Georgia Wants to Be a Broadband Backwater Yet Another Attack on Community Broadband You'll recall that last year, after four years of lobbying by Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink, North Carolina passed a law seriously restricting the right of local communities to wire themselves for broadband -- even if local incumbents wouldn't. Neither Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink are what you'd call aggressive when it comes to upgrading last mile speeds, so the law made sure they wouldn't have to worry about locals getting fed up and say -- building a wholesale fiber ring that then allowed regional ISPs to compete. Supporters of these bills proclaim they're interested in "leveling the playing field" and "free markets," when in reality they're interested in protecting regional duopolies and ensuring that community network building is immensely cumbersome. Creating a "level playing field" is always code for "creating pricing, funding, deployment and other bureaucratic restrictions private ISPs don't face." Why? If done right, municipal broadband can make lazy duopolists have to actually work for your money, driving down profits. The answer for ISPs? Throw money at lawmakers who'll gleefully work to kill community broadband. Now Georgia is considering a bill that aims to take broadband-related decision making rights away from local communities while erecting barriers for community broadband. Christopher Mitchell at Community Broadband Networks takes a look at SB 313: The bill first requires communities to ask the private sector to build the necessary network....The bill requires communities to pass a referendum before building a network and requires inaccurate, damning language be included on the ballot. Broadband referendums tend to invite deep-pocketed incumbent providers to spend heavily to buy the votes necessary to stop competition - see the Longmont saga for an excellent example of how hard it is for a community to stand up to these big cable corporations.
Communities that somehow get this far are then subject to all the regulations as are private providers in addition to numerous additional regulations imposed on them by this legislation and their inherent duty to operate in an open and transparent manner. Despite being nonprofit, they are required to pay taxes and still face additional barriers that private operators do not.
They will be restricted in how they price their services and where they offer services in ways the private sector is not. As noted, ISPs particularly love bills that require endless public hearings and votes, where deep-pocketed carriers can can out spend supporters by millions of dollars on (often incredibly sleazy) PR campaigns aimed at shouting these services down. That same money could be used to upgrade last mile connectivity, but isn't thanks to the uncompetitive markets these companies are trying to keep uncompetitive. The result? Continued slow speeds, high prices and poor service, all protected by the very government ISPs claim they don't want involved in the market.
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 | slckusrPremium
join:2003-03-17
Maumee, OH
kudos:1 Reviews:
 ·AT&T U-Verse
 ·AT&T Midwest
| They lost one war. I guess their getting setup to lose another. Information and accessibility to it is the battlefield, at stake is the intelligence of your population.
Is it irony or coincidence that have North Carolina and Georgia in the lower rankings of our nations education system? | |
|  | | | |  pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
1 edit | Re: They lost one war. North Carolina, despite also being a "broadband backwater" that is "populated by inbred hillbillies, hicks and people who screw sheep, talk funny and shoot at minorities," was good enough for Google.
»wraltechwire.com/business/tech_w···1172822/
The idea that these laws somehow imperil technological progress is bunk, after all, you didn't see Google close up shop once it was enacted.
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"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service. | |
| | | | | | Re: They lost one war. What does building a data center in a community with a large displaced worker population, due to the loss of furniture and manufacturing jobs, have anything to do with a law that impedes the ability of a local municipality to build out their own high speed infrastructure?
To be more succinct, how does the existence of a privately owned, corporate site directly relate to legislation restricting municipal broadband?
You're very active on this site and have been for years that I've noticed. As someone that has seen many of your disputes here, where you're usually in the minority, I want to believe you have solid reasoning for thinking the way you do. So help me. Take me on a journey through your thought process at least on this one comment. Give me facts, give me logical thought processes, give me a reason not to prejudge a post when I see your little marine symbol next to it, please. | |
| | | | | pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
1 edit | Re: They lost one war. The premise of the article is that laws which save taxpayers' money by restricting the ability of local governments to deploy municipal broadband leads to said jurisdiction becoming a "broadband backwater," and that as a result, all sorts of terrible things will happen to the people of said jurisdiction.
The example I citied with Google, as well as other high-tech companies happily doing business in such places, disproves this premise.
My motivations are strictly personal. As someone who pays close to or more than half of his pay in various taxes at all levels of government, I would be livid if my own town decided to squander taxpayer money on such a project, especially if there were complaints that other locally-funded public services, such as schools, police, fire protection, paramedics, roads, etc. were in disrepair.
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"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service. | |
| | | | | | | | Re: They lost one war. The article states the result is a continuance of slow [internet] speeds and high prices [for that internet] - or as you put it "all sorts of terrible things will happen to the people". So your example doesn't apply. It doesn't say that without municipal broadband high-tech companies won't want to do business there.
I completely agree with and commend your personal motivations. I suppose it comes down to a difference of opinion. You feel municipal broadband is squandering and I feel paramedics are squandering (there are plenty of hospitals within driving distance, and plenty of private companies contracted by those hospitals that I don't believe we need publicly funded paramedics).
I think the provision I have the largest complaint with is that they define broadband as anything above 200kbps synchronous. But I do like the little out that was given - specifically lines 115-117 that say the service may be sold or discontinued without voter approval. Sold really sticks out there. Essentially, if a community overcomes the hurdles of this legislation and manages to build out and provide broadband at a positive revenue flow, a private company has the right to purchase the service and become service provider to that community, for better or worse, without the approval of the people that paid for said broadband. | |
| | | | | | | pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | Re: They lost one war. said by lulwutbbq :I completely agree with and commend your personal motivations. I suppose it comes down to a difference of opinion. You feel municipal broadband is squandering and I feel paramedics are squandering (there are plenty of hospitals within driving distance, and plenty of private companies contracted by those hospitals that I don't believe we need publicly funded paramedics). I'm sorry, but if you really want to play this game, then you're not arguing rationally.
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"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service. | |
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| | | | | | | said by pnh102:The premise of the article is that laws which save taxpayers' money by restricting the ability of local governments to deploy municipal broadband leads to said jurisdiction becoming a "broadband backwater," and that as a result, all sorts of terrible things will happen to the people of said jurisdiction.
The example I citied with Google, as well as other high-tech companies happily doing business in such places, disproves this premise.
My motivations are strictly personal. As someone who pays close to or more than half of his pay in various taxes at all levels of government, I would be livid if my own town decided to squander taxpayer money on such a project, especially if there were complaints that other locally-funded public services, such as schools, police, fire protection, paramedics, roads, etc. were in disrepair.
You are such a hypocrite. You wanted the government to step in to stop the T-Mobile and AT&T merger because it would cost you more money. But you don't support municipal broad because it will "waste taxpayers' money"?
How can independent, self-supporting public infrastructure waste more money than making monopoly rates to a corporation? That entire infrastructure will be run as non-profit, with all excess money going back into the network or into the public budget. There is no need to reap giant margins every year on completely paid for copper the way private telecoms do.
How can you *not* support economically logical infrastructure buildouts? There shouldn't even be private companies owning landlines. Just like roads and bridges, that should be built, owned, and operated by the government. | |
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| pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | said by slckusr:Is it irony or coincidence that have North Carolina and Georgia in the lower rankings of our nations education system? Interesting. You'd think being so smart you'd have heard of this little place in North Carolina called Research Triangle Park.
»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Triangle_Park
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"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service. | |
| | | | | Re: They lost one war. To be fair, slckusr never claimed to be "so smart", you made that claim. They only claimed, albeit incorrectly, that NC and GA are in the lower rankings of the education system.
I do reject your premise that one's measure of intelligence is somehow related to their awareness of a research facility in NC. There are several major implications by your statement that I disagree with, but I won't bother sorting them out as I would then feel compelled to disclose the lesser implications of slckusr's statement - in the interest of fairness. | |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | Of course they want to be a backwater Having lived in the south for many years I can tell you these rednecks LOVE being ignorant. They relish the backwoodsy lifestyle. They are repulsed by anything intellectual. Being blissfully stupid is the way to be for them. | |
| | Reviews:
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Of course they want to be a backwater said by BF69:Having lived in the south for many years I can tell you these rednecks LOVE being ignorant. They relish the backwoodsy lifestyle. They are repulsed by anything intellectual. Being blissfully stupid is the way to be for them.
I absolutely agree.
Its disgusting. | |
| |  Lark3poPremium
join:2003-08-05
Madison, AL
·Knology
| said by BF69:Having lived in the south for many years I can tell you these rednecks LOVE being ignorant. They relish the backwoodsy lifestyle. They are repulsed by anything intellectual. Being blissfully stupid is the way to be for them.
You forgot the /sarcasm... | |
| | pnh102Reptiles Are Cuddly And PrettyPremium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD | said by BF69:Having lived in the south for many years I can tell you these rednecks LOVE being ignorant. They relish the backwoodsy lifestyle. They are repulsed by anything intellectual. Being blissfully stupid is the way to be for them.
Interesting, I am sure most people who call themselves rednecks also believe that non-rednecks love living in crime-ridden shitholes of cities where numerous random shootings, theft, rape, assault and other crimes go on unabated, where cost of living is high, the environment is polluted, the weather sucks and life is generally miserable. What kind of moron would want to choose to live in such enlightened misery?
</Hey I Can Make Idiotic Generalizations Too!>
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"Net Neutrality" zealots - the people you can thank for your capped Internet service. | |
| | | | | Re: Of course they want to be a backwater And yet there is an alternative to both. Its called the suburbs. Many of the positives of both with few of the nagatives. | |
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| | | And the norths version of rednecks are known as hippies. There's also extreme liberals, extreme conservatives, and apple users. Your point? | |
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NWOhio
join:2011-10-25
Toledo, OH | Federal Law is coming soon. Then the states won't have to protect the citizens since the Feds will do it. | |
| |  vpokoPremium
join:2003-07-03
Boston, MA | Re: Federal Law What federal law? The federal government would not be on solid legal ground telling states what they can and can't spend money on. | |
| | | | The ISPs are nationally federated. They just write one bill and hand it to a legislator they have on retainer in each state. | |
| | | | said by NWOhio:is coming soon. Then the states won't have to protect the citizens since the Feds will do it.
You honestly believe this law is "protecting citizens"? It puts them at the mercy of monopolist corporations. It deprives them of their ability to build out their own infrastructure- to rely on their own abilities and to be independent. Instead of spending money to build a network that they can then own in the future, they are forced to pay rent to a monopoly that paid down its network years ago and is charging sky high rates for sky high profit margins.
Why is your version of reality so twisted? | |
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Reviews:
 ·AT&T Wireless Br..
| about this Well you know most of these local communities are trying to wire themselfs up for broadband but fail to open there eyes they have to get there backbone internet from Time Warner Cable or Centurylink or Frontier/Verizon or like Level3 or XO.
Because I got a local FTTH company aka Home Town Cable out of Coldwater, Ohio uses bandwidth from a local telco from New Knoxville Ohio aka NKTELCO who gets there backbone from Time Warner Cable.
here is my tracert to show you what I am talking about:
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| | iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO
kudos:2 | Re: about this If you ask for a pipe big enough, and are willing to pay enough money, you can get the big boys to build out to you. Or you spend a bit more and bury your own backbone fiber (or set up a chain of high-capacity wireless links) to get the job done. | |
| | | Reviews:
·AT&T Wireless Br..
1 edit | Re: about this I called a zayo or something like that and tried to get fiber to my location they told me it could cost me 1million dollars to get to my location.
What really freaking gets me is that they said they dont have a path for my location but yet they are partnering up with COMNET out Wapak Ohio to bring fiber network to Van Wert Ohio. Because COMNET got obama money to do this project.
»www.zayo.com/news/ohio-coalition···us-award | |
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 KrKHeavy Artillery For The Little GuyPremium
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK | Our Governments get more and more corrupt ...sold out to lobbyist business interests every day. | |
| | | Regulation is going to happen Its going to happen whether you all like it or not. Better step up now because this is regulation. But instead of regulating the ISP's its going to be us thats regulated. | |
|  VanPremium
join:2009-07-08
New Orleans, LA | We are in a time where people love to scream words and just expect others to understand their meanings
"Capitalism!"
"Socialism!"
These idiots wouldn't know Capitalism or Socialism with the Library of Congress at their disposal.
This fake capitalism of companies restricting the local areas with money-galore while getting tax benefits AND raising prices....should be illegal yet it never will be. | |
| elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·RoadRunner Cable
| Why is this so hard to understand? If a local government wants to go into the wired broadband business, the only clear-cut way is to buy the local cable or telco franchise at fair market value.
Anything less is murky, and invites a constitutional challenge and potentially, huge damages that the taxpayer will have to cover.
Fiber deserts exist because customers aren't willing to pay the price for service - $2K-4K up front and $70+/month at 35% subscription levels. Having government build a parallel network doesn't lower those costs. | |
| | | | Re: Why is this so hard to understand? Buy a franchise that has no value because it's all copper and contractors? Unconstitutional to build infrastructure? Impossible cost when other other countries manage it easily? | |
| | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Why is this so hard to understand? said by Wilsdom:Buy a franchise that has no value because it's all copper and contractors? Unconstitutional to build infrastructure? Impossible cost when other other countries manage it easily?
If the franchise has no value, then it would be very cheap to acquire.
Good luck with that.
Yes, it is unconstitutional for the government to compete with the entities to whom it sold the franchise. The takings clause is clear.
Government *can* work on the periphery, i.e. provide or participate in middle-mile bandwidth connections, so long as it treats everyone equally. But when City Hall starts selling cable TV, broadband internet and telephone service, they've crossed a very clear line. | |
| | | | | | Re: Why is this so hard to understand? said by elray:said by Wilsdom:Buy a franchise that has no value because it's all copper and contractors? Unconstitutional to build infrastructure? Impossible cost when other other countries manage it easily?
If the franchise has no value, then it would be very cheap to acquire. Good luck with that. Yes, it is unconstitutional for the government to compete with the entities to whom it sold the franchise. The takings clause is clear. Government *can* work on the periphery, i.e. provide or participate in middle-mile bandwidth connections, so long as it treats everyone equally. But when City Hall starts selling cable TV, broadband internet and telephone service, they've crossed a very clear line. The network is overvalued because there is no alternative. Why is providing services to its citizens "crossing a line" but spending millions to lobby a state government to pass a law that restricts the rights of citizens to independently manage their lives somehow okay?
You have no problem with corporate corruption of our political system, but you're offended by a city fighting to provide itself with infrastructure that will improve people's lives and make the economy more competitive? | |
| | | | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: Why is this so hard to understand? said by sonicmerlin:The network is overvalued because there is no alternative. Why is providing services to its citizens "crossing a line" but spending millions to lobby a state government to pass a law that restricts the rights of citizens to independently manage their lives somehow okay?
You have no problem with corporate corruption of our political system, but you're offended by a city fighting to provide itself with infrastructure that will improve people's lives and make the economy more competitive?
The network is not overvalued.
Providing services is not crossing a line. Stealing the customers from the same customers government sold the exclusive franchise is.
Considering the current occupant of the White House was placed there with Wall Street money (2:1 over his "conservative" opponent), and seeing as all of the government theft in California is sponsored by union lobbyists, do you really think I have "no problem" with corruption of our political system?
The way to make the economy work, is to let people keep more of their own money and choose for themselves how to spend it, not steal it to subsidize another inefficient government-based bureaucracy.
We don't need to supplant telco/cableco with a 3rd player in a market that won't support ONE under current conditions. In non-competitive markets, it would be reasonable to consider re-regulation, though you'll likely see rates rise under such a model. | |
| | | | | | bklassPremium
join:2012-02-06
Canada Reviews:
·Shaw
| Re: Why is this so hard to understand? I'm not sure where you got your economic training. Privately owned networks that operate at a profit are overvalued, because they are inefficient. This is because the marginal cost of providing data is very close to zero, yet the company sells above the cost of providing the service.
A private commercial network will seek to recover the fixed cost represented by existing infrastructure, and small variable labor costs, after which it makes a hefty margin of profit by providing continuing service.
In the case of a municipal provider, the organization will recover its investment, with further money raised being reinvested in network maintenance/upgrades or being used to reduce prices. In other words, they will operate at a considerably greater rate of efficiency than private providers. Greater efficiency = lower prices for consumers = more money in your pocket at the end of the day.
Top this all off with the fact that many of today's private internet service providers were initially subsidized with billions in public funds during the 90's. We paid for these services in the first place. It seems to me eminently reasonable to conclude that those providers would better serve as common carriers dedicated to public service provision based on public infrastructure, than as vehicles designed to enlarge the fortunes of their primary shareholders at the expense of the public. | |
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| | | | | So clear that we have municipal broadband all over the country except where the telcos/cablecos have paid politicians massive amounts of money to make laws against it. | |
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| KearnstdElf WizardPremium
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ | Actually the private sector fights these networks in communities because they know they cannot compete because they know their investors would never allow them to compete.
This is why FiOS deployment has been stopped, And why AT&T went with VDSL instead of the superior Fiber or even an HFC network.
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[65 Arcanist]Filan(High Elf) Zone: Broadband Reports | |
| | | | Please show me where in the constitution is the idea of separation of internet and state. Have you ever heard of a public utility? | |
| | | | said by elray:Fiber deserts exist because customers aren't willing to pay the price for service - $2K-4K up front and $70+/month at 35% subscription levels. Having government build a parallel network doesn't lower those costs.
That's not true at all. Sonic is starting to roll out FTTH in the Bay Area and they're charging nowhere near prices that high. | |
| | | crk2h
join:2003-03-19
Murfreesboro, TN Reviews:
·Comcast
·AT&T Southeast
| Re: Why is this so hard to understand? $2,000 install and $70 a month? Not sure where you are getting that from but you can get internet cable and tv over fiber thanks to the municipality in Tullahoma coming in to compete with Charter. Internet starts out at $39.95 for the slower tier which is still 10 Mbps.
»www.tub.net/pdf/lighttube_servic···1]_1.pdf | |
| | | | | | Re: Why is this so hard to understand? said by crk2h:$2,000 install and $70 a month? Not sure where you are getting that from but you can get internet cable and tv over fiber thanks to the municipality in Tullahoma coming in to compete with Charter. Internet starts out at $39.95 for the slower tier which is still 10 Mbps.
»www.tub.net/pdf/lighttube_servic···1]_1.pdf
You mean I can have an email address like whiteyinthe@tub.net ? 
Seriously though, who decided on the domain, cause that is hilarious. Would love some competition here, alas, it's either 15/1 TWC RR Turbo, or 1.5/.384 ADSL. | |
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Reviews:
·Optimum Online
·Verizon FiOS
| 3rd world country There are 3rd world countries that will have better broadband than some states.. if Georgia wants to be WORSE OFF than some nations in Africa, than so be it.. even Texas has isolated swaths of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast that deliver multi megabit internet. People actually MOVE these days away from municiaplities and states with very bad broadband. That's another brain drain that will leave the state depleated of tax of all kinds including property taxes.
Sadly Georgia is not alone, there are quite a few states that are similar in their corrupt sellout to special interest incumbents who do not want to upgrade infrastructure *WEST VIRGINIA*. Imagine retail gas stations only sold gasoline that could let you go only 35mph (not mpg) and cost $16 a gallon? That's what Comcast and AT&T are bringing to the consumer with their anti-competitive self interest corrupt lobbying of your local yokal politicans.
One day, companies will be able to bring much cheaper ethanol to market at at least HALF the cost of gasoline. However, there will be massive special interest money trying to keep expansion of ethanol off the market the way they did in 2008 (artificially jacking up CORN PRICES). Bush 2's parting shot to an OIL addicted nation (DEREGULATION OF RETAIL GASOLINE PRICES!).
You the people have the ability to get rid ofyour local yokal politicans based on their greed to protect special interests! Vote them out! Doesn't matter which political stripe, if they're taking money to protect incumbents vote them out of office! | |
| | | Georgia is already a broadband backwater You can have AT&T or Comcast. There are a few independent providers, but they either use Covad's DSL stations which are few and far between and mainly cover the downtown business district, or they use AT&T and are contractually prohibited from offering dry DSL. You must first buy an AT&T voice line, making that solution the same price as cable, only slower. That said, I don't know of any city in Georgia that would bother to build out a municipal network anyway. They're all trying to divest themselves of responsibility, not add more. | |
| | Kevin_
join:2003-12-10
Marietta, GA | Re: Georgia is already a broadband backwater I can concur speaking as a Georgia resident. Heck where I live, I can only choose Comcast as my cable provider. I can't get satellite because there's too many trees surrounding my house, and AT&T U-Verse is only in spotty areas and has no coverage where I live.
I have a little more choice when it comes to an ISP, but as stated they have to go through AT&T if it's DSL, and there's no naked DSL option. The only choice I have for cable internet is Comcast.
It really sucks, and I don't expect things to get better anytime soon. AT&T and Comcast rule the area and will do anything to keep competition out, and since they have plenty of money to buy our politicians, I expect this bill to easily pass unfortunately. | |
| | | | | Re: Georgia is already a broadband backwater Maybe in the past.
I am from Georgia (Gwinnett), and I can get either naked DSL from ATT (formerly Southern Bell) or Comcast (Winder Based). I chose Comcast, but every year I play Comcast against ATT and Comcast has lowered my Bill bill $20 for a full year. Adelphia upgraded our area to fiber optic and then Comcast took it over.
I only receive internet, phone is from Ooma and TV is over the air. I used to have Dish, but have since switched to Netflix and Hulu with our Roku box.
I grew up in New York, married a "red neck" from Northern Florida and I love it here in the South. Both my children have degrees in IT and have awesome jobs. As things, go, Education in the Metro Atlanta area is good (not great), but it is the responsibilities of the parents to educate.
Outside of the Metro Atlanta area, it is a third world country. Poverty is prevalent, outsourcing of jobs outside of the US has closed many factories that used to be there and has made it worse.
I believe that if a municipality wants to install community internet, there should actually be state or federal incentives for them to do so and should be aligned with improving our educational system. I am a conservative by nature, but I do believe that our government should be responsible for certain things, especially education.
I will be in touch with my local state representatives over this. | |
| | | | | | Re: Georgia is already a broadband backwater +1 | |
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| | | | | Re: Georgia is already a broadband backwater Georgia needs to divest themselves of every incumbent politician first (BOTH PARTIES!) | |
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Using old statistics from a bygone age to screw consumers!
There was an article that appeared in the Monday Evening Links from this newspaper:
