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> The big guys won't LOVE it because they still lose their monopolistic stranglehold, but at least you aren't using public revenue to push them out of the marke

> The big guys won't LOVE it because they still lose their monopolistic stranglehold, but at least you aren't using public revenue to push them out of the market. You're using public revenue to create a road that any business can use for an equal fee. I really can't imagine the response from larger incumbents being any different if this sort of format were being proposed. Why accept any competition at all when you can have none or almost none?

mikestew 9y ago
Why accept any competition at all when you can have none or almost none? Because that won't last forever. One top-level comment here lays out how much money the incumbents spent to defeat such measures, and they still lose. Incumbents such as Comcast appear to be so hated that the only thing keeping them in place are monopoly deals written years ago. IOW, they are not going to get widespread public support. Without public support, they rely on cronyism and old regulatory deals. They would do well to at least have a plan for how they would fit in this new world order (and I would be shocked if they didn't), if for no other reason than to not be caught off guard when the tide changes.
- koolba 9y ago
  They don’t always lose though. And winning a legislative victory banning muni competition seals their revenue stream for years.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  The tide won’t change for years or decades. Relatively few places have the ability to do ballot measures like this, and the feds will make it more and more onerous to comply with various regulations.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > Relatively few places have the ability to do ballot measures like this By my count, 33 states make it even easier to build municipal broadband than Colorado, including most of the big ones (CA, NY, IL, NJ, PA, TX, MA): https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-laws-states-use-to-crush-broadband-competition https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-law.... Most have no restrictions on such networks at all.
thirdsun 9y ago
Because that's the same thought process that seems to be prevalent among the very ISPs we're critisizing all the time. Should that kind of thinking really be copied? Why not use the chance and show how it's done properly?

mikestew 9y ago

Why accept any competition at all when you can have none or almost none? Because that won't last forever. One top-level comment here lays out how much money the incumbents spent to defeat such measures, and they still lose. Incumbents such as Comcast appear to be so hated that the only thing keeping them in place are monopoly deals written years ago. IOW, they are not going to get widespread public support. Without public support, they rely on cronyism and old regulatory deals. They would do well to at least have a plan for how they would fit in this new world order (and I would be shocked if they didn't), if for no other reason than to not be caught off guard when the tide changes.

koolba 9y ago
They don’t always lose though. And winning a legislative victory banning muni competition seals their revenue stream for years.
Spooky23 9y ago
The tide won’t change for years or decades. Relatively few places have the ability to do ballot measures like this, and the feds will make it more and more onerous to comply with various regulations.
- rayiner 9y ago
  > Relatively few places have the ability to do ballot measures like this By my count, 33 states make it even easier to build municipal broadband than Colorado, including most of the big ones (CA, NY, IL, NJ, PA, TX, MA): https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-laws-states-use-to-crush-broadband-competition https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-law.... Most have no restrictions on such networks at all.

thirdsun 9y ago

Because that's the same thought process that seems to be prevalent among the very ISPs we're critisizing all the time. Should that kind of thinking really be copied? Why not use the chance and show how it's done properly?