OH Repubs trying to ban municipal broadbands

How is a city controlling the internet free market?

"How is this pro free market?"

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There are reportedly 30 or more municipal broadband providers in Ohio that "would not be allowed to operate so long as there is a private-sector company operating in the area, as there are in most, if not all of the cities."

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The amendment would let cities and towns provide broadband service only to unserved areas and uses a definition of "unserved" that reportedly makes over 98 percent of the state ineligible for municipal broadband.

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Oh noes! Only up to 2% of the population would be on the government-controlled broadband! This is an outrage!

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The legislation would also prohibit a city or town from offering service outside its borders, even if a nearby town has areas that meet the "unserved" definition.

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Just tell the truth you dishonest, rotten democrats: You want the same type of control over the internet that the CCP does.

Just another fight between statists and statists.

The left wing statists want the web to be controlled by government. The right wing statists want laws to keep municipalities from competing.

I prefer neither.

If your “competition” has the authority to tax and regulate you, and your taxes fund their entire business, they aren’t your competition.

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If your “competition” has the authority to tax and regulate you, and your taxes fund their entire business, they aren’t your competition.

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What actually happens is like what happened in Lafayette. The Chamber of Commerce went to each of the telecommunication and cable companies, Bell South, Cox, etc., and asked them if any of them would consider upgrading their infrastructure in Lafayette to fiber optic cable. They all said no, because Lafayette is not a large enough market. So LUS stepped in to run fiber to every home in the city. The response was that Bell South and Cox sued. The position of the commercial providers was that they weren't going to upgrade, and no one else could either. Ultimately LUS won in court and the fiber system was built.

To this day none of the other commercial providers have strung fiber to the home.

Easy. The current status quo is anti-Free Market.

Example: Try laying fiber in Seattle when your name is not Lumen or Comcast and see what happens.

Legislators are against Municipal broadband providers for one simple reason ...... their ATT lobbyists, the same ones that line their pockets come election time, tell them to squash it.

That is the problem, pure and simple.

The construction costs to run fiber optic cable are enormous.
$30K-$35k per mile aerial, $45k-$60k per mile subterranean .... avg $35K per railroad crossing, plus right of way fees, plus permits, etc.

Maintenance is $200-$215 per mile .... every year

Then you have to light it with optical hardware in order to transport services ... hundreds of thousand of dollars.

It is a massively capital-intensive proposition. It is difficult for rural areas to justify because there is low-density subscriber demographics .... very long ROI metrics.

ATT isn't kept honest because they aren't held accountable by our Legislators. Same for most other national exchange carriers.

It makes sense for municipals to provide broadband fiber because they already own the right of ways and easements (lower costs)

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How is it not free market?

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Municipalities colluding with specific companies for the expressed purpose of making competition illegal is not "free market".

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OH Repubs trying to ban municipal broadbands
How is this pro free market?

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It's not. These Republicans are clearly bought and paid for by the big ISPs.

I'm connected to my neighborhood fiber and f'ing love it.