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26 States Now Ban or Restrict Community Broadband
- save_ferris 8y agoThis is so gross. Related, I work for a large, publicly-traded American software company and I'm constantly amazed/frustrated by the internet connection in our office. We constantly deal with connectivity issues and bandwidth restrictions, all while the executive leadership cuts back on working from home/remotely. A multi-billion dollar software company literally cannot buy consistent internet access. The bottom line is that we're completely at the mercy of Time Warner Cable/Spectrum, and no amount of cajoling/threatening/pleading seems to improve our internet service. We're kidding ourselves as a society if we truly think that the established private entities that rule the internet infrastructure are our best shot at a faster, more reliable internet.
- MisterOctober 8y agoReading the above list made me feel genuinely queasy. I'm no stranger to the warped side of politics, but this is really just ugly from a "balance of public and private interest in governance" standpoint.
- PaulHoule 8y agoAn awful thing you will find is that the vc funded folks, google, and "big tech" are not on our side. Somehow they think it is cool for China to break the neoliberal consensus and invest in infrastructure, but no way should there be competition for better internet or better airplanes here.
- utopcell 8y agoDidn't Google try to disrupt the market with Fiber ?
- darkpuma 8y agoConsidering the discrepancy between the resources available to Google and the results achieved, I think it's safe to say that was a half-hearted attempt at most. There is part of me that thinks the whole thing was a PR stunt.
- kevingadd 8y agoIf a billion-dollar company gives up after rolling out in that few cities, they weren't really trying. Hard to know what their goals were initially since it seems like it wasn't actually market disruption.
- PaulHoule 8y agoI think they did create the "level set" that gigabit speeds were possible. In the short term they may have spurred more competition, but in the long term they've simply caused despair in everyone except for the incumbent ISPs.
- utopcell 8y agoI interpreted that failure as Google being powerless against big ISPs.
- kevingadd 8y agoIt's really hard for me to believe that a company with a billion dollars couldn't buy their way to favorable laws. Everyone else does it.
- dnicjwbfic82 8y agoThe fact that this is even a thing makes me sick. The american political system is royaly f'ed up.
- rayiner 8y agoGoogle negotiated extremely favorable terms with Fiber cities, much more favorable than the terms the incumbents received: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-att-want-kansas-city-to-give-them-google-fiber-style-deal https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-att-.... > As we’ve reported on in the past, Kansas City has rolled out the digital red carpet for Google: giving rights of way, prime office space, expedited permitting, fee waivers, and more. In a notable example, the city charged only $10 per pole for Google to string its cable on municipal utility poles—as opposed to the usual $18.95 per pole rate. But now, local incumbents Time Warner Cable and AT&T want to feel the love, too. It wouldn’t be fair to accuse Google if “buying” anything—it’s modus operandi was to approach second tier cities in low-cost states that would see fiber as a differentiating factor to help boost their economy. (That’s why they refused to deal with Boston, SF, or NYC.) Then Google gave them extremely aggressive terms, such as waiver of build-out requirements (the obligation to serve the whole city, even unprofitable areas) that are otherwise universal in such deals. And Google still couldn’t make the numbers work!
- screye 8y agoI feel like big tech has realized that it is not a war worth fighting. All of the investment here is upfront. Ie. Laying down infrastructure and these cable companies hold greater political influence on the current government, one place where IT companies are particularly weak. It just doesn't make sense. There are easier and higher ROI problems that they would rather solve.
- KorematsuFred 8y agoGobermint run internet would be worse than Comcast and ATT in USA.
- jniedrauer 8y agoWhat do you base that on?
- rayiner 8y agoThe US is in the top 10 for global broadband speeds, according to Ookla and Akamai data. We’re not in the top 10 for any sort of government infrastructure (trains, roads, etc). Compare the US to say Germany or Sweden, and the only area of infrastructure where we can hold a candle is broadband. In the NYT article detailing why it costs NYC 7x as much money per mile to build subway than other countries, leaders of subway projects in London and Paris pointed out how inefficient MTA projects are compared to theirs. Why would you expect government run broadband in the US to be better when our other government run services are so much worse? Here in Maryland, our Comcast/Verizon duopoly is working pretty well. 60% of households have access to fiber. Most of the rest have access to gigabit cable, which in a few years will be symmetric gigabit. (I’ve got fiber from both Comcast and Verizon into my house.) Prices are comparable to Sweden or Switzerland for gigabit (places that also have high labor costs and don’t subsidize their fiber.) Municipal fiber fills the gap in rural areas. The one gap is Baltimore, where Verizon doesn’t have FiOS. Should Baltimore build a municipal fiber network? I don’t think so. Baltimore recently celebrated hitting 75% on-time performance on their subway. MARC had 75% on-time performance this summer. My Metro commute is slower and less reliable than it would’ve been in 1985. They literally had to slow down the trains and run them less often because they botched the maintenance so bad. (And these are well-funded systems. We’re a heavily urbanized blue state.) Why on earth would I want to put those same people in charge of my broadband?
- jogjayr 8y ago> Here in Maryland, our Comcast/Verizon duopoly is working pretty well. 60% of households have access to fiber. Only 2 providers, especially in a heavily urbanized area, is not that many. How do your rates compare to other countries? > our other government run services are so much worse? Surely the answer is to improve the quality of government run services then, instead of accepting that the US is somehow intrinsically bad at providing them. In many cases, it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy: government services suck, so let's underfund/have low expectations of them, now they really do suck. For many functions government services are the only game in town, so it's in everyone's interest to have them be as efficient as possible.
- yeahitslikethat 8y agoThen are we kidding ourselves that capitalism is our best shot at a social system?
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoA lot of us think so. Assuming that uncoordinated market forces and powerful people seeking profit is the best way to care for human happiness comes off as absurd to a lot of people. I’m all for markets most of the time, but some good old fashioned coordination and cooperation seems lacking from bare capitalism. Luckily capitalism doesn’t prevent cooperation, we just need to get it in our heads to actually do it.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> Luckily capitalism doesn’t prevent cooperation, we just need to get it in our heads to actually do it. It effectively does, under enough competitive pressure. Incentives are stacked in such a way that for any attempt at coordination, it's profitable to be the one to defect. In fact, a big (if not the main) job of regulations is to enforce cooperation in situations where market guides people to defect.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoI don’t like using the government for these problems. I think private collectives could be very powerful here. If you have a collective of a few thousand members cooperating with another collective, the members would have to all choose profit over cooperation to defect. Our normal corporate structure with a tiny board of directors creates perverse incentives for the board to profit greatly at everyone else’s expense. Collectives can be designed without a board of directors, or the board can be better held accountable to the members. That means collectives are less likely to choose profit over public interest, because the voting members are the public much more so than the few members of some corporate board.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
- notyourday 8y ago> A multi-billion dollar software company literally cannot buy consistent internet access. Oh come on. If you are a billion dollar software company the solution is simple: order dark fiber to your offices and hire a dozen of network engineers to cover the entire US. Problem solved. If you only have a few locations, you would need only a couple of network engineers.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- slg 8y agoAs someone who has been tangentially involved in this process in the past, what you describe seems super weird to me. Getting upgrades to business internet access is shockingly expensive when you are accustomed to purchasing consumer internet, but there has always been multiple companies willing to lay new cable for us at a price that is well within the budget of a multi-billion dollar company. As a general rule, most ISPs stink, but they still are businesses. It seems strange for them to literally refuse your money. Is your office in some remote location or is there some legal restriction that prevents one of these companies from doing the work at any price?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIndeed. I have never had a problem getting commercial gigabit fiber pulled when the business was willing to spend $20k-$50k up front and a few thousand a month. And at enterprise scale, those costs are minimal.
- djhn 8y agoAm I misunderstanding American internet service completely, or is this as obscene as it sounds? I pay 40€ a month for a gigabit connection to my flat in 18th-19th century built neighbourhood. 25€ for unlimited 400 Mbit/s to my phone. Actual speeds match what is promised.
- Jonnax 8y agoNo. Your connection is not a business broadband connection. You pay that much to get guaranteed throughout and bandwidth at the max whenever. Guaranteed with an SLA. Your residential broadband is contented, you share a pipe with multiple households. Like with GPON passive optical, your connection to the exchange point may be shared with 32 homes and is a 2.5 Gbps downstream and 1.25 Gbps link.
- swebs 8y agoYou don't have a gigabit connection, your building does. You split the cost and bandwidth with all other residents.
- tokyodude 8y agoWhy do you believe governments will do a better job? Seeing how well the SF government is at doing anything? Or the state of NYC public transit. Even worse, unlike say roads which probably last 15-20 years, tech will be obsolete in 5 and you expect the government to some how keep paying for upgrades? Also, it seems relatively hard to abuse electricity as it's billed by unit but I'm guessing you'd expect municipal broadband to somehow be unlimited access and still let everyone who wants to torrent movies all day long? Will there be a push for government to prevent undesirable content (ie, porn) from being transmitted on public networks? I'm not saying the system there today is good. The monopolies Time Warner / Spectrum have need to be fixed but it doesn't seem that municipal broadband is a better solution.
- wilg 8y agoHere is the full list from the original study: Bureaucratic Barriers To Municipal Broadband: Michigan North Carolina South Carolina Tennessee Virginia Utah Wisconsin Montana Direct Sale Prohibitions On Municipal Broadband: Arkansas Missouri Nebraska Pennsylvania Texas Washington Prohibitive Referendum Requirements On Municipal Broadband: Alabama Colorado Louisiana Minnesota Iowa Population Caps On Service Areas For Municipal Broadband Networks: Nevada Excessive Taxes On Municipal Broadband Services: Florida Other Tactics Used To Roadblock Municipal Broadband: California Wyoming Oregon Massachusetts Connecticut (this was really annoying to format with HN's terrible formatting rules)
- agentwiggles 8y agoWow, for once I get to be happy about a decision my state's government made.
- nixpulvis 8y agoAs someone who voted for https://bouldercolorado.gov/connect-boulder/boulder-broadband-enhancement https://bouldercolorado.gov/connect-boulder/boulder-broadban..., I'm curious what the implications of Colorado's "Prohibitive Referendum Requirements" are? EDIT: If I'm reading this correctly, then this point is no longer true for CO. > As of 2018, the state is moving forward with a new bill (HB-1099) that will remove this problem. This bill is expected to pass in the coming months, but is not official at the time of this writing. https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks-2018/#colorado https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc...
- lukeschlather 8y agoThis is the text of the final bill: https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2018a_1099_signed.pdf https://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2018a_1099_sign... Reading the text, it sounds like that was the bill that created the problem in the first place.
- bproven 8y ago
- jf 8y agoI've worked for two ISPs during my career. One in California and another in Rwanda. Those experiences have convinced me that providing internet service just isn't a viable business: the margins are too thin, or non-existent. Generally, I haven't seen private industry do a good job at providing infrastructure over long periods of time. (edit) That said, when I see articles like this one I have to remind myself that the landscape is going to completely change once Starlink and/or OneWeb become active.
- lovich 8y agoHow are they not viable businesses? Even if you remove the legal barriers there is a high cost to starting an ISP with the amount of physical capital that needs to be set up. Its not like its some business where a competitor can spin up on a whim and you're forced to deal with incredible amounts of competition. Sure the ISPs profit would likely go down, but it wouldn't go to zero. Just like every other capital intensive business on the planet
- jf 8y agoNeither of the ISPs that I worked for had legal barriers that I noticed (especially in Rwanda), the barriers that I did notice were physical capital, as you mention. You do raise a good point about "viable business", what I was trying to communicate was "a business where both the business and the customer benefit", and as you pointed out, that's not what "viable business" means. I can only speak from my experience here, and my experience was that the financial constraints on both of the ISPs I worked for were such that many, many compromises had to be made. For example, the ISP in California used consumer-grade hardware, so the ARP tables would fill up after about 48 hours, so we wrote scripts to reboot the routers every 24 hours - this killed all active TCP/IP sessions and stopped service for about a minute. The ISP in Rwanda only had a ~3mbps satellite link, so we set up a transparent proxy to ignore HTTP headers and aggressively cache data to increase the apparent throughput. These kind of compromises stand in contrast to similar work I did for a community college, where we didn't have to make compromises like that.
- pinewurst 8y agoPersonally I think that as soon as one of the promised satellite constellations becomes real enough to compete with Comcast/Time Warner/etc, we'll see new legislative barriers (bought and paid for) come into play.
- js2 8y agoObstacles in both Democratic and Republican states alike. Pretty sad. Also damn hypocritical of the states which regularly complain of Federal overreach to go restricting their own local governments.
- fj39dkf 8y agoMost of them are actually Republican-controlled state legislatures, or were Republican-controlled when the measure passed, even if they frequently vote blue in presidential elections.
- rayiner 8y ago> Also damn hypocritical of the states which regularly complain of Federal overreach to go restricting their own local governments. Not at all. The federal government and state governments are separate sovereigns. Municipal governments are mere appendages of the state governments (and at the end of the day, the state governments are on the hook for anything bad that happens as a result of municipal decisions, e.g. Flint Michigan.)
- orthecreedence 8y agoMunicipal broadband is the only long-term solution to enforcing Net Neutrality, and the only long-term solution to telecom monopolies. If we value free speech a truly as we claim to as a nation, we should all be clamoring for municipal broadband infrastructure.
- PaulHoule 8y agoYou know, I would sell out Net Neutrality in a second if Charter would do what they said they would do, which is build out in New York State. Instead all they do is "fight for the right to not serve customers".
- cninja 8y agoIs there any resource from the other side that provides reasons why restrictions should be placed on community broadband? The explanation "Evil Monopoly wants all the money" seems too simple for the complex nuanced world we live in.
- deogeo 8y agoYes. There are many think-tanks whose sole purpose is justifying laws that benefit corporate at the expense of everyone else. They will be happy to provide you with all the reasons you'd like.
- stupidcar 8y agoThe argument is that government, at any level, shouldn't be competing with the private sector. It should regulate the market, but shouldn't participate in it, because, on a practical level, it's often not too good at it, but also because it can create perverse incentives. For example, say municipal broadband became ubiquitous and popular enough that the income from it is now an important source of revenue for the authorities in these towns. Then they are incentivised to make things difficult for any commercial rival, even if the commercial offering is cheaper and better. Given how dysfunctional and kleptocratic municipal politics tends to be, almost everywhere, it's hard to say such concerns aren't entirely unfounded. Of course, there are plenty of decent counter-arguments, and counter-counter-arguments. This is just one of those tensions that exists and is fundamentally irresolvable in any capitalist democracy.
- siffland 8y agoit is all about the benjamins...and big ISP have more of them. I have 2 ISP's (Spectrum and AT&T), and both are really expensive. And i am in San Antonio, how is this competition and how does this help me the consumer. So very frustrating. lobbying pisses me off and now i am just venting.
- GordonS 8y agoAs someone from the UK who knows nothing about this, and just can't understand why on earth politicians would make this happen - what reasons are given for this?
- droithomme 8y agoIs community and municipal broadband the same thing? The article says these states have banned community broadband, which I consider to be things like rural areas and islands where farmers/locals took up a collection and invested in a mesh network connected via microwave relay to the net at large. Whereas "municipal" broadband is internet access sponsored by the local city, county, or public utility company. The two are significantly different things.
- usermac 8y agoWhen I upvote this, I feel like I'm hitting the FB 'like' button and it does nothing really to make it better.
- mnm1 8y agoIt seems like our free market is working exactly as intended. It sorted itself out just like its proponents said it would. Sure most people have no broadband or are locked in with a monopolistic provider, but it was left to its own devices and now clearly provides the best service for everyone. This of course, includes bribing--I mean lobbying--politicians. What an amazing system.
- colejohnson66 8y agoIt’s not a free market if the barriers to entry are so high even Google has trouble
- ausbah 8y agowell is it a market that just naturally high barriers to entry so the market will trend towards oligopoly or monopoly, or is it caused by senseless regulations, protectionism, etc.?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- usermac 8y agoI wonder is there some wavelength that is not regulated that can 'override' legislation? Or another type of transmission. Mesh networks come to mind but I'm thinking better.
- externalreality 8y agoCapitalism based legislation is nothing new. People accept this with votes for trump so why complain. Get a maga cap and get on board.
- DaniloDias 8y agoWe should be indexing on more local competition. Municipal broadband makes no sense if people think we need solutions like DNS over SSL. Do not give your local government this amount of access to your behavior. If Facebook is bad for privacy, muni-broadband would be a disaster.
- asah 8y agoNY is not one of those states, and NYC has a mesh network with a $20/mon suggested donation. map: https://www.nycmesh.net/map https://www.nycmesh.net/map (I'm not a member - applied and considering it... for work, I need high speed and low latency... thoughts welcome!)
- rb808 8y agoTBH with 5G coming around the corner, I'd hate my city to plow 10s/100s of millions into laying fiber that might not get used.
- FireBeyond 8y agoWireless data has actually got more expensive. A little older now, but: - https://brooksreview.net/2010/06/att-caps-phone-data-usage-w.. https://brooksreview.net/2010/06/att-caps-phone-data-usage-w.... - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-att-wireless-plan-caps-phone.. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-att-wireless-plan-caps-phone.... 2GB for $25/mo with AT&T, $10/GB overage. Now? - https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html $30/mo for 2GB, with $15/GB overage. Data prices do seem to have gotten better: http://about.att.com/story/att_offers_its_best_ever_pricing_.. http://about.att.com/story/att_offers_its_best_ever_pricing_.... where they reduced the plan from $80 to $65 for voice+2GB data. Indeed, last year to go from 2GB to 5GB cost $20, and now costs $25. - http://www.att.com/att/planner/ http://www.att.com/att/planner/ From the CBS article, "With that plan and voice service, a smart phone could cost as little as $55 per month before taxes and add-on fees, down from $70 per month." According to AT&T's planner, that means in SIX YEARS, costs haven't changed at all, overall.
- deelowe 8y ago5G is vastly different than previous generation cellular service. It's hard to tell what will happen to prices once it's fully deployed.
- ralph84 8y agoRegulating cities so they don't do something stupid is reasonable. Remember muni wi-fi? That ended up being a massive wealth transfer from taxpayers to consultants and vendors of gear that didn't work. After the networks were built cities were left holding the bag and trying to decide whether to continue to operate a system nobody used or throw in the towel and admit they wasted millions.
- darkpuma 8y ago> Regulating cities so they don't do something stupid is reasonable. States should forbid cities from funding the creation of sports stadiums then. They're almost always disastrous. https://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/30/stadium-economics-noll-073015/ https://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/30/stadium-economics-noll-... https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/sports-stadiums-can-be-bad-cities/576334/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/sport... (Of course that would run contrary to corporate interests, so don't hold your breath. It's clear who these states are trying to protect, and it isn't the cities.)
- ralph84 8y agoSure, cities shouldn't be involved in transferring wealth to billionaire sports team owners either. But I bet if you gave voters a choice of a major league sports team or incrementally faster internet, they'd choose the sports team. You may not like it, but sports are still very popular.
- ratling 8y agoAHAHAHAHA you scuffed degenerate shitholes. Wallow in your filth while I enjoy 3x options for residential and 5x business internet you fucking cucks.
- ratling 8y agoAHAAHAHAHAHAAHA move out of scuffed shithole rural chudland if you want to make real money you disgusting degenerate fucks.
- ratling 8y agoPennsylvania of course. Pennsylvanias outside philly/pitt are fucking animals. They don't deserve the time of day let alone federal subsidies. Fucking cucks
- dang 8y agoWe've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Could you please not create accounts to do that with? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- DEADBEEFC0FFEE 8y agoWhile is disapointing that paying a lawmaker us cheaper than competing, it worth noting that laws written by industry is necessarily bad. The onus is on the lawmakers to check what they pass.
- mruts 8y agoI am a strong believer in the free market and neo-liberalism . But let’s be clear: this isn’t capitalism, this is rent-seeking and corruption.
- Aloha 8y agoI realize this is an unpopular opinion, The problem isn't just ISP's - the only reason community broadband in an urban environment sounds like a good idea, is because it can go around the permitting process. The permitting process to install shit is why any tom, dick and harry can't get themselves set up as a telco - yes, the big three/four/five as sleazy and slimy, but local government has made it almost impossible to compete with them either. To give you an idea, I was working on a cell site upgrade project in from 2013-2015 - it took the City of Seattle two years to approve permits to do a simple no civil upgrade (swap equipment, move some above ground conduit), whereas in a more rural area, we had that same permit in 2-45 days depending on jurisdiction.
- micah_chatt 8y agoA year ago I moved from Chattanooga, TN (mentioned in the article) to Bellevue, Wa to work in “Cloud City” Seattle to take a job at AWS. It used to cost me a total $59/mo for 100MB fiber up and down, no contract, with _amazing_ customer service (I seriously have stories to tell about how great EPB is). My only real option at my new residence is Comcast at $79/mo which went up to $94/mo after 1 year for a hypothetical 100down/5up, with frequent network drops. It was quite disappointing to find zero options for fiber, and this convinces me that this kind of corruption by ISPs and legislators needs to be severely curbed.
- m463 8y agoI had a friend who worked for a cable company (several decades ago). He would tell me that for cable customers, frequently the cost of infrastructure was recovered during the install, if not within the first month or two. When you look at the gross profit margin for ISPs and cellphone companies, it is frequently > 60% Being the only game in town really has some tangible benefits.
- kbos87 8y agoThis is straight up shameful. People involved in these decisions should be personally shamed in their day to day, dropping their kids off at school, shopping at the grocery store, and picking up their mobile orders at Starbucks.
- oneowl 8y agoOne of the things that I find really encouraging is governments letting other industires to become ISP >In Tennessee, for example, state laws allow publicly-owned electric utilities to provide broadband I think this is the best way to solve last mile distribution. Electric companies already have the capacity to manage door to door to installations. Internet could become an additional source of revenue for them. They could lease the line from big providers and increase their reach. Win Win.
- microcolonel 8y agoOn the topic, I think there's a better middle ground. Local governments already tend to manage roads, utility poles, etc. If they would manage conduit space the same way, maybe some colo, you could give fair access to private persons and companies, while preventing some of the ills of the way things tend to work right now (specific approval required for buildout, companies getting too familiar and working too closely with local government for there to be any fairness). Maybe they could lease dark fiber similarly, but that may not be necessary with basic standards like those used for utility pole access in a decently well run town or city.
- jrobn 8y agoI think these states should turn their municipal water and sewer over to private companies and then in a few years of having their toilet back up into their living room while costing them thousands of dollars maybe they will think broadband in the 21st century is a important utility that should be available to all at an affordable price.
- Razengan 8y agoWould a drone swarm that provides a mesh network for user devices to connect through, get around these restrictions?
- kwhitefoot 8y agoHow do Americans square things like this with their insistence that they value freedom of the individual?
- grecy 8y agoThey also value corporate profit.
- swebs 8y agoAsk 100 Americans if they agree with these restrictions and 99 would say "hell no". Sometimes the government allies with corporations just to fuck us over. If you try to fight it, they call you a "populist".
- zentiggr 8y agoMy anecdotal impression is that most Americans can't be bothered to think about these topics at all, and if you try to bring them up it's brushed off with a "I can't be bothered to think about anything that isn't day to day getting by". I wish anyone I knew outside of tech circles cared even 1% as much... but I've given up trying to point out all the instances of corporations fucking over the public.
- aiisjustanif 8y agoWhat in the actual hell.
- mac01021 8y agoPragmatically, the reason I would want municipal broadband is because it would be less expensive than Comcast or whatever private provider, right? But would it be? I've used various of the major cable internet providers over the years and I can always get all the speed I want for $80 per month or less. Or is this mostly about internet access for the poor, tax-funded?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]