jdmatl
join:2000-04-27
Deerfield Beach, FL
| reply to needforspeed59
Re: IMHO: BS
said by needforspeed59  :I think it is total BS that governments can compete against private enterprise no matter what the good intentions are. What's next: City of Lafayette gasoline stations? Grocery stores? Have you been following this story? Bellsouth and Cox had been promising for years to do this and did not. If private enterprise can't get it done, the more power to the local city govt to take over. I look at Bellsouth/Cox as "big govt" anyway. Both are monopolies.
After all the city govt is run by the local people not the fed govt. |
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Nintendo
join:2007-03-17
| said by jdmatl :said by needforspeed59 :I think it is total BS that governments can compete against private enterprise no matter what the good intentions are. What's next: City of Lafayette gasoline stations? Grocery stores? Have you been following this story? Bellsouth and Cox had been promising for years to do this and did not. If private enterprise can't get it done, the more power to the local city govt to take over. I look at Bellsouth/Cox as "big govt" anyway. Both are monopolies. After all the city govt is run by the local people not the fed govt. Well put. Lafayette is a stone's throw away from here and people who are not from this area have no idea whats going on here. Im happy for Lafayette. |
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T1 Rocky
join:2002-11-15
Dallas, TX
 ·Time Warner Cable
| I'm happy for Lafayette too and hopefully this will establish precedent and allow other cities to do this. As I interpreted this story, the telcos did not build out to the city and then blocked the city from building out their own fiber network! So is the city of Lafayette suppose to sit back and not be able to attract any technology companies until the telcos find it to be economically feasible?
It was my understandiung that in 1996, the governtment levied the taxes to build out a fiber network nationwide by 2004. The telcos ponied up and said, "we already have the people in place across the country to build out the fiber network so why don't you give us the money and we will do it for you?" The government gave the telcos the literally billions of dollars which the telcos then used to invest in lobbying which allowed them to restore their monopoly, attack vertical markets and launch an advertising campaign that said America doesn't need fiber, we need DSL on the good old already in place copper phone network!
And now a city tries to build out their own fiber network and the telcos fight them? Come on! If the government had built out the "dumb pipes" that the Telecom Act of 1996 was suppose to build then we'd all be reading this on 90 Mbps and arguing about which ISP actually gives you 90 Mbps (ISP's remember them?) But instead they gave it to the telcos who are now literally fighting with cities to stop technological development.
I wonder how many high tech companies are in Lafayette? Once this network is in place, I bet they start attracting them. |
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battleop
join:2005-09-28
00000
| reply to jdmatl
I've followed this off and on some. I think the big difference is that the citizens voted for this. EPB in Chattanooga is trying to do the same thing except the citizens and rate payers have no choice. There are also 20 or so providers offering broadband over different mediums. The citizens in Lafayette have no other choice for broadband. |
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Carl
Premium
join:2004-07-21
Krotz Springs, LA
·Charter Pipeline
| said by battleop :The citizens in Lafayette have no other choice for broadband. Yes, they do.
Cox cable is available, as is BellSouth/AT&T DSL service.
Both have been available since the 90's, if I'm not mistaken.
I know when I lived in Lafayette, I had Cox cable modem.
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