Colorado unshackles cities, lifts ban on govt-owned muni broadband Voters in Colorado have abolished laws that had prohibited local governments from offering their own broadband internet services. Local ballots in 17 counties all resulted in voters electing to allow their local governments to offer broadband service in competition with private cable companies. The vote overturns a 2005 law …
This is how capitalism fails. The inertia associated with capital expenditure, market development and then operating costs , is only possible when a company reaches a certain size threshold.
Add to this the political joke of lobbying (it should be completely banned - 100% , no lobbying in private whatsoever), and you get slow moving companies, own all of the last-mile and then we're surprised when they want to rip you off?
This is the problem with computers 'n' stuff. They are moving many times faster than the physical world would like, and the hysteresis in the out of date commerical operations, becomes wider. The obstruction by companies becomes larger.
I live 100 miles from Chattanooga, and only 25 miles from one of the fastest computers on the planet.
Do you think this will make it into the utterly useless media?
This article was from May 2015, and there was NO COMMENT from ATT, COMCAST and CHARTER.
Please GOOGLE, announce fiber (sic) here , and rattle the cages of these complacent dinosaurs...
P.
Shortly after Google moved into Kansas City MO, the existing Internet providers lowered their prices and up their speeds. The delay in ISP's upgrading was because they had to upgrade their existing mid 1990's equipment for the increased speed. I can imagine that cut into their gravy train profits a bit.
That's sort of my point! Sarcasm was laid on thick I hope ;-)
I wouldn't mind but ORNL has 100G pipes for the supercomputers, and even the university has "theoretical" access to these pipes.
The incumbents are simply milking the population and with such an entrenched corporate environment (ATT, CHARTER and COMCAST), the only way of rocking the boat is probably GOOGLE.
I keep getting ATT offers twice a week for "3 MB/s blinding fast DSL!!!!"
WTF doesn't even cover it....
P.
There are definitely some things government shouldn't be involved with, or only involved with in a minimal way. Private companies should also be similarly constrained. In no particular order:
Government is very good at coast patrol. Private concerns are not (remember BlackBeard?).
Companies do a decent job of selling all sorts of useless stuff. Government seems only to have a knack for *buying* useless stuff (F-35, anyone?).
Government, especially local government, should definitely do all it can to keep the streets safe, clean and navigable. Private companies have no business in public safety (especially police and prisons) or managing toll roads (see every Grimm fairy tale that involved trolls).
In that same vein, government should never ever be prevented from providing alternatives to privately held water, power and communications systems. Note that I'm not saying that all private water, power and comms systems should be socialized. What I'm saying is that government should be allowed to fill in the gaps that shortsighted anarcho-capitalism almost always leaves in its wake. In extreme cases of market failure (usually brought on by monopoly success) government should be allowed to compete head-to-head with private firms -- because, after all, America is all about competition, isn't it?
Actually socialism is strong in the Tory heartland there it always was when a tornado ripped the roofs off Klansmen they would soon gather together to rebuild the house and barbeque a negro in celebration or sacrifice..
It's just that even in the case of utilities like water and sewage even electricity, distances were so great as to make socialism unworkable and expensive and that is why Comcast monopolists could get away with the minimal requirements, they were not expected to do their best.
It will be interesting to see how the new politics of Internet and surveillance will work out once people start to get an education..
The current Broadband (in the US) is a legacy from when cable companies were given charters (read monopolies) to install the infrastructure and supply cable to the unwashed masses and provide fees(kickback) to the local governments. This is how in my semi rural are I have the choice of Comcast and their (Kaff) high speed (30-50 MB) for the luxury of coughing up $60 bucks a month or choose the less expensive crap DSL that runs at 20 mb. Now most cities have found they need to install their own fiber for their infrastructure and want to sell it the bandwidth as a utility . This results in higher speed and lower cost . It's called competition and it's the American effin way baby. They've had a monopoly too long
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