12 ms·

The city I live in voted for municipal broadband in 2017. Our local private internet provider Comcast fought it at every turn, Comcast spent millions fighting m

The city I live in voted for municipal broadband in 2017. Our local private internet provider Comcast fought it at every turn, Comcast spent millions fighting municipal broadband in a city with about 150,000 residents. We started rolling out our own broadband to residents in 2020. It took a couple of years for the city to hire and build up a department and lay the infrastructure to support it city wide and I finally got the service at the beginning of this year, and it has been awesome. We have gigabit internet up AND DOWN for $59.95/month. What really burns me is the private providers we have, Comcast and CenturyLink, have been here for decades and could have done exactly what our city has done: run fiber to every neighborhood and house. It would have been cheaper for them too, they already had the infrastructure in place. They chose not to make the investment and instead spent millions trying to prevent us from providing better service for ourselves. I hope everyone has the chance to get better/cheaper internet service for themselves and their community, so far it has worked out great for us.

ashtonkem 5y ago
Capitalism is wildly inefficient for infrastructure, and it’s really frustrating how often we have to relearn this as a society. There’s a damn good reason why the city owns the pipes that bring water to and sewage from your house, and why the power lines are owned by a heavily regulated monopoly. The physical infrastructure to run internet to everyone’s homes should be owned by the state and responsive to the citizens it serves and not the shareholders who profit.
- amelius 5y ago
  What makes cable companies different from, say, a duopoly in mobile phone operating systems?
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Land usage, mostly. Cell companies need space for towers and fiber to those antennas. It turns out that these don’t take up all that much space, so it’s trivially possible for multiple cell phone companies to setup towers covering the same customers. Cable companies however have to deal with the “last mile” problem, which is both massively more expensive than installing more centralized infrastructure, but also involves installing infrastructure on much more restricted areas.
    - colejohnson66 5y ago
      @amelius asked about phone operating systems. But your comment is a very good point about mobile phones vs home internet.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Isn’t there a spectrum license/conflict issue for mobile network operators?
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        Absolutely, that’s part of why T-Mobile and Sprint joined together. But there’s enough spectrum available to run a few different cell phone companies, while last mile issues are pretty much permanent for cable companies.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    There may be a duopoly, but I can still get what I want with jailbreaking or rooting (although that is getting harder over time). With ISPs, if they both suck, I’m SOL.
    - heavyset_go 5y ago
      This is like saying that you can get away from your ISP monopoly by using your neighbors' WiFi.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    The whole concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market requires being able to purchase interchangeable goods on the global market. Yet, you cannot buy a service like broadband or sewage, put it in a box and sell it to someone living in another continent. Location-bound services usually become quasi-monopolies, where free market does not apply. The quasi-monopolist is able (and happy) to charge the maximum price that people can pay.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    The general response would be that, because of barriers to entry and economies of scale, the optimal number of firms in some industries is 1, and thus that firm should be regulated or run by the government in order to prevent it from exploiting its immense market power.
- user3939382 5y ago
  Even famous libertarians like Hayek agree that infrastructure is a necessary duty of the government. To me, it's the plate on which the free market rests and operates. It is the wiring of the market itself.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Capitalism isn't at fault here; spineless municipal governments are. Since the federal government is also spineless, it's refreshing to see some starting to wake up to the hellscape that is our Internet infrastructure.
  - martin8412 5y ago
    It's not even capitalism to begin with. It's corporate socialism. Where you have companies actively using the government to secure their own payday. If a company has millions and utter millions to throw at not having to compete.. That being said, I agree that natural monopolies should be considered an issue for the state.
- missedthecue 5y ago
  This is just competition. Nothing anti-market about that
- m463 5y ago
  I think regulatory capture is one of the most profitable loopholes in capitalism and I don't think there are adequate checks and balances. I wish there was a better way to regulate internet service that wasn't subject to these kinds of shenanigans. I suspect long-term it is competition that ends up fixing this, but think of the drag on the economy when good communication is fouled up like this.
ronnier 5y ago
Comcast makes me sick. I spent months getting off of them and it was worth every bit of it by switching to Ziply fiber in the Seattle area. I went from this to this: * Comcast 1000/35 Down/up to Ziply 1000/1000 down/up * Monthly bill cut in half * Comcast monthly data caps, to no data caps with Ziply And that's right, Comcast gives 35 Mbps upload, if you are lucky! And data caps.
- ortusdux 5y ago
  My best option currently is Wave Broadband, with 940/20 costing 100$/mo. I pay an extra 8$/mo for 940/25. The tech installing my line checked my signal and said that they could support 940/940, but they wont offer it in my area. I am pricing the cost of a fiber run that after install will be 1000/1000 for 60$/mo. I would gladly pay $3k to hook-up.
  - Analemma_ 5y ago
    Wave Broadband literally doubled my bill out of the blue last November-- not because a trial pricing period ended or anything, but just because they could: I was in an apartment building where they were the only option. It's irrelevant now because shortly after that I moved to a different location, but they're just as bad as Comcast. Private ISPs delenda est.
  - GloriousKoji 5y ago
    With comcast in my area the unofficial strategy is to require you to sign up for a new plan every year to slowing tick down your speed and increase costs. If you stick with your old plan the monthly doubles. Right now I'm paying $60 for 60/3.5 with comcast. A few years ago it was $30 for 100/3.5 I have no other real options, it's gross.
    - hellbannedguy 5y ago
      I heard threw the grapevine Xfinity (comcast) has given up on trying to compete with streaming services. Their strategy is just charge more for everything, and make ordering services compliced. Going on their website to just get basic cable, and low speed internet is very hard. They push packages--hoping you will never realize when the deal ends. They rely on senior citizens who just pay the bill, and are not technical enough to even shop around--if they have a choice? Most households don't. Comcast should be required to have have simple billing, and simple ording of service That could be taken care of the next time your local government ok's their next franchise agreement. It's not a franchise. It's some agreement government has with them. Be careful calling Xfinity (comcast) for anything. The calls are routed overseas, and those employees main function is pushing package deals. Don't fall for it. They try to get the customer to agree on voice, so they have evidence. 1. I'm ok with their internet service, except for the price, and lack of competition. 2. The cable tv service is subpar. I have had checkering for ever. I gave up on getting it corrected. After three visits from third party vendors it's still not right. (This third party vendor was working 6 days a week, and was required to lease his service truck for $250/week.). 3. If you do have a lousy connection, it might be partially related to a filter Comcast put on years ago, but never took off. (The new filters are fine, but a certain brand of an older one is bad. I just threw it out so I can't give the part number. If you have voice remote, make sure it's on the right three splitter. I vagly remember it on the outlet with the lowest resistance? 4. I believe Comcast knows they are pushing too much through that coaxial. I believe they preparing for a class action lawsuit, but might not care? 5. I only put up with Comcast because there's no real competition where I reside. Xfinity's agreements with local municipalities needs to be nixed. 6. Comcast promised to not cut off service during the pandemic, but lied. 7. Comcast offers Hotspots. Your router could be the hotspot, and they don't have to tell you. (I don't believe their is any danger to this practice though.) I would love it that infrastructure bill did away with Xfinity. They provide very few good paying jobs. I would like to see free internet provided to every American, even the wealthy.
georgel 5y ago
Similar situation in Fort Collins, Colorado. Connexion (the city's brand for municipal ISP) is 60/mo for symmetric gigabit fiber, and for 300/mo can get 10Gb/s and near zero outages. Comcast and Century Link keep sending "deals" in the mail that are laughable. I am very happy with municipal ISP. https://www.fcgov.com/connexion/residential-internet https://www.fcgov.com/connexion/residential-internet
- beached_whale 5y ago
  Can help a lot with the tax bases too. I know my municipal ISP just dumped $17 million into the municipal tax base of a city of just over a 100 thousand. They also pay well. So that's money that is not being taxed.
- fiftyfifty 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm actually in Fort Collins, I was trying to be a little vague for anonymity but ya know. With Longmont Colorado having municipal broadband I think Comcast saw Fort Collins as a hill worth dying on. I've heard that Boulder and Denver are looking at putting municipal broadband on a ballot in the future. Certainly how things turn out in Fort Collins will be considered in other communities around the state. After 4 months on our community broadband I'm still fighting with Comcast over bills and charges.
  - bproven 5y ago
    Yeah I am in FC and I wish Boulder and Denver well, but it will be a hard fight Comcast owns the city of Denver and most of its metro. Through influence and legislature that is all in their favor. As well as being a HUGE employer in the state. My only gripe is I really wish they would roll the FC Connexion to my neighborhood in midtown now lol
takeda 5y ago
What your city did sounds great, and I hope it will be similarly done in other places as well. I think ideally the city should allow for other ISPs to lease these lines (of course at price that would cover the cost of maintaining them) and still providing option to be one of those ISPs. This would lower the barrier to enter for other ISPs and perhaps further lower the price. I only hope that your city won't end up selling the infrastructure to someone in the future, because that will of course kill the whole effort. I believe the key to solve our ISP problems is unbundling the local loop. The bill that congress wants to pass to fix Internet will be a failure, unless the money is meant for local governments to do the same your city did.
- bombcar 5y ago
  If providers would take the money they'd normally fight municipal broadband with and instead fight for access to the "last mile" they'd come out way ahead - offload a cost center to the municipality, get better access and speed, and be able to differentiate on services.
  - takeda 5y ago
    They would, but so would their competitors. Comcast and Spectrum have currently a great position, because cost to enter the market for anyone else is so high. Not even Google with their "unlimited" amount of money was able to get through it. It's crazy that currently the only way to enter the market is to deploy thousands of satellites (like Starlink) and once Starlink becomes a competitor to current ISPs other competitors won't be able to follow them. This situation can't be solved without changing laws and local governments.
CerealFounder 5y ago
Gather around, this is good. How I sued Spectrum California for $1800... So my internet had rolling outages for weeks and Spectrum wouldnt do anything. So they sent a technician to my house. Three consecutive days, scheduled appointment, no one showed, or called (other than the automated attendant. This is important later). I was furious. I was talking to my father who did a bit of law school and he shared that California has a $600 a day no show penalty for companies with 25 or more employees. https://legalbeagle.com/7272842-service-noshow-penalty-california-law.html https://legalbeagle.com/7272842-service-noshow-penalty-calif... So I file small claims for the full 1800. I show up and theyve sent a person who professionally goes to court to fight these things. It also became clear the they use the auto dialer follow up to negate the "no call" portion of the "No show/now call" law. They've got it down to a science. So dejected by their treachery, I try a last second hail mary by asking the judge if I can speak to the court. I tell him "I am you, you, you (pointing at him and the people sitting in court), this company dosent care about providing the service they promised, theyd rather spend that money hiring henchmen to beat the consumer laws on a technicality. Their largest investment is in extraction, not service. Im just a guy who wanted his internet and to go back to work. If my experience hits home at all please, hold them accountable." Lonnnnng silence and the little Spectrum rat is visibly smiling. The judge starts to speak "Mr Cereal, I personally empathize with companies not respecting my time. Its so frusteratinfg" The whole court audibly gasps, this judge is gonna stick them. Judge flustered "Wellll, I dont mean Specturm specifically. That said, I find fully in favor of Mr Cereal and order a full judgement." Ive sold two companies for 9 figures in my life. I have never ever ever seen my jewish father as proud of me as when I called him and told him what happened. I got a check two weeks later. tldr: ISPs are evil, but you can get them if they dont show. Also, your dad will be proud.
- Hammershaft 5y ago
  It sounds like a story but I'll give the benefit of the doubt if only because I so want to believe.
  - CerealFounder 5y ago
    What part? Its a law on the books and it all went down at the Stanley Mosk courthouse on the third floor. I was also late to roll call and I had to take a Bird scooter a quarter-mile from Chinatown because parking at the court is like $40/day.
r00fus 5y ago
Just to note: Sanders 2020 "Internet for All" plan would have given municipalities the blueprints to a) fight Comcast and entrenched providers and b) funding to do so, thereby enabling more freedom. Unfortunately he did not prevail in the primary. More municipal and small internet providers could act as a bulwark against centralization and corporate dominance of the backbone of our communication infrastructure.
- richwater 5y ago
  Government intervention is what gave providers local monopolies in the first place. More legislation from the federal and state level is not needed, unless it's literally "All local agreements are now null and void" which isn't even legal.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Government intervention is constantly needed to keep a free market in balance - there certainly is poor spirited legislation that's designed to assist in market capture but there is a lot more legislation out there that's protecting small markets. Anarcho-libretarianism isn't the solution here and neither is rejecting balanced legislation out of a force of habit.
    - nickysielicki 5y ago
      > Government intervention is constantly needed to keep a free market in balance "Constant government intervention" is incompatible with the definition (literally) of a free market.
      - pessimizer 5y ago
        Only the kind of free market that has no rules against fraud and robbery.
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        This is just daft, is your idea of free markets the drug cartels of columbia? Because thats what you get wuthoit government intervention
philote 5y ago
It's nuts. I used to live in a major city, 10 minutes from downtown, and the only high speed internet I could get was Spectrum cable internet. I recently moved to a rural, mountain area in the same state and there is a small ISP that provides fiber to the entire county. They even have good pricing.
ksec 5y ago
> It would have been cheaper for them too.... Can some enlighten me, why did they not do it? For those of us outside US, we never quite grasp why US mobile network and ISP are so bad. All while refusing to do any improvement. Not only are they bad, they are ridiculously expensive. ( and healthcare... but we wont go into that. )
- apexalpha 5y ago
  It's more profitable to collect $70 a month and not do upgrades than to do $500 per household Capex expenditures and then collect $70 a month.
  - ksec 5y ago
    Well yes. But I assume they would react once or even before competition like municipal broadband is available . Except from reading this doesn't seems to be the case at all.
    - MiddleEndian 5y ago
      Aside from not wanting to have to upgrade everyone, Comcast has a vested interest in keeping television relevant, which means keeping internet worse.
  - narwally 5y ago
    And if they do it in city A, then city B down the road is going to start demanding the same treatment.
bproven 5y ago
Is this Fort Collins, CO? :)
jfengel 5y ago
Is it cheaper to run fiber to houses than to hang WiFi off telephone poles? I know WiFi isn't as good as a hard connection, but running cables sounds really expensive and cumbersome.
- iptrans 5y ago
  WiFi is really poor as a last mile technology.
  - jfengel 5y ago
    What about as a last 100 meter technology? (I'm sorry, I'm not being glib. I don't know much about networking at that level.)
    - iptrans 5y ago
      WiFi is really bad at anything but in home connectivity.
- linsomniac 5y ago
  The parent is talking about Fort Collins, which decades ago went to almost entirely underground utilities. Partly for aesthetics, partly because of all of the lovely old trees in the downtown area which kept taking utilities out. There are some poles around, but most of the city is underground. So in this instance, yes, it was cheaper to run the fiber than to run the fiber AND set up poles. :-)
narwally 5y ago
At the moment I'm usually fine with my 200Mbps download speeds from Spectrum, but man am I jealous of those upload speeds and that price. I'm looking to move soon, and municipal fiber is definitely on the list of things that could get me to pick one area over another. It's not only a great deal on an essential service, but gives me a bit more confidence in the local government and the citizens that voted for it.
throwawayboise 5y ago
Counterpoint: a nearby city wanted to provide municipal broadband. Mayor, city council, majority of the public seemed on-board. The city realized they knew nothing about running an ISP, so they hired some consultants, who hooked them up with another contractor to build out and run it. Some time passed, nothing happened, the contractor went bankrupt. Every cent of tax money spent amounted to nothing. The big ISPs (Comcast and ATT) continued to operate and expand their services, which are better than they've ever been (which is not to claim it couldn't be better, but more people have broadband now than they did before).

ashtonkem 5y ago

Capitalism is wildly inefficient for infrastructure, and it’s really frustrating how often we have to relearn this as a society. There’s a damn good reason why the city owns the pipes that bring water to and sewage from your house, and why the power lines are owned by a heavily regulated monopoly. The physical infrastructure to run internet to everyone’s homes should be owned by the state and responsive to the citizens it serves and not the shareholders who profit.

amelius 5y ago
What makes cable companies different from, say, a duopoly in mobile phone operating systems?
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Land usage, mostly. Cell companies need space for towers and fiber to those antennas. It turns out that these don’t take up all that much space, so it’s trivially possible for multiple cell phone companies to setup towers covering the same customers. Cable companies however have to deal with the “last mile” problem, which is both massively more expensive than installing more centralized infrastructure, but also involves installing infrastructure on much more restricted areas.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    @amelius asked about phone operating systems. But your comment is a very good point about mobile phones vs home internet.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Isn’t there a spectrum license/conflict issue for mobile network operators?
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      Absolutely, that’s part of why T-Mobile and Sprint joined together. But there’s enough spectrum available to run a few different cell phone companies, while last mile issues are pretty much permanent for cable companies.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  There may be a duopoly, but I can still get what I want with jailbreaking or rooting (although that is getting harder over time). With ISPs, if they both suck, I’m SOL.
  - heavyset_go 5y ago
    This is like saying that you can get away from your ISP monopoly by using your neighbors' WiFi.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  The whole concept of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market requires being able to purchase interchangeable goods on the global market. Yet, you cannot buy a service like broadband or sewage, put it in a box and sell it to someone living in another continent. Location-bound services usually become quasi-monopolies, where free market does not apply. The quasi-monopolist is able (and happy) to charge the maximum price that people can pay.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  The general response would be that, because of barriers to entry and economies of scale, the optimal number of firms in some industries is 1, and thus that firm should be regulated or run by the government in order to prevent it from exploiting its immense market power.
user3939382 5y ago
Even famous libertarians like Hayek agree that infrastructure is a necessary duty of the government. To me, it's the plate on which the free market rests and operates. It is the wiring of the market itself.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
Capitalism isn't at fault here; spineless municipal governments are. Since the federal government is also spineless, it's refreshing to see some starting to wake up to the hellscape that is our Internet infrastructure.
- martin8412 5y ago
  It's not even capitalism to begin with. It's corporate socialism. Where you have companies actively using the government to secure their own payday. If a company has millions and utter millions to throw at not having to compete.. That being said, I agree that natural monopolies should be considered an issue for the state.
missedthecue 5y ago
This is just competition. Nothing anti-market about that
m463 5y ago
I think regulatory capture is one of the most profitable loopholes in capitalism and I don't think there are adequate checks and balances. I wish there was a better way to regulate internet service that wasn't subject to these kinds of shenanigans. I suspect long-term it is competition that ends up fixing this, but think of the drag on the economy when good communication is fouled up like this.

ronnier 5y ago

Comcast makes me sick. I spent months getting off of them and it was worth every bit of it by switching to Ziply fiber in the Seattle area. I went from this to this: * Comcast 1000/35 Down/up to Ziply 1000/1000 down/up * Monthly bill cut in half * Comcast monthly data caps, to no data caps with Ziply And that's right, Comcast gives 35 Mbps upload, if you are lucky! And data caps.

ortusdux 5y ago
My best option currently is Wave Broadband, with 940/20 costing 100$/mo. I pay an extra 8$/mo for 940/25. The tech installing my line checked my signal and said that they could support 940/940, but they wont offer it in my area. I am pricing the cost of a fiber run that after install will be 1000/1000 for 60$/mo. I would gladly pay $3k to hook-up.
- Analemma_ 5y ago
  Wave Broadband literally doubled my bill out of the blue last November-- not because a trial pricing period ended or anything, but just because they could: I was in an apartment building where they were the only option. It's irrelevant now because shortly after that I moved to a different location, but they're just as bad as Comcast. Private ISPs delenda est.
- GloriousKoji 5y ago
  With comcast in my area the unofficial strategy is to require you to sign up for a new plan every year to slowing tick down your speed and increase costs. If you stick with your old plan the monthly doubles. Right now I'm paying $60 for 60/3.5 with comcast. A few years ago it was $30 for 100/3.5 I have no other real options, it's gross.
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    I heard threw the grapevine Xfinity (comcast) has given up on trying to compete with streaming services. Their strategy is just charge more for everything, and make ordering services compliced. Going on their website to just get basic cable, and low speed internet is very hard. They push packages--hoping you will never realize when the deal ends. They rely on senior citizens who just pay the bill, and are not technical enough to even shop around--if they have a choice? Most households don't. Comcast should be required to have have simple billing, and simple ording of service That could be taken care of the next time your local government ok's their next franchise agreement. It's not a franchise. It's some agreement government has with them. Be careful calling Xfinity (comcast) for anything. The calls are routed overseas, and those employees main function is pushing package deals. Don't fall for it. They try to get the customer to agree on voice, so they have evidence. 1. I'm ok with their internet service, except for the price, and lack of competition. 2. The cable tv service is subpar. I have had checkering for ever. I gave up on getting it corrected. After three visits from third party vendors it's still not right. (This third party vendor was working 6 days a week, and was required to lease his service truck for $250/week.). 3. If you do have a lousy connection, it might be partially related to a filter Comcast put on years ago, but never took off. (The new filters are fine, but a certain brand of an older one is bad. I just threw it out so I can't give the part number. If you have voice remote, make sure it's on the right three splitter. I vagly remember it on the outlet with the lowest resistance? 4. I believe Comcast knows they are pushing too much through that coaxial. I believe they preparing for a class action lawsuit, but might not care? 5. I only put up with Comcast because there's no real competition where I reside. Xfinity's agreements with local municipalities needs to be nixed. 6. Comcast promised to not cut off service during the pandemic, but lied. 7. Comcast offers Hotspots. Your router could be the hotspot, and they don't have to tell you. (I don't believe their is any danger to this practice though.) I would love it that infrastructure bill did away with Xfinity. They provide very few good paying jobs. I would like to see free internet provided to every American, even the wealthy.

georgel 5y ago

Similar situation in Fort Collins, Colorado. Connexion (the city's brand for municipal ISP) is 60/mo for symmetric gigabit fiber, and for 300/mo can get 10Gb/s and near zero outages. Comcast and Century Link keep sending "deals" in the mail that are laughable. I am very happy with municipal ISP. https://www.fcgov.com/connexion/residential-internet https://www.fcgov.com/connexion/residential-internet

beached_whale 5y ago
Can help a lot with the tax bases too. I know my municipal ISP just dumped $17 million into the municipal tax base of a city of just over a 100 thousand. They also pay well. So that's money that is not being taxed.
fiftyfifty 5y ago
Yeah, I'm actually in Fort Collins, I was trying to be a little vague for anonymity but ya know. With Longmont Colorado having municipal broadband I think Comcast saw Fort Collins as a hill worth dying on. I've heard that Boulder and Denver are looking at putting municipal broadband on a ballot in the future. Certainly how things turn out in Fort Collins will be considered in other communities around the state. After 4 months on our community broadband I'm still fighting with Comcast over bills and charges.
- bproven 5y ago
  Yeah I am in FC and I wish Boulder and Denver well, but it will be a hard fight Comcast owns the city of Denver and most of its metro. Through influence and legislature that is all in their favor. As well as being a HUGE employer in the state. My only gripe is I really wish they would roll the FC Connexion to my neighborhood in midtown now lol

takeda 5y ago

What your city did sounds great, and I hope it will be similarly done in other places as well. I think ideally the city should allow for other ISPs to lease these lines (of course at price that would cover the cost of maintaining them) and still providing option to be one of those ISPs. This would lower the barrier to enter for other ISPs and perhaps further lower the price. I only hope that your city won't end up selling the infrastructure to someone in the future, because that will of course kill the whole effort. I believe the key to solve our ISP problems is unbundling the local loop. The bill that congress wants to pass to fix Internet will be a failure, unless the money is meant for local governments to do the same your city did.

bombcar 5y ago
If providers would take the money they'd normally fight municipal broadband with and instead fight for access to the "last mile" they'd come out way ahead - offload a cost center to the municipality, get better access and speed, and be able to differentiate on services.
- takeda 5y ago
  They would, but so would their competitors. Comcast and Spectrum have currently a great position, because cost to enter the market for anyone else is so high. Not even Google with their "unlimited" amount of money was able to get through it. It's crazy that currently the only way to enter the market is to deploy thousands of satellites (like Starlink) and once Starlink becomes a competitor to current ISPs other competitors won't be able to follow them. This situation can't be solved without changing laws and local governments.

CerealFounder 5y ago

Gather around, this is good. How I sued Spectrum California for $1800... So my internet had rolling outages for weeks and Spectrum wouldnt do anything. So they sent a technician to my house. Three consecutive days, scheduled appointment, no one showed, or called (other than the automated attendant. This is important later). I was furious. I was talking to my father who did a bit of law school and he shared that California has a $600 a day no show penalty for companies with 25 or more employees. https://legalbeagle.com/7272842-service-noshow-penalty-california-law.html https://legalbeagle.com/7272842-service-noshow-penalty-calif... So I file small claims for the full 1800. I show up and theyve sent a person who professionally goes to court to fight these things. It also became clear the they use the auto dialer follow up to negate the "no call" portion of the "No show/now call" law. They've got it down to a science. So dejected by their treachery, I try a last second hail mary by asking the judge if I can speak to the court. I tell him "I am you, you, you (pointing at him and the people sitting in court), this company dosent care about providing the service they promised, theyd rather spend that money hiring henchmen to beat the consumer laws on a technicality. Their largest investment is in extraction, not service. Im just a guy who wanted his internet and to go back to work. If my experience hits home at all please, hold them accountable." Lonnnnng silence and the little Spectrum rat is visibly smiling. The judge starts to speak "Mr Cereal, I personally empathize with companies not respecting my time. Its so frusteratinfg" The whole court audibly gasps, this judge is gonna stick them. Judge flustered "Wellll, I dont mean Specturm specifically. That said, I find fully in favor of Mr Cereal and order a full judgement." Ive sold two companies for 9 figures in my life. I have never ever ever seen my jewish father as proud of me as when I called him and told him what happened. I got a check two weeks later. tldr: ISPs are evil, but you can get them if they dont show. Also, your dad will be proud.

Hammershaft 5y ago
It sounds like a story but I'll give the benefit of the doubt if only because I so want to believe.
- CerealFounder 5y ago
  What part? Its a law on the books and it all went down at the Stanley Mosk courthouse on the third floor. I was also late to roll call and I had to take a Bird scooter a quarter-mile from Chinatown because parking at the court is like $40/day.

r00fus 5y ago

Just to note: Sanders 2020 "Internet for All" plan would have given municipalities the blueprints to a) fight Comcast and entrenched providers and b) funding to do so, thereby enabling more freedom. Unfortunately he did not prevail in the primary. More municipal and small internet providers could act as a bulwark against centralization and corporate dominance of the backbone of our communication infrastructure.

richwater 5y ago
Government intervention is what gave providers local monopolies in the first place. More legislation from the federal and state level is not needed, unless it's literally "All local agreements are now null and void" which isn't even legal.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Government intervention is constantly needed to keep a free market in balance - there certainly is poor spirited legislation that's designed to assist in market capture but there is a lot more legislation out there that's protecting small markets. Anarcho-libretarianism isn't the solution here and neither is rejecting balanced legislation out of a force of habit.
  - nickysielicki 5y ago
    > Government intervention is constantly needed to keep a free market in balance "Constant government intervention" is incompatible with the definition (literally) of a free market.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      Only the kind of free market that has no rules against fraud and robbery.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      This is just daft, is your idea of free markets the drug cartels of columbia? Because thats what you get wuthoit government intervention

philote 5y ago

It's nuts. I used to live in a major city, 10 minutes from downtown, and the only high speed internet I could get was Spectrum cable internet. I recently moved to a rural, mountain area in the same state and there is a small ISP that provides fiber to the entire county. They even have good pricing.

ksec 5y ago

> It would have been cheaper for them too.... Can some enlighten me, why did they not do it? For those of us outside US, we never quite grasp why US mobile network and ISP are so bad. All while refusing to do any improvement. Not only are they bad, they are ridiculously expensive. ( and healthcare... but we wont go into that. )

apexalpha 5y ago
It's more profitable to collect $70 a month and not do upgrades than to do $500 per household Capex expenditures and then collect $70 a month.
- ksec 5y ago
  Well yes. But I assume they would react once or even before competition like municipal broadband is available . Except from reading this doesn't seems to be the case at all.
  - MiddleEndian 5y ago
    Aside from not wanting to have to upgrade everyone, Comcast has a vested interest in keeping television relevant, which means keeping internet worse.
- narwally 5y ago
  And if they do it in city A, then city B down the road is going to start demanding the same treatment.

bproven 5y ago

Is this Fort Collins, CO? :)

jfengel 5y ago

Is it cheaper to run fiber to houses than to hang WiFi off telephone poles? I know WiFi isn't as good as a hard connection, but running cables sounds really expensive and cumbersome.

iptrans 5y ago
WiFi is really poor as a last mile technology.
- jfengel 5y ago
  What about as a last 100 meter technology? (I'm sorry, I'm not being glib. I don't know much about networking at that level.)
  - iptrans 5y ago
    WiFi is really bad at anything but in home connectivity.
linsomniac 5y ago
The parent is talking about Fort Collins, which decades ago went to almost entirely underground utilities. Partly for aesthetics, partly because of all of the lovely old trees in the downtown area which kept taking utilities out. There are some poles around, but most of the city is underground. So in this instance, yes, it was cheaper to run the fiber than to run the fiber AND set up poles. :-)

narwally 5y ago

At the moment I'm usually fine with my 200Mbps download speeds from Spectrum, but man am I jealous of those upload speeds and that price. I'm looking to move soon, and municipal fiber is definitely on the list of things that could get me to pick one area over another. It's not only a great deal on an essential service, but gives me a bit more confidence in the local government and the citizens that voted for it.

throwawayboise 5y ago

Counterpoint: a nearby city wanted to provide municipal broadband. Mayor, city council, majority of the public seemed on-board. The city realized they knew nothing about running an ISP, so they hired some consultants, who hooked them up with another contractor to build out and run it. Some time passed, nothing happened, the contractor went bankrupt. Every cent of tax money spent amounted to nothing. The big ISPs (Comcast and ATT) continued to operate and expand their services, which are better than they've ever been (which is not to claim it couldn't be better, but more people have broadband now than they did before).