5 ms·

Best internet in the country is offered by a monopoly in Chattanooga. Up to 25 Gbit up/down.

glitchc 3y ago
That's amazing. I just upgraded my home network to 10G to take advantage of my 1.5G internet connection.
CyberDildonics 3y ago
Why are you calling their municipal fiber internet a monopoly? Not only is it a utility, here is a list of 10 other broadband providers including att fiber, xfinity and verizon 300mb 5g: https://broadbandnow.com/Tennessee/Chattanooga https://broadbandnow.com/Tennessee/Chattanooga Pretty ridiculous and disingenuous to call it "monopoly".
- spullara 3y ago
  Does someone else have access to that infrastructure that can offer the service? Utilities are granted monopolies.
  - CyberDildonics 3y ago
    > Utilities are granted monopolies. You can say that as many times as you want, but you don't have any evidence or even an explanation. If there were ten power lines and ten water pipes to your house would say each of those twenty companies had a monopoly? Repeating something isn't evidence of anything.
godelski 3y ago
Monopoly? That's a bit bold of a claim. The provider you're talking about is the utility company. You might not know why the utility company provides the internet either. It's because before that they couldn't get the other companies (AT&T, Comcast, Hughe, Verizon) to offer good speeds and reasonable rates. The utility also doesn't take a profit. Mind you, those other companies still operate and no one is holding them back. They just decided that the profit margins weren't worth it, though they did lobby against NoogaNet. It's not a monopoly. It's a city coming together and saying Fuck you, give us good internet or we're going to build our own internet w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶c̶k̶j̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶o̶o̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ And overnight all those companies increased their speeds. They found what they were happy with and NoogaNet still decided "fuck it, we're going to just be better." I really REALLY wish more people/cities would take this "fuck you, we'll do it ourselves" attitude. Waiting on others to fix our problems clearly isn't working.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  It's weird that we keep seeing this happen and work but then it isn't more popular. Government services are typically inefficient, but so are private monopolies for almost exactly the same reasons. If you put them into competition with each other then they both have more competition and have to do better.
  - godelski 3y ago
    I think it is because it requires significant cooperation. And by significant, I mean size, not the actual amount of action required by an individual. This is an interesting problem to me and seems to be quite a prolific issue. I think it is because everyone feels like they are a tiny meaningless cog in a giant machine. But this confuses me. Even tiny cogs play an important role. Even if your function is redundant, that redundancy is built in for a reason. I hear the common sentiment "you're replaceable" and I think people take this to be "perfectly" fungible. But you may be a replaceable worker, but that also doesn't mean replacing you is easy. They usually gotta look for someone new, pay them more, and then train them (this is why I'm also really confused why companies won't increase existing workers' salaries against new hires. Because your current workers likely have significantly more utility than a new worker. You lose money by doing this. Not to mention essentially give away your work practices to competitors, weirdly leveling the playing field). But it infuriates me when there are things that are universally hated, have relatively easy solutions, AND no one does anything. Be it a boss/manager who just says no to pressing a button that enables functionality where all the work has already been done and tested. Or simply voting in a new politician when everyone hates the current one. Or how 1 in 4 Americans dislike both Trump and Biden. How the early primary states will not even use their advantage to push towards a different candidate because we're playing this stupid game of chicken where people act like the primaries aren't actually the BEST time to vote or signal for a different candidate. I just don't get it... And I've always been a fan of government directly participating in the market. (Even though I generally like weaker/smaller governments.) They can set a baseline. Gov is always participating, regardless, since they do regulations and all that, so I don't buy those arguments. But there are many more things becoming natural monopolies as advantage is provided by scale. A government actor essentially is able to set pseudo regulations by participating. USPS helps make FedEx and UPS better, but now they get so many cuts that UPS uses them as last mile deliverers despite operating in the region. Still, USPS ensures mail gets to people who would otherwise not be able to even get mail. I don't see why we don't have similar services from broadband and telecommunications. They are essential services these days. Plus, it would create a lot of good quality jobs as not only those people needed to maintain the systems but even all the contractors to do the initial buildouts.

That's amazing. I just upgraded my home network to 10G to take advantage of my 1.5G internet connection.

Why are you calling their municipal fiber internet a monopoly? Not only is it a utility, here is a list of 10 other broadband providers including att fiber, xfinity and verizon 300mb 5g: https://broadbandnow.com/Tennessee/Chattanooga https://broadbandnow.com/Tennessee/Chattanooga Pretty ridiculous and disingenuous to call it "monopoly".

spullara 3y ago
Does someone else have access to that infrastructure that can offer the service? Utilities are granted monopolies.
- CyberDildonics 3y ago
  > Utilities are granted monopolies. You can say that as many times as you want, but you don't have any evidence or even an explanation. If there were ten power lines and ten water pipes to your house would say each of those twenty companies had a monopoly? Repeating something isn't evidence of anything.

godelski 3y ago

Monopoly? That's a bit bold of a claim. The provider you're talking about is the utility company. You might not know why the utility company provides the internet either. It's because before that they couldn't get the other companies (AT&T, Comcast, Hughe, Verizon) to offer good speeds and reasonable rates. The utility also doesn't take a profit. Mind you, those other companies still operate and no one is holding them back. They just decided that the profit margins weren't worth it, though they did lobby against NoogaNet. It's not a monopoly. It's a city coming together and saying Fuck you, give us good internet or we're going to build our own internet w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶b̶l̶a̶c̶k̶j̶a̶c̶k̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶o̶o̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ And overnight all those companies increased their speeds. They found what they were happy with and NoogaNet still decided "fuck it, we're going to just be better." I really REALLY wish more people/cities would take this "fuck you, we'll do it ourselves" attitude. Waiting on others to fix our problems clearly isn't working.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
It's weird that we keep seeing this happen and work but then it isn't more popular. Government services are typically inefficient, but so are private monopolies for almost exactly the same reasons. If you put them into competition with each other then they both have more competition and have to do better.
- godelski 3y ago
  I think it is because it requires significant cooperation. And by significant, I mean size, not the actual amount of action required by an individual. This is an interesting problem to me and seems to be quite a prolific issue. I think it is because everyone feels like they are a tiny meaningless cog in a giant machine. But this confuses me. Even tiny cogs play an important role. Even if your function is redundant, that redundancy is built in for a reason. I hear the common sentiment "you're replaceable" and I think people take this to be "perfectly" fungible. But you may be a replaceable worker, but that also doesn't mean replacing you is easy. They usually gotta look for someone new, pay them more, and then train them (this is why I'm also really confused why companies won't increase existing workers' salaries against new hires. Because your current workers likely have significantly more utility than a new worker. You lose money by doing this. Not to mention essentially give away your work practices to competitors, weirdly leveling the playing field). But it infuriates me when there are things that are universally hated, have relatively easy solutions, AND no one does anything. Be it a boss/manager who just says no to pressing a button that enables functionality where all the work has already been done and tested. Or simply voting in a new politician when everyone hates the current one. Or how 1 in 4 Americans dislike both Trump and Biden. How the early primary states will not even use their advantage to push towards a different candidate because we're playing this stupid game of chicken where people act like the primaries aren't actually the BEST time to vote or signal for a different candidate. I just don't get it... And I've always been a fan of government directly participating in the market. (Even though I generally like weaker/smaller governments.) They can set a baseline. Gov is always participating, regardless, since they do regulations and all that, so I don't buy those arguments. But there are many more things becoming natural monopolies as advantage is provided by scale. A government actor essentially is able to set pseudo regulations by participating. USPS helps make FedEx and UPS better, but now they get so many cuts that UPS uses them as last mile deliverers despite operating in the region. Still, USPS ensures mail gets to people who would otherwise not be able to even get mail. I don't see why we don't have similar services from broadband and telecommunications. They are essential services these days. Plus, it would create a lot of good quality jobs as not only those people needed to maintain the systems but even all the contractors to do the initial buildouts.