A city may be better than a corperation, but only margenally so. Where are the apartment building owners, the neighborhood associations, PTA's and other NPO's ? Why not build your own network to cover your block? The only advantage a city has is the ability to hide the cost in taxes and other fees.

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Following the conservative lie, telecom/cable companies propagandize that for city government to offer internet access is big government whereas if they overcharge and mug customers like they've been doing since 1980, then somehow it's not a crime. It is interesting that in TX and FL, states where corporate interests usually win, the telecom giants got a setback for their attempts to monopolize. There is nothing wrong with a city offering its residents affordable broadband existing side by side with the existing telecom/cable giants. Maybe the corporate nazis are scared that GOD may finally be on its way to punishing these companies for monopoly malpractice !

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This is an excerpt from "Connecting the Public: The Truth About Municipal Broadband", as linked in the story: Municipal broadband plays a critical role in making the goal of universal deployment a reality. Traditionally, local governments have proven vital in deploying necessary infrastructure. For example, local governments built municipal power systems as part of the efforts to electrify America in the first part of the 20th Century. Local governments run public transportation networks and sewage networks, maintain local roads, build schools and hospitals despite the fact that private businesses could, and in many places do, provide competing services. As broadband becomes a necessary utility for commerce, education and
healthcare, hundreds of local government entities across the country have taken up their traditional role of providing needed services to residents and local businesses. - It's always worked pretty well in my community. If you don't have municipal development of rural areas, in particular, you will end up with a segment of the population that the "for profit" section ignores, due to the scale.

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Let me compare the US to Estonia to underscore how good access to technology can be when a government isn't based on and doesn't bow down to corporate greed. In Estonia the government is striving to provide every single person with free or extremely inexpensive high speed internet access. There are more broadband internet hotspots per capita than anywhere in the world and it is still growing rapidly. Even in parks and out in the woods you can get online free. More bars, restaurants, hotels and gas stations have hotspots here than anywhere else. And the ones that aren't free are not like the pay spots in the states (x dollars for an hour or 15 minutes). No, the charge is about 65 cents for 24 hours, and when you buy 24 hours it is good for all other pay hotspots in the country for the 24 hours. The stats that put the US in a miserable 14th place for broadband access don't even count the smaller nations like Estonia - the first and still only country where every single classroom in every single school has internet access. Some governments look out for their citizens, not the interests of corporate (and private) greed.

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Valiant fight, but it's already lost. Those who aren't fooled by Pig Bush just don't have enough money to fight him and the other whores. Dust off your passports and head for,....anywhere but here.

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In two words, Ownership Society.

I can understand the feelings of loss and frustration. Wanting to give up when facing a monster of gigantic proportions does make one want to wet themselves. But we can't give up. This is America. We have to continue to push back. That's been the Neocon philosophy. Fight for every inch until we own everything. Fortunately it is the philosophy of the socially conscious justice and seekers of equality and liberty.

First we must educate. Change the media. Boycott till they do.
And fight these fights as the one this article is about.

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Most people are unaware of it, but cities are places where citizens can actually participate in government. It isn't easy. Many of the issues, and telecommunications is a great example, are aggravatingly complex. But citizens who embrace complexity and master the essentials can actually have some influence.

Having an infrastructure that serves the public as a First Amendment vehicle and through which communication can be delivered that might actually serve to enrich public dialogue in a way that can be accessed across the community, is a citizen interest. It is not, however a corporate interest.

Most people don't seem to grasp the significance of the fact that public property belongs to the citizens. If the municipal government is operating with its head on straight, it bargains for the best deals with corporations seeking license to use rights of way that are owned by the public. This isn't communism. It just makes sense.

The way the system is set up just by virtue of the existence of a city, the public owns a lot of right-of-way real estate.

It would be poor stewardship to just give over those rights-of-way to cable companies and telecom operators without thinking about what the city could gain by letting those operators have what amounts to a very great advantage in getting access to putting a siphon in the back pocket of property owners and renters.

It would also be poor stewardship to ignore history. Around the turn of the century there were actually municipal policy documents in place that specified where the ghettoes ought to be and why electrical or other infrastructure investment was to be limited in those areas. It was thought that black, hispanic and poor people were never going to amount to much anyway and that resources should not be wasted in those areas. They had no reason to hide this at the time. It was a common belief, especially in Texas where I became familiar with local municipal history.

We live in a more enlightened era, but we fail to learn the lessons of history. If civic leaders have any intellect at all, they should see advocating for equitable distribution of community infrastructure assets as a smarter path to a more prosperous future for the whole community in fifty years or longer.

Giving way to the corporate lobbyists is closer to a return to the nineteenth century thinking we abhor today.

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