[Bloat] [Starlink] On fiber as critical infrastructure w/Comcast chat

Tue Mar 28 14:46:59 EDT 2023

There are municipal broadband projects. Most are in rural areas 
partially funded by the federal government via the USDA. Glasgow started 
a few decades ago. Similar to LUS in Lafayette, LA. 
https://www.usda.gov/broadband

Rural areas get a lot of federal money for things, a la the farm bill 
which also pays for food stamps instituted as part of the New Deal after 
the Great Depression.

https://sustainableagriculture.net/our-work/campaigns/fbcampaign/what-is-the-farm-bill/

None of this is really relevant to the vast majority of our urban 
populations that get broadband from investor-owned companies. These 
companies don't receive federal subsidies though sometimes they get 
access to municipal revenue bonds when doing city infrastructures.

Bob
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-mitchell-79078b5 and the like
> are doing a pretty good job (given the circumstances) here in the US.
> At least, that’s my understanding of his work.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Frank
> Frantisek (Frank) Borsik
> 
> https://www.linkedin.com/in/frantisekborsik
> 
> Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp: +421919416714 [2]
> 
> iMessage, mobile: +420775230885 [3]
> 
> Skype: casioa5302ca
> 
> frantisek.borsik at gmail.com
> 
> On 28 March 2023 at 7:47:33 PM, rjmcmahon (rjmcmahon at rjmcmahon.com)
> wrote:
> 
>> Interesting. I'm skeptical that our cities in the U.S. can get this
>> (structural separation) right.
>> 
>> Pre-coaxial cable & contract carriage, the FCC licensed spectrum to
>> the
>> major media companies and placed a news obligation on them for these
>> OTA
>> rights. A society can't run a democracy well without quality and
>> factual
>> information to the constituents. Sadly, contract carriage got rid of
>> 
>> that news as a public service obligation as predicted by Eli Noam.
>> http://www.columbia.edu/dlc/wp/citi/citinoam11.html Hence we get
>> January
>> 6th and an insurrection.
>> 
>> It takes a staff of 300 to produce 30 minutes of news three times a
>> day.
>> The co-axial franchise agreements per each city traded this
>> obligation
>> for a community access channel and a small studio, and annual
>> franchise
>> fees. History has shown this is insufficient for a city to provide
>> quality news to its citizens. Community access channels failed
>> miserably.
>> 
>> Another requirement was two cables so there would be "competition"
>> in
>> the coaxial offerings. This rarely happened because of natural
>> monopoly
>> both in the last mile and in negotiating broadcast rights (mostly
>> for
>> sports.) There is only one broadcast rights winner, e.g. NBC for the
>> 
>> Olympics, and only one last mile winner. That's been proven
>> empirically
>> in the U.S.
>> 
>> Now cities are dependent on those franchise fees for their budgets.
>> And
>> the cable cos rolled up to a national level. So it's mostly the FCC
>> that
>> regulates all of this where they care more about Janet Jackson's
>> breast
>> than providing accurate news to help a democracy function well.
>> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXXVIII_halftime_show_controversy
>> 
>> 
>> It gets worse as people are moving to unicast networks for their
>> "news."
>> But we're really not getting news at all, we're gravitating to
>> emotional
>> validations per our dysfunctions. Facebook et al happily provide
>> this
>> because it sells more ads. And then the major equipment providers
>> claim
>> they're doing great engineering because they can carry "AI loads!!"
>> and
>> their stock goes up in value. This means ads & news feeds that
>> trigger
>> dopamine hits for addicts are driving the money flows. Which is a
>> sad
>> theme for undereducated populations.
>> 
>> And ChatGPT is not the answer for our lack of education and a public
>> 
>> obligation to support those educations, which includes addiction
>> recovery programs, and the ability to think critically for
>> ourselves.
>> 
>> Bob
>> Here is an old (2014) post on Stockholm to my class "textbook":
>> 
>> 
> https://cis471.blogspot.com/2014/06/stockholm-19-years-of-municipal.html
>> 
>> 
>> [1]
>> Stockholm: 19 years of municipal broadband success [1]
>> The Stokab report should be required reading for all local
>> government
>> officials. Stockholm is one of the top Internet cities in the
>> worl...
>> 
>> cis471.blogspot.com [1]
>> 
>> -------------------------
>> 
>> From: Starlink <starlink-bounces at lists.bufferbloat.net> on behalf of
>> 
>> Sebastian Moeller via Starlink <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>> Sent: Sunday, March 26, 2023 2:11 PM
>> To: David Lang <david at lang.hm>
>> Cc: dan <dandenson at gmail.com>; Frantisek Borsik
>> <frantisek.borsik at gmail.com>; libreqos
>> <libreqos at lists.bufferbloat.net>; Dave Taht via Starlink
>> <starlink at lists.bufferbloat.net>; rjmcmahon
>> <rjmcmahon at rjmcmahon.com>;
>> bloat <bloat at lists.bufferbloat.net>
>> Subject: Re: [Starlink] [Bloat] On fiber as critical infrastructure
>> w/Comcast chat
>> 
>> Hi David,
>> 
>> On Mar 26, 2023, at 22:57, David Lang <david at lang.hm> wrote:
>> 
>> On Sun, 26 Mar 2023, Sebastian Moeller via Bloat wrote:
>> 
>> The point of the thread is that we still do not treat digital
>  communications infrastructure as life support critical.
> 
>>> Well, let's keep things in perspective, unlike power, water
>  (fresh and waste), and often gas, communications infrastructure is
> mostly not critical yet. But I agree that we are clearly on a path in
> that direction, so it is time to look at that from a different
> perspective.
> 
>>> Personally, I am a big fan of putting the access network into
>  communal hands, as these guys already do a decent job with other
> critical infrastructure (see list above, plus roads) and I see a PtP
> fiber access network terminating in some CO-like locations a viable
> way to allow ISPs to compete in the internet service field all the
> while using the communally build access network for a few. IIRC this
> is how Amsterdam organized its FTTH roll-out. Just as POTS wiring has
> beed essentially unchanged for decades, I estimate that current fiber
> access lines would also last for decades requiring no active component
> 
> changes in the field, making them candidates for communal management.
> (With all my love for communal ownership and maintenance, these
> typically are not very nimble and hence best when we talk about life
> times of decades).
> 
>> This is happening in some places (the town where I live is doing
>  such a rollout), but the incumbant ISPs are fighting this and in many
> 
> states have gotten laws created that prohibit towns from building such
> 
> systems.
> 
> A resistance that in the current system is understandable*...
> btw, my point is not wanting to get rid of ISPs, I really just think
> that the access network is more of a natural monopoly and if we want
> actual ISP competition, the access network is the wrong place to
> implement it... as it is unlikely that we will see multiple ISPs
> running independent fibers to all/most dwelling units... There are two
> 
> ways I see to address this structural problem:
> a) require ISPs to rent the access links to their competitors for
> "reasonable" prices
> b) as I proposed have some non-ISP entity build and maintain the
> access network
> 
> None of these is terribly attractive to current ISPs, but we already
> see how the economically more attractive PON approach throws a spanner
> 
> into a), on a PON the competitors might get bitstream access, but will
> 
> not be able to "light up" the fiber any way they see fit (as would be
> possible in a PtP deployment, at least in theory). My subjective
> preference is b) as I mentioned before, as I think that would offer a
> level playing field for ISPs to compete doing what they do best, offer
> 
> internet access service while not pushing the cost of the access
> network build-out to all-fiber onto the ISPs. This would allow a
> fairer, less revenue driven approach to select which areas to convert
> to FTTH first....
> 
> However this is pretty much orthogonal to Bob's idea, as I understand
> it, as this subthread really is only about getting houses hooked up to
> 
> the internet and ignores his proposal how to do the in-house network
> design in a future-proof way...
> 
> Regards
> Sebastian
> 
> *) I am not saying such resistance is nice or the right thing, just
> that I can see why it is happening.
> 
>> David Lang
> 
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> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1]
> https://cis471.blogspot.com/2014/06/stockholm-19-years-of-municipal.html
> 
> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://cis471.blogspot.com
> [2] tel:+421919416714
> [3] tel:+420775230885