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In several states, lobbyists from Comcast and Verizon are working to make it illegal for community owned ISPs. Their claim is that this is essentially the gove
by Delmania 9y ago
In several states, lobbyists from Comcast and Verizon are working to make it illegal for community owned ISPs. Their claim is that this is essentially the government participating in free trade and that it gives those communities an unfair advantage.
- timthelion 9y agoFor one, this doesn't need to be provided by the government. We have community wifi in Prague run by hobbyists and volunteers. For two, isn't the freedom of democracy (aka, the freedom of the people to have their government do what they want, such as provide community wifi) even more fundamental than net neutrality? Doesn't it make sense to fight the monopoly than to regulate it?
- Delmania 9y agoThat works in a large hub like Prague, where fiber is present. In the US, NYC Mesh would be one. The issue is that for many communities within the United States, fiber is not available at all. There is a single ISP, usually Comcast or Verizon, and they have implemented data caps. The cost of running fiber would be prohibitively expensive even for a group of people, and you can be sure Comcast would use every legal tactic to fight, like they did with Google Fiber. Your latter sentence is a great idea, except that in the US, we had a court decision known as Citizens United (notorious Republican double speak) that essentially made money into speech. Many of these issues now pit small communities with limited funds versus large internal companies with nigh limitless resources.