7 ms·

Afaik only in Arkansas have Republicans seen the light and are actually supporting municipal broadband (https://www.govtech.com/policy/arkansas-opens-the-door-f

by cure 5y ago

Afaik only in Arkansas have Republicans seen the light and are actually supporting municipal broadband (https://www.govtech.com/policy/arkansas-opens-the-door-for-municipal-broadband-networks.html https://www.govtech.com/policy/arkansas-opens-the-door-for-m...). I wonder what made them come to that conclusion, it would be interesting to see if that can be replicated elsewhere. Everywhere else, Republicans are trying to shut muni broadband out. They are colluding with the legacy ISP monopolies to keep speeds low and costs high. I find this surprising because they don't seem to consider the long term economic damage this will do to their states. Who is going to want to move there to work remotely if the internet is expensive and slow?

falcolas 5y ago
It honestly feels like short term thinking is dominating not only businesses, but government officials too. It boggles my mind, frankly, because of the exact things you mentioned: losing citizens, economic damage, and so forth. Perhaps the incentives just aren’t there to think long term, for either business leaders or politicians.
- soco 5y ago
  Could it have something to do with which party supporters are gonna lose more if internet is slow? Can internet be linked in some way to poll results?
  - akkartik 5y ago
    Conspiracy theory time: if you get rid of cities your state will turn reliably red. That way lies the Khmer Rouge..
    - mbg721 5y ago
      Ah, the grand plan is to complete the process of rust-belt de-industrialization and turn Ohio into the Shire! It all makes perfect sense now...
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        They would still have 2 Senate votes.
      - 8note 5y ago
        The Shire is a bit too happy of a place to vote Republican. You need people to be angry and afraid
    - alentist 5y ago
      The Khmer Rouge was a left-wing (Communist) genocidal regime.
      - 8note 5y ago
        Is that to say you don't think right wingers are capable of genocide? Or that they wouldnt do it to people in cities? If it's purely informational for people who don't know what the Khmer Rouge is, it'd be handy to include why its a comparable situation
        alentist 5y ago
        Instead of this knee-jerk reaction, why don't you first read the comment I'm replying to? > it'd be handy to include why its a comparable situation akkartik made that bizarre comparison, not me.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Almost certainly not. When you make things marginally worse across the board on an infrastructure matter (in this case by reducing competition) rural areas almost always lose more.
- unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
  Politics is business. Business is about making money. From those foundational facts, it's fair to infer that if state Republican politicians are working to ban cities from providing basic services, the politicians are doing this because they think they can make money doing it. It's wrong. But then, politics, in its current incarnation, is business.
  - theshadowknows 5y ago
    And more importantly, make money for themselves and not for the city/state etc.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      The only reason people hate graft more than they hate boondoggles is because in the former case it's nearly impossible to bury your head in the sand and pretend like the money was smartly allocated. No matter how you cut it at the end of the day the tax dollars are being squandered on lining pockets they shouldn't be.
      - theshadowknows 5y ago
        Extra points for using 'boondoggles' in a sentence :)
- thayne 5y ago
  It's not surprising. Elected officials care more about getting reelected in the next election than long term effects of their decisions. So they are incentivized to care more about the short term.
  - mavhc 5y ago
    In my new world order we'll vote to fire people in charge, not to hire them
    - vegetablepotpie 5y ago
      We have a system like that with judges in some states. Examples of judges failing to be retained are sparse https://ballotpedia.org/Retention_election https://ballotpedia.org/Retention_election
only_as_i_fall 5y ago
Certainly not a good thing, but I'd be surprised if this has a measurable impact on the overall attractiveness of a location. Even expensive internet is likely less than 10% of overall expenses and, in my experience, it's very hard to tell if your internet will be good or bad without literally plugging in a modem, which realistically most people won't have the knowledge or means to do. Call me a cynic but I guess my thought is that if incremental decreases in qol and poor planning were enough to drive people away from the republican party it would have happened long ago.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  Is there ever bad fiber internet? If a place has fiber to the home, there is a pretty high probability that it is better than whatever garbage the coaxial cable company is peddling.
  - sbradford26 5y ago
    I have had fiber at two different houses and the first one was worse in that I could only reliably get 890 Mb down and 920 Mb up. The second house I get 950down/950up with the same provider and same hardware. There is variability but nowhere near as much as cable.
  - jschwartzi 5y ago
    Ziply was awful. We got screwed by them when they bought the fiber network in our area, canceled our autopay, and then didn’t bill us for three months until we had racked up a bunch of late fees. My wife spent hours on the phone with them getting the issues sorted out. It was the worst customer service experience I’ve ever had with a broadband provider. I’ve had Charter, Qwest, and Comcast.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      That’s a people problem. I assume the actual product worked fine though?
thayne 5y ago
I'm not sure about at the state level, but several republican controlled cities in Utah also have or are building municipal broadband.
- kyralis 5y ago
  Republican cities are fine with municipal broadband, because it solves a real problem in those cities - local leaders are generally more pragmatic that way. Republican state and national leaders, on the other hand, are generally more concerned about their political narrative. They're not the ones impacted by the crap broadband in the cities.
hkai 5y ago
So you're not seeing any concerns about letting the government control your internet? Not at all? Especially when this idea is proposed by a party who is vocally against freedom of speech and a few other freedoms?
- ryukafalz 5y ago
  The government is beholden to the first amendment, unlike the (small number of) private ISPs. Even if they weren't, in almost all cases we're talking about municipal broadband as an additional option, not the only option. One that would drive down prices through competition and whose operators have a vested interest in their users having a good experience regardless of how remote they are.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    A lot of muni broadband is the government owning the cables/fibre (OSI Layer 1/2) and then having ISPs sell IP (Layer 3) to those connected. See Utopia in UT for example: * https://www.utopiafiber.com/isp/ https://www.utopiafiber.com/isp/
- mcphage 5y ago
  > So you're not seeing any concerns about letting the government control your internet? Laws forbidding municipal broadband fall squarely in the “government control your internet” camp. > Especially when this idea is proposed by a party who is vocally against freedom of speech and a few other freedoms? Well that’s the nice thing about municipal internet: the government is controlled by the first amendment, unlike corporate broadband. So if you’re worried about being censored by your internet provider, I’d stick with the internet provider which is constitutionally forbidden from doing that.
  - fitblipper 5y ago
    I love how you put that! When the utility is operated by the government we, the people, have more direct control of how they operate. We don't have to put up with laws which encourage mass surveillance and data retention [1], 3rd party doctorine which makes all of your data owned by the provider you are using so you have no rights over them, and the governments ability to just ask or provide a gag ordered request to get all your data. This cuts out the middle man and allows us to demand our communication rights directly from the government instead of muddying the waters by allowing a 3rd party corporation advocate against the consumer/citizen. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/house-vote-sj-34-isp-regulations-fcc https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/house-vote-sj-34-isp-regul...
irjustin 5y ago
They do consider it, but it's lobbying. The ISPs control a lot and have a lot of money to 'donate'.
ookdatnog 5y ago
I think it makes political sense for them to do this. The "small government" political platform obviously appeals to large corporations and ideological libertarians, but these groups don't get you a majority in the election. So how do you get average people who don't directly stand to gain from these policies to vote for you? You convince them that governments are intrinsically ineffective, that the private sector will systematically perform better. This is presented almost as a law of nature, if you disagree you simply don't understand economics. The existence of a clear and prominent counterexample (a government-run competitor outperforming privately owned businesses) is pure poison to this story, so they cannot allow it to exist. They -- knowingly, deliberately -- choose to hurt the people they represent and the economy of their state to save their political platform.
noobermin 5y ago
The Ohio Republicans literally were bribed by a failing nuclear power plant and have faced barely any reprecussions from it due to the gerrymandering and general reliable partisanship in the gerrymandered districts. Only a year later is the (now former) speaker of house being removed from office after being re-elected in 2020! I wouldn't be surprised if the ISPs are also literally (and not even in the figurative sense of legal campaign contributions) bribing someone to put this into law.

by cure 5y ago

falcolas 5y ago

It honestly feels like short term thinking is dominating not only businesses, but government officials too. It boggles my mind, frankly, because of the exact things you mentioned: losing citizens, economic damage, and so forth. Perhaps the incentives just aren’t there to think long term, for either business leaders or politicians.

soco 5y ago
Could it have something to do with which party supporters are gonna lose more if internet is slow? Can internet be linked in some way to poll results?
- akkartik 5y ago
  Conspiracy theory time: if you get rid of cities your state will turn reliably red. That way lies the Khmer Rouge..
  - mbg721 5y ago
    Ah, the grand plan is to complete the process of rust-belt de-industrialization and turn Ohio into the Shire! It all makes perfect sense now...
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      They would still have 2 Senate votes.
    - 8note 5y ago
      The Shire is a bit too happy of a place to vote Republican. You need people to be angry and afraid
  - alentist 5y ago
    The Khmer Rouge was a left-wing (Communist) genocidal regime.
    - 8note 5y ago
      Is that to say you don't think right wingers are capable of genocide? Or that they wouldnt do it to people in cities? If it's purely informational for people who don't know what the Khmer Rouge is, it'd be handy to include why its a comparable situation
      - alentist 5y ago
        Instead of this knee-jerk reaction, why don't you first read the comment I'm replying to? > it'd be handy to include why its a comparable situation akkartik made that bizarre comparison, not me.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Almost certainly not. When you make things marginally worse across the board on an infrastructure matter (in this case by reducing competition) rural areas almost always lose more.
unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
Politics is business. Business is about making money. From those foundational facts, it's fair to infer that if state Republican politicians are working to ban cities from providing basic services, the politicians are doing this because they think they can make money doing it. It's wrong. But then, politics, in its current incarnation, is business.
- theshadowknows 5y ago
  And more importantly, make money for themselves and not for the city/state etc.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    The only reason people hate graft more than they hate boondoggles is because in the former case it's nearly impossible to bury your head in the sand and pretend like the money was smartly allocated. No matter how you cut it at the end of the day the tax dollars are being squandered on lining pockets they shouldn't be.
    - theshadowknows 5y ago
      Extra points for using 'boondoggles' in a sentence :)
thayne 5y ago
It's not surprising. Elected officials care more about getting reelected in the next election than long term effects of their decisions. So they are incentivized to care more about the short term.
- mavhc 5y ago
  In my new world order we'll vote to fire people in charge, not to hire them
  - vegetablepotpie 5y ago
    We have a system like that with judges in some states. Examples of judges failing to be retained are sparse https://ballotpedia.org/Retention_election https://ballotpedia.org/Retention_election

only_as_i_fall 5y ago

Certainly not a good thing, but I'd be surprised if this has a measurable impact on the overall attractiveness of a location. Even expensive internet is likely less than 10% of overall expenses and, in my experience, it's very hard to tell if your internet will be good or bad without literally plugging in a modem, which realistically most people won't have the knowledge or means to do. Call me a cynic but I guess my thought is that if incremental decreases in qol and poor planning were enough to drive people away from the republican party it would have happened long ago.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
Is there ever bad fiber internet? If a place has fiber to the home, there is a pretty high probability that it is better than whatever garbage the coaxial cable company is peddling.
- sbradford26 5y ago
  I have had fiber at two different houses and the first one was worse in that I could only reliably get 890 Mb down and 920 Mb up. The second house I get 950down/950up with the same provider and same hardware. There is variability but nowhere near as much as cable.
- jschwartzi 5y ago
  Ziply was awful. We got screwed by them when they bought the fiber network in our area, canceled our autopay, and then didn’t bill us for three months until we had racked up a bunch of late fees. My wife spent hours on the phone with them getting the issues sorted out. It was the worst customer service experience I’ve ever had with a broadband provider. I’ve had Charter, Qwest, and Comcast.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    That’s a people problem. I assume the actual product worked fine though?

thayne 5y ago

I'm not sure about at the state level, but several republican controlled cities in Utah also have or are building municipal broadband.

kyralis 5y ago
Republican cities are fine with municipal broadband, because it solves a real problem in those cities - local leaders are generally more pragmatic that way. Republican state and national leaders, on the other hand, are generally more concerned about their political narrative. They're not the ones impacted by the crap broadband in the cities.

hkai 5y ago

So you're not seeing any concerns about letting the government control your internet? Not at all? Especially when this idea is proposed by a party who is vocally against freedom of speech and a few other freedoms?

ryukafalz 5y ago
The government is beholden to the first amendment, unlike the (small number of) private ISPs. Even if they weren't, in almost all cases we're talking about municipal broadband as an additional option, not the only option. One that would drive down prices through competition and whose operators have a vested interest in their users having a good experience regardless of how remote they are.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  A lot of muni broadband is the government owning the cables/fibre (OSI Layer 1/2) and then having ISPs sell IP (Layer 3) to those connected. See Utopia in UT for example: * https://www.utopiafiber.com/isp/ https://www.utopiafiber.com/isp/
mcphage 5y ago
> So you're not seeing any concerns about letting the government control your internet? Laws forbidding municipal broadband fall squarely in the “government control your internet” camp. > Especially when this idea is proposed by a party who is vocally against freedom of speech and a few other freedoms? Well that’s the nice thing about municipal internet: the government is controlled by the first amendment, unlike corporate broadband. So if you’re worried about being censored by your internet provider, I’d stick with the internet provider which is constitutionally forbidden from doing that.
- fitblipper 5y ago
  I love how you put that! When the utility is operated by the government we, the people, have more direct control of how they operate. We don't have to put up with laws which encourage mass surveillance and data retention [1], 3rd party doctorine which makes all of your data owned by the provider you are using so you have no rights over them, and the governments ability to just ask or provide a gag ordered request to get all your data. This cuts out the middle man and allows us to demand our communication rights directly from the government instead of muddying the waters by allowing a 3rd party corporation advocate against the consumer/citizen. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/house-vote-sj-34-isp-regulations-fcc https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/28/house-vote-sj-34-isp-regul...

irjustin 5y ago

They do consider it, but it's lobbying. The ISPs control a lot and have a lot of money to 'donate'.

ookdatnog 5y ago

I think it makes political sense for them to do this. The "small government" political platform obviously appeals to large corporations and ideological libertarians, but these groups don't get you a majority in the election. So how do you get average people who don't directly stand to gain from these policies to vote for you? You convince them that governments are intrinsically ineffective, that the private sector will systematically perform better. This is presented almost as a law of nature, if you disagree you simply don't understand economics. The existence of a clear and prominent counterexample (a government-run competitor outperforming privately owned businesses) is pure poison to this story, so they cannot allow it to exist. They -- knowingly, deliberately -- choose to hurt the people they represent and the economy of their state to save their political platform.

noobermin 5y ago

The Ohio Republicans literally were bribed by a failing nuclear power plant and have faced barely any reprecussions from it due to the gerrymandering and general reliable partisanship in the gerrymandered districts. Only a year later is the (now former) speaker of house being removed from office after being re-elected in 2020! I wouldn't be surprised if the ISPs are also literally (and not even in the figurative sense of legal campaign contributions) bribing someone to put this into law.