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> Ben, you should be ashamed.
>
> On Tue, Mar 01, 2005 at 04:57:48PM -0600, Ben Kochie wrote:
>> this is why I see municipal broadband, both wifi AND fiber to the home
>> stuff as a GREAT way for us to rid the bad monopolies like comcast and
>> quest, and bring good service back to the network.
>
> Oh, those big bad monopolies that have BOTH upgraded their service at
> no extra charge to the customer (Qwest went to 1.5mbit, Comcast went from
> 1.5 to 3mbit, and now from 3mbit to 4mbit without increasing pricing)

HA!  Are you KIDDING?  "upgraded to 1.5mbit" is a joke, their 
infrastructure has supported those speeds since they've had G.DMT.  The 
only thing they have done was lower their insane prices to slightly less 
than insane.

The same thing goes for the cable companies, the capacity has always been 
there, they just bumped up the limits to LOOK like they were doing 
improvements.

At the same time they enact restrictions to limit what you can download.. 
You of all people should know better.

>> The city builds out a good fiber optic infrastructure, this prevents the
>> need for multiple privately owned network infrastructures.  (cable, POTS
>> copper, ricochet, etc) This network provides the perfect infrastructure
>> for wifi.
>>
>> Using vlans, and QoS, they can partition the network, and allow private
>> compnaies to provide the service endpoints of the network, phone, video,
>> Internet, whatever.
>
> Perhaps this is some deep dark secret, but most cities actually OWN THE LOCAL
> CABLE INFRASTRUCTURE. *YOU* elected the people who chose Comcast, RoadRunner,
> Charter, etc. to manage that infrastructure and provide services on it. It's
> possible (and quite easy!) to run multiple cable modem networks on the same
> coax (at different frequencies) and the cable is already in place.

Nope.. you're wrong, the city of saint paul sold off the cable 
infrastructure 20 years ago.  Most of the other cities did as well.

Cable was supposed to be the public infrastructure of the future, the plan 
was to have a bi-directional network of data, and it ended up being a 
one-way broadcast in a tube.  I guess the people who came up with the 
cable network were just a victim of being 20 years ahead of the Internet.

>> This solves the city problem of needing infrastructure at a reasonable
>> cost to itself for it's services (fire, police, medical, utilities)  And
>> solves the Libertarian problem with municipal competition.  The city need
>> not be a services provider for Internet on the wifi/fiber.  It also
>> prevents the problem of businesses not providing for the "under services"
>> areas of the city.
>
> Again, it's already there, and it has been handed over to various companies
> to do what they wish with it. Perhaps you should be contacting your local
> city council or state representatives to promote a law that forces them
> to share the *existing* infrastructure before wasting money on yet another
> that will be abused in the same way.

I don't see it, and that is one thing I have talked to reps about.  Most 
of what I've heard from the city of minneapolis is they have some fiber, 
but nothing that comes close to servicing residential use, only city 
building infrastructure.

>> The city builds the roads, the businesses provide the taxis.
>
> Let's not bring the poor quality of Minnesota's roads into this.

you havn't seen poor quality roads till you drive in the bay area.  MnDoT 
is amazing compared to the stupidity of CalTrans.
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