Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Municipal Net?

I've long been of the opinion that municipalities should be able to provide internet access to their residents. The internet itself is the product of government action, why let private corporations act as its gatekeepers? In my estimation, the internet should be a public utility, like the electricity, water, and sewerage providers (yeah, I know that those utilities have been privatized in many regions, and I think that's a disaster).

It's interesting that a corporation should be fighting against state laws aimed at nipping municipal internet providers in the bud, but Netflix is a competitor to the huge cable companies. That the anti-public internet legislation was written at the behest of the cable companies is self-evident... these monsters are fighting to keep their near-monolithic control at the expense of just about every other business in the country. The fact that one of the largest internet providers in the country crapped out for over an hour and a half underscores the foolishness of allowing a handful of corporations to control the vital business of information exchange.

Letting Comcast's and Netflix' lawyers battle this out is insufficient... it's time to get vocal about this issue. Municipal internet is the answer. Our tax dollars created the internet, our tax dollars should be used to provide connectivity to everyone.

3 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Get the net!
~

mikey said...

Well, to be fair it isn't an undertaking that makes sense for every municipality, but you're right that it's ludicrous and obviously greed driven for established ISPs to try to use legal means to prevent people from building out their own infrastructure.

The good news is that a number of very high-bitrate long range wireless solutions are under development, and when people/organizations aren't faced with the massive capital cost of putting fiber in the ground then there will be lots more options. With technology, time and Moore's Law heals the most egregious human mis-steps...

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Get the net!

We're not worthy!

Well, to be fair it isn't an undertaking that makes sense for every municipality, but you're right that it's ludicrous and obviously greed driven for established ISPs to try to use legal means to prevent people from building out their own infrastructure.

It also puts the lie to conservatives caring about local rights.