6 ms·

Monopolized ISP services are ripe for local disruption. Is the future of Internet Service Providing going to be a service of local governments? What about co-

Monopolized ISP services are ripe for local disruption. Is the future of Internet Service Providing going to be a service of local governments? What about co-ops?

TallGuyShort 9y ago
If local governments are the future of ISP services, I'm not sure we'll have made much progress at all on the anti-monopoly front.
- JadeNB 9y ago
  > If local governments are the future of ISP services, I'm not sure we'll have made much progress at all on the anti-monopoly front. It seems to me that this is real progress; or do you mean "this just replaces the private monopoly with a government monopoly"? Even just moving a monopoly from private to public hands seems to me like progress. Comcast, for example, doesn't need, or particularly care about, my vote, whereas local government does.
  - fetus8 9y ago
    I think you're right, by moving the monopoly over to the local government, my vote now influences how the service works in a way that I can't control with Comcast. Living in Fort Collins and trying to help this get passed and put in to action has been great to see, but watching Comcast fight back has been quite disheartening considering the quality of service they provide. I am more than ready to give the City my money every month instead of the money hungry POS that is Comcast.
    - TallGuyShort 9y ago
      That's funny, I live in Fort Collins too, and they already take a large chunk of my money and despite my votes and my dissatisfaction with how they spend it now, they seem to be changing about as fast as Comcast's customer service is known to be.
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    Comcast has done more when I've threatened to cancel than any politician has ever done when I've threatened not to vote for them, I'll tell you that. The difference is if I stopped paying for Comcast I would be without Internet. If I stopped paying for my local government I'd go to jail.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    Depends on where you live, I guess. In the D.C. area, I'd rather have Comcast running my subway than WMATA running my internet.
  - kodablah 9y ago
    > Comcast, for example, doesn't need, or particularly care about, my vote, whereas local government does. Not always your individual vote. A vote with your ballot often has little difference with a vote with your wallet when you can't easily/quickly switch.
- adamsea 9y ago
  Better the devil you know, eh?
DoreenMichele 9y ago
From what I have read, internet coops are fairly popular in rural areas. Searching for "rural internet coop" gets lots of hits, including this: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/how-internet-co-ops-can-protect-us-from-net-neutrality-rollbacks-20171122 http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/how-internet-co-ops-...
- VectorLock 9y ago
  I don't think rural coops get much push-back from deep pocketed monopolies who just passed over serving those areas.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
Robotbeat 9y ago
There's also the possibility of global disruption of these local monopolies from massive LEO megaconstellations of small telecommunications satellites. Three big ones: SpaceX's Starlink constellation is up to ~12,000 satellites around half a ton (maybe more in the future). OneWeb's constellation of a few hundred to a few thousand smaller satellites. (these use a "bent-pipe" architecture, meaning no satellite-to-satellite communications, depending on ground stations near the point of use). Telestar's LEO constellation is a few hundred small (~100kg?) satellites as well, using inter-satellite links (and therefore not so dependent on ground stations): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H03lpd-zVCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H03lpd-zVCs None has gotten prototypes launched, yet. Telestar lost some of their prototypes in a R7/Soyuz launch failure late last year; I don't know when the next launch is set. SpaceX is supposed to launch in a month or two, with Oneweb launching prototypes in about 2 months after that. I think there are other such LEO megaconstellations planned. (They offer huge advantages over current GSO satellites in that they're far lower latency; In SpaceX's case, the worst-case latency may actually be significantly better than fiber's worst-case latency.)

Monopolized ISP services are ripe for local disruption. Is the future of Internet Service Providing going to be a service of local governments? What about co-ops?

TallGuyShort 9y ago

If local governments are the future of ISP services, I'm not sure we'll have made much progress at all on the anti-monopoly front.

JadeNB 9y ago
> If local governments are the future of ISP services, I'm not sure we'll have made much progress at all on the anti-monopoly front. It seems to me that this is real progress; or do you mean "this just replaces the private monopoly with a government monopoly"? Even just moving a monopoly from private to public hands seems to me like progress. Comcast, for example, doesn't need, or particularly care about, my vote, whereas local government does.
- fetus8 9y ago
  I think you're right, by moving the monopoly over to the local government, my vote now influences how the service works in a way that I can't control with Comcast. Living in Fort Collins and trying to help this get passed and put in to action has been great to see, but watching Comcast fight back has been quite disheartening considering the quality of service they provide. I am more than ready to give the City my money every month instead of the money hungry POS that is Comcast.
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    That's funny, I live in Fort Collins too, and they already take a large chunk of my money and despite my votes and my dissatisfaction with how they spend it now, they seem to be changing about as fast as Comcast's customer service is known to be.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  Comcast has done more when I've threatened to cancel than any politician has ever done when I've threatened not to vote for them, I'll tell you that. The difference is if I stopped paying for Comcast I would be without Internet. If I stopped paying for my local government I'd go to jail.
- rayiner 9y ago
  Depends on where you live, I guess. In the D.C. area, I'd rather have Comcast running my subway than WMATA running my internet.
- kodablah 9y ago
  > Comcast, for example, doesn't need, or particularly care about, my vote, whereas local government does. Not always your individual vote. A vote with your ballot often has little difference with a vote with your wallet when you can't easily/quickly switch.
adamsea 9y ago
Better the devil you know, eh?

DoreenMichele 9y ago

From what I have read, internet coops are fairly popular in rural areas. Searching for "rural internet coop" gets lots of hits, including this: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/how-internet-co-ops-can-protect-us-from-net-neutrality-rollbacks-20171122 http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/how-internet-co-ops-...

VectorLock 9y ago
I don't think rural coops get much push-back from deep pocketed monopolies who just passed over serving those areas.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

Robotbeat 9y ago

There's also the possibility of global disruption of these local monopolies from massive LEO megaconstellations of small telecommunications satellites. Three big ones: SpaceX's Starlink constellation is up to ~12,000 satellites around half a ton (maybe more in the future). OneWeb's constellation of a few hundred to a few thousand smaller satellites. (these use a "bent-pipe" architecture, meaning no satellite-to-satellite communications, depending on ground stations near the point of use). Telestar's LEO constellation is a few hundred small (~100kg?) satellites as well, using inter-satellite links (and therefore not so dependent on ground stations): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H03lpd-zVCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H03lpd-zVCs None has gotten prototypes launched, yet. Telestar lost some of their prototypes in a R7/Soyuz launch failure late last year; I don't know when the next launch is set. SpaceX is supposed to launch in a month or two, with Oneweb launching prototypes in about 2 months after that. I think there are other such LEO megaconstellations planned. (They offer huge advantages over current GSO satellites in that they're far lower latency; In SpaceX's case, the worst-case latency may actually be significantly better than fiber's worst-case latency.)