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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA

elray to Alex J

Member

to Alex J

Re: If you look deep enough into the DSLR archives...

said by Alex J :

I told you so...

When this website's knee-jerk anti-community broadband folks constantly claim all projects like this fail, that's not really impressive when you happen to get one right.

No one is anti-community broadband. We only object to the use of taxpayer funds and illegal takings. There are ways to have community broadband without violating the constitution or stealing from your neighbors.
Skippy25
join:2000-09-13
Hazelwood, MO

1 recommendation

Skippy25

Member

LOL, that has got to be the biggest over reach of pure BS I have read!

First off, your are constantly being "stolen from" by any of the local duopoly cable / telecom companies and we all have been for decades. You can also extend the stupidity of this statement to schools, roads, libraries and hundreds of other community projects.

Second, what the poster you replied to said is 100% correct. You guys come here bashing every community thing (Including Google which is a private company doing a community thing) and then when you happen to get one right you gloat.

Third, Utopia isnt dead yet and until it is I would recommend keeping the gloating to yourself as it will probably still be up and running 10 years from now. Whether that is with their communities help through financing or just shear profitability is not relevant. IF the community wants it, they will continue to make it run and that is all that really matters.
hottboiinnc4
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH

hottboiinnc4 to elray

Member

to elray
99% of them use tax payer money one way or another. Bonds- all are backed by Tax Payer money- the project can't be funded on it's own- the tax payers on are the hook to pay that bond.

Funded by the City's Muni power company by using rate hikes and taxes from that company- backed by the tax payer. These are all funded some where or another by a tax payer. And they're on the hook again. Congress needs to setup and do as they promised; protect and serve the residents/citizens from being on the hook paying for these half ass projects that never float- let alone are fully finished being built.
hottboiinnc4

1 recommendation

hottboiinnc4 to Skippy25

Member

to Skippy25
First, local cable and phone companies PAY to use the ROW. Local Muni "companies" NEVER do. Tax payers are on the hook to pay for the up-keep along with the other companies that are required thus making rates HIGHER for everyone else- that is NOT fair and is stealing from those customers of another company.

2nd- local schools purchase their internet from actual companies, not the local Muni or Google. the USDOE requires them to use approved companies and DAS sites. Very few companies are even on that approved list, and Google is NOT one of them. And Schools are NOT operated by local gov'ts. They are seperate from the local gov't. The way they should be. Libraries also do not purchase services from the local ISPs nor Google wannabes. They use actual ISPs who can bid on those contracts and get actual services, hence WV using VZ/Frontier and those nice 2k routers and not some XYZ DSL ISP.

3rd- Google isn't competing and just wants a free ride, they did ALL they could to get around the red tape they should have been forced to follow, just like every other company. If Google actually cared, they wouldn't be out to sell EVERY damn thing they could find about you, nor would they be out to sell this project in 2 years and their agreement would be stated for at least 5 years. We've all seen that if Google can't make a dime off a project they kill it. GoogleTV and Google's Nexus product line trying to sell unlocked cell phones while making $$$ were two of those projects. And this will be a 3rd, and surely not the last one Google kills. Especially when the Shareholders are going to want to see ROI coming back into the company.

Time to put these munis to rest and sell their last mile networks.

PS- If Google even remotely cared- they wouldn't make these residents in KC beg for service like a bunch of starving dogs like they did just to get their name out in the public again. if this was any other company doing it, Karl and you as well would be all over them giving them shame.
fiberguy2
My views are my own.
Premium Member
join:2005-05-20

fiberguy2

Premium Member

You should re-think your 2nd point.. a lot.
JohnSJ
join:2004-08-14
Lafayette, LA

JohnSJ to hottboiinnc4

Member

to hottboiinnc4

johnsj

BS. And uninformed BS.

1) Municipal johnsj almost always DO pay the local municipalities for the "use" of their own Rights of Way and other taxes. The mechanism is called In Lieu of Taxes (usually: johnsj) and provides a non-tax income stream to replace the taxed one presumptively lost. (This is the same nearly universal mechanism, very old, that is used to "tax" water and electrical utilities) Muni johnsj also typically have a contract with the city/county that mirrors the one a private provider has...thus explicitly paying the same ROW fee that a private provider does. (And other public obligations like monetary support of local Public Access Channels.) Case in point: johnsj Fiber in Lafayette, La. Look it up.

2) Local Schools and Libraries typically do use local muni providers where possible. Chiefly because they get a hugely good deal from sympathetic locals--like much larger pipes for a fraction of the cost that monopoly private providers charge. Again a great case in point is johnsj Fiber which holds contracts with both local entities.

3) Honestly, Google in the Kansas Cities is not remotely a muni provider; you've got a bad case of category confusion. (Not all companies that are not the sacred incumbents are the same...except they all actually provide competition, which I'd guess is the real reason they offend you.)