West Virginia mulls mother of all muni networks – effectively a state-wide, state-run ISP The US state of West Virginia is debating whether it should get into the ISP business, thanks to a new bill calling for a state-run fiber broadband network. SB 315 calls for the state to lay down its own internet backbone and provide service throughout the state for all residents. The bill would have the state pay for the …
Guess the cable operators want to the government to butt out except of course for continuing to grant them lucrative regional monopolies without the obligation of common carrier.
Well, yes. Why wouldn't they? They seek to maximize profits.
Crony capitalism at its finest.
Just straight-up capitalism.
Personally, I have no objection to West Virginia rolling out state-utility broadband, though I wonder if it's the best application of their resources. But I also don't expect the commercial providers to say, oh, sure, fine by us.
Well, yes. Why wouldn't they? They seek to maximize profits.
If they're abusing relationships with politicians, it's not about maximizing profits as much as it's about extracting rents. Under normal capitalist markets, buyer and seller have to agree to consumate the transaction, with each getting what they perceive as value. If you aren't getting value from your ISP, then don't agree to their terms and find an alternative. I realize that's easier said than done, but it can be done if you really want it.
Just straight-up capitalism.
Don't be a fucking idiot. Pure capitalism requires private ownership of the means of production. Crony capitalism also requires private ownership, but colludes with public agencies to create barriers to entry through burdensome legislation.
In the US (and most of Europe), the macroeconomy is quite a conglomeration of crony capitalism and socialism. Very little pure capitalism exists outside of Hong Kong and Singapore (at least that used to be true).
WV really has nothing to lose. A few hundred million invested in this could really bring them from worst-to-first. Even if it just serves to set a performance floor for any other private entrant. I'd like to see them make this happen and make it actually work - and hope that it isn't all screwed up by general government cronyism and mismanagement.
Cue ATT, Comcast, or $Other_hated_ISP with slides of "we're going to wire everyone, starting the day after tomorrow" in 3... 2... 1...
WV may pull this off. The groundwork is laid already by lawyers (who else?) in the form of a well-received class action lawsuit against Frontier http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/frontier-pay-150m-west-virginia-settle-lawsuit-over-broadband-speed/2015-12-11 .
Given the generally low opinion most over here have of West Virginians it might improve their standing. The might make it above Mississippi and Louisiana. In the US South a common saying is "Thank God for Mississippi" which usually ranks on the bottom or near the bottom in most state rankings. West Virginia usually ranks in the same territory.
The infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud was between two families one from West Virginia and the other from Kentucky. Both states have been trying to live down the feud for over 100 years.
The are many local and regional government owned utilities in the US, so this is nothing that unusual. The cable companies brought this upon themselves.
The more I read about how utilities are provided to communities in America, the more I seethe when I look at how Britain has implemented just the worst aspects of capitalism while totally ignoring the obvious benefits of state run utilities for the citizens it is supposed to be working for.
It would be interesting to compare our two nations attitudes to community owned services and perhaps recognise which of us cares less for its citizens in the face of rampant capitalism.
... And the nationalised railways stood out as the only one of them that cared for it's customers in any meaningful way, except it was the employees on the ground doing the caring because their jobs would be hell otherwise, not management or gov policy.
There are reasons to prefer nationalised industries (if run by competent staff instead of the idiots gov keep choosing) but caring about customers has rarely been an objective.
"except it was the employees on the ground doing the caring because their jobs would be hell otherwise"
I may have posted this before, in which case I apologise for the repetition, but my grandfather was a proud employee of the LNER. Trains on his patch ran to time or there was hell to pay. As a child (I was of course in full school uniform for the occasion) I remember him standing in a signal box watching the signalmen and the mimic board, because the royal train was going past, with his best uniform, bowler hat, and, highly polished, his trade union badge. And his hammer and sickle badge. Because he might be a staunch republican of communist leanings, but everybody on his railway must travel safely and punctually.
That attitude was far from unusual and still survived into the 1990s, when the rot set in.
British coal looked after our little village. Soon as it was privatised reports of lack of safety "surfaced", standards declined and lo and behold there was a large pit disaster.
Cant say for BT as it was a vastly different era to todays network and expectations.
Nationalised water was a much better idea with the money being spread around rather than a postcode lottery that you get now.
British rail might have been a laughing stock but it isn't nearly as bad as the clusterfuck that is network rail & franchises. That and since network rail is about to be spun off and the national improvedment plans will be given to regional franchises to sort.... what can go wrong? A 10 year franchise holder isn't going to add any appreciable track improvements are they?
If I lived in West Virginia, I would be able to get my power from a community run distributor, who would buy what is needed at the most competitive prices wholesale and make it available to me at cost plus admin. As per this article, I might be getting a similar deal on my internet in the near future too.
Back in blighty, this common sense, community owned philosophy was crushed decades ago and of the remaining examples of state run services, ALL of them are fighting for their very existence as government policy attempts to eradicate them.
Is it not enough to satisfy a communities need at cost? Why has everything from water and food through to telephony and power got to generate a massive profit for a select few, while further impoverishing millions.
ISPs in America often are effectively government sanctioned monopolies, with the lack of incentives and accountability that entails.
I worked for the largest one once, and it always seemed to me the truly applicable statutes for the business should have been the RICO ones.
Huh-uh, nope, nada, ain't no way ... just ain't gonna happen. T'ain't really a serious threat, or the Telco/Cable Cartel would already have the FCC, the FTC, the SBA, the ICC, and all them other alphabet agencies on WV's butt, snarlin' and chewin'.
Service to the common folk is not, and for the last several decades, has not been a factor. It's a convenient smokescreen, but nobody in America believes it for a minute. Once we had REA (Rural Electrification Act) to solve that exact same issue, but it got labeled Socialist Government Overreach and the private corps rushed in to take over what public low interest loans had built, wherever they'uns could force their way in.
Now excuse me. I gotta get on the phone and hassle with Comcast about this latest billing screwup.
Only where there's money to be had. But then you have places like here that don't have a lot of money. Here, capitalism falls flat because there's no money angle. Convincing a penniless man to buy your stuff is basically a waste of time. Government has the ability to invest for reasons other than money, such as general well-being.
It can turn out bad though, look at KCOM in Hull city in the UK. Whilst WV might start off with a reasonable fibre network, in 10 years it might suffer the same fate - i.e. good to begin with but very poor in the future with a monopoly (to claw back the money invested)
Competition is a good thing, except where one of your competitors can ignore the rules they wrote and throw an effectively infinite pile of someone else's money at their business. That's not to say I don't think government supply of services is a bad thing, having seen the entirely average level of service my friends in the USA get from their ISP it's hard to see how the government could do a worse job.
West Virginia is a very poor state. Their economy is very dependent on coal mines, which are being strangled by eco-zealots and the EPA with new rules on pollution. There are not many industries because it is in the heart of Appalachia. There are a lot of mountains. We do get a lot of natural gas from West Virginia, and the people have mineral rights to that when it is on their property. There is some tourism because it is beautiful and there is the Green Banks radio telescope. But that is not enough.
Now imagine if every town had 25+ meg internet. High tech jobs that don't really need trucks to come and go could be located in one of those beautiful mountain town way off the interstate. The economy wouldn't be dependent on coal. This could really bring in a lot of jobs. It could also encourage people to buy retirement or vacation homes, thus helping the economy even more. This project would be a worthy investment for the mountain state.
The rural town of Henderson, TN has gigabit internet - and a software development company.
Meanwhile, here in the thriving metro Nashville area I'm unable to get a decent enough connection to work from home most days.
This is a link to an article (the magazine is put by our electrical co-op, BTW) on Henderson - I think it shows some possible benefits for West Virginia, which has just seen its main source of income eradicated as coal companies going bankrupt.
http://www.tnmagazine.org/small-town-big-ideas/
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"The Windy City is mighty Pretty. But They ain't got what we got"
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=West+Virginia
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=East+Virginia
... "But they ain't got what We Got. I'm telling you Boys. I ain't swapping Half of DeadWood for The Whole of Illinois..."
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Illinois
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=The+windy+city
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=How+do+you+like+your+eggs+in+the+morning
Can someone tell me where the fuck 'The Rest Of The World' is because either geographically or demographically America seems to be fucking with my head...
Oh, silly me. The 'English' analogy would be 'Outside of, Parliament, the Stock Market and London' everything else is just... not there.
Go! West Virginia!
Well, we have an east coast and a west coast.
The east coast has NYC and DC and various suburbs like Boston.
The west coast has LA and SF but no drinking water.
In between there are 3,000 miles you need to fly over to get from one coast to the other.
The primitive tribes of the interior are forced to deliver tribute to DC - think of Belgium and the rape of the Congo and you get the general idea.
A Bankruptcy named Illinois or Chicago is rumored to be down there somewhere, but those are just the old tales of lost cities and civilizations that every country has.
Thank you for the enlightenment. So, and correct me if I am wrong...
You Have..
1) One East Coast which can more or less be restricted to the North East where all the Financial Luvvies live, excluding West Virginia.
2) One West Coast which is more or less California where all the Techy Luvvies live.
and the rest of the country is comprised of 3,000 miles of 'fly-over' states that do bugger fuck all and should be ignored?
Kool.
Despite what the rightwing toadies and corporate mouthpieces will have you think, government exists to do what ever the hell the people choose.
So korporate america has ignored WV as it is a downscale market, but the people decide on their own to build their own net via the state, now the fascists are foaming at the mouth.
What should be done is the government run the layer 0, 1 and 2 network, and then provide VLAN based (even vlan in vlan) or MPLS based access to private ISPs, including the Cable COs and Tel COs.
The private companies provide all layer 3 services, and even layer 7 (TV, Phone, etc), over this monopoly physical layer. Tech support would be from the layer 3 provider
It does not make sense to build out multiple residential Fiber networks, but it does make sense to have competition on the services on top.
What about companies like Google that have high speed internal fiber? And how would the government regulate flow and who's allowed and who's not? Sounds a bit like the problem of trying to separate utility supply from utility transport.
If they want to run their own fiber, sure.
What we have seen in the US (very diff market then the UK) is that new housing developments sign a deal with either a CableCO or a TelCo, and only work with that company to install copper or fiber to each of the new houses.
This means that you only have one vendor as an option unless you install fixed wireless.
The requirement to sell unbundled local loops (ie lease the last mile) has been dropped in most states/markets, so a CLEC selling DSL basically does not exist.
I think because without the exclusivity agreement, none of the ISPs are willing to plunk down, especially to rural communities far from a trunk line. And the ISPs aren't dumb enough to kowtow to government-run lines, meaning either they have control from end to end or the government will have to operate the whole thing including the last mile, which raises socialism scares.
All infrastructure should be public.
Nobody is going to build their own 2nd or 3rd road network, where you have 3 driveways in your yard attached to 3 separate road networks and you pick which one you want to pay for access too. So government owns the roads because there is no chance of competition, and a level playing field is provided. Private enterprise stays where it's useful, running taxis and buses and delivery vans and tow trucks and dump trucks etc.
Should be the same with internet. Government owns all the wires and provides a level playing field. Private enterprise can use those wires to offer internet service, software, servers, websites, etc.
But Americans DON'T TRUST the government to do it right. And before you mention roads, let me remind you of some significant wear-and-tear issues and at least one tragic Interstate bridge collapse. There are those who say the government should get out of the way of EVERYTHING: including the military.
So basically, it's a no-win situation. They don't trust the government to do it right, and any private enterprise will always attach strings. Pick your poison. Most around here will take the latter.
One possible compromise would to have it run as a utility, but not by the government. That is actually the way most utilities (electric, water, power, gas) here across the pond work. They are regulated monopolies, and for the most part seem to provide quality service at a reasonable cost.
Most utilities in America are run that way: as de jure monopolies (mostly to prevent NIMBY issues with redundant infrastructure. Thing is, people STILL complain about cheating and corruption by these regulated monopolies. Like I said, you can't win.
Some friends live in the middle of a community (whose only concession to technology is a single old model of Volvo) that grew up around them in North London. So the lack of customers for broadband mean that it is "uneconomic" for a technician to dust out the cobwebs in the system and they are stuck on the level just above dialup and for uploads it would be quicker using semaphore.
The private ISPs had many years to do at least Fiber To The Curb(FTTC), but they did not, so let the state do it. This proposal is about some middle mile infrastructure, not FTTC, so the private cable companies do not have much to complain about.
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