Ask Slashdot: Should the Internet Be A Public Utility? (qz.com) 230
The pandemic has "proven conclusively that the internet should be a public utility," argues Quartz. "It's a basic necessity in the 21st century, like running water, gas, and electricity. Indeed, the United Nations in 2016 declared that internet access is a human right."
Sure, you could theoretically survive without it, just as you might light your home with candles or warm it by fire. Just as you could arguably trek to the closest freshwater source and walk back with buckets of the life-sustaining stuff. But in wealthy societies, like the U.S., those are absurd notions. Living under such conditions is virtually impossible and endangers everyone... [T]hough we have a whole lot of social woes to contend with right now -- pressing medical and economic needs -- it's not too soon to recognize that internet service providers' profits are not the top priority and that lack of access exacerbates existing class divides....
Increasingly, towns, cities, and states are taking a close look at Chattanooga, Tennessee, which built its own high-speed fiber-optic internet network in 2009. A 2018 Consumer Reports survey found the city's broadband was rated best in the US. There are already more than 500 communities nationwide operating public networks or leveraging their massive contracts with broadband providers to ensure free wiring of schools, libraries, and other publicly-accessible wifi hotspots. This patchwork approach to public access is taking hold across the U.S. and there is a growing understanding that internet access is a social issue that has to be addressed by governments, not private companies operating with profit as their sole motivator.
Perhaps after the pandemic panic gives way to a new state of normalcy, the people will demand inexpensive and reliable high-quality broadband, and maybe private internet service providers will have to sing a different tune.
An anonymous reader asked how exactly this could be accomplished, and long-time Slashdot reader Futurepower(R) suggested towns and cities should own the fiber lines, and then rent it out "to as many Internet-providing companies as are interested."
But the original submission also asks, "If you aren't convinced yet, why not?" So share your own opinions in the comments.
Should the internet be a public utility?
Increasingly, towns, cities, and states are taking a close look at Chattanooga, Tennessee, which built its own high-speed fiber-optic internet network in 2009. A 2018 Consumer Reports survey found the city's broadband was rated best in the US. There are already more than 500 communities nationwide operating public networks or leveraging their massive contracts with broadband providers to ensure free wiring of schools, libraries, and other publicly-accessible wifi hotspots. This patchwork approach to public access is taking hold across the U.S. and there is a growing understanding that internet access is a social issue that has to be addressed by governments, not private companies operating with profit as their sole motivator.
Perhaps after the pandemic panic gives way to a new state of normalcy, the people will demand inexpensive and reliable high-quality broadband, and maybe private internet service providers will have to sing a different tune.
An anonymous reader asked how exactly this could be accomplished, and long-time Slashdot reader Futurepower(R) suggested towns and cities should own the fiber lines, and then rent it out "to as many Internet-providing companies as are interested."
But the original submission also asks, "If you aren't convinced yet, why not?" So share your own opinions in the comments.
Should the internet be a public utility?
Yes. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then there's the fact that SEC filings indicate that it costs an ISP between $10-$20/mo to provide Internet that they then charge $100-$150/mo for. a 5x-7.5x profit margin is rapacious. Especially for something built off public land, infrastructure and funding.
Lastly, getting information into the hands of the citizenry is crucial. A better educated populace is a less dangerous one. More information benefits everyone. Yes, folks will fall for bullshit and propaganda (especially the very young and very old) but on the balance more information is a good thing.
How much of layer 1 does $10-$20/mo cover? (Score:2)
Then there's the fact that SEC filings indicate that it costs an ISP between $10-$20/mo to provide Internet that they then charge $100-$150/mo for. a 5x-7.5x profit margin is rapacious.
True, last mile Internet access comes at a hefty premium compared to connections within a datacenter or between datacenters. I was always told that this premium mostly covers the cost of rolling trucks to build or repair the physical cable or fiber running to a neighborhood and to each home. If these SEC filings include the amortized cost of line maintenance and buildout to new cities in the $10 to $20 per month estimate, I'd like to see citations.
Re:How much of layer 1 does $10-$20/mo cover? (Score:5, Informative)
True, last mile Internet access comes at a hefty premium compared to connections within a datacenter or between datacenters. I was always told that this premium mostly covers the cost of rolling trucks to build or repair the physical cable or fiber running to a neighborhood and to each home.
The best comparison to fiber optic networks are electric networks, and the fixed connection fees there are around $10 per month in most of the country.
If these SEC filings include the amortized cost of line maintenance and buildout to new cities in the $10 to $20 per month estimate, I'd like to see citations.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry... [huffpost.com]
Re: (Score:3)
If truck rolls are the major expense, you would think cable ISPs would be more careful about them.
On more than one occasion, I have had a support person insist that the problem was in my home and they would roll a truck in 5 days or so (even when I reminded them that my neighbor's internet was also out and they had also called in). In at least one case, while I was still on the phone with them, a cable bucket truck went past my house and set up a couple poles down. 45 minutes later, service was restored. I
Re: (Score:2)
Sending trucks out is moderately expensive. Digging up roads, erecting poles, and burying cables are very, very expensive. The costs for maintaining infrastructure are a fraction of the costs of building it in the first place.
Re: Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget how many businesses now require you to apply for a job online as well.
By "Internet" TFA means a home connection thereto (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no such thing as "fast Internet."
There is such a thing as a fast home Internet connection. My current subscription package doesn't include Quartz, but based on the summary, I'm pretty sure "Internet" in the featured article refers to a home connection.
The Internet exists in all continents, so it would be a bit difficult to arbitrarily declare the Internet a public utility.
Water and electric circuits exist in all continents, yet home water supply and home electric power supply are public utilities.
Re:By "Internet" TFA means a home connection there (Score:4, Insightful)
This headline is indeed not technically correct (the best kind of correct). Headlines rarely tell the full story. However, the mention of "access" five times in the summary and "broadband" thrice makes it clear that Internet access, not the Internet itself, is the topic of discussion. Winning a gold medal in pedantry doesn't advance the cause of affordable home Internet access.
Re:By "Internet" TFA means a home connection there (Score:4, Insightful)
This exactly. By their same argument, water and electricity aren't utilities because nobody owns the rain and rivers and nobody owns all the electrons in the universe. How hard is it for these dolts to comprehend that they're merely talking about the right to network access?
Re: (Score:3)
Utility treatment in the US is public regulation of a service that is delivered as a natural monopoly. Physically there can be only one network of power lines serving your neighborhood, so even though in most places these are built and owned by a private company, a public regulatory body holds that company to a specified level of service and rates charged.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
are provided by for-profit corporations not by public utilities.
You are reading public vs private as in the corporation sense. That is not the definition of a "public utility". A "public utility" is any utility be it run by the government or a private corporation, or under regulatory control that provides a public service; public as in your and me and your neighbour, not public as in paid for by taxes.
Unless Tesla is providing your electricity from their solar panels in your battery without any connection off your property you are definitely getting electricity from a "
Re: (Score:2)
They arbitrarily declared cable TV a utility without a hitch.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Rights are a legal concept. Example of rights are:
- The right to life (i.e., not be killed);
- The right of movement (in the U.S. referred to Freedom of Movement);
- The right to have and voice your opinion (in the U.S. referred to Freedom of Speech);
Whenever you declare goods or a service as a right, somebody must provide it. And when you force somebody to provide a good or service outside of their free will (i.e. through government legislation), you are now infringing on their rights.
So yeah, be careful as to what you want to declare a human right. Who is going to pay for it?
(and I know that the answer is going to be socialism).
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Noone is being forced to provide internet access...
The government is willing to provide it, or they are willing to let private companies provide it... In some cases private companies don't want to provide it, therefore the government has to step in.
The key issue here is that private companies want a monopoly over the profitable areas, and don't want to provide service to unprofitable areas at all. In cases where they do have a monopoly, private companies want to increase prices and don't want to improve service.
As other people have pointed out, sure gigabit may be more than most users need right now and the upstream links of the isp won't be able to handle every gigabit user saturating their line simultaneously, but that's not the point...
Having a fast local loop enables local caching and peer to peer traffic, which doesn't traverse any long distance transit links. Want to play games with your friends down the street? Great, now you can do so at gigabit speeds with 1ms latency.
A fibre connection also has room to grow as peoples needs increase, 1gb may be more than you need today but what about tomorrow? What would be the point in rolling out technology that's only adequate enough for today's use, and then have to replace it again a couple of years later? If you roll out fibre then you have something that will serve everyone's needs for the foreseeable future.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Interesting)
The key issue here is that private companies want a monopoly over the profitable areas, and don't want to provide service to unprofitable areas at all. In cases where they do have a monopoly, private companies want to increase prices and don't want to improve service.
And perhaps least forgivable, when they refuse to provide service to an unprofitable area, they fight tooth and nail to keep the local government from filling in the gap. Essentially they demand the 'right' to decree than an area shall have no service from anyone. Presumably this is a combination of not wanting a demonstration of how much they overcharge and wanting to keep the area ripe for exploitation when they decide it's profitable enough.
Re: (Score:3)
A fibre connection also has room to grow as peoples needs increase, 1gb may be more than you need today but what about tomorrow?
This. My father often criticised me for paying extra for a faster connection. He was always content with ADSL (getting roughly 12mbps). The other day he goes to download Doom Eternal and complains that it is estimated to take him 10 hours for something which took me ~15min. 8-10 years ago he was right, now he's wrong.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever you declare goods or a service as a right, somebody must provide it.
A right is something that the government is prohibited from taking from you.
An entitlement is something that the government is obligated to give to you.
Free speech is a right. Free Internet can't be a right, but perhaps it should be an entitlement.
Municipal Internet in America has a good track record and people who have it tend to be satisfied.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
It could be argued that some rights are meaningless without a corresponding entitlement, as they are difficult or impossible to exercise.
Re: (Score:3)
A right to life without reasonable healthcare, food and shelter?
As expressed above, a right to life just means that you have the right to expect the government will not take it from you. If you extend that to the government ensuring that you have the things necessary for life, now you're into entitlements.
A right to freedom of speech without access to a means of communicating it?
Again, freedom of speech just means that the government can't stop you from speaking, nor can they punish you for your speech. It's on you to find a way to speak.
A right to education without affordable schooling, or at least access to educational materials?
Education is clearly an entitlement, not a right.
You can talk with all the pride you want about how many 'rights' citizens of a country have, but if some of them are dying of exposure every winter, their rights are lies.
Nonsense. Citizens dying of exposure indicates problems
the argument against the Bill of Rights (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The telecoms are jerks. No surprise there. Public utility? They were quasi-governmental and highly regulated, and their prices were staggering. But the quality of muni internet is not something you can generalize from one relatively small and well-off city. How well will Detroit’s work?
Re: (Score:2)
Those poor, poor power companies, forced to provide us with electric power because it's called a utility. We should bail them out.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the concept of rights in the US. In Europe we have more rights, e.g. a right to education which means children must have access to schooling and the government must provide it. The right to life includes basic medical care, shelter and food.
Although such things are not elevated to the status of rights in the US the government does force people to provide them, e.g. emergency rooms have to stabilize anyone who comes in, local governments have to provide schools.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Rights are never that simple. They are constantly in conflict, that needs managing. Some rights may be granted, but cannot be exercised for economic reasons - you may have a 'right to life,' but it's going to be worth nothing when you have a disease that needs twice your annual income to treat.
Sometimes a little bit of socialism is a good thing. Even in the US. You like police, right? Fire services? Roads? The comfort of knowing no-one is going to invade your country because it has a powerful military? Regu
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Interesting)
Rights may or may not be recognized by the government, and not everyone will agree which are rights, but rights are not granted.
Re: (Score:3)
And you do not seem to understand that a public uitility is not the same as a human right
Nor do you understand what a human right is.
Human rights were a concept before they were codified in law.
Re: (Score:3)
Good morning. My networking experience predates TCP. Might I suggest that you've not answered the question? The details of the technology do not eliminate the politics and economic issues. People rely, extensively, on the web and the Internet relying on it for news, for banking and the commerce that underlies our economy and underlies other critical infrastructure such as shipping, transportation, power, water, and food. It seems reasonable to support this as a critical service.
Re: Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well said. It took you until the last paragraph to make what I see is the main difference between a utility and a service. With a utility, we all get the same thing. We pay based on the amount of the resource that utility provides that we use. Use more gas, pay more. Use more electricity, pay more. With everyone wanting high internet pipes and no caps, thatâ(TM)s not a utility. If the internet were a utility, it would be pay per GB used per month. This would incentivize the providers to provider better quality, higher speed links and reduce over subscription rates. It would also introduce a model where traffic types are incentivized. Medical gets higher priority than games, period. The net neutrality everyone argues about again goes right out the window.
Re: (Score:3)
>See your local ISP? They are a network.... Lets focus on the peering. Peering isn't free. It can be cost-neutral, but it is never free...
Hmm, no what else all that is true about? The power network, which is a public utility, and which buys and sells power between neighboring networks.
>But the internet isn't a utility. You can constantly convince others to sell you more and more of it. You can't get more natural gas, or more water to your home than the mains are designed to supply you.
Umm - no, you
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The government and universities created the fucking internet. Perhaps the universities should own and run it, eh?
Re:You're on crack. (Score:4, Informative)
"The government and universities created the fucking internet"
Close on one, wrong on the other. The military created TCP/IP,
(DARPA) who then contracted with BBN, Stanford and UCL. Stateside I think it was UCI, UCSB and UCSD that first adopted it.
But the creation was a pure military project. The protocol designed to assure the network is, self routing, self healing and redundant regardless of what operating system clients, servers or routers use, was and is incredibly robust.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
EH, the public utilities are mostly not government owned and run. Of course, where they are prices tend to be sky-high.
I've said for years that the last mile needs to be a public utility, regulated like every other natural monopoly. But behind that last mile, the whole rest of the internet, market competition would be fine there. Where cable companies don't have a monopoly, they tend to be reasonably competitive and give a shit about service. At least, in the places I've lived, the difference in price a
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
EH, the public utilities are mostly not government owned and run. Of course, where they are prices tend to be sky-high.
Evidence, or at least a couple of examples required...
Evidence or examples for Internet service in particular would be relevant here.
Re:You're on crack. (Score:5, Informative)
Places that have the fastest internet (Korea, Japan, some Nordic countries) have heavily regulated last mile services that ensure both good infrastructure and a high level of competition among ISPs.
Not only does good internet connectivity boost the economy (in the same way that roads do) but they also save the government, i.e. the taxpayer, money by allowing government services to move online. In countries like the UK with very poor internet infrastructure and where many people can't afford it the people who need to use government services the most are often also the ones who can't access them online.
Re: (Score:3)
IMO, separating the ownership of the backbone from the natural-monopoly last mile is the key. Public utilities (heavily regulated companies, not government-owned) are great at the sort of problems that normal corporations suck at: delivering service to sparse areas, prioritizing reliability over profit, and so on. Plus you eliminate the conflict of interest inherent in having your last mile provider also be a content IP owner.
Even your average Slashdot libertarian is OK with regulating monopolies (althoug
Re: (Score:3)
Don't know about the US, but here in the UK they are... honestly, all over the place. Our utilities used to be all public,up until the eighties. The government in the eighties was controlled by a party which very strongly favored privatisation of utilities - mostly for ideological reasons, but the privatisation was not a simple matter of spinning off companies - that would have created monopolies, which the government was concerned over. So utilities were split up piecemeal, turned into lots of companies wi
The "last mile" may be 18 miles. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The internet is far too important to put it in government hands.
Oh, that nasty government! Those guys and their oil spills and their fake clinical trials, unfair contracts, nonsensical claims that they can't back up...oh, no, sorry. That was private companies I was thinking of.
What was your point again?
Public Utility (Score:4, Interesting)
Does that mean we get more or less spying
Less spying: The local city government has control (Score:2)
Also, if the government owns the fiber access, there would be competition to provide internet access. Citizens could choose the least abusive Internet service provider company. So other abuse would be minimized, possibly, also. I say possibly because it is amazing how many abuses there are, of all kinds, not just with Internet access
Re: Less spying: The local city government has con (Score:2)
Most smaller cities wonâ(TM)t manage their internet. Itâ(TM)s relatively complicated. Theyâ(TM)ll end up outsourcing. Youâ(TM)ll still be dealing with a big telco. Except this time you donâ(TM)t get to choose which one.
Re: (Score:2)
As if people get any real choice now! Many places have exactly one broadband provider. Others have none at all. What is this 'choice' you speak of?
Re: (Score:3)
We don't get a choice now. Most people have a single provider, especially in smaller cities. So that's no change, except we have a magnified voice when there's problems. So its still an improvement.
Re: (Score:3)
You should take a closer look at your local politics, there is all sorts of corruption. Large public works projects always seem to choose contractors that are friends or family. Any land that needs to be purchased always seems to get bought up by local government members before the project is announced. All this happens and people still reelect them because of the R or D next to their name.
Re: (Score:2)
It might mean that Net Neutrality will have to come back, even if that's a red herring for many republicans.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
More, obviously. ...Of course, NOT making it a utility also means more spying.
You do the math.
Which is worse? No Internet, or no water? (Score:4, Interesting)
But no Internet access? For many companies that would mean great difficulty in doing the normal work.
Internet access has become a necessary public utility.
Re: (Score:2)
A company is better equipped to do without water than Internet access. Just tell every employee to bring water and washcloths and towels to work.
I'm not sure how well the toilets will work without water. Take a modest office building with 500 employees in it and you have about 2500 gallons of water per day just for the toilets and urinals (a bit less if they don't wash their hands afterwards).
I still agree Internet access is a necessary public utility, but a water main break is still a huge problem even if you run to Cosco to stock up on bottled water.
5 gallons per employee (Score:2)
True: "... a water main break is still a huge problem...".
Re: (Score:2)
The most efficient water closets commonly installed in the US use 1.28 gallons per flush. (more typical WCs use 1.6 gpf) Although some urinals are non-flush "waterless" types, those are rarely used. Very efficient flush urinals are down to a pint per flush, but only half the population uses them.
Outhouses or porta-potties could be used in a pinch if there were no water available.
Re: (Score:2)
What's wrong with composting toilets? They work just fine without water.
Re: (Score:3)
What's wrong with composting toilets? They work just fine without water.
They take a while to install in a large office complex suddenly without water.
Re: (Score:2)
Especially in these times where the entire company data storage is "in the cloud". More and more companies are moving away the storage of data from the premises to an unknown and by the service provided even undisclosed location.
So if the internet goes down for a longer time many companies will suffer and even die because they can't work anymore. Putting your data into the cloud is effectively allowing the cloud service provider to hold your company by the balls. It feels cozy when all goes well, but it cou
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty sure you die with no water at all for a few days.
Your water example is more like if the business just tells every employee to bring their own mobile phone data plan to work and use that, not "no" internet access..
Either way, I don't have a problem with governments getting into the internet business, as long as they don't use anyone's tax money to pay for it (so no subsidies, just user fees from the people getting the service) and don't privilege themselves over others who may want to compete (so no "
Re: (Score:2)
Competition is the answer (Score:5, Interesting)
If you had genuine competition (instead of monopolies or anti-competitive oligopolies like Comcast and Verizon and AT&T) then the dinosaurs would be forced to do better to compete.
The fact that the dinosaur ISPs are going to such great lengths to try and stop any new competition shows how scared they are of actually having to operate in a genuinely competitive market.
Make the market competitive and free and let the marketplace sort things out with whichever providers provide the best product (whether that be on price, on value, on service, on speed or whatever consumers want) win.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Uhm... Yes it would be moral to compel Comcast or anyone else to share the fiber they put in the ground, for a fee of course, so they can recoup their investment and make a profit. It's simple, if you want the special privileges such as right of way access to lay fiber in places, you have to agree to share the access. And yes, Comcast does get special privileges, for example they can dig right through my private property, dig up my front lawn if they want to run a fiber through it, and there is absolutely n
Re: (Score:2)
At least where I live, the city residents paid for the cable infrastructure through a bond issue (for the up front cash) and a millage (to buy back the bonds over time). The original cable company also got a 30 year monopoly guarantee as part of the deal. Granted, both the original and current cable companies did upgrades, but the highest speed offered is still only 50 mega bits per sec - far from the giga bits per sec service I see advertised. After a little research, I determined the giga bit service in o
"Last mile problem" (Re:Competition is the answer (Score:2)
The last few miles should be a pubic utility, but allow multiple ISP's to compete for the rest. If they don't have to lay down wires to each house, then we'd have more competitors, and it would be easier to switch.
Re: Competition is the answer (Score:3)
Um, no. Competition is the benchmark, not the answer.
It's kind of like the cannary in the mine, or fish in the lake. But fish in the lake do not create clean water, it's the other way around.
What is the answer, then? Pretty much the submission summay: treating internet like a public utility and regulating it as such.
We Should Also Charge To Drive By Our Houses : P (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What if everyone wanted to sell you access to a road?
Then it would feel like driving in Jersey.
Cities should have LANS. Not providers. (Score:2)
The utility should be city wide networks. City wide fat lans. The internet or any other network including ones with paid prioritization can be connected. It's up to carriers to install lines and equipment to connect to the city hubs. The actual networks are virtual and piped over pppoe and such. It's logical. City wide lans I argue would be cheaper for cities themselves to implement and or sub out. The actual content would be irrelevant and can be encrypted. No need for multiple carriers to install multiple
Dark fiber should be a public utility (Score:2)
The last mile is the only thing interfering with good competition. Turn that into a municipal service. I want to lease a fiber or two to my nearest central office.
Once you have that, you will find dozens of internet providers eager to compete to provide you the best possible service on that fiber.
As long as it stays unlimited (Score:2)
As long as it stays unlimited for a flat rate and doesn't get more expensive for a higher cost then fine.
I'm paying $70/mo for unlimited 940/940 fiber with no data cap now.
All the normal "utilities" I normally think of are pay per use which I would not want to have for Internet service.
Re: (Score:2)
Only last mile (Score:3)
Only the last mile (preferably dark fiber) should be a public utility. Everything else hell no.
Not possible (Score:2)
If the public were obligated to provide the "last mile" it would mean a huge investment in infrastructure that benefits mostly white suburban, exburban and rural people. That is politically infeasible in the US. The urbanistas would lose their collective shit if billions were poured into running public lines to these residences at public expense. Pure fantasy.
"If you aren't convinced yet, why not?"
It is unnecessary. Broadband would flourish given a regulatory regime that wasn't built by and for incumbents.
Re: (Score:3)
If the public were obligated to provide the "last mile" it would mean a huge investment in infrastructure that benefits mostly white suburban, exburban and rural people. That is politically infeasible in the US. The urbanistas would lose their collective shit if billions were poured into running public lines to these residences at public expense. Pure fantasy.
Here in Rio Blanco County, Colorado, no collective shit was lost. We voted to do municipal broadband, the fiber went in for townies, and wireless for the rural folks. Works fine, lasts a long time, won't rust, bust, or collect dust. I have 1Gbps FTTP with no caps for $75/month.
Lots of places, you can't do that -- vote all ya want and the state/feds (telcos and cable providers) will block it.
Re: (Score:2)
Rio Blanco County, Colorado
Colorado is pretty white bread to begin with (I lived there for 21 years.) Rio Blanco is even more rarified than that. The question is whether the policy should be applied nation wide in a universal manner. That would involve convincing the urban establishment that a non-urban white should benefit from public largesse. And that, friend, is a hopeless cause.
Re: (Score:3)
Only the last mile (preferably dark fiber) should be a public utility. Everything else hell no.
In most countries the internet already is a public utility. You just don't understand the definition of a public utility is any business, organisation or government providing a service to the public.
Yes, it should have been ten years ago (Score:2)
We could see this coming. But the ISP special interests have been fighting anything that looks like diversity of choices in this market. They have been cranking up their costs to consumers every year and are making huge profits. The US has higher internet costs than most countries.
'The internet' doesn't mean landline (Score:2)
The internet is already public. What we're talking about is access to it, and for most people these days that's done through their phones.
If the argument here is that there needs to be internet cable infrastructure that's public, then that's not really that relevant, and will become less so moving forward.It's not that providing public cable internet is bad, it's just that suggesting that it's a public utility similar to water or electricity is nonsensical. The vast majority of people already have internet
Yes, of course it should (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in a dinky town way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, and I'm on 1Gbps FTTP community network (county owned) for which I pay $75/month. I only get about 940Mbps out of it, but hey, not bad for "inefficient government services."
YMMV in other places, but here where the capitalist competitors can't compete on service, at all, or on price, I'm groovin'.
Yes, absolutely. (Score:2)
The Internet and especially the web isn't all that great to beging with. Fidenet and similar networks were /are better in many ways.
Imagine a law banning ads in certain places, enforcing IP6 or mandatory correct registration of the purpose of your website. We have a little bit of this in Germany. Just about every website needs an imprint because its a publication by German law and needs to enforce GDPR rules and inform its users about the sites use of tracking data. This is the right first step but things c
Ok, let's see. (Score:5, Informative)
Are there any municipal ISPs? Chattanooga, TN. Which offers gigabit to the door. As opposed to Comcast and Verizon, which provide between 8-40 mpbs. Oh, and the commercial ones censor.
I don't like ISPs dictating what I can do, then charging more for providing less.
Speaking of 40 mbps, Swedish residents in some areas get 40 gbps. Your average small town in the US is a whole lot easier to reach than a remote village halfway up a mountain, so frankly there's no excuse there. Especially as we know there's a lot of dark fibre.
In a nutshell, ISPs have done bugger all on infrastructure in the US, letting it decay. Incompetence deserves no privilege or entitlement.
Those who truly believe in survival of the fittest markets should believe that ISPs are unfit to survive. We have the evidence. They've even cut the lines of rivals because they're incapable of handling competition. They are unfit for purpose.
Those who truly believe in efficiency knows that the Internet is a natural monopoly. It's simply not efficient to run multiple bureaucracies, each with their own overheads and inefficiencies. They're not truly competing in the way of a traditional market, so the pressure to improve simply doesn't exist.
Besides which, ISPs often enter agreements by which they stay off each other's turf. I'm pretty sure that's illegal, but it's widespread and it's ignored by the Federal and State governments. As are the protection rackets the ISPs run.
Sorry, but on the basis of the above, I'd rather the Internet be run by criminals I chose and I could vote out. I can't vote out Comcast.
It already is (Score:5, Insightful)
Either let them keep their monopoly and regulate them as a utility, or leave them unregulated but allow competing cable ISPs to offer service. Either will work. (No point debating which is better. We have tens of thousands of legal jurisdictions in the country, so half can pick one, half the other, and in 10 years we can see which one works better.) But this half-assed state where they own a monopoly like they're a utility, but aren't regulated like a utility, is completely broken.
Re: (Score:2)
Public last mile - so competition can flourish (Score:2)
In Sweden, "the last mile" is open because it is (often, at least) run by the public [fool.com]. This allows for competition, resulting in a superior choice of speeds, product bundles etc for the customers.
Public last mile isn't really about private vs public, but at about setting the scene for competition. Monopolies are bad for customers. Some places you do need them, but if there is one thing which is worse than a public monopoly is a profit-maximizing private monopoly.
As a side note: This was also discussed her
Of course it's a utility, or should be (Score:3)
internet as a utility (Score:2)
The internet by itself does not need to be a utility.
however, what needs to be is the fiber optic and right of way management, managed by states or something sufficiently large.
then all providers could rent from the state the fiber they need at a decent price.
No (Score:2)
No.
Currently the worst of both worlds (Score:2)
For too many, internet connectivity is living in the worst of both worlds.
Little or not choice in providers, which means the one or two choices available are public utilities in everything but name and regulation.
Yet, the one or two choices remain private companies, leaving customers to the whims of free-market business practices.
Long-term, all too often the free-market will not remain so. The same forces that create opportunity for open competition feed the progression to monopoly, or near-monopoly, throu
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Put simply it will be hard for a competitor to youtube to establish itself with the same features. Mostly because of the monopoly caused by adsense.
Re: (Score:2)
Like youtube, gmail, twitter, and facebook? Should they be treated as utilites and be declared public forums? They are after all virtual monopolies.
Are the stores accessible by public roads public establishments?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
1. A state can not, consistently with the freedom of religion and the press guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, impose criminal punishment on a person for distributing religious literature on the sidewalk of a company-owned town contrary to regulations of the town's management, where the town and its shopping district are freely accessible to and freely used by the public in general, even though the punishment is attempted under a state statute making it a crime for anyone to enter or remain on the premises of another after having been warned not to do so.
The sidewalk is hardly the stores themselves, they're just an extension of the street. Making the stores public utilities would give the government or public control on the prices and quite possibly a share of the profits.
Re: And the services? (Score:2)
Replacing YouTube, Gmail, and Twitter (Score:3)
All the services you mention are replaceable.
Re: (Score:2)
Buy a domain name, set up a server behind a business class connection, and get reverse DNS, SPF, and DKIM sorted on this combination of domain name and server. Then start sending low-volume transactional mail through this server to build its reputation
Have you run a mail server recently? It's really not as simple as all that. No matter how tight a ship you run, you will find your mail blocked by the big operators now and then, or on some commodity firewall provider's blocklist, not to mention dealing with random weird systems.
When spam became a big problem, rather than fix the underlying issues we punted and let the big providers like Google start dictating who gets to run email servers because their filtering was so good. Reclaiming email from huge corp
Re: (Score:2)
There are a lot of telephone companies but they all are regulated,,,,EVERY freaking one of them.
Simple example, The USPS is responsible for delivering mail to every address in the United States and any interfere or use or fraud attempted is a federal offense.You can't, legally, just put something in their mailbox, not your neighbor, UPS, Fedex, etc.
The Numnuts at the FCC declared
Re: (Score:2)
Yes
beat me to it.
Re: (Score:2)