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Its a double edged sword. You don’t want the government to be the ISP but banning community broadband is silly. It should be perfectly legal and acceptable for a bunch if neighbors to get together and make there own network. It could function like a community garden.
Why is a private business inherently better than the government as an ISP, though?
Either way it has to follow all relevant local laws about how to behave. The ISPs will respond to law enforcement requests either way. But at least a public entity will also need to be accountable to the public and respond to things like FOIA, as opposed to a private entity which has all kinds of ways to resist transparency and is more accountable to the shareholders.
Either way it is a near natural monopoly because running redundant wires/fiber is a waste of resources. There won’t be much consumer choice.
The idea that the government would be inherently inefficient is one that presumes a private entity that is highly insulated from market force wouldn’t. Free markets create a lot of pressure to improve products, but there’s no free market happening in a utility like an ISP. Even in the most competitive markets, that’s still choosing one from maybe 4 providers that barely compete with each other at all. And you have to sign longterm contracts with all kinds of complex pricing to “test” the competition, and testing it requires pretty advanced knowledge beyond most users – if you have no freedom to easily change your ISP, there’s just not any competition.
If the sword is double-edged, one of those edges is safe enough for a renfair.
The problem with the government being an ISP is that they are very slow to change. Every 10 years or so we are seeing a massive change in internet speed. This would be hard for a government to keep up with.
Why would likely happen is that the government would award a contract with one single company which would be terrible for a lot of things.
I remember 15ish years ago when a bunch of new community fiber products started launching with cheap gigabit service in a few towns and we were all so sure it was going to be a revolution. The ISPS were going NUTS with how impossible it would be to compete.
Guess they’re right since now I pay $80/month for the privilege of AT&T to deliver 500mbps service to me using their incredibly, incredibly bad gateway hardware that cannot be replaced. But hey, at least I’m not spending $5 more per month to have Comcast, my other option who is even worse and no faster. My state protected me from the evil of a community ISP and left me with this turd sandwich instead.
ISPs are going to be very slow to change indeed because they are not competitive. Free market competition only causes fast iteration where it exists.
Well fiber has hit my area quickly just like 5G. Its very fast and cheap. That same $80 will buy you fiber with unlimited data (Gigabit speeds)
That same $80 is fiber. Cable costs… the same. But tell me more about how the free market is coming to my rescue.