pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
 ·Comcast
| reply to claudeo
Re: Idiots
said by claudeo  :How do you figure "at no costs to its citizens"? Any use of public right of way (over, under or through it) has a cost to the citizens. Say AT&T deploys this service in your area but you decide you don't want to use it. Does AT&T send you a bill? Of course not.
As for using the right of way costing people money, if we followed your example, every time I crossed the sidewalk I should have to pay a tax. When any company comes and tears up a street to do any kind of work, its that company that has to pay to fix it, not the government.
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G_Poobah
join:2004-01-17
Schenectady, NY
| for example : "every time I crossed the sidewalk I should have to pay a tax"
Well, DUH, that's exactly what AT&T wants. Remember, the whole '2-tier' internet. You can't use the crosswalk unless you pay AT&T. Of course, you could walk 8 blocks out of your way, and maybe get across the street, but AT&T has decided that you need to pay an AT&T 'crosswalk' tax to use 'their' crosswalk.
AT&T wants to install all these crosswalks, but they don't want to do it in a way that benefits the citizens. AT&T is allowed to put in a crosswalk, but it's using the towns streets to do it. And it's the citizens of the town that use the sidewalks, that may or may not use the crosswalk. The town has said "yes, you can put in a crosswalk, but no, you can't make all the laws involving that crosswalk, because we the citizens will determine whats the best public interest use of that crosswalk. It's not to say you can't make money with the crosswalk, it IS to say that you will live by the rules we make when 'operating' that crosswalk'.
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| said by G_Poobah :Well, DUH, that's exactly what AT&T wants. Remember, the whole '2-tier' internet. You can't use the crosswalk unless you pay AT&T. Well yea... no one is saying AT&T is supposed to offer the service for free and no one is saying that subscriber fees won't be used to offset the costs of the rollout, but the major difference between what AT&T is doing and what muni people wanted to do is that AT&T is not expecting the people who aren't subscribing to the service to pay them for anything.
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| said by pnh102 :The major difference between what AT&T is doing and what muni people wanted to do is that AT&T is not expecting the people who aren't subscribing to the service to pay them for anything. Um, muni utilities are built with revenue bonds, not GO bonds.
The muni people are not expecting the people who aren't subscribing to the service to pay them for anything either.
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| said by marigolds :Um, muni utilities are built with revenue bonds, not GO bonds. The muni people are not expecting the people who aren't subscribing to the service to pay them for anything either. It doesn't matter how the government tries to pass them off as not costing people money, they do. EVERY municipally run broadband operation is either subsidized by taxes or by siphoning funds from some other municipal service. In the end, non-subscribers in such a model are are paying for service they do not use.
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axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC | Isn't this how school districts are funded? Not everyone has school-age children, and not everyone uses broadband, but they are worthwile things to spend for the benefit of society as a whole. |
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| said by axus :Isn't this how school districts are funded? Not everyone has school-age children, and not everyone uses broadband, but they are worthwile things to spend for the benefit of society as a whole. No one is debating that governments have to spend money on things. The debate is... why would you spend money on things that are being provided at no cost to the government (such as privately funded broadband) at the expense of other things that the private sector won't provide (universal education)?
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rahlquist
Redeye
join:2001-10-30
Villa Rica, GA
| While I see and hear your arguments I find it flawed to say that no municipal programs like broadband can work. The simple solution in my book would have been to let the city do its rollout, include a performance mandate to be met. If they couldnt provide the profits needed to be self sustaining then require them after X period of time to shut the network down and sell the fiber to the competition. If anyone at AT&T had half a brain in their head this is what they would encourage if its truly impossible fore muni broadband to make a profit.
Instead the minute they feel threatened they roll out the steamrollers and smash every little iota of competition in their path. No worries though because at the current rate AT&T will be on big fat #@$#@$ Ma Bell again soon and cities will have little choice other than to allow them to do whatever they want. Otherwise AT&T can simply offer to pull out and let the city handle their own infrastructure.
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Octopussy2
Premium
join:2003-03-30
Batavia, IL | reply to pnh102
That simply isn't true. You do not understand revenue bonds.
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