pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
 ·Comcast
| Why resort to this?
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to not allow the government to get into the broadband business. Every city which has done so has seen either taxes or fees for other services go up to cover the cost of broadband (Tacoma, WA and their 50% power rate hike comes to mind here).
There should be legitimate concerns though over the government regulating what you can and cannot watch. But resorting to such silliness as claiming that television viewing will be rationed is going to extremes.
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Hey Fast Eddie... you're next! |
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SRFireside
join:2001-01-19
Houston, TX | Tacoma's power rate hike has absolutely nothing to do with the broadband infrastructure roll out. The price hikes came from their power situation that season. I know this was touched upon more than once here on BBR. |
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batageek
Slave To The Duopoly
Premium
join:2003-01-25
| reply to pnh102
Your Tacoma crack is completely false.
Let me provide a couple of links...
»www.tricitybroadband.com/failures.htm
»www.freepress.net/docs/mb_white_paper.pdf
and
»www.freepress.net/docs/mb_telco_lies.pdf
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»www.tricitybroadband.com |
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bobobillbondboat
@66.100.x.x
| reply to pnh102
To say the government shouldn't be involved in broadband is probably the most foolish thing anyone has ever said. It is idiotic to say so and completely misthought. The USA is 16th in broadband penetration, China will overcome us in percentage penetration in two years, so we can't blame our lack of penetration on our massive population.
China is a communist nation building and maintaining its own network and even they are doing better than the US at broadband.
I think the US should look to the infrastructure model/government system created in Japan, where penetration is over 90%. Essentially, anyone in Japan who wants broadband (and faster broadband, on average, than the US) can have it. And almost all choose to because the average service price is about $22 per month.
There is also alot of municipal broadband offered in Japan, particularly in rural areas on the northern islands.
The Japanese government made broadband penetration an imperative goal back in 2001 when the United States was still 4th in penetration. Even their prime minister had an official vision statement in regard to the broadband initiative. Now, the United States is one of few countries in the top forty of broadband deployment to NOT have any official government sanctioned broadband deployment execution plan. For the US to lag behind every western country and every pacific rim country in penetration is ridiculous. Clearly, the government must do SOMETHING to spark penetration and lower prices, even if that means using municipal utility services to ensure that the United States bounces back from its embarrassing technological status. BPL and WiFi service are new utilities for a new century.
We pay taxes on water and sewage and education that we didn't one hundred years ago. I suppose if we re-neg on those, the "capital market" will be better off? Think of how much more slowly businesses would function if all city supplied utility services had remained privatized. Think of how absolutely pathetic our work force would be if our education system was a private institution.
Now think about how much FASTER businesses in low population density areas could be run given affordable high-speed Internet, regardless of who provides it. I imagine in twenty years proposing taking away municipally-owned broadband services will be considered as completely vapid as saying "get rid of public electric and sewage services." From an economic stand point, public power HELPS the VAST MAJORITY of business by providing hundreds of businesses in communities with cheaper high-speed Internet much faster and with more visible public service than the Internet deployment giants. Frankly, those companies may find themselves to be simply glorified holding companies if they continue to act to suppress competition rather than improve their own services and penetration to compete with it.
We need a national broadband initiative and it needs to include municipal service options. They spark business growth, even if at the expense of the bloated and corrupt telecommunications industry. |
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