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ACLU Urges Cities To Build Public Broadband To Protect Net Neutrality (thehill.com) 122

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The ACLU is calling on cities across the country to build their own public municipal broadband networks to help preserve net neutrality after the Federal Communications Commission repealed the open internet rules. From a report: In a report released Thursday morning, the civil liberties group argued that in the absence of the FCC's rules cities could give residents an alternative to private service providers who will soon no longer be required to treat all web traffic equally. "Internet service has become as essential as utilities like water and electricity, and local governments should treat it that way," Jay Stanley, an ACLU policy analyst who authored the report, said in a statement. "If local leaders want to protect their constituents' rights and expand quality internet access, then community broadband is an excellent way to do that," Stanley added. The ACLU sent the report to more than 100 mayors across the country who had spoken out against the FCC's decision to scrap the rules.
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ACLU Urges Cities To Build Public Broadband To Protect Net Neutrality More

ACLU Urges Cities To Build Public Broadband To Protect Net Neutrality

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  • Nonstop hysteria is hysterical. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    People didn't bat an eye when the last Bush administration first exploded the government budget for domestic spying. No protests were heard when it turned out Obama's bunch was exploiting Facebook data for electioneering purposes. As for "net neutrality", it wasn't even a meme before Obama's political appointee decided to misinterpret outdated depression-era communications law and step on the toes of other regulators like the FTC. It'll be just wonderful to have Slashdot load 0.5 us faster whenever I ge

  • In 21 states, cities *can't* do this (Score:5, Insightful)

    by elrous0 ( 869638 ) on Thursday March 29, 2018 @12:51PM (#56348109)

    State lawmakers in 21 states, after generous brib....ahem "campaign contributions" from cablecos and telcos, have decided that cities in their states don't get to make this choice for themselves. The most embarrassing example of this is Tennessee, which restricts other cities in the state from following Chattanooga's groundbreaking example.

    • I don't think states should impose this on cities; if cities want to screw their citizens, they should be allowed to do so.

      But don't pretend that city governments do this for pure motives. Politicians in cities depend on the support and donations of city employees and their unions, and those employees and unions have a massive interest in expanding city government at the expense of city tax payers.

      • Do you have any date to support that city employees and unions drumming up support for municipal broadband? I couldn't find any.

        • I said that it was in their interest, not that they are "drumming up support". They don't need to "drum up support" because they are already sitting at the levers of power.

          (But some basic data may help you understand the issue better: it's primarily Democratic and progressive politicians that are pushing for municipal broadband; public sector employees are 2:1 tilted in favor of Democrats, and public sector unions donate to Democrats over Republicans 10:1.)

          • Government 2.0... in principal, the same as 1.0, just less-willing to change than the previous.

            So, I guess money (and reelection campaigns) must have something to do with why state legislatures would 'screw over' their constituency.

            • So, I guess money (and reelection campaigns) must have something to do with why state legislatures would 'screw over' their constituency.

              As far as I'm concerned, state legislatures outlawing municipal broadband is actually good for their constituencies. It's city governments that screw over their constituencies by wasting money on municipal broadband.

              However, as a matter of principle, I think cities should be free to screw themselves over any way they like, provided the state government doesn't bail them ou

    • That's why we have the power to vote. Vote those idiots out of office and replace them with folks who actually have a brain. My state prohibits this as well unless the city specifically votes for it and that vote passes. That vote failed the first time around where I live but it passed the second time. You won't find someone where I live who doesn't love their socialist internet service.

  • not true (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Thursday March 29, 2018 @12:52PM (#56348131)
    This is false hood that needs die
    I run the IT department for a municipality that already provides municipal broadband services. The fact is Public/ municipal does almost NOTHING to assist in net neutrality. IPS’s provide a conduit from the end user to the internet backbone. If the content is punished upstream, as it goes across say, Verizon’s backbone, the local pipe is already receiving degraded, delayed, punished data.
    The one thing it does however, is stop your local ISP from tracking you and monetizing your online behavior which can be done more quickly and cheaply by use of a VPN.

    • The one thing it does however, is stop your local ISP from tracking you

      And hands that ability right over to your local government, including law enforcement. It also does not prevent the government ISP from shaping traffic or violating net neutrality. If there are no rules to stop a commercial provider who needs customers to keep making a profit from violating net neutrality, then there is even less incentive for a government broadband service with a taxpayer-backed, non-profit status and plenty of captive customers to keep from doing it.

      We saw a signpost up ahead for the pro

      • Local municipality's don't have "monitoring" resources. Local Governments are usually run by direct citizen elected councils. Local IT departments are understaffed with stretched budgets. For a city council to increase staffing/software/infrastructure is literally a vote to raise local taxes - a nonstarter for the most part.
        If you think muni-broad band when implemented money maker, think again. It's really expensive and subsidized by tax payers. Just look at Tacoma (Washington State) ClickNet. https:// [clickcabletv.com]

        • Local municipality's don't have "monitoring" resources.

          Oh my God, how naive are you?

          Local Governments are usually run by direct citizen elected councils.

          Don't be stupid. I didn't say that the city council members would be doing the monitoring themselves.

          Local IT departments are understaffed

          We're not talking about the local IT department, we're talking about the municipal broadband "company". If you want to claim that they will be staffed with people who are ignorant of modern technology and how to monitor users, then you need to explain why you would expect any kind of reasonable service from them.

          For a city council to increase staffing/software/infrastructure is literally a vote to raise local taxes - a nonstarter for the most part.

          Except that is EXACTLY what it takes to create a municipal broadband

          • and to build the infrastructure does require, if not new taxes, then taxpayer-backed bond measures.

            Which bonds require raising taxes to pay for. It's not like the people who buy bonds are just throwing their excess money away - they expect a return on their investment. All the bonds to is spread the extra taxes out over enough time that your children and grandchildren get to pay for the excesses of this year's government.

            Or do people still believe that governments automagically have enough money to do

            • It's not like the people who buy bonds are just throwing their excess money away - they expect a return on their investment.

              In fact, the expected return on investment means that if there isn't enough money coming in to run the broadband operation, then not only is the deficit operating expense paid for by the taxpayers, but the interest on the debt as well.

              Or do people still believe that governments automagically have enough money to do anything they want to?

              Well, it certainly seem that they do, given the number of things they expect the government to give them. "Single payer healthcare", for example, which is actually a dishonest name for "taxpayer funded healthcare". There was a recent editorial in our local paper talking abo

  • There are two ways to fix this (Score:3)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday March 29, 2018 @12:56PM (#56348147)
    • Regulate the industry (net neutrality) and/or create publicly-funded competition (public broadband) which keeps ISP's behavior in check.
    • Deregulate the industry - prohibit the government-granted monopolies which leave most people with a "choice" of only a single cable Internet and single DSL provider. Either require there be at least two cable Internet providers in an area. Or award a monopoly cable infrastructure maintenance contract, but regulate that company's rates and prohibit it from offering service over the wires it maintains. Instead, other companies act as ISPs providing service over those wires, with all paying the same rates to send data over those wires so that they're competing against each other strictly on service.

    The ACLU has (perhaps not surprisingly) chosen to promote the former, which leaves the public on the hook for paying for it all. With the latter, the private sector pays for it while the public reaps the benefit. It's important to understand that the major cable internet companies aren't natural monopolies like Microsoft. They were given a monopoly by local governments who got into the regulation game to keep telephone poles from becoming too cluttered with wires, but somehow it morphed into a scheme where in exchange for a monopoly the local government got kickbacks or other guarantees from the sole ISP. This is why net neutrality isn't as big an issue in other parts of the world - most non-Americans have a choice of multiple ISPs, and can simply switch to a different ISP if theirs does anything stupid like try to throttle Netflix. The problems net neutrality tries to solve are only possible because of these government-granted monopolies.

    • The ACLU has (perhaps not surprisingly) chosen to promote the former, which leaves the public on the hook for paying for it all.

      You're missing the obvious, proven solution: the City owns and maintains the infrastructure, while private businesses provide the service on top of that infrastructure. See Ammon, Idaho [slashdot.org] as a model.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CodeHog ( 666724 )
      Insightful ^^^ Adding that these monopolies the governments granted where mostly started when cable TV was built out across the US. The companies doing the build out wanted to recoup the costs to run wiring all towns and cities, and rightfully so. I think it was sold to the local governing entities as a short-term license deal so after x number of years it should have opened up to competition. But like any drug addict, once the companies found the revenue stream they began doing whatever it took to keep it

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tomhath ( 637240 )
      That assumes something is broken. Option 3 is to continue on with the internet as we've known it from the beginning.

    • prohibit the government-granted monopolies

      If there is no competition in broadband internet in an area, it is not because of a government-granted monopoly, it is because there is not sufficient economic incentive for anyone to compete. I.e., not enough customers for multiple companies to succeed.

      Creating a non-profit, taxpayer-backed government ISP to drive what few competitors there are out of business is not the answer.

      They were given a monopoly by local governments who got into the regulation game to keep telephone poles from becoming too cluttered with wires,

      And all such monopolies are now illegal. Not even the telephone company has a monopoly on telephone service. Modern distribution

  • How about creating a new nonprofit, ACLU? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Thursday March 29, 2018 @01:06PM (#56348233)

    The main obstacle to municipal broadband is the high cost; not to mention lobbying and political advertising budgets of Cable companies and Telcos ---- if word gets out you will setup a municipal broadband network; the big bad cable companys' reps flock to the area to try to convince the officials No, then if the officials aren't persuaded, they'll fund the campaigns of their opponents and try to convince the local that it's a mismanagement of public funds, next the Lawyers and bureaucrats fly in and start working out every possible way they can think of to delay the project ---- from filing lawsuits, to incumbent Telecoms deliberately sabotaging development efforts by failing or being unduly slow when required to modify their wiring to accommodate the additional pole attachments.

    So I could see a value for a National Non-profit to help PROMOTE municipal broadband, by:

    1. Raise money for lobbying efforts, legal funds, the promotion of municipal broadband projects, and writing grants for projects.

    2. Hire full time lobbyists to fight the telecom lobbyists at the state and national level and work against the regulations and laws being passed to discourage municipal broadband --- fight in the opposite direction.

    3. Provide funds to be used for legal assistance and promotion of projects such as Google fiber competing against Telco incumbents, to facilitate more competition in the broken markets.

    4. Produce national advertising and reports on municipal broadband projects that have been successful; Designed to make citizens who
      don't have municipal broadband feel jealous - Raise awareness and encourage more and more consumers to demand these services ---- spread the word, provide service testimonials and comparisons in the (A) Performance, (B) Speed, (C) Service, and (D) Support of these services.
    5. Create a grant program that can issue funds to develop broadband, subject to condition:

              (a). Grant proposals compete for funds, and the ones that provide wired high-bandwidth (10 Megabits or more upload and 20 Megabits or more download) uncapped access to the most population who don't currently have reliable wired high-bandwidth uncapped access have highest priority.

              (b). The project is completed by the municipality, and the rights to 90% of the infrastructure are permanently and exclusively owned by the municipality.

              (c). The project must be operational before a certain deadline no more than 2 years away and service available to a specified number of households within the planned buildout, or else repayment of the funds is due.

              (d). After completion of the project; a monthly fee will be assessed for X years against all households where service would be available
      (whether they chose to turn up service or not) to replenish grant funds and help fund more projects.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Too much work. It would be far easier just to take the telco execs out in the woods and shoot them.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Too much work. It would be far easier just to take the telco execs out in the woods and shoot them.

        Yes except the ACLU doesn't want us to have the guns to do so in the first place.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • gee. Imagine that (Score:3)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Thursday March 29, 2018 @02:23PM (#56348731) Journal
    Finally, 1 group that no longer has their head up their ass.
    Calling for net neutrality is a waste of time, effort, and money.
    OTOH, for a lot less effort, real competition can destroy the executives that continue to harm America.

    • OTOH, for a lot less effort, real competition can destroy the executives that continue to harm America.

      All that municipal broadband will do is drive out the smaller competitors, who are not the evil America-destroying companies that everyone here loves to hate. Comcast can survive a long time at a loss in any specific market. Joe's local ISP cannot.

      Let's me ask you this: if I can get wireless broadband from my city government at a very cheap rate (ignoring the taxes I have to pay to get it, too) then why would I buy wireless internet from the local company? Why would anyone? That local company goes out of b

  • Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my municipal run internet. Gigabit speeds both directions, no data caps, excellent customer service, etc and all for less than I would pay for internet that's 1/20th the speed from Comcast and whatnot. However, how do you think the municipal ISPs hook up to the internet? Hint, it's not the government or a public service. It's just a bigger ISP.
  • for the various pressure groups to descend if this ever takes place. In an era when cities are divesting themselves of Confederate statuary, pension funds receive demands to disinvest in hated sectors like tobacco or gun manufacturers, and the wrong tweet can get you fired, how long do you think it'll be before public ISPs are being lobbied to block websites like "hate" sites, porn sites, or anti-vax sites? And do it in many cases, because those ISPs will be run as spinelessly as university administrations.

    • All the public connections have to do is be dumb pipes. University administrators have to make decisions on who can speak where and when because their capabilities are limited and there's demand for them. They don't always make the best decisions, but they do have to make decisions. City connectivity doesn't. If it just sticks to that, it'll be fine.

  • We don't need cities to become ISP's... what is specifically needed is Last Mile + VPN's as service providers so we can go back to choice like when we had modems and ISP's to choose from. We need VPN's least state and federal governments use them for spying which they will.

  • Has the sky fallen yet, now that "net neutrality" is gone?

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