said by ronpin :

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Why turn to government for a solution???

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said by JTRockville :

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I think of munis as turning to the community, rather than the government.

When it comes to infrastructure, I strongly feel it shouldn't be left to those who can make the most profit.

Why should we be forced to choose between funding 7 digit salaries, or doing without?

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said by pnh102 :

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...(clipped for brevity)...instead of taking it upon themselves to solve the problems on their own.

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said by vic102482 :

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said by JTRockville :

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I think of munis as turning to the community, rather than the government.

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That's just word-play to draw a distinction between community and government -- I mean you want to hold a referendum (vote/election) to pass bond issues which are guaranteed by taxpayers. I'd call that "government". If you really need to resort to word-play what does that say about your argument?

said by Jim Baller, municipal broadband attorney
Broadband Resports: Interview
written by Karl Bode
May 21, 2003:

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Let's take a closer look. One of the systems studied was the municipal cable system of Glasgow, KY. The residents of Glasgow love their system because it has given them low-cost, high-quality cable service, and, since the mid-1990s, bargain-basement access to the Internet at 4 Mbps. Yet, according to cable industry, the Glasgow system should be considered a failure because it has never made a profit. It is quite true that Glasgow has never shown a profit, but that is because it sets its rates at the lowest possible level that will enable it to recover its costs. This policy has saved the citizens of Glasgow more than $30 million over the relevant period. For a town of 14,000 in rural Kentucky, that's not a failure -- its a grand success.

Another system included in the Denver study was the municipal communications utility of Cedar Falls, IA. To their credit, the professors acknowledged in their report that the system had not been operating long enough to generate any meaningful data. Since then, the Cedar Falls system has been a rousing success, particularly when compared to its next-door neighbor, Waterloo, IA, which shied away from establishing a communications utility of its own. The two cities are comparable in every way except that Cedar Falls has a municipal communications system and Waterloo does not. The result -- economic development in Cedar Falls has surged since the system was completed, even in the face of the economic downturn, while Waterloo's economy has languished. Hardly the profile of a failed system.

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said by JTRockville :

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..."the government" as being of, by, and for the people.

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said by BosstonesOwn :

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amen..... in this day and age the companies care about the bottom lines only and are greedy as all hell.

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said by batageek :

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How about this.....

Municipal broadband is an opportunity to provide another level of service to its citizenry, just as they do with water, sewer, streets, and in some cases, electric, gas & trash collection.

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