News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neut... by rayiner on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @03:26PM (#14249726)
The issue in the U.S. is (and has historically been) that neither side wants to invest in telecom infrastructure--both want private companies to foot the bill. When you start from that premise, all your options are limited by the overriding need to ensure adequate incentives to invest.

As a matter of personal ideology, I'd say: let's build a nationwide public system with a federal/state partnership, and import regulators from Scandinavia to run it. But that's not one of the choices.

Re:Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neut... by anigbrowl on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @04:21PM (#14250207)
You know perfectly well that several states have passed laws forbidding municipal entities to construct their own broadband networks. The left has made some tentative moves towards articulating a goal of investing in national broadband infrastructure (citing the example of the Tennessee Valley Authority as a working example of public utility investment) but has understandably been scared off by the right's strident equivalence of any kind of public investment with communism.

I don't want to oversimplify the issue and don't disagree that everyone in politics would prefer if better broadband infrastructure just happened and all they had to do was show up and cut a few ribbons without investing any political capital. But I think you're being a tad disingenuous here. You are too smart and well-informed to buy this argument if I were to make it to you.

Re:Proposed “Internet Freedom Act” permanently guts net neut... by rayiner on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @04:49PM (#14250440)
I disagree with those laws ideologically, but they're a footnote. The vast majority of people do not live in one of those states. My county (in Maryland) is building a fiber network and wiring up towns in the rural part of the county that's not served by FiOS: http://archive.aacounty.org/News/Archive2013/News%20and%20Up....

At the same time, I inserted the caveat of importing regulators from Scandinavia for a reason. Public infrastructure in the U.S. (outside of NYC/Chicago) mostly sucks and is poorly run. I say this because I've walked the walk: I used to commute on Metro North every day from Westchester to Manhattan, then on SEPTA from Wilmington to Philadelphia, then on Amtrak from Baltimore to DC, then (briefly) on the D.C. Metro. Metro North was fantastic, but the others are worse than Comcast.

The basic problem is that I don't have the choice to vote for Stockholm's fiber system run by Swedes. My only choice is between Verizon (which is actually pretty damn good in Maryland), or the same folks who run the D.C. Metro.