Wisconsin public Internet fights telecom attempts to kill it off

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/wisconsin-public-internet-fights-telecoms-attempts-to-kill-it-off.ars

by shawndumas • 15 years ago

37 13 15 years ago

I would love to hear a rational explanation of this from someone who supports the bill.

politician• 15 years ago

Wisconsin is suffering from the political equivalent of a priority inversion bug -- there is a Republican majority in their legislature and a Republican governor, but enough of their house members are embroiled in a massive recall campaign that the balance of power is practically guaranteed to switch to the Democratic party come votin' time. Therefore, the legislature is attempting to cram vast amounts of right-wing conservative legislation through before their time's up. It's like QE2, but for legislation.

The point is, there's nothing rational about anything going on there right now.

alexqgb• 15 years ago

The argument in favor tends to be pro-free-market (ridiculous, I know, but try not to laugh).

The theory is that an otherwise healthy and competitive market with low prices and great service will be ruined if a government gets involved as a player. The twin threats of not needing to make profits and being able to write rules in their favor make municipal ISPs 'impossible' to compete with fairly or effectively.

In reality, this makes as much sense as GM lobbying to outlaw subways. Or (ridiculously expensive and wildly over-subscribed private schools) wanting to ban public education. More importantly, it ignores the fact that nothing remotely commensurate with actual free-market discipline applies to the monopolies and duopolies that actually define the telecom landscape. (In this regard, there may be more truth to the "we can't compete" claim than these operators would care to admit).

There's another argument against municipal internet, but it's one that opponents REALLY don't want to state. Specifically, they're horrified by the very IDEA that data could be treated like a basic utility on par with gas, water, electricity, and trash service. That frames their business in the dreaded 'dumb pipe' terms that they are hell-bent on resisting at all costs. After all, you buy water and electricity by the unit. What you do with those units is your business, and has no influence on the price. That's pretty much the opposite of what "content focused" ISP's regard as their ideal operating environment.

jasongullickson2• 15 years ago

This seems like sufficient motivation.

If the government successfully bans itself from providing municipal Internet access, does that then mean they could not (without additional legislative changes) stop a private company from offering city or state-wide free wireless access?

jordanb• 15 years ago

> The twin threats of not needing to make profits and being able to write rules in their favor make municipal ISPs 'impossible' to compete with fairly or effectively.

Ironically, the very fact that this bill is succeeding is proof that the municipal providers do not have the ability to write the rules in their favor, but the "private" telco monopolies very much do.

pasbesoin2• 15 years ago

AT&T (really, SBC with a new name) headquarters are in neighboring Chicagoland. They have a long and storied record of opposing any and all potentially competing public infrastructure, to the point of e.g. suing to prevent municipal broadband initiatives in communities that they have refused (at least, until the time of the initiative, and sometimes even thereafter) to service themselves.

Whatever your political position, it's clear that the current Republican administration in Wisconsin favors private infrastructure and infrastructure maintenance over public. This is playing out in numerous, diverse sectors.

What's unfortunate, from a technological perspective, is that this fairly apparently provides less service at significantly higher costs, and it delays upgrades by years.

In Illinois, getting DSL service from SBC/AT&T was a painful, frustrating experience -- when you could get it at all -- until the cable companies, particularly Comcast (I'm not expressing love of them, here, either) began large scale deployments that significantly ate into SBC/AT&T's customer base.

Based on my experience and layman's perspective, my interpretation is that this is about patronage and not technical nor financial innovation.

Reading between the lines, it might also be an attempt on AT&T's part to block a potential Google high speed deployment in Wisconsin. Madison in particular has been suggested by some as possibly a prime location for such a deployment.

And the same Republican administration has been pushing initiatives that would aid in severing relationships in the current, statewide network of public higher education institutions. (Generally regarded as functioning quite well and offering the population coordinated diversity of opportunities.) The described changes would also dovetail with these efforts.

P.S. The book that's mentioned, Where the Wizards Stay Up Late, is a good read particularly if you are unfamiliar with BBN, the development of (D)ARPANET, etc.

3am• 15 years ago

"AT&T (really, SBC with a new name)"

Hah. And SBC and BellSouth were just AT&T with new names. Le plus ce change.

locci• 15 years ago

You reminded me of Stephen Colbert's on AT&T http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsCp-1hgfxI

pasbesoin2• 15 years ago

Yes, I take your point. But, at the time SBC purchased the remains of AT&T and rebranded itself, what remained under "AT&T" was largely a husk. (As I understand it, much of the more technical remains had gone to the Lucent divestiture. Not that they fared particularly well, either.)

I don't have a detailed knowledge, but as I understand it, senior management stayed pretty much the same; that is, SBC management ruled through and after the transition. (I believe that tended to apply at lower levels, too. AT&T employees who stayed had to face "adjustments" both political and financial.)

I'm going from memory, here, on a topic I mostly just observed through the news and an acquaintance or two. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

scythe2• 15 years ago

I've usually viewed it like this: a service is best handled by the free market unless the benefits of having everyone use the same infrastructure exceed the inefficiency of government-run services.

Surveillance worries regarding things like this depress me. It should be possible to expect privacy from the government; that's how it works with the postal service and I don't see why Internet should be any different.

earl• 15 years ago

-1 for the assumption that government services are less efficient than private. Were you even modestly observant you would know that isn't true, and there are examples floating everywhere (eg Medicare's provisioning of medical services, community broadband in many localities)

-1 for surveillance worries -- is this a glibertarian talking point or something? This network is explicitly for providing internet access to the various University of Wisconsin campuses and WI libraries. The latter, btw, are completely anonymous: you can come in, sit down at a computer, and start typing. There apparently was discussion of extending the network to communities which, you may or may not know, have shit internet service now.

billybob• 15 years ago

-1 for the rude and condescending tone.

scythe2• 15 years ago

>Were you even modestly observant you would know that isn't true, and there are examples floating everywhere (eg Medicare's provisioning of medical services, community broadband in many localities)

P1: You'll notice I mentioned the advantages of everyone using the same infrastructure. Those apply in both of the examples you have chosen.

P2: East Germany.

I would be interested to see an example where government outperforms the market in an area that is not infrastructure dependent. The least infrastructure dependent industry might be software, and here we see the market run circles around the government. Even Anonymous remains relevant!

>-1 for 'surveillance worries'. Is this a glibertarian talking point?

Yes, it is. That's partly why it depresses me. But it also reflects the fact that we've come to expect the government to spy on us, which is not how things should be in a supposed land of the Free.

You may have read my post wrong. The evidence I've seen seems to support broadband Internet, and I had hoped to show the reasoning behind my decision.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/gz/policy_debates_should_not_appear_...

In this case it looks like the common-infrastructure benefit outweighs the ordinary benefits of the market. That is not to deny either effect.

Wisconsin public Internet fights telecom attempts to kill it off

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