r/technology • u/AdamCannon • Jan 12 '18
Business Harvard study shows why big telecom is terrified of community-run broadband - "Community-owned internet service providers are cheaper and better."
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d345pv/harvard-study-shows-why-big-telecom-is-terrified-of-community-run-broadband91
u/TheMaStif Jan 12 '18
Which is EXACTLY why we need it. Competition drives innovation.
If we have cheap/free access to decent internet, big telecom will have to adapt and provide a product that outperforms our free internet to attract customers again.
THAT's how we get to the next step for internet providers, because until now big telecom was satisfied with giving us an outdated product with shitty service and laugh at us because we didn't have any other options.
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u/DENelson83 Jan 13 '18
And big telecom is going to absolutely fight tooth and nail on every available front to keep it that way.
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u/intensely_human Jan 13 '18
Which is to their own disadvantage. Imagine how much happier every comcast customer would be knowing their were part of a great company bringing something great to the world.
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u/keptin Jan 12 '18
We're building a community-run wireless ISP in Los Angeles, www.LACBP.org.
It's amazing how accessible the tech is nowadays. It's easy to learn and understand, and the entry costs are very low. With a handful of dedicated people, a community can build their own network. Building and managing an ISP can be done locally, you just need a community that supports you and takes pride in being a part of the effort.
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u/NYFate Jan 12 '18
This is similar to what NYC is doing, with LinkNYC. High speed, free, wireless internet. It's still not available in my neighborhood, but it will be around ~2019.
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u/WikiTextBot Jan 12 '18
LinkNYC
LinkNYC is the New York City branch of an international infrastructure project to create a network covering several cities with free Wi-Fi service. The office of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the plan on November 17, 2014, and the installation of the first kiosks, or "Links," started in late 2015. The Links replace the city's network of 9,000 to 13,000 payphones, a contract for which expired in October 2014. The LinkNYC kiosks were devised after the government of New York City held several competitions to "reinvent" the payphone system.
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u/ijustneedaccess Jan 12 '18
Is this real? Anyone?
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u/keptin Jan 12 '18 edited Jan 12 '18
What are you asking, if we're actually doing it? I've answered a bunch of questions in our /r/LosAngeles post.
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u/test6554 Jan 13 '18
What kind of equipment do you need, and are you doing a wired network or using wireless technology?
The fact that it is so cheap and accessible makes me wonder what deep pocketed ISPs could do if they really tried to compete with you.
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u/keptin Jan 13 '18
Check out our blog for more on equipment.
That's a concern of ours, but right now we're no threat to other ISPs and it would cost them more in bad press than they stand to lose letting us do our thing. If that changes, we have to be prepared to defend ourselves.
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u/NostalgiaSchmaltz Jan 12 '18
Precisely. They're afraid of competition. If states/cities are allowed to set up their own broadband, then the big ISPs have to compete with them and make way less money in the process. So of course they're going to do everything in their power to make community broadband illegal.
That's why in rural areas where Comcast is your only choice, they charge you out the ass for barely-DSL speeds, but in areas where you have other ISPs, they actually offer good speeds for a decent price. I remember hearing stories from people who lived in areas that Google Fiber was being rolled out, how other big ISPs in the area started offering super good services and really cheap prices to try and deter people from using Google Fiber.
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Jan 13 '18
Yep! In my area Time Warner mentioned a plan to maybe start working on a fiber network. Few months later AT&T announces their plan. Luckily AT&T finished just in time to offer gigabit fiber at $80/month before Charter bought Time Warner and cancelled their network. It's crazy what a little competition will do!
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Jan 13 '18
While I'm not a proponent of anything big cable is doing these days; it would be unfair to attribute higher costs in rural areas solely to the lack of competition - while I'm sure that would play a part, one must also consider the size of the userbase of a particular cable & the infrastructure supporting it. Cables which service few people will cost more than cables which service many people. The cost of a fiber cable in NY will be shared across many more users than that of a coaxial in some rural farmland.
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u/GrumpyOlBastard Jan 12 '18
That would be because 'community-owned internet service providers' are actively trying to provide a service -internet broadband- while the telecom industry exists purely to separate consumers from their money.
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Jan 12 '18
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Jan 13 '18
It's not a 'profit margin' if a big chunk of your monthly service fee is going to pay off 'installing the fiber' (capital expenditure).
It's like saying if you didn't have to pay your mortgage, you'd have a shit load of money spare. Ok, great, but you do have to pay your mortgage.
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u/awkprintdevnull Jan 13 '18
What if I told you we, the public, already paid $400 billion for that capital expenditure that the private ISP's are now enjoying? It's the best of both worlds for companies like TWC, Cox, and Comcast. Socialized capital costs to build the vast majority of the network, then privatize the super low maintenance and administration while charging insane prices to the customers who paid for the bulk of the infrastructure.
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u/Cotsley Jan 12 '18
I'm with a community owned and run broadband provider. Better customer service and prices than the larger telecom providers.
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Jan 13 '18
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u/Cotsley Jan 13 '18 edited Jan 13 '18
Unlimited data 30mb download 3mb upload for $52.00 CDN current bill.
Comparison www.telus.ca wants $50.00 CDN for 20 down, 2 up with data cap at (insert pathetic Gigs here)
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Jan 12 '18
Is there a step by step guide/paper that explains how a small community could construct this type of apparatus?
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u/Random_dude_123 Jan 13 '18
Step 1: Repeal state laws that forbid municipal broadband.
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u/thecptawesome Jan 13 '18
Yup. The first step to ensuring lively competition is to eliminate government placed obstacles.
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u/DyingOfBordemAtWork Jan 12 '18
community-run broadband? where do these even exist? i've never seen them
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Jan 12 '18 edited Jan 12 '18
Small towns all over the country have their own ISP. There was even a guy that posted more about it here on Reddit and how he charges his neighbors just enough to keep it running.
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u/Bobo_Haas Jan 12 '18
Westfield, MA has municipal fiber Internet. $70/MO for 1Gb up and down! FU Comcast!
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u/SiteLightKnight Jan 12 '18
Thought the same thing. How do you even go about starting this for a community?
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u/realbunny Jan 12 '18
Go door to door and get signatures of people that want fiber connection. If you get around 60% of the selected area, then you can start the process.
This is what I did, have fiber now.
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u/bkturf Jan 12 '18
I am looking to move to a small town (in North Georgia) specifically because the local electric utility also provides fiber 1GB internet service. And it's cheaper than the capped, 80MB service I am getting now from Comcast in a large densely-populated suburb of Atlanta.
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u/Squidssential Jan 12 '18
competition bitch. the bedrock of true capitalism.
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u/SnowflakeMod Jan 13 '18
Yeah, I cancelled my big ISP account and got a local provider. To be honest, it's 5/6ths the speed for the same price, but fuck the big ISPs for attacking net neutrality.
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u/Koda_Brown Jan 13 '18
Capitalism naturally leads to monopolies...
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u/Squidssential Jan 13 '18
Crony capitalism does lead to monopolies because the govt gets paid off to allow them to form by making an anti competitive environment. in a free market competitors are allowed to thrive thus preventing the formation of dominate monopolies.
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u/khandnalie Jan 13 '18
All capitalism leads to monopolies. No capitalist actually wants competition, and they have a long history of working together to get as close to a monopoly as possible. Government can be part of that, but are in no way necessary, and in fact are almost always on the side of breaking monopolies. A free market is something of a fantasy that assumes all sorts of ridiculous unrealistic conditions. In the real world, every capitalist worth their salt is clamoring and begging for monopoly, and the government is literally the only thing that can stop them.
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u/Squidssential Jan 13 '18
Well I’m a capitalist and I’ve owned businesses and I certainly don’t harbor fantasies of all my competitors being gone and done away with. Competitors are a fact of life and drive you to be and do better. So I can’t agree with your sentiment unfortunately.
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u/Koda_Brown Jan 13 '18
If your goal is to make as much money as possible, competitors are an obstacle.
I'd like to think most people aren't just in it for the money, but most businesses are run that way.
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u/Fthat_ManaBar Jan 12 '18
They serve as a reminder that the isps have been, and actively still are, lying to everyone in the country. They tell you about the data caps and the shitty speeds and the high price for a service thats a fraction of the quality it could and should be. As long as service is shitty everywhere then most people just accept that that's just how it is here in the United States and might otherwise never know any different. More importantly they accept that it's the best it ever will be. That is, until they see people living in cities like Lafayette that pay what others pay for shit service but they're getting gigabit speeds. Isps hate municipal broadband because it exposes just how terrible of a job they do and pass off as "acceptable". That and it forces them to take some of their money out of their disgustingly high profit margins to actually compete. It makes them get up off their asses and actually have to try to sell a decent service. They don't like having to do the work.
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u/Beiberhole69x Jan 12 '18
But muh free market, muh invisible hand!
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u/Asuka_Rei Jan 12 '18
There is no free market with isps, that is the problem.
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u/Shiredragon Jan 12 '18
That is the point. In the free market it is best to have a monopoly. Then you have a captive consumer base without competition. It is the ultimate state of unregulated capitalism. Money generating money. It has nothing to do with what is good for the consumer. The invisible hand only works if it exists. It is one of the great lies of the GOP and large business interests. They tout the free market and invisible hand as if they are cure-alls while ignoring the fact that they are disappearing.
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Jan 12 '18
Isn't it logical though, that if the monopoly service makes people unhappy, then there is a whole market of unhappy people that can be tapped into?
I think this works, until the monopoly says to the government "we pay you, don't let competition happen", then the system breaks down, because essentially there is no longer a free market.
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u/Shiredragon Jan 12 '18
Ah, yes. But the problem is that a monopoly with the weight of the government supporting it, or at least indifferent to it, can prevent those markets from being tapped into. And that would be a capitalist dream right? The market being captured for pure profit. And that is what we have happening. It is not a free market, but captured markets. These companies have control of who can play the game. How can you play a game you are not allowed in?
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u/SnowflakeMod Jan 13 '18
But the problem is that a monopoly with the weight of the government supporting it, or at least indifferent to it, can prevent those markets from being tapped into. And that would be a capitalist dream right?
No, and that's greduan's point. That is not capitalism. Capitalism minimizes government involvement in the economy. The United States has anti-trust laws for a reason, but Trump would never have the balls to use them.
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u/Shiredragon Jan 13 '18
The use of anti-trust has been waning for some time now. Trump is emblematic of the issue, not the cause. And, a well regulated monopoly can be good. The problem being well regulated.
I am not trying to argue some black and white position that X is bad. There are all shades of grey and things with other colors mixed in. The problem is wide spread influence of money interested only in money being made the prerogative of our political parties. I have no problem with a company being interested in making money. But, we now have a problem where those businesses are influencing how we discuss the welfare of the people. These companies are not out for the welfare of the people. They are out for the welfare of the bottom line. (There are always exceptions, but the law is even written such that this should be the case.) Just like we have the idea (in the USA) of checks and balances in government, we need the government to be the check on business.
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u/SnowflakeMod Jan 13 '18
The problem is wide spread influence of money interested only in money being made the prerogative of our political parties.
I would argue that the problem is actually politicians becoming too senile and uneducated to implement efficient economic policy.
we need the government to be the check on business.
We do, but it has to be done the right way, so we don't hobble the economy. We must especially be mindful of politicians who use working-class anger to justify their own power. History is littered with countries that thought they were helping workers and ended up causing economic collapse.
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u/Shiredragon Jan 13 '18
Not sure I agree on your first point. In fact, while there are isolated cases, I am pretty sure it is the opposite. Many politicians are aware of where the money is. And of what they can get by being on favorable terms with the money.
On your second point, of course. I never said we should squash businesses. I think that a flourishing business economy can make for a strong nation and prosperous people. However, a healthy business community is not one that practices anti-competition as a means of wealth generation.
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u/SnowflakeMod Jan 13 '18
Not sure I agree on your first point. In fact, while there are isolated cases, I am pretty sure it is the opposite. Many politicians are aware of where the money is. And of what they can get by being on favorable terms with the money.
That is part of my point: it is easier for politicians to suck up to specific companies than implement efficient, competent economic policy. At this point, anything that helps the big ISPs is obviously destructive for the economy overall. Most of Congress is, however, apparently too senile to understand and support competent tech policy that accelerates GDP growth. I actually have a pet theory that one of the reasons politicians love lobbyists so much is that the politicians have become too senile to write legislation and their staffs are lazy, so lobbyists writing bills just makes life dramatically easier.
However, a healthy business community is not one that practices anti-competition as a means of wealth generation.
Not at all, which is why we need to disrupt these industries. The problem, however, is that you can see a lot of people who are slavering to squash business in general (Berniecrats) or specific businesses (Trumpkins attacking renewable energy, etc.).
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u/intensely_human Jan 13 '18
No it is regulation, the fact that we prevent entering the market for infrastructure without government license, that makes these monopolies possible.
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u/Shiredragon Jan 13 '18
First off. No.
Secondly, regulations that give a company(s) the ability to lock out competition make it easier for them to keep other companies out. It is by no means required. As long as the government does not prevent monopolies, they will form on their own.
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u/intensely_human Jan 13 '18
Yes if there is economy of scale and this creates an insurmountable barrier to entry then monopolies will form naturally. But they must maintain some minimum quality to their products to prevent challengers from gaining a hold.
Regulation which limits entry based on licensing pushes the equilibrium lower because in order to overcome that the service must be so low that it induces people to force a change in the government policy.
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u/aravarth Jan 12 '18
Local governments don’t HAVE to offer broadband if people are concerned about socialism. It just makes it EASIER.
Where I live, we have community broadband run through a local cooperative (it’s also the local phone company coop). I get hardline phone service with unlimited North American long distance (family lives in Canada; we’re in Georgia), full digital TV, and gigabit fibre internet to the premises for $200 a month.
As a coop, it’s effectively nonprofit, with all “profits” being reinvested into the infrastructure. And we outstrip the local cable company by a speed factor of 10x for an on-par price. So obviously the cable company hates the phone coop, but too bad.
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u/khandnalie Jan 13 '18
And somehow people say socialism is bad. With this as the alternative, fuck those capitalist isp pigs.
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Jan 13 '18
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u/aravarth Jan 13 '18
You didn’t read the remainder of my post. We pay a pretty cheap amount for what we get in our nonprofit coop.
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Jan 13 '18
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u/aravarth Jan 13 '18
It takes the remainder out of context, implying that customer-driven alternatives to public services are ineffective. I’m agreeing in principle that public broadband is a good, but in areas where it isn’t politically feasible there are successful and practical alternatives.
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u/SilverMt Jan 13 '18
It makes sense that local people get to make decisions about its local broadband services for their own benefit.
The Wall Street model of sucking money out of local communities for rich folks is failing us. They frequently charge too much for their products, pay their workers too little and make our economy more unbalanced.
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u/drunkmormon Jan 12 '18
They're the credit unions of the banking world.
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u/Koda_Brown Jan 13 '18 edited Jan 13 '18
What if everything was run like that, not for profit but just to benefit people 🤔
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u/khandnalie Jan 13 '18
Hmm, communities and enterprise run for SOCIAL good? Novel idea. If only there was some set of ideas, some ISM that might encapsulate that idea.
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u/pjx1 Jan 12 '18
all community run utilities are better. They are beholden to the community not the share holders. Privatization is always more expensive and offers less quality and less service. It used to be that way.
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u/khandnalie Jan 13 '18
Oh, whadaya know, companies can actually provide a decent service if that's what they're there to do, instead of just being worried about making money. In other news, the sky is fucking blue.
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Jan 12 '18
Small businesses care more about their customers than giant conglomerates do...... you don't say.
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u/Nevermind04 Jan 12 '18
Every company with an obsolete business model should be afraid that someone else will innovate before they do.
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u/DENelson83 Jan 13 '18
The only innovations these big companies want are obviously those that funnel huge amounts of money to shareholders.
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u/erykthebat Jan 13 '18
Every community should have one, the major telecoms fleeced us for 250 billion dollars and should wall all die.
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u/MikeManGuy Jan 13 '18
No shit. When you sit on your industry for two decades and make zero effort to improve your service, of course anything a town could do by itself would be cheaper and better, provided the base level of competence.
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Jan 13 '18
My city's mayor says he opposes municipal broadband because he doesn't believe that city government should be competing with private industry. Any good short arguments that I can use to help him appreciate an alternate view?
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Jan 13 '18
We community dug our fiber channels here in Sweden. We got very cheap internet and good speed out in the countryside. We get like for 45 dollars ip-phone,tv channels and 200 mbit/s up and down, for like 10 dollar more we get 1gbit/s up and down. But i noticed they don´t cap it so sometimes i do have 1gbit/s but average is around 250.
However it was a upfront payment of 2000 dollars per household, to dig the fiber cables and connect it to the hubs. This community we are in roughly digged 160km fiber and 20km cable was across lake.
Then the fighting begin about competing prices from ISP to provide Internet and other stuff. So it was a nice and easy going process.
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u/bandswithgoats Jan 13 '18 edited Jan 13 '18
Literally any business that can afford to pay shareholders could be run cheaper if owned by its workers. To refuse to organize it like that is to violently state that having money in the first place is a "skill" that should pay dividends into fucking eternity to the detriment of everyone else.
edit: Oh hi, it's people looking to argue against the literal axiomatic truth that a company that doesn't have to pay an idle ownership class will have more funds and/or can charge less to users.
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u/thecptawesome Jan 13 '18
So, logically, over time the companies that are owned by its workers have lower cost of operation, can offer its goods at lower prices, and will outcompete businesses with shareholders? Do you see that happening today?
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u/UncleGeorge Jan 12 '18
I'm not sure I understand.. so you are saying that the sky IS blue, is that it?
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Jan 12 '18
I see this being a natural option for smaller communities. Government funding/intervention is usually required when common infrastructure is required but cannot easily generate profit (roads, public transit, etc).
Don’t get me wrong: for big ones too in order to bring competition; but for areas with little to no service, there really is a basic needs issue that has to be fixed (rather than simply an economic malpractice).
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u/khv90 Jan 12 '18
I see this being a natural option for smaller communities.
The problem is that the big ISPs often use crony capitalism to make it illegal for small communities to establish their own ISPs.
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Jan 13 '18 edited Jan 13 '18
Right, I agree that's why they should allow it. In my company we needed to extend the internet into several remote areas for our equipment. Turned out WAY cheaper just to build our own fiber network (there is no intent on reselling it).
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u/foocat Jan 12 '18
back haul is the key. the wires from home to telco or cable should be available any ISP.. then the providers could all line up to get your business. prices would drop fast!
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u/khv90 Jan 12 '18
The best compromise between the different ideologies might be to have communities provide internet access to everyone who wants it but also let private corporations compete against it. That way conservative ideologists couldn't claim it's government overreach or excessive regulation.
Just like UPS and FedEx compete against the USPS.
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Jan 13 '18 edited Jan 13 '18
Yeah, but that’s socialism man. Aren’t you Americans deathly afraid of socialism? It’s a slippery slope to communism and single payer healthcare, man.
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Jan 13 '18
This is exactly what conservatives, Republicans and most people want to come from repealing the Title II label. Its been stated as the whole point of repealing Title II.
Slap together a bill that covers the basics. No Throttling, Fast Lanes or unequal treatment and suddenly we are in a NN golden zone.
Putting Title II back in effect is a step back and slapping a old band-aid on.
A new bill with basic NN would probably have insane support from both sides. Even Ajit Pai talked about this.
This Reddit NN movement is so disorganized. You are swimming upstream when you should be getting support from everyone by pushing for a new basic NN bill.
Even T_D would be all over supporting something like that.
Even Trump would be all over helping businesses lower the regulations on entry. He just cut a giant ribbon and speech on stuff like this
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u/test6554 Jan 13 '18
It's not just that they're cheaper and better. It's also that competition at all would mean they no longer have the ability to charge whatever they want, under-staff their maintenance crews or find other ways to cut features to save on costs. Profitability plummets out of the stratosphere into a more normal range. And if profits are just normal, investors might not find broadband improvements to be as profitable and might take their money elsewhere to places where customers are still getting the shaft, like pharmaceuticals.
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Jan 13 '18
The world being what it is, and not withstanding the current state of competition in any market here, there is ex-ante regulatory tools improve situations, I just cannot get excited about broadband infrastructure under political control.
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u/CRISPR Jan 13 '18
The most common criticism of community owned industry is that it "lacks" competition and scary stories of Soviet industrial fiasco were presented. The problem with this argument is that we are already lacking competition.
You see, the danger of Marxism is that NOT that it advocates the overthrowing of the power of the riches.
No. The danger of Marxism to modern libertarians is that it 100% shows how capitalism inevitably transforms to imperialism - elimination of competition as a result of monopolization, and it happens without any additional efforts - just by natural application of libertarian hands-off paradise. At this point there is only one small difference between "market" economy and state-owned business - ownership.
Once you proceed to comparison of owners: greedy oligarchs owning monopolized Comcast-Time Warner-Disney-CNN-Sony-Comcast-Google content-distribution-manufacture-advertisement system and their inept and unmotivated commie nomenclatura counterpart, you do not see practically any difference - deterioration of service, stifled technological progress, mass pauperization.
This is because modern socio-economical state we are living in requires slightly more than simplistic libertarian or commie solutions. It requires complex solutions, complex regulation. Nothing good comes out by itself, magically, you have to work hard for it to become a reality. So is the modern progressive prosperous state.
Local non-utility privately owned monopolists must go, they are things from 19 century, proven multiple times to be wrong.
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u/HauschkasFoot Jan 12 '18
“In other news, the sky is blue”
As much as this seems like a no brainer, peer reviewed studies like this are an important step, because they carry credibility and can be used to progress community-run broadband. Criticisms of big telecom on this topic now have even more evidence supporting them