Hey everyone, I’m new here but all this news about age verification and data privacy got me thinking about how the Internet itself works and how we connect.
I recall hearing somewhere that a town in the US created a city run internet provider and it significantly increased speeds and lowered overhead, as well as provided more of a voice to its users.
How would you go about implementing this from the technical side? I figure it would be an uphill battle politically, but I don’t see a lot of good alternatives in this day and age. I love the idea of I2P and Yggdrasil, but as a matter of user accessibility, they take at least some technical experience and time to set up.
Where I lived before in Sweden, it was the municipal power company that built a fiber network, since they already had all the right-of-way and know-how/staff for pulling cables. The power company itself only maintained the physical network, and opened it up to third party ISPs to run the actual internet service, allowing to could start an ISP using the network and any customer could choose any ISP. ISPs would compete on price, support and value-adds like IPTV and telephony.
Germany could learn from this.
Germany’s problem is not building stuff but corruption.
Our street/sidewalk was opened up f****ing 7 times in the last 3 years for fiber-optic cables. Because if there is money to be spend they will find a way to give it to some buddies for putting the 2nd, 3rd or 10th set of redundant cables into the ground.
Oh, and guess what is not available here… a fiber connection, because actually connecting those cables is not where they can make money. And if they somehow manage this some day… I’ll pay insane prices compared to any other country.
Which is both again caused by corruption, a.k.a. a few big companies and their well-paid lobbyists working hard to be the only option.
What makes the Internet work is furries?
It’s how rural America got electricity, it’s wild that the system is so captured that many people believe it’s easier to launch junk into space than to run cables to people’s homes.
Part of the problem is the “mysticism” technology has to people who don’t understand it. The tech companies have an advantage when you don’t understand how tech works and they’ll keep it that way.
Yeah it’s funny with AI they are deliberately obfuscating what they can actually do to scare
peopleCEOs with FOMO.Running an ISP is simpler than a powergrid, sewer system or water system.
you should know that local and state laws have been enacted specifically to prevent communal telcom services in many places
…because your politicians are bought and paid for. good luck.
I think we are getting to a point in the US where people are just going to start ignoring the government. People don’t subscribe to institutions with no credibility and don’t provide value in return.
People don’t subscribe to institutions with no credibility and don’t provide value in return.
ha, ok. have you met many people? id like to introduce you to an entirely fake valuation we call the “stock market”… where nothing is real and unfortunately for poor people, everything matters
Yeah, I’ve been saying for years that anything that isn’t us sleeping, fucking, or running after our food is just made up by people.
The system can and does change, we just need it to change for the better of the majority, and in a day and age where we are as connected together as we are, we have the capability to actually utilize the advantage we have in numbers.
Some US states responded to reports of successful public utility ISPs in other states by banning them. 😐
I’m in Washington State, but I’m not a native of WA. I imagine they would be at least receptive to the idea.
Edit: WA does allow towns and municipalities to provide their own utilities.
Thanks
I think you have no idea what you are asking.
Because the answer is “Have enough capital to afford to be a local ISP”
Laying fiber lines can be done by the city. Building server farms can be done at the city level. The municipality, depending on size, would have the resources to make a MAN. I understand that the most difficult aspect of implementing it is politics.
I ask because I am tired of corporate pig shit finding more and more insane ways of extracting money from every single minutia of our lives. Especially with services like utilities that have a monopoly because of the physical nature of the infrastructure.
We will have claw back our rights one at a time.
The question still stands, does your city have enough capital? Fibre is expensive to lay at a city scale, the equipment to connect is inexpensive to buy and maintain, you also need to ensure compliance with local telecoms regulation, you’ll also have to deal with competition from existing established and experienced competition.
All true. It would be easiest to lay in heart of the city where it is most dense to attract more customers per square mile.
Ideally, the utilities are made public and regulated by the public, but nationalizing or bringing it under state control is an even harder political sell.
I’ll have to spread the word one way or another, which will be tough when so much is happening these days.
If it could be done, it would be in Seattle, given that the city owns its Utilities already.
Yeah hard sell in the US. Nationalising infra is the way forward. Laying new cable and ducts in a city is wildly expensive and not always possible due to the need for new ROWs.
We nationalised our telco infra here in Aus. Our conservatives tried to stop it and ended screwing up the deal and making it cost 30 to 60 billion more than it should have, but conservatives are mostly incompetent so kinda expected.
