8 ms·

I definitely agree, and this is one reason I advocate against overly harsh or vindictive rules that are unbalanced against ISPs because of our feelings about AT

I definitely agree, and this is one reason I advocate against overly harsh or vindictive rules that are unbalanced against ISPs because of our feelings about AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner - it would bite us later if we have a massive shift to municipal broadband. Sure, we can change the law, but we would have regulations in place that could interfere with the government entering the market, we might have gotten the big providers to agree to stricter rules if we promised never to try municipal broadband. This could be a perfect storm for conservatives, because they can wave their arms about how "liberals" are always asking for regulation and now that a "liberal industry" is regulated we don't like it and blah blah. I far prefer to just obsolete the big providers and to implement internet as a real public utility. Even if private companies end up contracted to provide it in some cases, those would be regulated monopolies, not regulated free market businesses. I far prefer that we build the case that even a city's own infrastructure would unlikely work without the internet, and that they should have at least some infrastructure that does not rely on commercial providers. San Francisco's water power plant on the Russian River is a great example of this, it provides power for muni trains and electrified buses, maybe _some_ streetlights and a few other public things. If we have a full PG&E failure, we might still have running trains and lit streets. I'm not sure it doesn't all flow into the same grid, SF being one of the oldest power grids, but if that isn't fully the case now, there is enough power independence to ensure that such a thing would work.

shmerl 12y ago
> Even if private companies end up contracted to provide it in some cases, those would be regulated monopolies, not regulated free market businesses. I guess you meant those would be regulated monopolies and not unregulated monopolies ;) ISP scene is quite far from free market at the moment.
- redi90000 12y ago
  I don't understand why people are using monopoly to describe ISPs. Looking at http://www.broadbandmap.gov http://www.broadbandmap.gov, can anyone find one city without multiple broadband providers?
  - pgrote 12y ago
    For wired connections my zip code shows 4 providers. This was exciting since there is only 1 right now that is equipped for high speed internet. The other 3 are dedicated business telecom companies and do not offer residential service. It appears broadbandmap.gov doesn't differentiate between residential and business. Looking at the wireless I was excited to see Wimax offered in my zip code according to the site. When I go the provider's map of coverage I only see a small section of the metro area covered and it doesn't include my zip code. It appears broadbandmap.gov doesn't include the actual wireless coverage provided.
    - cpitman 12y ago
      This is one of the real issues with the FCC's collection of this data. Broadband providers don't report where they have customers they are providing service, they report areas that they "cover", where "cover" may just mean an intention to provide service. It may also mean that broadband (>3Mbps) is available, for the low low price of your first born. There's also a potentially anti-competitive slant to this: There are government subsidies available to provide coverage to unserved areas, which might help a small ISP or competitor move into the area. But if we say we cover it...
    - broadband432 12y ago
      If you give me your zip code or a surrounding zip code, I can assure you that I'll find more than 1 residential broadband provider in your area.
      - mhurron 12y ago
        And of course, if one person in a zip code can get it, everyone can. I could give you my old Zip code, it would include a small city that had DSL providers and Cable. Where I lived there was one provider, 3mb DSL. That finally showed up about 4 years ago.
        gfdgh54yhgf 12y ago
        Even with 3Mbps, that's still sufficient for vast majority of Americans. Netflix, like the guy said, recommends only 3Mbs. Heck it requires only 0.5MBps[1] [1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306
jacobwcarlson 12y ago
I was under the impression that SF's electricity came from Hetch Hetchy and that PG&E was just a backup. Is that not the case?
- justizin 12y ago
  If you live or have an office in SF, my understanding is that you have PG&E. At least once per decade for several decades, there have been impassioned efforts to implement municipal power in SF, to transfer all of the PG&E assets and staff to SFPUC - not easy to implement perfectly, but an equitable goal. Now that I've left SF after living there most of a decade, and I live in the east bay, I think it's also a concern that SF gets to own a power source so far away, because of the historical timing of when it was implemented. The SF Bay Area's intertwining municipalities are a major impedance to certain types of progress, but I also think they are a valuable alternative to a region like NYC where you have a massive city with areas that aren't really like one another. Anyway, my understanding is that the water power plant supplies muni and other SF public purposes, such as possibly some street lights. I know, though, when I lived in the TL, and we had a power outage, the street lights would go out, so this may all flow together and be metered, rather than be separate, redundant systems. My point was, we could probably change that. :)
curun1r 12y ago
> it would bite us later if we have a massive shift to municipal broadband. Municipal broadband doesn't mean shutting out ISPs. If done right, it means that the municipalities own the last mile infrastructure and charge a per-customer rate to ISPs that serve residents. But what that does is significantly lower the bar for ISPs to offer service. It can cost millions of dollars to build out that infrastructure in a city/town and that's assuming you have right of way to actually lay the fiber. If the city does that itself, then ISPs only need to connect the city's infrastructure to the larger internet...something that's significantly cheaper. The Comcasts of the world would still be free to offer service to customers. But they'd have to compete with the smaller ISPs on equal footing and without the giant markups they have today.
- sanderjd 12y ago
  Thanks for explaining this important point. Competition outside of the last mile would be good for everyone, and the last mile infrastructure makes a lot of sense to run as a utility.
  - justizin 12y ago
    That's exactly what I was trying to get across, if I did so poorly, I apologize. This is _precisely_ the discussion I want to have. Transit is not the same as interconnect, we should have some private competition, but if an entire city is all AT&T and Comcast, I'd rather just have it be municipal fiber. I have no problem with AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc.. running their businesses over a combination of private and municipal networks. I feel that's ideal.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jewel 12y ago
  This is how UTOPIA in Utah is run. There are a myriad of ISPs to choose from, and the pricing is excellent ($70/mo for gigabit from Xmission, for example). http://www.utopianet.org/pricelist/ http://www.utopianet.org/pricelist/
WalterBright 12y ago
If the government was your ISP, what are the privacy implications?
- justizin 12y ago
  This is a very valid concern, but what if a private small business provides me an encrypted broadband connection over municipal fiber, which saddles the city / county with the _physical_ problems, and sacrifices a little bit of latency and total bandwidth to keep my relationship with my transit provider separate from my municipal interconnect provider. Obviously there are continued risks with the crypto arms race, but if Google is being beam-split by the NSA, why would we choose a solution that uses more power, provides less overall individual freedom, costs more, and is slower, to guard against a bogeyman that's getting in anyway. We must always assume we are being wiretapped. Let's get a discount on being wiretapped, eh? ;)
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  Good point! Terrible, but probably not worse than what we have today.
- CWuestefeld 12y ago
  This is my concern, in the Snowden/NSA age. While few ISPs are willing to go to the mat defending their customers' privacy, I am absolutely certain that when it comes to governmental providers, it will never happen.

shmerl 12y ago

> Even if private companies end up contracted to provide it in some cases, those would be regulated monopolies, not regulated free market businesses. I guess you meant those would be regulated monopolies and not unregulated monopolies ;) ISP scene is quite far from free market at the moment.

redi90000 12y ago
I don't understand why people are using monopoly to describe ISPs. Looking at http://www.broadbandmap.gov http://www.broadbandmap.gov, can anyone find one city without multiple broadband providers?
- pgrote 12y ago
  For wired connections my zip code shows 4 providers. This was exciting since there is only 1 right now that is equipped for high speed internet. The other 3 are dedicated business telecom companies and do not offer residential service. It appears broadbandmap.gov doesn't differentiate between residential and business. Looking at the wireless I was excited to see Wimax offered in my zip code according to the site. When I go the provider's map of coverage I only see a small section of the metro area covered and it doesn't include my zip code. It appears broadbandmap.gov doesn't include the actual wireless coverage provided.
  - cpitman 12y ago
    This is one of the real issues with the FCC's collection of this data. Broadband providers don't report where they have customers they are providing service, they report areas that they "cover", where "cover" may just mean an intention to provide service. It may also mean that broadband (>3Mbps) is available, for the low low price of your first born. There's also a potentially anti-competitive slant to this: There are government subsidies available to provide coverage to unserved areas, which might help a small ISP or competitor move into the area. But if we say we cover it...
  - broadband432 12y ago
    If you give me your zip code or a surrounding zip code, I can assure you that I'll find more than 1 residential broadband provider in your area.
    - mhurron 12y ago
      And of course, if one person in a zip code can get it, everyone can. I could give you my old Zip code, it would include a small city that had DSL providers and Cable. Where I lived there was one provider, 3mb DSL. That finally showed up about 4 years ago.
      - gfdgh54yhgf 12y ago
        Even with 3Mbps, that's still sufficient for vast majority of Americans. Netflix, like the guy said, recommends only 3Mbs. Heck it requires only 0.5MBps[1] [1] https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

jacobwcarlson 12y ago

I was under the impression that SF's electricity came from Hetch Hetchy and that PG&E was just a backup. Is that not the case?

justizin 12y ago
If you live or have an office in SF, my understanding is that you have PG&E. At least once per decade for several decades, there have been impassioned efforts to implement municipal power in SF, to transfer all of the PG&E assets and staff to SFPUC - not easy to implement perfectly, but an equitable goal. Now that I've left SF after living there most of a decade, and I live in the east bay, I think it's also a concern that SF gets to own a power source so far away, because of the historical timing of when it was implemented. The SF Bay Area's intertwining municipalities are a major impedance to certain types of progress, but I also think they are a valuable alternative to a region like NYC where you have a massive city with areas that aren't really like one another. Anyway, my understanding is that the water power plant supplies muni and other SF public purposes, such as possibly some street lights. I know, though, when I lived in the TL, and we had a power outage, the street lights would go out, so this may all flow together and be metered, rather than be separate, redundant systems. My point was, we could probably change that. :)

curun1r 12y ago

> it would bite us later if we have a massive shift to municipal broadband. Municipal broadband doesn't mean shutting out ISPs. If done right, it means that the municipalities own the last mile infrastructure and charge a per-customer rate to ISPs that serve residents. But what that does is significantly lower the bar for ISPs to offer service. It can cost millions of dollars to build out that infrastructure in a city/town and that's assuming you have right of way to actually lay the fiber. If the city does that itself, then ISPs only need to connect the city's infrastructure to the larger internet...something that's significantly cheaper. The Comcasts of the world would still be free to offer service to customers. But they'd have to compete with the smaller ISPs on equal footing and without the giant markups they have today.

sanderjd 12y ago
Thanks for explaining this important point. Competition outside of the last mile would be good for everyone, and the last mile infrastructure makes a lot of sense to run as a utility.
- justizin 12y ago
  That's exactly what I was trying to get across, if I did so poorly, I apologize. This is _precisely_ the discussion I want to have. Transit is not the same as interconnect, we should have some private competition, but if an entire city is all AT&T and Comcast, I'd rather just have it be municipal fiber. I have no problem with AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, etc.. running their businesses over a combination of private and municipal networks. I feel that's ideal.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jewel 12y ago
This is how UTOPIA in Utah is run. There are a myriad of ISPs to choose from, and the pricing is excellent ($70/mo for gigabit from Xmission, for example). http://www.utopianet.org/pricelist/ http://www.utopianet.org/pricelist/

WalterBright 12y ago

If the government was your ISP, what are the privacy implications?

justizin 12y ago
This is a very valid concern, but what if a private small business provides me an encrypted broadband connection over municipal fiber, which saddles the city / county with the _physical_ problems, and sacrifices a little bit of latency and total bandwidth to keep my relationship with my transit provider separate from my municipal interconnect provider. Obviously there are continued risks with the crypto arms race, but if Google is being beam-split by the NSA, why would we choose a solution that uses more power, provides less overall individual freedom, costs more, and is slower, to guard against a bogeyman that's getting in anyway. We must always assume we are being wiretapped. Let's get a discount on being wiretapped, eh? ;)
fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
Good point! Terrible, but probably not worse than what we have today.
CWuestefeld 12y ago
This is my concern, in the Snowden/NSA age. While few ISPs are willing to go to the mat defending their customers' privacy, I am absolutely certain that when it comes to governmental providers, it will never happen.