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this is a great example of where the government should step in and say “welp, you took too long, we’re now funding municiple fiber and we’ll give it to everyone
by toofy 6mo ago
this is a great example of where the government should step in and say “welp, you took too long, we’re now funding municiple fiber and we’ll give it to everyone cheap. sorry.”
i truly do believe competition can often drivr things forward but we have countless examples where executives get comfortable and decide their best course of action for profits is to do little to nothing.
if a community has been screaming for fiber internet for years and the service companies cry “oh it’s just too expensive” when we know that isn’t true, then the people who pay the taxes should say “ok, apparently you’re not up to the job, you and/or your business model is clearly a failure, we’ll do it and provide it cheaper than you would have anyway.”
maybe this would force the competition we know can often work. if they can’t figure out a way to do it without subsidies, then we’ll do it ourselves. you can call it “spooky government” all you want, but that’s just another term for “us”
something to the effect of: ok, this thing has become integral to society. ceos, you have 5 years to compete and prove that you’re up to the task by delivering A, B, and C for $N. can’t do it? not up to it? no worries, thanks for trying.
- zeroCalories 6mo ago[flagged]
- delusional 6mo agoThis is a fundamental problem of value creation and value extraction. Just because the ISP's can't extract the value of adding the additional fiber capacity doesn't mean it doesn't confer that value to the customers. We live in an age of value extraction, what's colloquially known as "enshittification", that can't go on forever. Somebody has to create the value that is being extracted. It's the old Marx quote: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Except you know, the opposite.
- zeroCalories 6mo agoI have a lot of ability. I'm not gonna flex it for others without pay that gives me significantly higher living standards than the average person. Are you going to force me to work?
- delusional 6mo agoThanks for writing a reply. I was wondering why this comment was floating around 0. I realize it's pretty contentious politics on HN, but I figured the philosophical point is at least interesting anyway, and that HN would be able to separate the two. Your reply helps me adjust that assumption.
- well_ackshually 6mo agoNo, however there's a bunch of people with your abilities that will do it because they're capable of seeing that something as crucial as internet access is a public good. You can choose to not work, plenty of us will make things move forwards without you, nor care about your living standards.
- zeroCalories 6mo agoIf you could find people to do this work below market rate this wouldn't be a problem to begin with.
- iamflimflam1 6mo agoThat’s not necessarily true. A lot of companies are very risk averse and will sit there creaming off profit and not making any investment. If someone came to you and said - you have two choices: Work incredibly hard, raise a lot of money, build a bunch of infrastructure. And at some point in the future you will make some more money. Or - keep taking your very nice high guaranteed salary for the foreseeable future. What would you pick?
- econ 6mo agoI hear vending machine ppl often have 1-3 very profitable locations and 10-40 locations that only barely make sense often only because they already are in the business. I imagine hiring someone to fix or restock them makes a lot more sense if you have 100 machine rather than just one. It really depends what the goal is. Profit with fiber or fiber with profit? Here public transport is required to cover all routes. Postal service is the same. Fiber doesn't seem that different?
- zeroCalories 6mo agoDepends on how much margin there was. Sounds like there's not enough.
- philipallstar 6mo agoThe problem is all the regulatory stuff that means the bigger you are and the longer you've operated for the better you understand and have relationships with the often pretty inept regulatory bodies that can stop you.
- zeroCalories 6mo agoThen as the local government, maybe start by removing that regulation. Or if the regulation is required, you're going to have to pay a premium for people willing and able to put up with it.
- philipallstar 6mo agoThe problem isn't knowing the solution. The problem is incentives.
- imtringued 6mo agoHow do you trick a company into a calculated strategic play that benefits them? It sounds like something they would figure out on their own.
- miki123211 6mo agoIf people truly want something and it can be done profitably, just start a company and do it yourselves. If you need subsidies, that means the people who don't want that think are paying for it, just so people who do want it can have it cheaper. With subsidies, the cost is still there, it's just hidden in some tax or other.
- sirtaj 6mo agoThis line of thinking comes up so often, but ignores second order effects. I don't need schools because I have no children, but I will certainly depend on well educated children entering the workforce. Or, more facetiously, I don't need a subsidised fire service because no building I visit is currently on fire.
- vasco 6mo agoYes but you cannot make up more than about 10-15 examples everyone will agree with, seeing as those are subsidized in practically every country on earth, and then apply the thinking the guy above you gives for everything else. In my opinion internet access is as fundamental a right now as water access so I think it should be subsidized to a fair degree. But not for example if it is to supply only a small island of rich people just because they happen to want to live there and force the rest of the state to supply them. There's nuance to these things and we can't just outright subsidized everything and we can't market economy everything either
- sirtaj 6mo agoI agree with you. The internet is now important enough that it's required for almost everything past basic sustenance. Governments worldwide are moving services to the internet, so it's not even optional any more.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- 6mo ago
- fragmede 6mo agoThat's nice in theory, but look at how much money has gone to Verizon in the name of rural broadband, and how much they (haven't) delivered. And the consequences.
- deaux 6mo agoWhat does giving money to Verizon have to do with municipal (i.e. operated by the municipality) broadband?
- fragmede 6mo ago[dead]
- mikkupikku 6mo agoMunicipalities don't know anything about the job and few have the resources and personnel to become sufficiently experienced. I know every other poster on HN has a story where they personally stepped in and saw their local government through the process for incredibly cheap, hey that's great, but how is some random municipality without an elder tech god living with them supposed to get "municipal" internet without contracting with an ISP who actually knows how to get that work done? We're talking rural broadband. These municipality don't have great human capital for this kind of stuff. Hell, they struggle to just fill potholes.
- toofy 6mo agoi was only using fiber as just one example. but in the case of fiber, there are plenty of non rural areas that still can’t get it and are stuck with terrible options. even so, even in rural areas, nothing at all stops them from hiring people the same way they hire a weatherman or a police man or a fireman or a city accountant. there are educated intelligent people in rural areas…
- VorpalWay 6mo agoThat is not how it works here. Municipality owned fiber is common here in Sweden (called stadsnät). Often several smaller municipalities join together and co-own the venture. A common variation is that they just provide the physical infrastructure and you can then select which ISP to use on top of the fiber, from a list of about 15 or so usually. This seems to work fine in rural Sweden, so I don't see why it wouldn't work elsewhere. As to potholes, that is not a big problem? It is usually a larger problem in the cities than out in the countryside.
- kaelwd 6mo agoAustralia did that but also paid out the telecom companies a gazillion dollars for infrastructure that had only been privatised like a decade earlier.
- red-iron-pine 6mo agothey voted a conservative government who did what conservative governments do. what did people think abbot and turnbull were selling? wasn't better service for users, it was servicing telstra and murdoch.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> where the government should step in and say “welp, you took too long, we’re now funding municiple fiber and we’ll give it to everyone cheap Thereby accruing not only a capital expenditure but ongoing operational obligation? How is this better than scaring the cable company into fronting the cash to get the same outcome?
- AshamedCaptain 6mo agoIn which way this is a viable strategy that you can repeat more than once?
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> In which way this is a viable strategy that you can repeat more than once? I’m not saying commit to bluffing. But after the other guy has folded, continuing with your threat just to be petty is kind of dumb.
- AshamedCaptain 6mo agoOr not if you want the threat to work a next time.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> not if you want the threat to work a next time You don’t care if it works next time. It worked this time. If it doesn’t work next time, build it next time.
- therealpygon 6mo agoCool, but isn’t this “the next time”, after “the next time”, after “the next time” already? These companies have been threatened, sued, and incentivized in numerous ways over many years, which has yet to be successful, and yet it seems like you are suggesting “just one more time” will be the impetus for change…this time…you swear…probably? Note: I don’t disagree or agree, rather, I’m pointing out how flawed the logic is that just one more time will be what it takes.
- DiscourseFan 6mo agoIsn't this the Chinese system? Using state corporations to spur competition.
- glitchc 6mo ago> this is a great example of where the government should step in and say “welp, you took too long, we’re now funding municiple fiber and we’ll give it to everyone cheap. sorry.” In the US, this would likely end with ISPs suing the government, tying the case up in court for years.
- troyvit 6mo ago> this is a great example of where the government should step in and say “welp, you took too long, we’re now funding municiple fiber and we’ll give it to everyone cheap. sorry.” That's what my town (Longmont, CO) did! We had laid a fiber loop around the city back in the '90s for traffic signal coordination. Over the years the town would engage different private companies to try to get them to lay fiber (or even directional wifi) to the door. None of them took off, so the city decided to do it themselves. Xfinity tried to sue us and ran a weak attempt at astroturfing, but after about five years of concerted back-hoeing most of the town has gigabit. It isn't 25 gigabit by any means but it works. Bonus: you call a 303 number for support and somebody who lives here picks up like "What can I do for ya, hun?" (I exaggerate, but not by much). Half an hour later your problem is solved. Edit: It's $50/month for that.
- toomuchtodo 6mo agohttps://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map https://communitynets.org/content/community-network-map https://communitynetworks.org/content/municipal-ftth-networks https://communitynetworks.org/content/municipal-ftth-network... How to Build a Fiber Network on a Small-City Budget [video] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUhtdBZbOMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUhtdBZbOMc Getting Fiber to My Town [video] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24424910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24424910 - September 2020 (126 comments)