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> providing customer support It could be argued that they don't even provide this adequately in areas where they are a market monopoly. My local government pr

> providing customer support It could be argued that they don't even provide this adequately in areas where they are a market monopoly. My local government provides far better customer support. When there is an issue or grievance, there is a place to file it and someone will always respond. As an added bonus, they don't try to sell me additional services every 5 minutes.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. Presently, the best-run municipalities are exploring municipal broadband. Their experiences will be positive. But not all municipalities are well-run. And today's well-run municipalities turn into tomorrow dumpster fires. Publicly-owned infrastructure rented to private provider-maintainers is a proven model. It isn't a fire-and-forget solution. But by dividing power between the municipality and private operator, it provides a rudimentary balance. Remember, we got here because municipalities gave ISPs local monopolies. I don't get why we suddenly believe they'll now be totally competent and benevolent.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. I strongly disagree. Have you ever been to Germany? All the infrastructure we have in the U.S. is shit compared to Germany. The roads, the trains, etc. The one bit of infrastructure in the U.S. that isn't shit in comparison is broadband.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > Have you ever been to Germany? All the infrastructure we have in the U.S. is shit compared to Germany. As a Swiss New Yorker, I get where you're coming from. It doesn't lightly occur to me that our subways were almost entirely built by private companies. (With heap loads of public funding, albeit.) We have ISP competition in New York, which is how we get superior service. That isn't the case in much of America; letting municipalities be that competition is, to me, better than letting Comcast et al retain their monopolies.
- pathseeker 8y ago
  >America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. Blanket statements like this are pointless. I lived in Austin for a few years and had multiple fiber ISPs to choose from and was able to get 1 gbps for $70/mo.
  - mrkstu 8y ago
    Thats 100% because of Google Fiber- if you'd come in a couple years before that, the high speed choices were all expensive, bundled, and data capped.
gregmac 8y ago
> > providing customer support > It could be argued that they don't even provide this adequately in areas where they are a market monopoly. It's almost as if being a monopoly means you don't have to invest in cost centers like customer support... Really though this is pretty much the core problem. High costs + build-out requirements mean monopolies are granted, whether explicitly or not. Municipal last mile means the hardest part is done once, and then any ISP is free to compete -- which they can do based on offering the best support, fastest peering, etc. The cost of entering the market is reduced to getting set up in the PoP(s).

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. Presently, the best-run municipalities are exploring municipal broadband. Their experiences will be positive. But not all municipalities are well-run. And today's well-run municipalities turn into tomorrow dumpster fires. Publicly-owned infrastructure rented to private provider-maintainers is a proven model. It isn't a fire-and-forget solution. But by dividing power between the municipality and private operator, it provides a rudimentary balance. Remember, we got here because municipalities gave ISPs local monopolies. I don't get why we suddenly believe they'll now be totally competent and benevolent.

rayiner 8y ago
> America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. I strongly disagree. Have you ever been to Germany? All the infrastructure we have in the U.S. is shit compared to Germany. The roads, the trains, etc. The one bit of infrastructure in the U.S. that isn't shit in comparison is broadband.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Have you ever been to Germany? All the infrastructure we have in the U.S. is shit compared to Germany. As a Swiss New Yorker, I get where you're coming from. It doesn't lightly occur to me that our subways were almost entirely built by private companies. (With heap loads of public funding, albeit.) We have ISP competition in New York, which is how we get superior service. That isn't the case in much of America; letting municipalities be that competition is, to me, better than letting Comcast et al retain their monopolies.
pathseeker 8y ago
>America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. Blanket statements like this are pointless. I lived in Austin for a few years and had multiple fiber ISPs to choose from and was able to get 1 gbps for $70/mo.
- mrkstu 8y ago
  Thats 100% because of Google Fiber- if you'd come in a couple years before that, the high speed choices were all expensive, bundled, and data capped.

gregmac 8y ago

> > providing customer support > It could be argued that they don't even provide this adequately in areas where they are a market monopoly. It's almost as if being a monopoly means you don't have to invest in cost centers like customer support... Really though this is pretty much the core problem. High costs + build-out requirements mean monopolies are granted, whether explicitly or not. Municipal last mile means the hardest part is done once, and then any ISP is free to compete -- which they can do based on offering the best support, fastest peering, etc. The cost of entering the market is reduced to getting set up in the PoP(s).