This is a good point; seems like an isolated demand for rigor. The bar we should be aiming to be above is "better than Comcast", which is a quite low standard.
> Corruption is simply something that has to be fought, period, but we do have the tools to do so more easily at the local government level then for more widely distributed private entities.
I like this way of putting it. At the local scope, you aren't fighting well-paid lobbyists; you just have to persuade a majority of people in your area, and that's a much more tractable problem.
The only problem here is that people tend to care less about local politics (turnout is lower, information flow is harder, etc.) which does add challenges.
Is it really? Compared to what? If the government-run train I use to get to work were as reliable as the Comcast service I've had in the past, I'd be so so happy. I'd cry with happiness.
Where do people live that they think Comcast is as bad as it gets in terms of infrastructure service. I assume these folks don't take BART or Metro to work.
While I don't love Comcast, their uptime and consistency for me has been excellent for me over the last decade and their value-for-money acceptable-[0]. I would not have the automatic expectation that municipal broadband would be "better" in any meaningful way, despite the ire that many have for Comcast.
"The bar is better than Comcast" invites comparisons to other local government systems, IMO.
[0] - Though it's a huge waste of time for both sides for me to call up every two years to threaten to cancel and negotiate the re-addition of the (reasonable) promotional rate to my account.
The fact that you find Comcast quality or price reasonable is further evidence that market-based outcomes for internet service in the US are not efficient.
The western part of the state seemingly does not have the population density to attract this kind of investment. Comcast here is the monopoly provider of what we consider modern service, and AFAIK engages in their standard monopolistic playbook of throttling, caps, and continual billing shenanigans. Verizon is the ILEC, and could easily upgrade the DSL infrastructure for higher speeds and slowly build out fiber where it makes sense. But they don't because they see no profit in competing!
The worst part is that when Comcast steps up their game to compete with Whip City Fiber, Comcast will then spin those upgrades as an example of how municipal fiber was unnecessary. This has happened pretty much everywhere a city has gotten fed up with an incumbent monopoly and built out municipal infrastructure. And that is my main point - if one is a actual proponent of free markets, then one should support a second player entering the game and creating competition.
In this situation, the main thing municipalities are bringing to the table is the investment capital - investment which the quasi-governmental "private" telecommunications industry has refused to make themselves. Municipal services do not prevent private companies from entering the market - they merely preclude the private companies from receiving the juicy public subsidies that they've become accustomed to for building out their "private" infrastructure.
If you need more evidence that in this case the market does not lead to desirable outcomes, Verizon charges a monthly 5$ fee to NOT list your phone number (this is for the phone number you are required to sign up for in order to get internet service).
Sorry about your Internet choices - I was speaking based on friends in Arlington and Newton. It sounds like the market has failed you too, and it was not correct to chalk it all up to population density. RCN's upload speed sucks compared to my fiber here, so maybe that's some consolation?
Have you investigated whether any CLECs offer better DSL connections over that Verizon (Nynex, really) copper? IIRC, if you go to Megapath's website and check their business options (which I think involves a follow up phone call), they will send you a spreadsheet of all services available at your premises, which can be informative.
Do you not see any difference between vigorous competition among profit-seeking companies, where mis-steps can cause loss of profits, loss of jobs, and ultimately bankruptcy and competition between a company with risk on the line versus a municipality that doesn't have to take on any of those same risks?
We're talking about areas where there has been no competition, and the incumbent has already succumbed to the same exact lethargic rent-seeking that people ascribe to municipal services.
Also it appears you seem to be thinking that "municipal fiber" means there are employees at City Hall with a blank check from the general fund. WG&E is a separate corporate body, overseen by the City of Westfield. I would guess they will be doing operations for Charlemont et al, but Charlemont will be free to choose a different operating contractor in the future.
So what we're really talking about is the ownership of the built-out infrastructure, which government has traditionally been paying for anyway - this story is about Charlemont not giving $500k to Comcast! The idea that the government should pay to build out infrastructure to be owned by a private company isn't the "free market" - it's textbook corruption!
For context - I am libertarian, and I recognize that there is no difference between government and a de facto monopoly that one is forced to patronize. In fact, the latter is a great way of describing the former. If you want to make a philosophical argument that government has no business subsidizing communications infrastructure at all, I won't argue. But that is generally not the point of contention around "municipal broadband".
How does that compare to your area? What measure(s) of quality of residential service should I consider?
Doesn't mean that Comcast isn't crap though.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-canadian-cell-phone...
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/wireless-prices-cell-phone-...
ISPs are closer to rail than say water. Most municipalities get along fine with water systems built a century ago. But broadband networks require active maintenance and continual upgrades. Rail technology moves incredibly slowly--D.C.'s system featured automated train control when it was built in the 1970s. But the government couldn't even keep that system working so they had to turn it off. I have zero faith these same people could keep up with upgrading switches, routers, etc.
I struggle to think of anything they do have in common. Capital cost, operating cost, speed of innovation, the average American's interest in the level of service provided, the possibility for competition, the practicality of parallel infrastructures... does rail/water have anything in common with an Internet connection?
Clearly you know very little about physical infrastructure other than its translation into $.
The problem is that in many cases, the common folk in a town have to pay at least somewhat for the municipal broadband even if they do not use it; so it'd better be worth using.
I can understand municipal cable conduits and such, since they are somewhat analogous to the roads; but when your municipal government is actively excluding competition (Comcast in this case, if the title is anything to go by), they had better make sure they municipal cars on those roads are good; because if you don't like them, your only recourse is generally to leave town.
To satisfy the "better than Comcast" requirement, generally speaking the only thing you need to do is stop excluding their competitors. Comcast is actually pretty reasonable in competitive markets; but when a satellite internet company needs specific permission to operate in your county, that's something you can fix right now, with no investment, and immediately gain some competitiveness in your ISP market.
Just anecdotally, there are Whip City Fiber signs up all over (you get a discount if you let them put one on your lawn with installation). We're long past the days where Internet access is desired by only a subset of the population. I think $70/mo is a little above what "everybody" wants to pay. I am hoping after the initial financials have settled, they will offer a lower tier.
> actively excluding competition (Comcast in this case, if the title is anything to go by)
If you read the article, what Charlemont rejected was the town paying Comcast for a build out. That's a significant point that's glossed over in most of these public vs private debates - with low population density, private communications companies do not nobly invest their own money, but get the government to pay for the infrastructure that they end up owning.
Is that what's happening here? Comcast bid "$462,123 plus interest" and the city decided that they would rather build themselves. Doesn't sound like they are being excluded. Am I missing something here?
> Comcast is actually pretty reasonable in competitive markets;
The problem as I see it is that most of the US (particularly rural areas) are not competitive, and the costs of entry typically prohibit new entrants from providing service. There are massive fixed costs involved in building a new cable/internet service. Elsewhere (e.g. the UK) this is at least partially avoided by having the ex-state-owned telcos provide mandatory unbundling of last-mile service.
Perhaps state-provided conduits would unlock more competition though; I haven't seen any analysis of that option (would be interested if you know of any).
Keep in mind here that this was the Comcast model, as well. The town was going to pay to expand the infrastructure, then Comcast was going to use it.
I take your overall point, though, about encouraging competition among service providers. Unfortunately, this is something that in many places cannot be accomplished at the local level, as Comcast (along with other large providers) have been lobbying and colluding at state and regional levels to prevent competitors from entering the market. Municipal broadband, for some localities, may be the only effective solution available.
It's just in one case, the money is ceded to a private corporation.
> And whatever else the fact is that privatized information infrastructure simply has not worked overall.
"Worked" compared to what? The U.S. is in the top 10 for average connection speeds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_.... It is far ahead of France, Germany, the U.K., Italy, and Spain (which is 70%+ of the EU population). That's all the result of private infrastructure.
> Of course governments can have issues too.
This is a huge understatement. Our roads are full of potholes. Amtrak is never on time. WMATA is on fire. New York spends 5-7x as much money to build a mile of subway as London or Paris.[1] Our water infrastructure is poisoning children with lead.[2] That's our public infrastructure.
I travel to Germany and Japan for business, and when I come home, it's not broadband that I'm steamed about. Our broadband is fine (better than Germany, worse than Japan), especially here on the east coast. But our public, government-run infrastructure is total shit in comparison. After riding Japanese trains around, I get on the D.C. Metro and it makes me actively mad.
To me, the correct premise seems to be exactly the opposite of the one you're applying. U.S. state and local governments are so completely awful at building and maintaining infrastructure, that even a private monopoly with no competition is preferable to a government-run system.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
[2] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-chicago-wate...
It's worth noting that many of those wonderful trains in Japan are are actually privately owned though:
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/10/why-tokyos-pr...
But I agree with your points.
But infrastructure isn’t more “left” in Europe, and it’s often more “right.” The Danish telecom operator owns all the copper and almost all the cable and is a fully private company. And Denmark got rid of its telecom regulator recently. The Danish rail operator is a for-profit government owned company that is in the process of being privatized. Deutsche Bahn is organized as a for-profit company. (The Japanese rail operators are all for-profit companies.) Stockholm’s dark fiber provider is organized as a for-profit company. Whereas De Blasio has turned fiber in NYC into a social justice issue, the Stockholm fiber provider built out its network based on demand and revenue generation (e.g. businesses first), and charged high initial hookup fees (approaching $1,000). The British commuter rail system is run by private companies. While London’s subway is run by the city, it pays for itself with fares (while half the costs of the New York subway come from the government). Nobody in Europe has anything like our Universal Service Fund, which shifts billions of dollars a year from urban areas to rural areas. It goes on and on. Europe was late to the deregulation game, but ran with it in the 1990s and 2000s.
Case study: the U.K. The U.K.'s telecom infrastructure is almost entirely owned by a single private, for-profit company: BT. British telecom law imposes an open access requirement, requiring BT to lease access to competitors. However, because British regulators are sane, these leases are made at rates that leave BT with similar profit margins to Comcast. BT, unsurprisingly, has invested in upgrading its copper network. The U.S. had a similar requirement for DSL, but the FCC set the rates so low (at cost) that it basically killed investment in the copper network.
The idea of the government owning and running rail, power, or telecom infrastructure these days is solidly left of center compared to Europe.
Expecting great rail, road, or internet service without paying high taxes and strong government involvement hasn’t worked out. Nothing in your post contradicts that.
In many cases, public funding was even required to put in place the core infrastructure and conditions for privately operated companies to succeed. That’s certainly the case for high speed rail in Germany.
All of the examples in my post are ones where "high taxes" aren't used to pay for infrastructure, or where "government involvement" is limited because infrastructure is managed by for-profit corporations. Stockholm doesn't have pervasive fiber because of "high taxes" (tax dollars were not used to build the network) or "strong government involvement" (while Stokab is owned by the city, it is a for-profit corporation and the city does not control its rate and expansion plans). Denmark's telecom system, likewise, is owned by a private company, was not built with public money, and is loosely regulated (Denmark got rid of its telecom regulator recently). Japan's railways (owned by private companies which mostly run at a profit), and London's subway (which breaks even through fare revenue) are examples of great infrastructure that are not the result of "high taxes" and "strong government involvement."
It's fair to point out that European systems aren't completely privatized and often receive subsidies. There is a spectrum. But the U.S. is generally on the left-side of that spectrum. U.S. passenger rail is almost entirely government-owned, government-run, and heavily subsidized. New York receives half its budget from taxpayer funding, for example.
Europe tends to be further right on the spectrum. For example, in the U.K. a government agency owns most of the track, but private Train Operating Companies own the trains and provide service. And London's subway system receives all its funding from fares. You see high levels of privatization in the U.K., Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, etc. You also see multi-national competition--half of train operating companies in the U.K. are foreign firms; Deutsche Bahn subsidiaries operate passenger rail service in the Netherlands, etc. Can you imagine NY MTA opening up its network to competing operators from Europe? Now, European systems receive subsidies, for sure. But Deutsche Bahn at least runs an operating profit. U.S. rail operators universally rely on tax dollars just to meet their operating expenses (and rely on the government for all of their capital expenses).
At the other end of the spectrum, many Asian rail systems receive few subsidies, and are mostly responsible for their own capital expenses. Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore systems are operated (and often owned) by private companies, and run a significant profit.
Why not use the power of government to create a competitive market that would allow new ISPs to enter the market? Like making a modest investment in common conduits into neighborhoods that all ISPs can wire through?
I wonder if there's something simple we're missing for a way to stop public spending that goes to corruption/waste.
As anyone who has ever spent any time working in the private sector will tell you:
Absolutely. Large companies routinely piss millions, and billions of dollars away on ego projects, inter-department fighting, building things that are counterproductive to the company's goals, bloating their bureaucracy, and other corporate politics bullshit.
Not to mention that any income that's left is skimmed off the end, by shareholders. I get that they want a profit on their investment, but from the customer's perspective, dividend payments are a great example of waste.
sure, lots of big companies have problems with waste. Keeping things lean, focused and uncorrupted gets hard with size and higher hierarchies. But if the incentives are there it is somewhat easier for a private enterprise to avoid waste in all its forms.
>I wonder if there's something simple we're missing for a way to stop public spending that goes to corruption/waste.
Yes, accountability and informed voters. Why is a major who hired her cousin as city manager (even if it was at market rate) still in office?
Bringing reporting to the 21 century with easy to digest dashboards how various metrics of the city changed over the last 12 years or so would also help. The data is mostly there, it's just very time consuming to consume.
I have never seen "panacea" used by anyone except those opposed to any public infrastructure, and while you sound like you're speaking in all good faith and I appreciate that I still have trouble seeing this as something other then a strawman. Of course governments can have issues too. Public roads can have potholes. Bridges have not been kept up. Public parks aren't always maintained to the extent they're supposed to be. Etc etc. But at the same time there are plenty of good cases to show it can be done very well too, and the massive failures of privatized infrastructure are also in ample evidence. Fundamentally natural monopolies and basic floor level services for society (taking into account not just existing people but future generations and flexibility value to the nation overall) aren't great fits for a market. Some things really do make sense as an area of government.
Corruption is simply something that has to be fought, period, but we do have the tools to do so more easily at the local government level then for more widely distributed private entities. And whatever else the fact is that privatized information infrastructure simply has not worked overall. There will absolutely be cases of mismanagement and corruption in public information infrastructure should it become widespread, there will be fierce fights and politics and so forth same as with roads and everything else. That however doesn't make it worse then the alternatives, and long term in America at least citizens get the government they deserve.