the EFF brings us Hate Your ISP? Maybe You Need Community Fiber
We don't have to rely entirely on the FCC to fix the problems with high-speed internet access. Around the country, local communities are taking charge of their own destiny, and supporting community fiber.
Unfortunately, those communities face a number of barriers, from simple bureaucracy to state laws that impede a community's ability to make its own decisions about how to improve its Internet access.
We need to break those barriers. Community fiber, done right, should be a crucial part of the future of the Internet.
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Hate Your ISP? Maybe You Need Community Fiber
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(Score: 1) by modest on Friday August 01 2014, @07:31PM
I'm sold, whats the first step? I've got two-way competition and I hate my choices.
<rant>While my connection is stable and thankfully I haven't had to talk to customer support more than once a year, I'm sick of paying $1200 yearly for an internet connection. I know DSL was slow as snails, but for 1/5 the cost it was adequate. Verizon comes through with FIOS and removes the copper connection, so they no longer offer the affordable pipe.</rant>
(Score: 3, Informative) by Blackmoore on Friday August 01 2014, @07:37PM
step one - start local.
this will be MUCH easier if you live in a small community; in those cases you can talk to the local governing officials; and if needed gather signatures of neighbors to petition the village/town to invest in this as a resource; you can talk about it as a way to get businesses into your town.
cities? that's a bit more difficult; you may need to spearhead a group of people who can talk to your representatives there. have others call and complain about the lack of choices, service. you are going head to head with the monopolies there so that will require a lot more people pushing the local elected officials..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by modest on Friday August 01 2014, @08:06PM
After reading the article further, start with the "Challenges" section of the article from the EFF to quickly identify if there are immediate roadblocks. Unfortunately it is completely prohibited in 20 states including my own.
I guess I've got to learn how to rally state-wide support in favor of changing a law. I'm open to hearing advise on that step one.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Blackmoore on Friday August 01 2014, @08:22PM
well. that's the step where you befriend a rich person to "make donations" to state reps.. afterall someone needs to run the local ISP.. :(
(Score: 3, Informative) by AudioGuy on Friday August 01 2014, @08:28PM
Most of the laws prohibit -cities- from doing this. The alternative plan is to form something like a cooperative to get around this. See my link above to the lawyers site which outlines this strategy.
There are many other ways to get around these laws.
(Score: 1) by Adamsjas on Friday August 01 2014, @08:40PM
Well, that is the part the FCC can play.
They have the power to override state laws in this area, and are currently looking into doing just that in a couple states.
I forget the states involved, I think they were in the south east.
(Score: 1) by jimbrooking on Friday August 01 2014, @09:19PM
NC is one state forbidding localities from installing cheap, fast Internet.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @09:44PM
Those 2 cities got public fast internet before the incumbent private companies bribed the state governments to raise the drawbridge.
The know how good they have it and would like EVERYONE to have the same thing.
Chattanooga and Wilson Petition FCC to Remove Anti-Competitive Restrictions [muninetworks.org]
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Friday August 01 2014, @08:11PM
You might be surprised at how many little communities pulled fiber in prior decades and are using virtually none of it.
Libraries some Schools, Police, Public works. The rest is essentially all sitting there dark.
I know my county pulled it all over the place, and has slowly started to put up public wifi in various little towns.
The problem is paying for the upstream bandwidth. The county is trying to do that too, but that is bound
to turn out to be another "tragedy of the commons" somewhere along the line.
Its not exactly like roads, or water, or sewer. But its close. Build a road, and you don't usually
have to pay an upstream supplier for traffic. Put in public water, and you might have to pay some regional source
but chances are you have your own sources.
I like the idea of selling access to the fiber back to the large ISPs, and letting
them buy all the upstream bandwidth to handle their customers. This gets government
busybodies out of regulating what you can get on the fiber. (Even public libraries are
subject to this pressure in their choice of books or the internet service they offer).
If the municipalities just had to keep the last mile connections maintained and grow the
network according to population, it would be pretty cheap. Pay for that from
ISP interconnection fees plus taxes.
If the local municipalities have to pay for content or upstream bandwidth, it could
get ugly, and the prudes and censors will show up in droves.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by AudioGuy on Friday August 01 2014, @08:12PM
http://www.muninetworks.org/ [muninetworks.org]
Excellent site for ongoing news about municipal networks and changes to laws
http://www.ilsr.org/initiatives/broadband/ [ilsr.org]
(parent organization of above link) Has many articles on broadband
http://www.telecomattorneys.com/alternative.html [telecomattorneys.com] - learn from others experience
http://lafayetteprofiber.com/Blog/2004_08_01_lafayetteprofiber_archive.html [lafayetteprofiber.com]
There is a most amazing saga in the link above, if you have the patience to seek it out. An epic battle against monopoly power, greed, perfidiy, lies, and deceit.
Contrary to what the site says, the blog no longer seems to be available. But the archives on this site still are, and you can follow this through the links on the left sidbar under the lable 'Archives'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02 2014, @01:21AM
> I'm sold, whats the first step?
Move to Chattanooga where they already have symmetric 1gbps for $70/month. [epbfi.com]
That is what I did.
First and last step.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @08:00PM
Homepage at https://thefnf.org/ [thefnf.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Thexalon on Friday August 01 2014, @08:06PM
That's *gasp* socialism!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by geb on Friday August 01 2014, @08:18PM
Sounds more like communism to me, in the proper sense the word. The means of production will be owned by a workers commune.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 01 2014, @10:10PM
You're right[1]. Party pooper. 8-)
The GP was more fun.
He reminded me of a Cold War movie with Glenn Ford as a young officer, naive about the ideologies he had sworn to serve. [google.com]
[1] Communism, as described by Marx, is a bottom-up affair.
All national governments that have called themselves "communist" have been top-down totalitarian regimes--the antithesis of the original concept.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by Gearloose on Friday August 01 2014, @10:15PM
No, it really isn't.
These communities are cooperating out of self-interest, exactly like any rational agent would do in an open market.
In socialism, cooperation is _enforced_. That model has been thoroughly tried, btw. But feel free to have another go, I don't really give a shit.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fishybell on Saturday August 02 2014, @03:31AM
Here in my town the city first tried running it's own cable company, and that went bust. Later, while still paying the bond the failed first endeavor, they tried their hand at running a fiber network. That went bust, so we turned it over to a commercial entity that couldn't manage it properly. Control then went to a second commercial entity that also couldn't manage it properly. Finally the city took control back, then sold it to Google for $1 [wikipedia.org]. My premises is now scheduled for Google Fiber installation.
Moral of the story? Spend millions and millions of tax payer dollars and eventually someone competent takes over?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 02 2014, @06:54AM
> Moral of the story?
You can't legislate good governance.
But you can legislate bad governance.
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Tuesday August 05 2014, @01:45AM
I'm pretty sure that's Utah's state motto.