Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature is on the verge of imposing a state law to dramatically restrict the rights of cities and towns to build and operate municipal broadband networks.
The Ohio Senate on June 9 approved a budget bill that contains an anti-municipal broadband amendment. It’s not a done deal yet, and advocates for public networks are urging the legislature to strip the amendment from the final budget. The budget bill is expected to be hammered out within the next two weeks.
If passed, the proposed law could kill existing broadband services and prevent new ones from being deployed. There are reportedly 30 or more municipal broadband providers in Ohio that “would not be allowed to operate so long as there is a private-sector company operating in the area, as there are in most, if not all of the cities.”
Broadband in the US is a complete and utter joke, and it seems Republicans are hell-bent on keeping it that way.
Respectfully Thom, I completely disagree with your assertion here. And I say that being in a part of America w/ more limited options than in a major metro. I have a cell plan with 100GB data and 30GB hotspot per month per line. I stream plenty of videos daily, get my job done, surf, email, do ecommerce, etc.
I think what a lot of people OUTSIDE the US miss is that the land mass is 3.797 million mi^2 (Googled it). That is a HUGE amount of land to cover for broadband, even if you discount federal/state parks and areas not very hospitable to people living there.
Personally, I’m glad for them trying to keep broadband outside the realm of the govt. Governments *routinely* mess things up in the US (other places too, but we’re talking the US here). USPS is a joke. Amtrak isn’t that great historically. We’ve got $28T in debt and much more in unfunded liabilities (e.g., social security), not including debts of various states and municipalities. The list is incredibly long if you dig into it.
Respectfully, eat shit. You are dumb as you look.
Land of freedom, indeed.
Wow. That definitely convinced them I’m sure! How do you know how they look anyway?
So, rather than discuss the merits of each position, we’re going to resort to ad hominem attacks?
While you’re correct about the size of the US land mass, it’s extremely misleading to say “that is a HUGE amount of land to cover for broadband”. In truth, only a tiny fraction of the total US land mass is even inhabited by people. The vast majority of our population resides in large cities with the remainder sprinkled around here & there. Covering the US population for broadband access is not nearly the task you’re making it seem. I’m not trying to downplay it – it _is_ a huge task, just not remotely close on the scale you’re implying.
As far as whether or not municipal broadband should exist, I think there are good points to be made on both sides of that debate. When he federal government is involved there’s always potential for a total mess, bloat, and mismanagement. However, that’s not a given. When things go bad there’s a ton of press coverage about it. The same can’t be said when things go good and unfortunately that means a very misinformed public most of the time.
Agreed.
For me personally; I think there should be a law saying a (federal, state, local) government can’t abuse its position to prevent fair competition (e.g. can’t use tax dollars to subsidize its broadband service); but beyond that it just ends up being capitalism (if government’s broadband is worse than competitors and dies, or if government’s broadband provides a better service and thrives; then that’s how capitalism is supposed to work).
Government is usually the most corrupt and inefficient entity at doing anything. Government needs to do less, not more. The solution is to enable more competition. and remove regulation.
Joe, agreed 100%.
Um, the article is about municipal broadband networks (not nation-wide federal government broadband). How big is the largest municipality that wants/has a municipal broadband network?
I’d assume that in municipalities with a large land mass and sparse population, the local government would say “LOL, nope”. It’s more likely to be smaller places with higher population densities and poor competition that consider a municipal broadband network.
Brendan, I can see your point to an extent.
I was keying off Thom’s statement, “Broadband in the US is a complete and utter joke.” He was painting with a broad brush. That’s why I mentioned things at a national level (total land mass) and then focused on the govt itself. Yes, I focused on USPS and Amtrak, which are subsidized federally. But, that’s because those are well known instances vs specific local cases that fewer people would know.
Here’s a local one (just to give an idea): years ago Austin TX spent countless dollars & pushed for a rail system for a long time to the dismay of many citizens. I recall one radio station talking about the stats saying in effect, “Based on studies & stats, it will remove 1% of traffic. Look around at traffic and imagine 1 out of every 100 cars is gone. How much did that help you?” I no longer live there, but do pass through sometimes & have friends/family living there. They’ve since added a few toll roads (a couple that are more on the perimeter or in the suburbs), no rail system, and more dollars on the local municipal busses. Traffic is WAY worse (most of the time) unless you’re on the toll roads. Their infrastructure is WORSE some 20 years later. And that is ONE example in ONE metro.
Cacheline, with all due respect, I submit to you that forbidding municipalities from getting in on broadband if they want to is a bad approach even if you believe that the government isn’t a good service provider. If a plurality of taxpayers in an area of note want to support a broadband system, it ought to be their right to instruct their government to do so. that should be their right. (In the interest of intellectual honesty, I personally do think that internet access should be regulated as a utility, but that doesn’t mean that I support forbidding the involvement of private industry entirely – common carrier regulations could be used to allow a healthy ecosystem.)
zelse, I respect those are your beliefs and I’m perfectly fine with you discussing them here and respectfully. Thank you for being respectful.
I just don’t see a single case where the govt won’t end up with unfair advantages over private industry, thus leading to socialism (even if only in a limited arena) not due to popular will of the people, but govt not competing on the same playing field.
We can say they should all have to follow the same regulations. But, the govt has ZERO profit motivation (corrupt politicians maybe, but govt in general). In fact, if truly accountable to citizens, it’s motivations is to reduce costs as close to zero as possible & being non-profit. Thus, by its very nature, govt has a different set of rules working in its favor. We might then say, “Well, let all private industry become non-profit.” But, that deincentivizes people from working harder (maybe not all people, but certainly plenty of those who get things done based on a profit motivation or what not).
One thing I noticed years ago is that communism/socialism is regressive by its very nature. Each person must have the same thing in order for it to be “fair”. So, why work harder to build something better? You won’t get paid more or receive other tangible benefits. Why not have more fun, spend more time with family, etc in such a case? That is going to lead to stagnation at best. Whereas, when private industry is allowed to work, w/o unfair competition with the govt, there’s always motivation to do better. It may be more profit. It may be to gain more customers over a competitor. It may simply be a love for what you do, that yields more benefits than a govt job can.
I’m not saying private industry is always the best. But, that’s where either law comes in. Say, a company is dumping toxic waste into a water supply, then criminalize doing so. Consequently, the same standard should apply to the govt (I’m looking at you EPA).
It’s not government-funded entities that are the problem. It’s the complete lack of funding that causes these entities to be so poor. Because Americans seem to have an allergy to paying tax, there’s never enough income to spend on domestic services for the population. most of the tax dollars collected go towards “defence” and military spending, with very little left over to actually spend on public services.
Where to start.
1) the USPS is a joke because it is continually undermined by a specific political party that always likes to say how bad it is while leaving out the part about how they made it that way. When you say the government harms things, we need to be specific about how that harm came about.
2) broadband absolutely needs to be regulated and the monopolistic nature of it dismantled. It is woefully behind other countries in price/performance/speed. The minute you force these companies to have to compete is the minute you’re going to see the situation improve. Broadband should absolutely be a regulated public utility, (again a specific political party is fighting this and rolled back the Net Neutrality provisions). Ajit Pai in his time as croney head of the FCC said that less regulation would result in more infrastructure investments by broadband companies which never actually happened.
3) the landmass part is certainly a thing, but the reality is we have documented case after case of broadband companies taking huge sums of taxpayer money to either expand or improve their networks and they end up doing neither and just pocketing the money.
4) while you may be happy with your data caps, they shouldn’t exist and have been shown to be nothing more that a way to squeeze more money out of customers and nothing to actually improve network performance. It’s a total farce. It’s not like they are going to run out of data.
5) municipalities should absolutely be legally allowed to roll out their own networks in addition to any laws that go toward making the broadband network common carrier lines.
I agree with you, except on the part where you think only one of the two major political parties is attacking public services. The other big party, yes has some people who seem to be honestly defending these services but the rest just pay lip service and vote on policies that are more in line with the party you think is most responsible.
1) I would say USPS is a joke BECAUSE of govt funding, not due to lack of funding. FedEx, UPS, DHL and others manage WITHOUT any funding.
2) I would assert that applying antitrust law would do far more to help monopolistic power than regulations will. How many large companies have entire departments to help ensure compliance with regulations? How many smaller mom&pop companies can afford that? Does not the regulations favor the big guys over the small guys and hurt competition?
3) Yep, they have. Why fund them at all? That’s not capitalism, it’s socialism. It’s part of the issue with USPS… corruption.
4) I’m not happy with data caps. I just chose to give up city life (including no data caps & higher speeds) for country life. My point wasn’t, “Yay, data caps.”
5) I understand that’s your position. But, WHY?
I am so sick of the “milton friedman” economic model pushed by one party and believed by the working class for over 40 years now. I am not quite sure why anyone who takes a shower after work votes for this party that believes in Laissez Faire economics. How has that worked out for you since 1980?
Low taxes on the rich will create jobs, corporations do everything better, do not interfere with the “free market”, absolutely no regulations on anything, goverment is always bad, eliminate the minium wage, and on and on it goes. And now it has coupled up with the “culture wars” and racism for extra fun.
It is time to throw this on the dust heap of history with all other failed ideas and move on!
Except that no country in the earth, save for USA for a period of maybe 70 years in the 1850-1920’s, implemented these ideas you are throwing about as “milton friedman” economic model. And guess what, that’s the period where USA became a major power in the world and became known as the land of freedom and prosperity (that no longer applies since at least the 1950’s).
You are very, VERY mistaken if you think the USA is a Laissez Faire market and has political and economical freedom.
That aside, what you suggest? The Venezuela model? The China model?
The US became a major economic power because it stepped into the vacuum left by WWII and the rolling up of the British empire and also benefited from immigration by a huge number of skilled immigrats from Europe. For much of the 20th Century the US was at the top because of its size and access to a continent of natural resources and the fact outside of Europe most of the rest of the world was industrially behind so it was a net exporter by a large margin.
Milton Friedman is a con artist who is on record of not believing half the stuff he said. He and a signficant number of economists who peddle his model have openly admitted a lot of the booby traps in the Chicago School economic model are there simply to sell their economic theories to various vested interests so Chicago School economists have jobs and are invited to prestigious events.
In short everything you believe is a lie.
First of all, no political party is loyal to you or has your best interests at heart. Instead, ask yourself “What do they want? How does it affect me?”. The logical choice of course is the political party whose greed and ambition does not involve taking away any of your liberty. Here in the USA, one political party’s goals leave you pretty free, while the other’s aim to expand and secure power will mean an ever diminishing amount of freedom for the citizens who live in it.
No government is going to live up to whatever good ideas someone once put on paper. The best thing for a nation’s citizens is to keep government as small as possible so that it doesn’t impact their life in negative ways. You need look no further than Europe or Canada to see where the USA is heading, while Europeans and Canadians need look no further than China to see where they are heading. I never thought I would live to see the day where we are heading in the direction we are moving toward today. I also would have never thought that the former Soviet Union would be the lone rock standing against this ominous and frightening new world order, but that is where we sit on 19June2021.
Are you aware that in Russia you require the government’s permission to even move to a neighboring town or city? You are also required to carry an internal passport with you at all time’s that shows your allowed address and if you are somewhere besides where the government has allowed you to live you will be punished. You can also be stopped at any time and are required to always carry and show your internal passport to the police.
That feels more free to you then the US, Canada, or western europe?
Ideally; government needs to be large enough to protect you and work in your interest (or at least, in the interest of the majority of citizens); so that (huge multi-national) companies don’t impact your life in negative ways (because without regulation these companies most definitely will use every opportunity to pillage everything).
The problem with USA is not the size of the government, but their motivation. Specifically; they’re motivated to kiss the butts of lobbyists and large companies to attract election campaign funding, so that they can afford to spend a huge amount of $$ on advertising in the hope of using the power of marketing bullshit to win votes that they wouldn’t (in a fair and honest election) get. The end result is that the government and large companies are like allies working together to impact your life in negative ways.
It’s as if a state only allowed private roads and actively prevented cites to manage their roads themselves as a community. I’m all for innovation and profits but at some point a commodity is a commodity is a commodity. If a sector of the economy have to legally stop people from coming together and compete with you, it’s no longer a free market… what is this thing called again? when corporate power is aided and consolidated by the state?
It sounds like Verizon and Comcast are afraid of a little competition. They like the status quo were consumers rarely have more then one option for internet.
A small former industrial city near me set up city wide gigabit up/down fiber internet and they have attracted a ton of business and it’s done wonders for their economy. Guess the Ohio government is “protecting” their small cities and towns from doing the same and attracting businesses. I’m sure the politicians involved are getting a pretty penny from Verizon and company as well.