ColdFiltered
join:2005-01-25
Atlanta, GA
| Re: Municipal Broadband FINALLY gets attention My biggest concerns are as follows:
1.) As a resident of some township, do I get a real in whether a muni in setup? This is important to me because no doubt that if I disagree and the muni service get's setup I am having to front a portion of that bill.
2.) What qualifications are the city's IT people going to have? Are they going to be qualified to design, engineer, deploy, start-up and maintain a muni system reliably? Will none, some, or all of the WAN IT responsabilities going to be out-sourced to outside the community? Last time I check WAN IT people are not cheap, so I wonder what proficient staff my city would get.
3.) Are bids taken, or is the idea being sold by one or two equipment vendors desperate because of lost sales from the talco and cable industry? Are the spending-decisions being publicly made? Voted upon? By qualified people?
4.) Exactly how would a system be paid for? Vendor acting as lender, too? What about competitive bidding?
5.) What exact services will my government compete in in terms of usurping the free-market? Will this be voted upon by the residents? And will it be subsidized via an open system (like ppcpunk describes)?
6.) What protections will there be for the residents paying for the system? What benefits are to be prescribed for the residents? What economic losses, if any, resulting from government competing in the free market?
7.) What damage compensation will be yielded to residents for torn-up property during a system deployment, system maintenance, etc.?
8.) How do you advise your residents holding stocks and or bonds in those telco's and cable companies?
9.) How much would each resident be financially responsible for? Will this be a usage-defined burden, or based on another matrix? Can residents opt-out? And if someone cannot afford are their negative consequences therein?
Jesus, I could go on and on. I am no different than the next consumer and would love a cheaper monthly bill for my broadband, but I am not willing to financially burden someone else not interested in a muni effort just because I am interested in this luxuty. |
