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Senators, including Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, have signed a letter to the Federal Communications Commission opposing municipal broadband:
In a rare senatorial act, full-time Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio joined with a handful of fellow legislators on Friday in an attempt to block local municipalities from undercutting big telecom companies by providing cheap, fast internet service.
Rubio, who is raising campaign cash from the telecom industry for his presidential campaign, fired off a letter to the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to allow states to block municipal broadband services. The letter was the latest salvo in a long-running effort by the major telecom companies to outlaw municipal broadband programs that have taken off in cities such as Lafayette, Louisiana, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, because they pose a threat to a business model that calls for slow, expensive internet access without competition.
In Chattanooga, for instance, city officials set up a service known as "The Gig," a municipal broadband network that provides data transfers at one gigabit per second for less than $70 a month — a rate that is 50 times faster than the average speed American customers have available through private broadband networks.
AT&T, Cox Communications, Comcast, and other broadband providers, fearing competition, have used their influence in state government to make an end-run around local municipalities. Through surrogates like the American Legislative Exchange Council, the industry gets states to pass laws that ban municipal broadband networks, despite the obvious benefits to both the municipalities and their residents.
[...] Rubio's presidential campaign has relied heavily on AT&T lobbyist Scott Weaver, the public policy co-chair of Wiley Rein, a law firm that also is helping to litigate against the FCC's effort to help municipal broadband. As one of Rubio's three lobbyist-bundlers, Weaver raised $33,324 for Rubio's presidential campaign, according to disclosures. Rubio's campaign fundraising apparatus is also managed in part by Cesar Conda, a lobbyist who previously served as Rubio's chief of staff. Registration documents show that Conda now represents AT&T.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday December 15 2015, @07:57PM
Water, gas, phone landlines, electricity, and roads are natural monopolies. Any attempt to privatize or add competition results in either gouging or costly regulatory messes. They should be public services
The internet delivery might be different because there are technical ways to get decent bandwidth with competition, but in practice, in so many areas in the US, there is not enough density to justify competing investments. Because the internet is becoming a requirement for more and more basic services, if should be also a basic service. Therefore any rule preventing local governments from implementing their own, after asserting that competition is insufficient, is unnecessary and detrimental interference (might fall under the 9th, too)
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday December 15 2015, @09:41PM
Filed under "Obvious, but must be said." Thank you.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday December 15 2015, @09:51PM
Not exactly. The 'last mile' is going to be a monopoly or at best a 'managed competition' between a couple of politically connected private entities. But it doesn't mean we have to have the current worst case scenario system we have now. If I were looking for something that would be worse than the current system though I doubt I could come up with something worse than direct government ownership of something like Internet service.
Break up the phone and cable companies but this time we break up the phone company the right way. Company A owns the last mile and is a regulated utility who doesn't innovate lot and just pays regular utility company dividends to shareholders. It sells access to all at regulated rates including to Company B from the breakup that sells dialtone, data and for a little longer, traditional cable TV service. Along with Company B you can then have Company C-Z also get into the game.
If breaking them up isn't a viable option, second best would be for the city to build and own a new network but to sell access for providers to service the customers. I don't want the government directly deciding the outbound Internet buildout, rate limiting, terms of service, etc. and I certainly don't want them operating the CATV side and picking what channels are politically acceptable.
This is also being attempted with electricity, where you have one monopoly own the wires and other companies sell the actual electricity. There have been some teething issues but in theory it should be workable. Not really sure water can be made a competitive resource in the same way since the delivery system is most of the value.
Roads are always the sticking point when Libertarians get to looking serious at what a world designed along their lines would look like. We might have to admit those are going to largely stay a legitimate government function until our social technology advances a bit more or our tech technology makes it a moot issue somehow.
Normally I'd be all over the obvious political bias in this article since it is obviously written as a hit piece on Rubio.... but screw Rubio. He is the current establishment darling so let them defend him.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday December 15 2015, @10:29PM
Break up the phone and cable companies but this time we break up the phone company the right way. Company A owns the last mile and is a regulated utility who doesn't innovate lot and just pays regular utility company dividends to shareholders. It sells access to all at regulated rates including to Company B from the breakup that sells dialtone, data and for a little longer, traditional cable TV service. Along with Company B you can then have Company C-Z also get into the game.
There is no one "Right way" to delineate who provides service. Your plan is as unworkable as any other mess created by any other so-called "visionary with a plan" (arguably the most dangerous man in the world. Your plan would NEVER have worked when bell was broken up, because dial tone and first-switch access had to be provided the last mile, It was an analog world.
Its different now, and because its different now, its all packets, nothing but net. And there is no real reason you can't buy telephone service from a provider in New York City and Oslo Norway at the same time over the same fiber. But that is NOT where we where when the Bells were broken up. But hey, hind sight is easy, isn't it!
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Tuesday December 15 2015, @10:22PM
The internet delivery might be different because there are technical ways to get decent bandwidth with competition, but in practice, in so many areas in the US, there is not enough density to justify competing investments.
The problem is that last mile.
Its a perfect place for government to provide the infrastructure, available to all comers, all consumers, all ISPs, or what have you.
Government fiber backbones, in government right-of-ways provided equally to every household just like water and sewer, for a nominal connection fee.
But as for providing content, that is just about the LAST thing any thinking person should trust to government.
I have no problem with government providing infrastructure in a a restricted space, (under the streets), but government choosing what content to carry, is a step too far.
Even if in your greed you want to save some money on your internet bill at public expense, you should be paying for content, because if you aren't then someone else is, and if someone else is, then someone else is in control.
So I want to see private/commercial providers (sources) on the muni-broadband, and private consumers (sinks) on that same broadband, and consumers can also be providers (you should be able run your own servers), but somebody besides the government should be your upstream(s).
There is a great risk of having the Tragedy of the Commons take over community broadband, and the whole thing fall to wreckage and ruin. Just because it is provided by your local city council won't be enough to keep the assholes at bay.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday December 15 2015, @10:36PM
The interesting part about the content of the fiber:
- The government is constitutionally required to let all the bits through and not censor nor encourage some data over others. First Amendment ISP equals Net Neutrality.
- The private companies are wallstreetally required to try to maximize profit by coming up with tiering schemes, price hikes, competitive advantages or degradation, data caps, man-in-the-middle spying to feed targeted ads and usage databases... And still, they will tell the government everything they know about you when asked.
I'd take option one. I might even get to talk to a real Bhavesh from Tennessee rather than "Mike" from Bangalore when I call the hotline.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 16 2015, @12:11AM
I looked, but couldn't find a single word about fiber and packets or bits in the constitution.
And while you think the first Amendment allows all speech, (even when you KNOW damn well it does not), it does not compel the government, at any level to carry that speech.
You do not have a constitutional right to tell local government, or the federal government, or any private company that they MUST CARRY your speech. If you did have such a right, you could demand free internet, because providing you anything less would be censorship. Must carry is fiction.
As for the private companies tiering and all their other evils, competition, will certainly help. They get away with it now, because they have the only wire coming into your house. One third of households have exactly one internet provider. Another third have one fast but expensive choice and one slow but cheaper source. (For some values of "fast, cheap, expensive". It really isn't until you get to three choices [bgr.com] where competition has a chance.
The problem is that cities handed out many exclusive franchises beginning in the 60s when they were in bed with big cable and telcos, and nobody wants to trench through every neighborhood in the country yet again.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday December 16 2015, @12:23AM
And while you think the first Amendment allows all speech, (even when you KNOW damn well it does not)
I don't know any such thing. There is a difference between authoritarian judges ignoring the constitution and the first amendment not allowing certain speech.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 16 2015, @05:00AM
From where I sit, there isn't much difference.
The constitution set up the judges, and unless someone is willing to find a way to impeach them, they have control of the constitution.
This is why we have laws against hate speech. Because to get rid of such nonsense, you have to tear down the entire government.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday December 16 2015, @04:00PM
The constitution set up the judges, and unless someone is willing to find a way to impeach them, they have control of the constitution.
No, they have some amount of legal power, and the apparent ability to create legal fictions. This doesn't translate into them having the ability to alter reality.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 16 2015, @06:15PM
No, they have some amount of legal power, and the apparent ability to create legal fictions. This doesn't translate into them having the ability to alter reality.
Tell yourself that as you sit in a jail cell convicted of hate speech.
"It isn't reality, and you are able to walk right through those bars, bullets, barbwire, and walls and have a picnic by the babbling brook."
Apparently in your mind, "reality" is a mind game you play with yourself.
The Constitution hasn't been in force for a long time.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday December 16 2015, @06:40PM
The Constitution hasn't been in force for a long time.
That was kind of my point, though I would argue that it was *never* in force. I wasn't arguing that the government doesn't/can't ignore the constitution, just that many of their actions do violate the constitution and their attempts to claim otherwise are false.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday December 16 2015, @12:36AM
You missed my point: IF the govt is your ISP, then they shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
I can't force the govt to lay down a fiber to carry my speech, but if I pay them to as my ISP, they don't have the right to choose which speech I, or the companies sending me data, will make them carry (usual limitations to free speech, per SCOTUS rulings, do apply)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday December 16 2015, @04:57AM
No, I think I pretty well understood this to be your point. And I don't think we are all that far apart. You just trust government a bit more than I do.
But I'll be more convinced the day the SCOTUS declares there is no such thing as Hate Speech, and strikes down all the laws forbidding it.
In the mean time, I still worry quite a bit about government deciding what can and can not be said in public ALREADY, let alone what they might decide when they can pull the cable at your house, and have a legislated monopoly over the last mile with which to enforce it. Or when your local city council decides to block all porn or "violent first person shooter games".
I suppose there are routes to that even with a paid content providers, but they are less likely to cut you off and suffer the financial gain than a government that is funding the cable plant with tax money that you can't refuse to pay.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 16 2015, @05:10AM
But but but, dat's Communism and Socialism!!!11
We have the god given right to gget all those services as well for a greatly inflated price and at a sub par quality!