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Re:Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for munici... by JumpCrisscross on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @11:23AM (#18665176)
America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative. Presently, the best-run municipalities are exploring municipal broadband. Their experiences will be positive. But not all municipalities are well-run. And today's well-run municipalities turn into tomorrow dumpster fires.

Publicly-owned infrastructure rented to private provider-maintainers is a proven model. It isn't a fire-and-forget solution. But by dividing power between the municipality and private operator, it provides a rudimentary balance. Remember, we got here because municipalities gave ISPs local monopolies. I don't get why we suddenly believe they'll now be totally competent and benevolent.

Re:Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for munici... by rayiner on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @11:25AM (#18665197)
> America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative.

I strongly disagree. Have you ever been to Germany? All the infrastructure we have in the U.S. is shit compared to Germany. The roads, the trains, etc. The one bit of infrastructure in the U.S. that isn't shit in comparison is broadband.

Re:Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for munici... by JumpCrisscross on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @11:33AM (#18665256)
> Have you ever been to Germany? All the infrastructure we have in the U.S. is shit compared to Germany.

As a Swiss New Yorker, I get where you're coming from. It doesn't lightly occur to me that our subways were almost entirely built by private companies. (With heap loads of public funding, albeit.) We have ISP competition in New York, which is how we get superior service. That isn't the case in much of America; letting municipalities be that competition is, to me, better than letting Comcast et al retain their monopolies.

Re:Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for munici... by pathseeker on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @12:04PM (#18665556)
>America's present ISP situation is worse than almost any alternative.

Blanket statements like this are pointless. I lived in Austin for a few years and had multiple fiber ISPs to choose from and was able to get 1 gbps for $70/mo.

Re:Comcast rejected by small town, residents vote for munici... by mrkstu on Wednesday December 12, 2018 @01:43PM (#18666524)
Thats 100% because of Google Fiber- if you'd come in a couple years before that, the high speed choices were all expensive, bundled, and data capped.