased companies' lobbying efforts against such municipal activity and it's not hard to see why such companies like AT&T Broadband, Charter Communications (controlled by Microsoft), and Qwest don't like it."
Not many municipalities are saavy enough to think about deploying this sort of infrastructure, however. For those in that situation, what kind of lobbying efforts must a municipality put together before village/town/city officials will take notice? If the government does notice, what kind of arguments should be made to convince them that it might be worthwhile to make such an undertaking?
The Only Way? (Score:4, Interesting)
So if I live too far from the main DSL switch building, too bad for me! Also, broadband is dependent on the physical characteristics of a customer zone. If I live in an area with old cable networks and nasty phone lines... that just adds to list of what must be upgraded.
So the service providers must be content for now in offering to the few. (I live in a very snazzy community with a lot of money. All of them would buy broadband, yet nobody can get it. So even with guaranteed customers (and hundreds of them), it still might not be profitable!)
Having municipal networks would really bring broadband out. I'm all for it. If we let the markets do it themselves, it'll take years. Not that municipal networks would suddenly spring up overnight, but they would guarantee more broadband (significantly so) and would guarantee a standard and central office from which others could branch themselves.
Having government doing stuff private businesses normally do can have very good effects in certain situations...
Re:The Only Way? (Score:1)
Municipal networks can help to get rid of this problem. Networks such as the South West Group for Learning connect schools etc. over a WAN, and in turn the schools get 2MB 'net access for a relatively small fee.
Oftel (the phone network regulations people) are clamping down on BT, and as a result ADSL is becoming more widely available, but for small businesses and schools, municpal networks are still one of the best ways to go.
Private associations (Score:2)
-russ
Re:Private associations (Score:2)
Not necessarily. Most public utilities (water, electricity, etc.) are government-owned "authorities" which are not tax supported. All their revenue comes from user fees (which also means that they have the same profit and loss pressures as a private company, which is a good thing).
At most, the impact on taxpayers is that the municipality's credit is used to float bonds. If the capitalization of the authority requires a lot of borrowing, it can hurt the municipality's bond rating, making future borrowing for tax-supported projects (like school construction) more expensive.
I don't know for sure, but I'd assume that's how these broadband networks are being structured.
Re:Private associations (Score:2)
If the society decides to build a light rail system, it doesn't matter whether you'll use it personally. You still need to support the project financially. Same goes for municpal networks, postal service, etc. I don't use rural mail delivery, but I need to help pay for it *because it is the right thing to do*. We need to carefully consider if municpal networks are also "the right thing to do". I think they are, because I don't want our communications infrastructure's fate to depend on "shareholder interests". I think communications infrastructure is too important to leave to "market forces" (i.e. the rich win, the poor lose).
-Paul Komarek
Re:Private associations (Score:2)
By the way, do you think that a store infrastructure is too important to leave to market forces? If so, explain why Wal*Mart has successfully lowered the cost of purchasing for the poor.
You have no clue what you're talking about when you refer to market forces as being something where the rich win and the poor lose. Get your head out of your butt and learn some economics before you graduate. Too bad economics isn't a required subject for engineers anymore.
-russ
Re:Private associations (Score:2)
2) I'm not an engineer.
3) Was economics ever required for engineering students? (in general)
4) I didn't say a private association couldn't do the right thing. I'm suggesting that a private associations usually do the right thing only when it is profitable. "Why else would you go into business?" is the mantra I usually hear. This is doubly true for "publicly held" companies (a phrase which confuses most of the Europeans I've used it with), because they have a fiduciary duty to their shareholders.
5) I'm only somewhat familiar with economics, mostly from a mathematical modeling point of view (I'm a mathematician). However, I think your Wal*Mart example is spurious -- they've lowered the cost for everyone, not just the poor; and they sure didn't take this action because it would help the poor. It's not hard to imagine that they lowered their prices to improve their market share, turning a bigger profit due to volume.
As far as market forces go, I believe the idea is to "fairly" distribute scarce resources (for some definition of "fair"). If I understand correctly, the idea of capitalism is to make the distribution (well, market is a better word than distribution) more efficient by introducing competition in various aspects of the distribution (market). This says nothing about helping the poor, unless you put it in the definition of "fair". However, I don't believe anyone has suggested that being kind to the poor is part of market "fairness".
More conspiratorially-minded (okay, that's a made-up word) folks might suggest that nobody, not even the government, does the right thing any more than is necessary to keep the lower classes from revolting. These aren't my words, these come from a political science class.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Private associations (Score:2)
So no, private associations many times will do things that are not profitable. For example, the Shriners, or the Kiwanis, or the Rotary, or the Red Cross, or
-russ
Re:Private associations (Score:2)
Many times a private association will do "the right thing to do" even though it isn't profitable.
-russ
Re:Who modded this up? (Score:2)
If you think you can do better, then you should. That's how we do things in America. Instead of arguing about who's being fair and who's being unfair, we have free markets. So those people who see unfair deals can do something about them.
Are you willing to do something about the unfair deal you see happening? If so, do it! If not, then I have to think that you don't really believe your own arguments.
-russ
Exactly! (Score:2)
This is exactly the point. The telco monopolies were formed with a similar policy: you paid the same rate for a phone line if you were downtown next to the CO or out in the sticks half way up the side of a mountain.
The same is true for FedEx and other private delivery services, more or less. It costs FedEx less money to deliver from Philadephia PA to NY, NY than it does from Tuskegee AL to Grass Range MT. They make the PA to NY customers "subsidize" the AL to MT customers -- because the service is more valuable that way.
What you are paying for in the case of the telephone and in the case of mail is simple and universal access to everyone, everywhere. You don't mind subsidizing somebody else's FedEx because you are paying to make sure the service is there when you do need it, and you won't need some complex algorithm to figure out what it will cost.
People have lost sight of the value of this because they take it for granted in places where it has already proven itself.
The Internet works the same way. I remember when I was young, the excitement of logging on to a machine in London UK from Cambridge MA over the ARPANET -- for free (well, paid from my parents taxes and my tuition I guess). If the Internet was designed using a connection oriented protocol such as ATM, we would probably be charged by the geographic barriers between endpoints (think local calls, LATA calls, domestic long distance, international long distance). There have been immense economic side effects of the design goal to make the network more survivable by routing each packet individually.
For example, I'm in Melrose MA, about six or seven miles from the Slashdot data center, which I believe is in Waltham, MA. I'm probably "subsidizing" your connection -- except that it would actually cost me more to "call" Waltham on a regular basis with some connection oriented system.
A high speed, free metropolitan network would facilitate businesses in the town, reduce traffice by enabling telecommuting, assist government, and improve property values -- provided that the means to use the network are universally affordable. Every household has a TV. A fairly decent computer can be had for about the same cost today, and probably as little as a hundred dollars in a few years.
Public investment is not the only way to do it, but the public entities have different agendas than the private ones.
Re:The Only Way? (Score:2)
Re:The Only Way? (Score:2)
Unfortunately, shoulds are cheap. We've got (in the US) a government that's in love with large organizations. We'll end up paying for this, sooner or later, but for now the large organizations are getting support from the government, and the small and mid-size groups are getting the shaft. So municipal governments are probably the best option. But they should use fixed cable.
Re:The Only Way? (Score:3, Informative)
With AT&T, my connection went down daily for months at a time, and if you ever did have a problem, they wanted you to wait two weeks for them to roll a truck to your house.
I've had one outage in the three months I've had CFU, and that was due to my modem failing. I noticed the problem at 7:10 p.m., called it in, and I was back online at 7:40 p.m. after one of their techs brought a new modem to my house and installed it for me. Try getting that kind of service out of AT&T.
Their lower price has forced AT&T to keep their prices low, as well. AT&T only charges $30 for service here, which often confuses their customer service reps, as we're one of the very few places that have service offered at that price.
It's much easier to get good service out of small local companies than out of the big conglomerates, and it's convenient having my internet access come on the same bill as my water, power, gas, etc.
Re:Nimda a good enough reason (Score:2)
But I fear any such test would rapidly devolve into an MSCE-like 'Which boxes do you click?" Perhaps an alternative would be simply net testing and scanning to verify that a machine is adequately administered. Though I hesitate to add it, perhaps a fee to open ports, partly as a deterrence, partly to fund forementioned scanning.
Ups and downs (Score:5, Interesting)
But, during the (10 second) interval it took between when I clicked "post comment" and when the textbox finally appeared, I rethought. Provide to whom? As a gov't service they can't discriminate. Which is great for us Linux users--no more crappy DHCP/VPN-disabled junk. But pretty sucky for the administrators who have to have configs available for everything from Win98 to VMS to OS2 to BeOS.
Of course, in actual practice they'd only provide service for the "popular" OS's. Which defeats the whole purpose of having a public utility in the first place.
For the love of God, Covad, run a damn line to my house so I can get Speakeasy! Or at least give me a estimate of when you CAN do it so I know how long the wait will be.
Covad? (Score:2)
I've had enough problems with GTE in the past, and even though I'm in what was a Bell Atlantic area, from what I've heard about Verizon, it's sounding more like GTE with their customer service.
So well, depending on how things go, you might get your Covad line out there just in time for them to fold...and watch your service get bought by Verizon.
I'm hoping that with the reported increase in teleconferencing due to the events of last week, that we'll also have more folks telcomuting, and helping to bring Covad out of the red, so this doesn't happen.
Re:Ups and downs (Score:3, Insightful)
But, during the (10 second) interval it took between when I clicked "post comment" and when the textbox finally appeared, I rethought. Provide to whom? As a gov't service they can't discriminate. Which is great for us Linux users--no more crappy DHCP/VPN-disabled junk. But pretty sucky for the administrators who have to have configs available for everything from Win98 to VMS to OS2 to BeOS.
How is that? Why can't they just put a box in your home which has a 10.x.x.x ip address, and do some nat later down the line?
Of course, there will be people whining they cannot run servers off that, or other other limitations. Those people should realize, that, as with all public services there'll be a certain service level for a certain price. If you want/need anything other, you'll have to pay for it yourself.
In that respect, one can compare it to public roads or sewers. You pay for 'em by taxes. If they're not what you want, you still have to pay. You're free to build your own besides, but you will have to pay for those as well, by yourself.
Still, most people think public roads and sewers, while not perfect, are better than dirtroads, and dumping everything in the street. YMMV.
Thus, if internet access is to become a public service, it has to be determined what the service level will be, for what price, and then we'll talk again.
Re:Ups and downs (Score:2)
If there is a problem, they send a tech out to the line of demarcation - the line on the back of the house with a DHCP notebook to test it. If he gets on and you don't, it must be a personal thing. $75 per incident to fix it.
Nice? probably not, but it is fair. Just as there is a market for plumbers and electricians when something goes wrong, perhaps there should be one for networkers
Right Idea! (Score:2)
Excellent! I'm supprised by all the negative posts here by people who seem to want to criple themselves without reason. BASJE, for intstance, wrote, "Of course, there will be people whining they cannot run servers off that, or other other limitations. Those people should realize, that, as with all public services there'll be a certain service level for a certain price. If you want/need anything other, you'll have to pay for it yourself.", as if there's a real technical reason to limit bandwith uplinks and as if people can't chose to pay for good bandwith through a municipality. These arguments sound chillingly similar to the old comercial software trolls, "you only get what you pay for and giving me all your money is the best of all worlds." The net was designed as a collection of equal peers and changes weaken it. The web will only be a viable media for publication if it remains free and accesible. Do not surrender your rights to publish on this new media for the sake of a few companies profits!
But pretty sucky for the administrators who have to have configs available for everything from Win98 to VMS to OS2 to BeOS.
Well, what's the problem? Set up a standard for connections that's stable and works. If M$ wants to make things hard for their users, too bad. The post office does not teach you how to pack letters, do they? They simply have guidlines for size and weight. At some point some users have to do something for themselves, and it's no different from the inhomogenious world that admins have to deal with right now.
no, that's not what I'm saying. (Score:2)
No, I don't think you should "clog up" any network, private or public. What do you have in mind, pray tell? It's very difficult to clog things up with original content shared with friends.
What I want is for people to co-operate and build networks. FREE networks that you can do what you want with to compete with the current crop of TOS gimped cable companies and DHCP dial ups. Bleh! Sure, it will cost money but public utilities are almost always cheaper than unregulated monopoly franchises like we have now.
Re:Ups and downs (Score:2)
Municipal broadband should be treated like any municipal water: they are responsible for the pipe up until it enters your house. If you've got a leak at the curb, you call the department of public works. If you've got a leak inside your house, you call your own plumber. You don't expect DPW to fix the plumbing inside your house, nor should you expect a municipal ISP to fix any configuration problems on your hardware.
Governments should stick to things they know (Score:4, Insightful)
They shouldn't do this for the same reason they shouldn't be installing cable tv services, or telephone services, cell phone networks, or movie theaters: these are non-essential services which the private sector is willing and able to provide, and which governments have little experience or expertise with. The only thing governments should be providing for us are public goods which the private sector cannot or will not provide us.
Further, I have little confidence in the ability of a municipal or other government to provide efficient, inexpensive Internet (or other) services, and I can think of many more things I would rather have them provide or improve. If the government really feels a need to provide their citizens with connectivity I think it is best done with a limited number of Internet kiosks at places like libraries, city halls, etc, but I would vote against anybody who would suggest that providing more than this is the job of our government.
Right, like broadband (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe downtown Seattle has a lot of choices, but out here near the sticks I have exactly one broadband choice: Verizon. People actually IN the sticks have zero options.
No, people over estimate the need for broadband. (Score:2)
Government should stay out of it, if not, then they should be required to buy up ALL existing broadband before competeing with those private companies which spent money on it.
It seems that gamers and geeks are the primary wanters of broadband, and they make grandiose claims of the universal need for it without ever proving it. Just like the failed dot-coms, the lies is still there, not the need.
Re:Governments should stick to things they know (Score:2)
Re:Governments should stick to things they know (Score:1)
Even if either or both finally got around to offering services in my area, I'd be stuck with their definition of broadband -- an asymetric line with a pathetic up-channel (128k-ish) and so-so down-channel (640k to 1Mb).
RBOCs and cable companies don't have the vision, will or financing to provide true broadband - fiber to the home.
These folks [cpau.com] are on the right track, IMHO, though I hope they're planning for higher data rates in the future.
Re:Governments should stick to things they know (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure if this sort of thing would work elsewhere, but in Tacoma, it exists due to the existing private sector companies not providing the services to begin with. Sometimes competition, even from public utilities, is a *good* thing.
Governments should do exactly this (Score:2)
Au contrair.
This is exactly the kind of thing government should provide. Your libertarian visions of utopia aside, the private sector isn't providing reliable broadband to end users. I and my employer have both lost DSL service, with no warning. A colleague of mine has lost his DSL service twice, from two different, unrelated providors going out of business, again with no warning.
Internet connectivity has arguably become as critical as having a telephone, perhaps even more so (somewhere between as critical as having a road to your house and having a telephone for many people, myself included).
Worse, the physical cable is an example of a so-called "natural monopoly," in which it is unfeasable and arguably counter-productive to have ten or fifteen competing cable/fibre trunks going to your house. Just as it is absurd to build ten expressways along the same corridor so they can "compete," or several canals along the same route of travel between lakes or rivers.
Whether or not government should provide full ISP services is I think an open question (there again, private ISPs are arbitrarilly disconnecting people based on allegations of wrongdoing with no due process, no standards of evidence much less proof, and no recourse
Private ISPs could use the existing infrastructure to provide higher level services (email, DNS, web hosting, USENET news, etc.), with each competitor gaining access to the public infrastructure under the same, fair, competetive conditions. Far better than having Ameritech own the infrastructure and manipulate ever increasing, and ever more complex, regulatory systems and their accompanying loopholes to drive competitors, who do not own the underlying infrastructure, out of business.
Re:Governments should stick to things they know (Score:2)
The idea here is that you're adding to the choices a consumer can make, not taking away. This would in no shape or form be a monopoly. And if you do it right, you really could have good, fast, cheap, choose all three. (Fancy.... would not be an option. :)
How about electricity and phones as an example? (Score:2)
Compare to electricity and phone service. Before the government stepped in, people outside of large cities were not serviced. It became apparent that eventually, most would be, but only at a high reletive cost. In the case of electricity, people formed coops that took advantage of special government loans. In the case of phone service, the government required phone companies to provide service to all communities in their territory.
So I guess what I'm saying is maybe a coop in which the city government is a partner or main contributer could work. The city would gain by being able to get better prices through volume for its own needs and by having happy citizens who get a service that nobody else will provide. In fact, I think I'll approach my city council and/or neighbors about this.
Re:Governments should stick to things they know (Score:2)
I'll throw a little more fuel on the fire here. In general broad band connectivity is a service that the market driven private sector can provide. At least in general. Where the providers beleive they have a market they'll provide services. The problem is perception. I went to school in Washington and am familar with the Sea-Tac area. Tacoma is not a bad town in general, but it's most definitely not as well off as Seattle and Bellvue. In fact, when I lived out in Olympia, people made the place sound like it was bombed out ruin of a city. I was pretty surprised the first time I took a bus out there on my way to airport. Yes, the downtown core did need a little renewal, and yes the area around the Greyhound station was a mess, but every city has its bad places. But, overall Tacoma wasn't a bad place as I would measure one. However, there was a perception that it was a bad place. And that perception seemed to be more firmly entrneched among the better off my college classmates. Given that kind of wide spread view, would a company attempting to make money off a brand new tech service aggressively pursue the market? Often times the answer is no. I'm not saying this is what happened here, but it has happened in other places with other kinds of services. Even a year ago, broad band was just sort of something that people regarded as a luxury or a status symbol, but now it's looking more and more like a necessary communications service in the same way that phone service is. So, if private providers are dragging their feet in providing what's emerging to become a necessary service, then why shouldn't a city step in to provide it. Furthermore, private providers provide a service in places where it makes economic sense. Unfortunately there are many places where people live that the business case for providing services is poor. Rural Washington comes to my mind. In these cases public sector services make sense.
Re:Governments should stick to things they know (Score:2)
I know car/road analogies are used too often and seldom fit nicely, but let's try this one; think of getting paved roads for your tax money, but paying yourself for gas (and indirectly, thus, gas stations), car, maps and all other service that relies on existence of roads. Similarly, having option to get your bare-bones wiring (and routing at least up to ISP) as low-level infrastructure thing, not as a service.
The sad fact is there is no money to be made in providing cabling and basic connectivity.
At least no more than in providing for paved roads; there are toll roads, but for the most part roads are in fact public. Money is supposed to come from services; few people are disputing that basic assumption. So far telephone co's and others have tried milking (big) companies, knowing end users won't be as profitable (due to cust. support etc). Now that companies are tightening their belts, this income source has mostly dried up.
Re:Governments should stick to things they know (Score:2)
It's worked here... (Score:2, Informative)
QoS (Score:1)
IT WON'T WORK (Score:2, Insightful)
The standards that are involved do not ensure the same QOS that we're used to with a standard phone or electrical system. When you pick up the phone, it's assumed that there will be a dial tone. When you try to get online (unless you have boradband like me!) you have to dial and try to get a connection. How many times have you been bumped offline? How many times have you crashed your system? How many times have other things happen where you lose your connection?
The fundamental difference with the phone and IT systems is that the phone system works on the basis that not everyone will wnat to use the phone at any given time and even if they do, it'll just be momentary. That's why telco's started to freak when "getting online" started to become popular with the bbses. Suddenly, they had many people making many calls at about the same and then holding the line for hours.
The tcp/ip standards has specific conditions on when it is to drop packets and degrade service for non-vital stuff because it can be re-transmitted later.
This is also why true convergence won't work between these two systems. One works on the basis of having dumb normally unconnected terminals that require incredibly high QoS (phones) while the other works on the basis that eventually the info will get through, but the order doesn't neccessarily matter and the connection could always be live.
Re:QoS (Score:1)
I think the biggest problem would be in convincing governments (especially at a federal level) that internet service is an essential utility. Those who are unfamiliar with the internet and/or those whom for the internet is not essential may not see the need for regulation. Never mind convincing them that broadband is essential.
But I think you're right. The only way to insure access to the entire country, and to insure uniform, quality service is for some government regulation to be imposed. Companies that offer this service will fight regulation tooth and nail, but it may ultimately be in their best interest.
As far as municipal networks go, I think there are too many problems with censorship. With the line being owned and operated by the government, they would argue that they should be able to control the content being carried over it. I'll settle for a slower service that's unfiltered than a faster service that is filtered. I'd hate to be doing a research paper on, say Nazi Germany, and get held up because anything with the word "Nazi" in it gets filtered out (of course, there are bigger issues than this; it's just what came to mind).
Noticing that my comments are getting longer, but aren't really saying any more,
Re:QoS (Score:1)
psxndc
PS To be fair, I feel very awkward when my ISP is down, but I get a lot more chores done. ;-)
This could even benefit the ISPs (Score:2)
Sounds like a win to me. Especially since the local Bell monopolies won't loose anything, just not get control of another market. Sign me up!
De-regulation (Score:1)
Holland Michigan screwed it all up (Score:1)
Re:Holland Michigan screwed it all up (Score:2)
-russ
Why shouldn't they? (Score:4, Interesting)
Plus, the US Gov't doesn't have the greatest track record on building things on-time or on-budget, nor on keeping things in shape.
I'd rather see more Gov't incentives for private companies to build private infrastructure and Gov't regulations to insure consumers are protected.
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:1)
Remember, you can't sue the feds...
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:2)
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:2)
yes, well, except that the federal government uses financial incentives to encourage private organizations to promote certain messages. [salon.com]
I can't wait until the ONDCP starts paying people to logon to AOL chat rooms to Spread the Word.
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:2)
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:2)
I live in a city that has both a municipal fiber network that nobody is exploiting commercially for internet access (for a variety of reasons... mostly the politics of business in a small city...) and a very vocal group of internet censorship advocates (As reported in-depth [slashdot.org] on Slashdot).
"I don't want my tax dollars paying for a pervert's access to internet smut!" has already been heard here. Should the local Board of Public Works reverse their current stance and consider offering some kind of municipal internet service, I have no doubt that there would be some significant fallout. I can't help but think that this has come up in policy meetings and is a part of why the city doesn't in fact go into the ISP business.
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:2)
-russ
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:2)
Um, we're not talking about the US government here...this would be done by municipalities, some of which have been running municipal utilities districts at lower cost (and with better service) than private utilities for years.
Then again, I don't think you thought much before posting...
Re:Why shouldn't they? (Score:2)
ISP as utility works in Evansville, IN (Score:1)
"Parasitic grid" concept - help or hindrance? (Score:1)
I would think that a public sector MAN would be somewhere between the two extremes that we currently have. On one end, corporate cable provided by the usual suspects, and on the other extreme the so-called "parasitic grid". What would happen instead if a local county council (or US equivalent) subsidised cheap 802.11b receivers / transmitters? The expensive bit would be for the up-link which could potentially be a cost shared more equally across the community. For instance, your electricity shouldn't cost more simply because you live further from the power station, so why not employ a similar equality scheme for 'net traffic?
Personally I can't help but think that the ultimate direction for all this is for the "swarm effect" [compaq.com] written about in the lamented Rapidly Changing Face of Computing [compaq.com], where personal transmitting devices effectively become a collosal wireless network.
Aegilops
Quality varies, but becomes poor (Score:2)
Much more effective is changing the regulatory and licensing cost structure so that there can be several alternatives. It is presently very expensive to get the licenses to install systems. Only the very high value streets (like office parks) are worth the cost. Elsewhere, it is limited to retrofits to pre-existing systems (cable, electric, etc.).
In my area, it is the towns with multiple alternative providers that get the best service. This has the unfortunate side effect that the towns with only one provider get the least investment and worsening service. For a while, this will widen the difference between the towns rather than reduce it. The same effect happens with monopoly municipal offerings.
There is often a problem attracting vendors to small markets. A better approach than the monopoly municipal is a non-monopoly cooperative. If the municipality makes the licensing easy for everyone, a cooperative can be set up. If the market remains very small, the coop may remain the only player. But if the market takes off, the coop knows that it must remain responsive or a commercial vendor will enter the market. Coops have been highly successful in other markets, and they co-exist well with commercial vendors. When the government remains neutral the coops that continue to provide good service thrive, the commercial operations that provide good service thrive, and the low quality vendors fail.
MI's got a clue (Score:2)
I bet this project will work because it is probably run like a break even business, instead of a government bucacracey (sp?) that most slashdotters would expect from government project like this. I would love something like this in my area, but the demographic is not well suited for it.
-Pete
Consider this an upgrade to the Postal Service (Score:5, Insightful)
The US has a postal system is run by the government and not the private sector in order to make sure ALL citizens get some degree of service, or "connectivity" in
Note how the Postal Service provides a "baseline" for all citizens, but doen't hold a monopoly. If you want to send a package faster, pay a little more and use UPS or a bike courier.
Having a government agency run the show guarantees that everyone can at least send a package somehow. There's no "sorry, your neighborhood just isn't rich enough for us to lay fiber / put in a mail route" going on.
Free markets don't always come to the socially optimal outcome, and they certainly can't be relied on to distribute resources equitably.
Sure, it won't be free, but if we really care about this "digital divide" then this will bridge it a lot faster than waiting for Verizon.
Postal Service is also tax-independant (Score:2)
It's run as a governmental department, but it's supported entirely by the sale of its services, just as a municipal ISP might be.
Concerns about spending city resources on this kind of thing ("Spend it on fire departments and street signs, not broadband networks!") seem less reasonable in that light, perhaps.
Re:Postal Service is also tax-independant (Score:2)
Also, the postal service has a government mandated monopoly on basic letter services. It is illegal to send non-urgent mail through any other carrier than the post office. I believe the law defines urgent as something requiring a response in less than some number of days (don't remember the number).
Re:Postal Service is also tax-independant (Score:2)
It's run as a governmental department, but it's supported entirely by the sale of its services, just as a municipal ISP might be. "
Ignoring the fact that this isn't entirely true, we need to ask ourselves what could the government given these constraints that a private company could not. How could a "governmental department supported entirely by the sale of its services" operate more effectively than a private ISP?
Re:Postal Service is also tax-independant (Score:2)
If by effectively you mean "at the lowest rate possible given their infrastructure, guaranteed -- with no shareholder pressures to act antisocially", then I can't imagine anyone moving mail more effectively in the US than the USPS.
Take a look at the power market. In the Northwest, power is distributed by a federal agency, the Bonneville Power Administration. The Northwest has the least expensive power in the nation. This is a result of more than hydropower. As we all know, private or publicly held companies charge what the market will pay, which is obviously more than what people in the Pacific Northwest pay for power. Their rates are low because part of BPA's mission is to sell power at the lowest possible price, given their expenses. I expect the Postal Service has a similar clause in their mission. But just as the private power companies do not have such a clause, you can bet that FedEx, and more to point Verizon, don't have such a clause guiding their pricing decisions.
If we ever lose BPA, it will be interesting to watch what happens to power prices in the Northwest. Imagine if Verizon had a monoply on electricity distribution; what do you think they would charge? The lowest possible price given their infrastructure, or the highest price the market would pay?
I expect that municipal networks can be effective at providing bandwidth to everyone, and have the lowest price going. Among many positive benefits to such a system would be public access to the physical infrastructure, just like with the road. If you have the right credentials, you can fix existing roads or build new roads. You don't have to wait for the city to do it for you -- just hire a contractor. Specifications for a public network would (I really hope) necessarily be public.
-Paul Komarek
Re:Postal Service is also tax-independant (Score:2)
Actually, you're wrong. Postal Service = Monopoly (Score:2)
The USPS has a legally mandated monopoly. It is illegal for anyone else to ship certain kinds of packages - and that helps keep USPS revenues up.
What kinds of packages? Packages which do not require rapid delivery. If it isn't time associated, you can't mail it any other way. You're not _allowed_ to undercut USPS on first-class mail, for instance.
Re:Actually, you're wrong. Postal Service = Monopo (Score:2)
According to Information Week article [informationweek.com], starting last month most of the USPS Priority and Express mail is being hauled by FedEx for the USPS in exchange for having FedEx drop boxes for returned goods at post offices across the US.
Re:Consider this an upgrade to the Postal Service (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, you run the local automobile dealership. The city doesn't think you are giving the "value" to the users. What do you do? Take tax dollars from everybody in town and subsidize the industry for lower rates. All of a sudden the government is in your pocket taking your money twice. Once for the taxes, the second for stealing your business.
The second issue is that people seem to think high speed Internet is a right that should be nearly free. Does anyone realize what it costs to build these networks? Thats why in rural areas it takes longer as the investment and following ROI are a slow process. All the time people want 768k for 20 dollars a month. Hows that going to pay? Enter the mighty local government - we can take tax payer dollars and build this network to give all these services at that low rate. Once agian, tax dollars are floating this overall losing proposition. And if you don't use it, again you are paying twice..
Lastly, once these networks are in, they become the giant beasts that can not be stopped. Since they are losing money, every legislator with a noble idea will try to get the muni-network into more lines of business. Constantly trying to self justify itself.
Lastly again.... is cable TV really an essential service enough that the government has to step in? Get a freaking Satellite dish people...
Re:Consider this an upgrade to the Postal Service (Score:2)
This is a really complicated issue. Is high speed internet a right...I dont think anyone is suggesting that. But in a future where more and more government services and commerse happen on-line. Having a garunteed internet connection to all US citizen's streamlines the system dramtically, becuase you could spend less on duplicate resources, to provide service through several competing communication channels.
Right now high-speed internet access is really a toy. Yes I could stay at work longer and do everything I needed to do, but I pay for the luxury of being able to work at home. If however US citizens could be garunteed internet connectivity, then you can start imagining government agencies providing much better supported services over the net becuase they could focus on online services as a primary means of commication.
-jef
Nonsense... (Score:2)
Notice that the USPS and FedEx do deliver to practically any place. You just have to pay more if you live in Alaska or Hawii. This is, it seems to me, as it should be-- if you choose to live in a place that's hard to deliver to, you pay the extra societal costs of getting mail. It's not like someone's going to go bankrupt from paying an extra 10 cents per letter for their mail.
The post office should be privatised. All this would really require is to repeal the laws making it illegal to compete with it in first-class mail. Then, when the private sector kicks the USPS's ass and takes away most of its customers, the government can either disband it or turn it into a truly private company that would have some incentive to modernise.
The problem with cable/DSL is that most cable and local phone companies are government-created monopolies. You generally have to get permission from the city council or county zoning board or whomever before you can lay cables. And not surprisingly, once one company has done it, they lobby hard to prevent any other company from laying competing lines. Result: monopoly.
I'm not sure what the exact solution is, but this is certainly not a market failure. What's needed is more genuine competition, not a government takeover of the industry.
Also, it seems to me that there are far more pressing societal problems than the lack of fast internet. I have it and love it, but I'm a middle-class yuppie college student. For your average American, having to dial in with a modem is an extremely minor annoyance. So there are more important things that governments should be doing, like plowing the streets and putting out fires. Let's get them to do a good job of that before we load them up with more responsibilities that rightly belong to the private sector, eh?
What should and should not be privatized? (Score:2)
>Then, when the private sector kicks the USPS's ass and takes away most of its customers, the government can either disband it or turn it into a
>truly private company that would have some incentive to modernise.
Perhaps a noble thought. But what about when a privatized postal service decides that rural mail pickup and delivery is no longer profitable? The reason the Post Office's monopoly in certain areas is mandated is so that they can afford to give 100% coverage. Let all of the more profitable parts get stripped away, and the outlying service would get even more expensive, since it would turn into a bunch of disconnected isolated routes.
As to why 100% coverage... The government *needs* some sort of secure communications channel with everyone, if only to take care of tax time in April. (By law the mail constitutes a secure channel, even if that may not be true in fact.)
The free market is a wonderful invention. But just like to a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, one must not start believing that the free market can be the solution to every problem.
Re:Nonsense... (Score:2)
I agree completely. I would add only one caveat: If you want to compete with the USPS, then you truly have to compete with the USPS. You can't just compete with the local branch office; you must agree to provide the same basic services to the EXACT SAME CUSTOMER BASE as the USPS. you must deliver mail to Alaskan villages above the Arctic circle in the middle of winter. You must service rural customers in Wyoming who are miles away from each other. And don't forget, you must negotiate with ALL foreign governments to deliver mail from their citizens to ALL U.S. citizens.
If someone will agree to do that, to provide all the letter-delivery services to all the people that the USPS services., then yes, they should be allowed to compete. Otherwise, all you're doing is providing more corporate welfare. There are parts of the USPS that are profitable; those parts (mostly) support the unprofitable parts. When most people propose competition with the USPS, what they're really talking about is permitting private corporations to take profitable business away from the USPS and stick taxpayers with the bill for the unprofitable parts.
Applying this to the topic at hand (and it is applicable, assuming the U.S. government ever decides to guarantee an "IP dialtone" to all its citizens) is left as an exercise for the reader.
Re:Completely correct (Score:2)
But other than that...nice summary.
Goverment is not better then telecom. (Score:2, Interesting)
A question you must always ask yourself is: "Is this really an area where I feel comfortable having a group of ill-informed non-experts wasting my money?" Remember it was the government that created AT&T and it is government that will rebuild it again if we do not fight it!
Have A Blessed Day and Pray for America.
Ashland Fiber Network (Score:1)
Mutual vs Municipal and Allow vs TakeUP (Score:1)
I am more in favour of a mutual versus a municipal service. Before you go and knock it, think that some of the biggest financial services firms began life as mutuals. This would really be a case of a service for the people.
Should folk ever want to cash out eventually, they could demutualise the whole thing, and to be honest I would rather have one of these than have a politician tell me how he is 'doing' me good by providing this service. I would also be against either tax dollars subsiding such a venture, or conversely, profits from this being milked to fund other pork barrel projects.
What local authorities should do, especially in places like the UK where BT frustrates the competition while providing really shite service, is to give groups that want to do this as much support as possible.
That is the kind of stuff 'my local politician' should be doing for me.
Privacy implications (Score:1)
-Tom
Ride the Fiber (Score:1)
Alberta SuperNET (Score:1)
Fantastic, wonderful choice where I live (Score:2)
My take is that as long as the work is properly planned, this is a good idea. And it is quite nice to be able to go to meetings at city hall to suggest changes in your cable TV lineup. Try doing that with charter
Isn't this like... (Score:1)
Why would a local municipality push for this when the local power company can accomplish similar goals, seemingly with more ease? Maybe there's some underlying reason I don't know about, which is why it isn't here yet...
I Run TWO of These Beasties (Score:1)
Both Bedford, VA and Muscatine Iowa pay my
little company to help them run their networks.
In Muscatine, the city IS the cable company,
so they offer both dial-up and cablemodem
service [machlink.com], and are the full-service ISP.
Bedford VA [bedford.va.us] has fiber, and partners with the
local cable company to offer services, where
the fiber and the cablemodem systems are
integrated into a semi-cohesive whole. This
little project has been going on since 1995,
making this effort one of the first.
I'm sure that there are lots of towns and cities
that have done similar things.
Eastern Washington ZIPP network (Score:1)
I set up my father-in-law's office network and connected it to the ZIPP fiber network provided by the county public utility district. The connection speed is great, especially considering they are in the middle of nowhere. The connection is very comparable to my AT&T@home service, which I usually can get 400-500k/second downloads (from major sites, ofcourse).
It is really cheap, too. No installation charge, no monthly fee from the PUD. You just pay the ISP of your choice their going fee. Most are between $20-$30 for residential. Most of the ISPs in the county don't even have restrictions on the number of PCs, etc.
Over the same fiber you can get an awesome cable package with Video on Demand, for much cheaper than the local cable company (which offers less than 35 channels MAX). Telephone service as well. Check out more information at Grant County PUD ZIPP web page [gcpud.org]. I always get jealous. I am in Seattle and we have far worse connection options (it's down to Qwest DSL or AT&T@home).
Don't go the way of electricity... (Score:2)
When I first accepted my job here in Atlanta, GA (actually Lawrenceville, a suburb) I visited apartment complexes to determine where I would live. One of the most important factors in my decision was whether or not the apartments offered high speed internet access, of any kind. To my delight, the lady at one of the nicer complexes pulled out a brochure from BellSouth FastAccess about their DSL connections, and informed me that each apartment was "pre-wired for DSL with fiber phone lines!" The brochure had all of this great hype about how you didn't have to have a second phone line, etc, and showed the price of $45/month and a $50 connection fee, DSL modem included! As you can imagine, I was excited about such a nice connection to the net and so that along with the other amenities led me to the decision to live there. Well, when I actually moved in and started setting up my utilities, I was told that in order to get my DSL connection I would have to pay a $250 installation fee, even though the brochure said nothing about that. Well as you can imagine, as a computer literate person I argued that I could easily install whatever DSL modem they brought me and I could plug it into the wall and get my connection working, but they were adamant that I had to get a professional installation. I called about 10 times and spent about 12 hours total on the phone with different types of employees of Bellsouth, and all said that my apartment wasn't ready for DSL, that I needed the prof. installation. This didn't make any sense to me because when we learned about DSL in school we were told that DSL is just a protocol that comes over your 2 wire home phone line and "piggybacks" over the signal, not interrupting phone conversations, and this was not at all something that needed anything more than a phone line... Anyway, long story short, I finally gave in and the installer came to my house with "DSL modem" in hand. It turned out to be a 10/100 Ethernet NIC and the professional install was needed because he had to splice two lines together to make 1 ethernet cable that ran from the network hub in the complex to a phone outlet that I specified (limiting my mobility) where he installed a RJ-45 jack so I could plug my computer into the Ethernet Network. In my opinion I was lied to by not only the apartment complex (pre-wired) but also BellSouth (advertised DSL, installed ethernet.) It took them a month after doing the install to get the access working because apparently they didn't have the network routers in place to support my neighborhood, so after $300 and having billy bob come and install my "DSL" connection and tell me all about "that dad burn internet," I still had nothing. Eventually I did get access though, and it really is very fast and convenient, but it sure isn't the low cost DSL connection advertised.
My point: phone companies are bastards like other utility companies, so I'd like to see the government step up regulation, but I'd hate it to become the same thing as the electricity market.
As Usual (Score:2)
most city governments are run by people who are not blessed with guru level knowledge. Most are AOLers. They get confused easily.
So if you have a larger group of geeks you can go in and take charge of this for the sake of the community. And of course, for your own benefit.
there is not a lot of motivation otherwise. They have a lot of other issues on their plate. Small things like taxes, etc.
City doing it right! (Score:2)
Wadsworth's Power and Cable division [wadsnet.com](NorthEast Ohio) has been providing cable modem service for over 2 years. Not only have provided affordable cable and data service to residents, the have forced their monoply provider to do the same. Many cities use the Wadsworth Cable System as a model for their own implementations.
Municipal systems can be bad or good based on the quality of the staff implementing. A good municipal system is a resource that adds value to the community the same as good schools and smooth roads. The promise of quality, affordable service is an excellent economic development tool.
On a personal note, my mother was on the beta rollout for the system. After two modems and new wiring, she has one of the stablest net connections I have ever seen.
Not a good idea (Score:2)
It is exactly these types of self serving morons that get elected every day. Now give them control of something as complex as a data network?? They cant manage something as simple as Roads,water, ans sewer! You will not attract employees that are skilled to take care of it. (Working for the City really sucks if you are a foreward thinker and espically if you think out of the box.)
Nope, asking for a public network is like asking a thief to watch your wallet... You'll get your wallet, but all the content will be gone.
8 years later, my idea is realized (Score:2)
Oh well, at least they are doing it now somewhere.
Re:8 years later, my idea is realized (Score:2)
Running cat-5 to every house? No wonder you couldn't get funding. Were you also planning on installing thousands of switches throughout town to make up for distance limitations?
Consider: Private Service over Public Networks! (Score:2)
This could work with other utilities, too... it'd be cool if we had a public power grid but could choose from several electric companies. Or if none of the telcos actually owned the phone network, but all had to vie within the same public network to provide the best services. We'd have truer competition, and presumably better service..... (maybe).
Reality vs. Myth - Municipal Nets (Score:5, Insightful)
Having read many of the posts here, I find a great deal of mis-information being bandied about, as well as a general lack of understanding as to the current situation involving Muni nets.
First, the RCOC's (Regional Bell Operating Companies) have lobbied furiously against the creation of these networks. Cable has lobbied too, but cable companies have very little influence in statehouses and capital hill, as compared to the RBOCs, which weild enormous lobbying power, especially at the state level. As a result of this all-out lobbying effort, many states flatly prohibit municipalities from building any sort of network which will compete in any way against an RBOC.
Cities have fought back, however. Many towns, where broadband or even basic cable television service are sorely lacking or nonexistent, want to build these networks. There are several lawsuits right now seeking to overturn restrictive state laws by citing a provision in the Telecom Act of 96 which provides that no state may enact law which prohibits, or has the effect of prohibiting the ability of "any entity" from providing telecom service. The FCC, ever beholden to the RBOCs, ruled originally that "any entity" did not include municipal governments, as a sop to telcos who feared taxpayers might just say "screw this, lets build our own". However, there are strong signs that a federal appelate court will overrule the FCC, and force states to allow muni's to start building nets, if taxpayers (us) vote to do so.
The fundamental question is: do we have the right to decide to provide our own?
Municipal governments provide 90% of direct government benefits, to most citizens. The provide streets, street signs, trash pickup, water service, maintain zoning standards, handle legalities like deeds and property matters, and intercede on behalf of citizens in a great many matters. It is an incontrovertible fact, that municipal governments are the best, most effective, and most efficient segment of our democratic system of government here in the US.
Even so, very few people bother to take notice of what your local city government is doing (which no doubt contributes to their efficiency).
I've seen several people here state, that City Governments have no experience with IT, are clueless, incapable, etc. This is flatly false.
City governments are no different than any other large company these days, and all of them larger than about 30,000 population have IT departments. The people that work in those departments often face daunting challenges, as the perils of the annual budget year cycle, and requirements for "low bid" purchases, force them to try and operate non-homogenous networks. They don't have the luxury of saying "100% company X" on anything. IT people that can keep networks like that running, must have skillsets that span very wide areas of knowledge.
And what the RBOCs fear most: Muni's have experienced and expert people in the tough areas of network operation already in place. Consider this: Munis regulate every inch of right-of-way in the "last mile", because they own it. Their people are more familiar with it than anyone, anywhere. Munis also have experts on telco regulation on staff, to deal with franchise agreements, rate regulation, etc. Muni's have contruction inspectors, log-standing relationships with Contractors, and experience in utility location/colocation. And Muni's have strong IT staff, as a rule.
There's one last thing to consider. Are you pissed at the service you recieve from your telco or cable company? Whatyougonnadoaboutit? Answer: not much you can do.
But consider - if your local goverment were your provider, what could you do then? Vote. Run for City Council. Local politics is personal folks - and unlike national politics, your personal problems are likely shared by your next-door neighbor. You as an individual can easily effect the outcome of a City Council election. Think on that, as you consider whether you're likely to get better service from a Muni telco.
Re:Reality vs. Myth - Mod This UP (Score:2)
Access == Accumulate Copyright IP
Acumulate Copyright IP == Wealth.
99%,1% vs 1%,99% Wealth == Just plain EVIL(tm)
Therfore...
FCC == Just plain EVIL(tm)
Time to elect FCC officals directly.
There goes any shot for an amature radio licence.
Can't run local municipal Internet access my ass.
This is valid (Score:3, Insightful)
A) everyone needs
B)for which there can be little to no market distinction
C)has a costly infrastructure associated with it
One such case is vaccinations. A vaccine will either work or it won't, and every child has to have them before they begin school. Company A's brand will really differ very little from Company B's, and I'd hate to see what kind of disgusting commercials companies would produce to try to distinquish thier product from a competitors. ("See twisted knarled Eddy? He used the wrong Streptomiacin vaccine!)
Another good case is school systems.
I see internet service as being the same. Everybody needs or will soon need a connection if they want to exist normally in a developed nation. One pipe is nearly identical to the next, and it is starting to get ridiculous to have a twisted pair in the ground next to a coax cable next to a fiber optic line while there is a satellite dish on the house next door and a wireless transmitter on a tower down the street. A simple connection (as opposed to the things that the broadband services currently want to provide--they want to sell you 'services', ie. baggage you don't need) is not difficult to provide and puts everyone at a level playing field.
In my view, government run internet equates to government run roads. It's too expensive for everyone to build and manage their own.
Think about what gov't SHOULD do. (Score:2)
Given that we accept that proposition, it might make sense for gov't to build communications infrastructure, which we have seen that private capital is doing slowly, if at all.
If they do this, I think tht they should then make the infrastructure available to any private outfit which wants to run an isp/telco. Ideally, it should be rented to several, which citizens could choose between.
Notice that the reason that we aren't seeing broadband made available seems to be as much due to regulatory difficulties as to high costs. The telcos have their network and monopoly as artifacts of the current and past regulatory environment. They can use this to chop the legs off of anyone who tries to compete using the telco system, and no-one can afford to build their own system when the telcos have an existing system which is at least partially amortized.
So, having started to ``manage'' our economy, we need more government intervention to ``fix'' the problems we caused.
Not the government's job (Score:2)
Because the government (in America) is not in the utility or telecom business. Show me where, in the Constitution, it says that local tax dollars should be spent on any of this?
Actually... (Score:2)
More specifically, powers not explicity granted to Congress are reserved for the states (10th amendment). And municipalities (cities, counties) are generally charted by the state. Any limits I would imagine would strictly be in the interpritation of the state constitutions and the municipal charters.
Also, the feds have a long history of acting on stuff like this. AT&T had a federally authorized monopoly for decades. Finally, municipalities have a long history of operating utilities. Water, trash collection and electricity distribution are three examples. I fail to see why this would be much different.
Re:Not the government's job (Score:2)
It's our money and to a damned large degree we should have the freedom to spend it however we want.
If we-the-taxpayers choose not to - by voting down a
proposed bond or tax - then fine. If we choose to, then what they hell's your beef?
One Town's very good experience. (Score:2)
In a bond election for $5 million of bonds to create cable and broadband services, the current cable provider put up a very large fight - and lost. The citizens voted at an over 85% rate to create broadband/internet/cable as a utility.
The results can be seen at http://www.cfu.net/index.shtml . I get most of my mail from Cedar Falls with addresses ending @cfu.net.
My parents, in their 70's are happy to send and receive multimedia presentations, and to create web pages and mailing lists. They get no static about running Mac OS and other non win items.
I would be happy to switch to a municipal system here - that way there would be some public servant I could shake down when things are going poorly.
(My father-in-law, also in his 70's, ran into the street to beg the competing cable firm to wire him up. Customer satisfaction at its nadir.)
It's The Monopoly Stupid (Score:2)
Let's review why your RBOC has a monopoly. It is the only one that can connect twisted pair to your home. It has the right of way, the only right of way in most cases to connect. AT&T is trying to break that monopoly with coaxial cable connections, but with at best limited success.
Your local government could just allow a private company to bypass your RBOC and go ahead and do it instead. Or more than one.
Local government created the monopoly. Then it presented itself as the only solution to the monopoly it created and allows. Then, it tries to skim its own cream by pricing itself not at a market price and providing market services, but parasitically pricing itself very near the monopoly cost.
Gee how generous.
Re:ask slashdot (Score:1)
Re:after my (Score:1)
and writings just as they do with libraries and some cable networks. Also, what about privacy?
Good point. Although the idea of having a municipal governemt provide broadband sounds like an effective way to get high-speed internet to people who can't otherwise get it. I would be very troubled if the government monitored those things that you do on-line. Do we really want to give local governemnts an easy way to monitor our activities? Furthermore, what happens when the RIAA uses the DMCA to accuse people who are using municpal access to share copyrighted material, and then prosecuted for copyright violations? Wouldn't the local governments find themselves in very serious legal problems?
Re:Charter (in less obscene terms) (Score:2, Informative)
So what do you do? Cussing and whining about it on here won't help you a bit. Instead, take a screen image of their website, and print it out. Then write a (calm, logical, and objective) letter to your local and state public utilities commission complaining about their misleading advertising. Include the print-out of their website (make sure it has the date and time stamped on it, as well as the URL), and also include the name and (if they use them) service badge/number of whoever it was you talked to on their sales/support staff, along with the date and time of your call. With all the support services randomly taping the calls anyway, it's entirely possible that a record of your call exists, and this recording is admissible in court as evidence should the state (or a bored lawyer who's also getting the shaft) file suit. Again, you need to be courteous and respectful in your phone conversations. Being loud and obnoxious will get you nowhere.