Pennsylvania has been hit by a torrent of criticism over a new law restricting cities from offering Internet access.
The law, signed by Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell last week, says that a municipality generally "may not provide to the public for compensation" any kind of Internet service. This has alarmed Philadelphia, which dreams of blanketing 135 square miles of downtown with Wi-Fi signals.
Many no doubt find the principles behind Pennsylvania's legislation to be entirely sensible. Their argument: Governments should not be in the business of providing Internet service.
Philadelphia may be the city of brotherly love, but it's no example of municipal munificence.
The reason for that stance should be familiar to anyone who's waited in line at the local DMV. Whether local, state or federal, government agencies aren't terribly responsive to what "customers" want. Plus, they're prone to wasting tax dollars. Wireless service is no exception.
In the case of Pennsylvania, advocacy groups have predictably attacked the law. Jeff Chester, a Washington, D.C., activist, circulated a statement warning that the state is "prohibiting any city in Pennsylvania from establishing its own Internet service."
That's simply false, and Chester backed away from that claim in a subsequent e-mail exchange with me. In reality, the new law lets cities and townships offer free Internet service of any kind. The law's restriction only kicks in when they provide Internet service "for compensation"--that is, a fee that subscribers would be required to pay. Translated: Philadelphia may be the city of brotherly love, but it's no example of municipal munificence.
The law contains a second important section. This section allows municipal governments to go ahead with their plan if they have "submitted a written request" to the local telephone company--and if that company declines to offer the service. Philadelphia has inked a deal with Verizon to let the city's wireless project proceed.
Lessons from Australia's airlines The guiding spirit behind the law is that the proper role of government should be carefully circumscribed to providing what private companies can't. Police, courts and roads arguably fall into that category. Wireless service doesn't.
Critics maintain that when governments try to compete with the private sector, they tend to botch things up and waste taxpayers' money. Economist David Davies once compared a private airline, Ansett Australian National Airways, to a government carrier that flew very similar routes on the same type of aircraft and charged identical passenger and freight rates set by the government.
The Internet's commercial history is in part the story of entrepreneurs who tried to make their fortune by supplying connectivity for a profit.
Davies published his conclusions in the 1971 Journal of Law and Economics. The private airline was more than twice as productive in carrying freight, he discovered, and transported 20 percent more passengers per employee.
This shouldn't come as a surprise. When managers of an enterprise are spending tax money, they don't perform as efficiently. "Without private investors behind the project, there's no hard-nosed, self-interested check on how wisely the enterprise is operated," says Don Boudreaux, chairman of the economics department at George Mason University. "This fact is true no matter how worthy the enterprise and how smart and experienced the managers."
The Internet's commercial history is in part the story of entrepreneurs who tried to make their fortunes by supplying connectivity for a profit. Some, such as Digex's Doug Humphrey, succeeded magnificently. Others, such as Broadband West's Jim Selby in Aspen, Colo., saw their start-ups go bankrupt because they misjudged customer wants or weren't as capable managers as their competitors. The profit motive encourages investment.
Governments muscling their way in short-circuits this useful process. It requires taxpayers to pay for mistakes, rather than investors who have voluntarily chosen to put their own money at risk. It also creates a powerful incentive for city bureaucrats to squeeze out local businesses that might be viewed as potential rivals--a squeeze that could come in the form of onerous taxes or oppressive regulatory requirements.
While having private firms provide Internet access is no guarantee privacy will be protected, it's probably a better option than having governments do it. In July 2000, a courageous attorney for Earthlink, Robert Corn-Revere, was the first person to
reveal details about the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system. Earthlink fought the FBI in court on privacy grounds. Does anyone think Philadelphia would be that bold?
Note that I'm not defending the way the Pennsylvania law is worded. It spans dozens of pages that address unrelated topics in ways that may or may not be wise.
Even the relatively small section dealing with municipal Internet service unfairly favors Verizon over cable companies and other Internet providers--a testament to Verizon's masterful lobbying, not its cogent policy making. Elected officials in Philly making a secret deal with Verizon is unseemly.
But I'll make one prediction you can take to the bank: If other states agree that the broad principles behind this law are sound, they will follow Pennsylvania's lead.
Biography Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
Ryan: Did you read the entire column? It said: "the proper role of government should be carefully circumscribed to providing what private companies can't. Police, courts and roads arguably fall into that category."
Sure, let's count sewage in there as well if you insist. But sewage != WiFi.
the article cites the example of airlines in australia. there are examples that also show that municipal services are better options over private counterparts. one that comes immediately to mind is my own parent's water company in a suburb of san diego. when this converted from city run to private, everyone's water bill soared out of sight. one could say that's because taxes were used to offset the actual water cost. well, i can assure you that their taxes didn't go down until prop 13 passed quite a few years later, forcing taxes down by taxpayer revolt.
the article also criticizes that there can be unfair favoritism when gov't competes with private enterprise. then, it goes on to say that verizon has been given an unfair advantage over other companies to offer wireless services by the new law. i guess i can let that one rest right there: keeping municipalities out of competition offers no assurance there won't be hanky panky to favor one business over another. there are countless other examples.
the author also fails to mention one of the most successful approaches to mitigating risk on a venture: competition. here in oklahoma we're seeing competition between gov't (at tinker air force base) and private enterprise for lucrative aircraft maintenance contracts. the bidding employers/managers have a vested interest in getting things right: they'll lose their jobs if they don't.
in the end, the article presents a one-sided discussion of the issues; more an editorial than an analysis. the only "quid" that the author seems to want to offer to the other side is that he may (or may not, since he's not very specific) support some points of the new law.
Mark: Thanks for your reply. I'm not familiar with the San Diego suburb example, but I'd be very interested if you can find any research that contradicts my point -- it's widely accepted by economists. Without additional info, I don't see it as disproving my point: taxes might have been *even higher* if privatization hadn't happened, for instance.
I'm not defending the fine points of the Pennsylvania law, just the principle behind it. And it is a column so it's close to an editorial in outlook -- it's meant to express a point of view.
My biggest gripe with PA's new legislation comes down to this: Why should any city have to get approval from the ILEC to provide services?
It's not like local governments just "impose" municipal broadband on people. It happens in one of two ways - either through city council vote or through referendum. Either way, the local community takes control of its own future, rather than leaving it to a private corporation to decide when that community is "worthy" (read profitable to the private sector). That's not in the best interest of citizens of that community.
I also am a little concerned about the representation that all of these builds are "tax liabilities." It's simply not true. While those funded by General Obligation Bonds certainly place risk on the property owner, those that are funded by Revenue Bonds or privately financed do not - the risk falls to the private investor.
Mr. McCullagh also seems miss (or falls prey to the typical Bell spin) that municipal builds will "raise taxes". While those plants constructed with General Obligation bonds may be backed with property taxes, most of the utilities that use this model of financing pay back the bond debt with user fees only, not through imposing taxes. In addition, how can those that are financed privately (revenue bonds or private financing) put the taxpayer at risk?
To take it one step further, if the citizens (or elected officials) of a community have voted to build this type of infrastructure (just like roads, sewers, etc.), isn't that local government doing what it is supposed to be doing - the will of its constituents?
And doesn't that control allow the local community to decide its future? Why place it in the hands of a "private - for profit" company that doesn't care two bits about your local economy?
The PA law is a gift to Verizon and the Bells, and an abomination to the consumers.
Pennsylvania law is in the best interests of Pennsylvanians
Peter: I think we fundamentally disagree. But let me try to respond to your points.
You claim that private sector does not act "in the best interests" of the community. Of course it does. We trust the private sector to provide food, cars, homes, fuel, entertainment -- things that are probably heck of a lot more important than low-cost WiFi. Private firms act in the best interests of the community or, at the margin, they lose business to rivals that are more savvy. Put another way, profits tend to be aligned with serving the community's interest. Businessmen act in the community's interest simply out of their own self-interest.
They tend to act in the community's interest more than city council members. If I don't like my food provider (say, a local restaurant or a grocery store), I can "fire" it trivially by going somewhere else. Ever try to "fire" an incumbent politician? Especially in a one-party city like Philly?
As for the municipal bond point, I see it this way: there are two ways for municipal governments to get money. They can't print it because they're not the federal government. So (1) they can raise taxes or (2) borrow in the form of bonds. Higher taxes at least has the benefit of being honest. Borrowing in the form of bonds also requires higher taxes -- just at a later date. It mortgages future generations to pay for a politician's current pet projects.
The PA law may be a gift to the Bells, but its principles are also aligned with the long-term interests of state residents.
That municipalities can use tax funds to implement services and have no need to recover those costs. Therefore, private buisnesses cannot compete with rates offered by municipalities.
This is 100% correct.
Municipalities are finidng that they have a need for boradband and that growing their own is cheaper than buying from a private vendor. They usually discover once the solution is in place that they have more bandwidth than they can reasonably expect to use. Selling that bandwidth back to citizens is often suggested in such a case as a means of cost recovery on the project.
Short form, municipalities don't need to be in competition with private industry, period. The necessity for profit doesn't exist, and no private company is ever going to try to compete in a zero-margin market.
But the reason most muni's even look at this to start with comes down to a number of points.
1. They're being blown off by the private sector.
2. They have exisiting infrastructure that requires the backbone (electric & water utilities), and this is a logical extension. They already own the poles and the right of way. They're not using the full asset (poles, etc) if they don't look into this....
3. They want to put in something that the private sector can't justify, but they can (economic development, etc.) or they want to set themselves ahead of the curve.
Just because Verizon can't justify it financially doesn't mean a city can't. And, to follow that up, must munis in the business went to the private sector first, only to be told "we'll lease it to you."
How is it in the best interest of taxpayers to pay the private sector more for a LEASE, when the municpality can OWN it for much less?
It's conventional wisdom that the private sector does things better, but Qantas is still flying and Ansett no longer exists. Ansett were grounded by the Australian regulatory authorities and never flew again.
In New Zealand our telecom incumbant has been able to retain its monopoly over the last mile. We have one of the lowest broadband uptakes with the some of the highest prices and lowest standards in the OECD. The bright spots are where local government has stepped in in the absence of other competition.
Rex: My point is a more modest one -- that during the timeframe of the study I cited when the two airlines were treated the same way, the private airline won hands-down. I don't know the details of what happened before. It would be easy to speculate that a later government decided it didn't like the competition and started in with discriminatory treatment -- just what could happen in Pennsylvania.
If this were 75 years ago, we would be arguing about whether rural communities waiting in the dark for investor-owned utilities to bring electricity out to their towns had the right to organize, provide electricity on their own for their citizens, and bill them, while earning a reasonable rate of return. Today, we mostly take for granted the 2000 publicly-owned municipal utilities that provide electricity at reliable levels of service and affordable rates. Besides munis, we also saw the rural electric cooperative movement allow even smaller communities to provide for themselves what the market would not.
Yet in this new, "enlightened" new century, we stand by and watch as a powerful telecom company, for all intents and purposes a near monopoly, flexes its political muscle and forecloses a similar approach to infrastructure deployment by municipalities. Having won, Verizon can schedule deployment of infrastructure to its advantage, delaying its capital investment to its shareholders benefit, and leaving local municipalities one less option to bring their voters the 21st century version of a vital service in timely and affordable fashion.
Has the pendulum swung so far that we value the rights of the corporation to such a degree over the rights of the individual or the collective municipality? This is an example of raw exercise of political power, and is unsupportable, no matter the rational arguments made about unfair competition from municipalities. Please, I think Verizon will survive a little competition. And competition does not always support the optimal solution for all, and alternatives to private sector provision of vital services should not be dismissed with such dispatch. I can only hope other states take a more deliberate approach to this issue than Pennsylvania did.
It's interesting that you bring up the example of electricity. Congress created the Rural Utilities Service in 1936 for rural areas. It's no longer needed -- but it's Yet Another Federal Program that simply will not die. That's not a good model to follow.
Electricity took many, many decades to get over 70 percent adoption (going from around 35 percent in 1920 to above ~70 percent only circa 1940).
Arguably thanks to private ISPs, the Internet is being adopted much, much faster. I don't have the definitive stats at my fingertips but I recall that 70 percent of households will have Internet access after 10 years of real-world commercialization. That's hardly an argument for aggressive government intervention.
I'm not defending the rights of corporations. The column was intended to defend the rights of (a) taxpayers in cities like Philly that may not use Internet access and shouldn't be forced to pay for it, and (b) entrepreneurs that want to provide a better service with better customer support, speed, etc. but can't because they can't compete against tax-subsidized free.
I know of many government runned utilities here in California that provide timely and cheaper service then private companies (LADWP, Alameda Power and Telecom, Sacramento MUD). Especially when the private power companies were bleeding the rest of California dry during the big power crisis that was, what?, created by a private company. Alameda also provides high- speed internet at affordable rates for its citizens.
Now if a municipality and its citizens want to start providing services that private companies choose not to, then they should have every right to do so. If they fail then they fail. If they want to tax themselves then they can tax themselves. As it has been said earlier, these things don't just happen suddenly. There were countless board meetings that happened before the city could move ahead with it.
I don't see why the state had to get involved if a locality decided to do something with their public dollars. Boy, if you were to read the law, it is a big give away to the private companies.
The Australian Airways example is not relevant to this story. If private sector thinks it can do a better job by provider better services with lower prices, it (private sector) does not need to press for laws to protect its oligopoly market. Telecommunications companies insist on a business model outdated. Last century infrastucture can not compete with current technology when deployed and applied. Wirelles networks are the way to go in telecommunications. Imagine municipal wirelles clusters interconnected to each other through internet backbone. This is a threat to phone companies, pay TV channels, satelite channels, film and record industries, even the post office should take notice. Municipalities definitely have the right to provide to citizens any service they can and for which demand is high. Private sector companies should not push for laws to discourage municipalities to provide services, they should display the capacity to compete and fullfill the void beforehand. The dogma that private sector is always more productive and more efficient than goverment must let prove itself in practice , not enforced by laws. Capitalism demands government free market but also a monopoly and oligopoy free market.
Your reliance on a study of "Ansett Australian National Airways" was a bit surprising for a number of reasons. Firstly, ANA actually later became Ansett Airlines, secondly, a 1971 study of 2 Australian Airlines is not a very convincing backing for the premise of Government inefficiency (although I wholeheartedly support that premise), thirdly, Ansett went belly up 3 years ago with hundreds of millions in debt, and the other airline, still 51% Government owned, is doing better than ever in spite of fierce competition from newer fully privately owned airlines. (in fact, its international operation is about the only international airline in the world that consistently returns a very large profit every year in the face of serious competition from all other international airlines). Can't be too careful can you?
Declan McCullagh makes a powerful argument in his column ("WiFi for everyone?"). There are good, strong and logical reasons why government communications networks may actually be the wrong way to go. But Mr. McCullagh still can't resist finding Verizon a villain in the Pennsylvania telecom act recently passed. The law requires that companies like ours build out high speed broadband to all customers. It also gives towns a mechanism for building their own networks or forcing us to build sooner.
This hardly seems like a provision that "favors Verizon over cable companies and other Internet providers." Competitors like VoIP providers can easily use these networks to provide voice service. Indeed, any Internet business can provide services over these networks. Verizon DSL or other broadband subscribers can connect where they want. Verizon prices have been falling every since we first offered DSL broadband service.
But most important, Verizon gets no exclusive right to offer service -- Comcast and many others are free to compete against us. They do and they will.
We can have it both was. There is no need for numerous, redundant fiber or cable lines - or wireless transmitters in cities - one 'utility' can do the job. There is no need for duplicative ISP Network Operations Centers to provide back-end services to the city-wide wireless 'Cloud'. Just as cities build roads, etc. - so they could install the infrastructure to support a WiFi cloud.
The detractors are correct however in pointing out how badly government run services treat customers. Once the infrastructure is installed its maintenance, operation, upgrade, and expansion should be turned over to a for-profit 'concessionaire'(s)who would be required to maintain certain service levels - or lose the franchise. Because existing ISPs already have the back end monitoring and support systems, and phone and cable companies already have the staff, equipment and management expertise to maintain physical and wireless networks - they will be far better at managing the service than a brand new municipal utility ever would. To them it would be incremental business - not the entire thing - and as incremental business it would not cost as much to provide the service to consumers as it would cost the City to do it itself. The City - in negotiating the franchise - can guarantee that consumers get the benefits of the efficiencies, and by building the system they can ensure that there is a viable WiFi option in their location.
Web giant is spending $120 million to beef up its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, according to filings with the city reviewed by the San Jose Mercury News.
The Samsung Galaxy Mini 2 S6500 could make its debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month, according to a leaked promotional image.
MIT creates a simulation to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Spacewar. A relic of the early days of minicomputers, it was one of the first computer video games and set the stage for many others, including Asteroids.
IMO I guess.
Sure, let's count sewage in there as well if you insist. But sewage != WiFi.
the article also criticizes that there can be unfair favoritism when gov't competes with private enterprise. then, it goes on to say that verizon has been given an unfair advantage over other companies to offer wireless services by the new law. i guess i can let that one rest right there: keeping municipalities out of competition offers no assurance there won't be hanky panky to favor one business over another. there are countless other examples.
the author also fails to mention one of the most successful approaches to mitigating risk on a venture: competition. here in oklahoma we're seeing competition between gov't (at tinker air force base) and private enterprise for lucrative aircraft maintenance contracts. the bidding employers/managers have a vested interest in getting things right: they'll lose their jobs if they don't.
in the end, the article presents a one-sided discussion of the issues; more an editorial than an analysis. the only "quid" that the author seems to want to offer to the other side is that he may (or may not, since he's not very specific) support some points of the new law.
mark d.
I'm not defending the fine points of the Pennsylvania law, just the principle behind it. And it is a column so it's close to an editorial in outlook -- it's meant to express a point of view.
It's not like local governments just "impose" municipal broadband on people. It happens in one of two ways - either through city council vote or through referendum. Either way, the local community takes control of its own future, rather than leaving it to a private corporation to decide when that community is "worthy" (read profitable to the private sector). That's not in the best interest of citizens of that community.
I also am a little concerned about the representation that all of these builds are "tax liabilities." It's simply not true. While those funded by General Obligation Bonds certainly place risk on the property owner, those that are funded by Revenue Bonds or privately financed do not - the risk falls to the private investor.
Mr. McCullagh also seems miss (or falls prey to the typical Bell spin) that municipal builds will "raise taxes". While those plants constructed with General Obligation bonds may be backed with property taxes, most of the utilities that use this model of financing pay back the bond debt with user fees only, not through imposing taxes. In addition, how can those that are financed privately (revenue bonds or private financing) put the taxpayer at risk?
To take it one step further, if the citizens (or elected officials) of a community have voted to build this type of infrastructure (just like roads, sewers, etc.), isn't that local government doing what it is supposed to be doing - the will of its constituents?
And doesn't that control allow the local community to decide its future? Why place it in the hands of a "private - for profit" company that doesn't care two bits about your local economy?
The PA law is a gift to Verizon and the Bells, and an abomination to the consumers.
You claim that private sector does not act "in the best interests" of the community. Of course it does. We trust the private sector to provide food, cars, homes, fuel, entertainment -- things that are probably heck of a lot more important than low-cost WiFi. Private firms act in the best interests of the community or, at the margin, they lose business to rivals that are more savvy. Put another way, profits tend to be aligned with serving the community's interest. Businessmen act in the community's interest simply out of their own self-interest.
They tend to act in the community's interest more than city council members. If I don't like my food provider (say, a local restaurant or a grocery store), I can "fire" it trivially by going somewhere else. Ever try to "fire" an incumbent politician? Especially in a one-party city like Philly?
As for the municipal bond point, I see it this way: there are two ways for municipal governments to get money. They can't print it because they're not the federal government. So (1) they can raise taxes or (2) borrow in the form of bonds. Higher taxes at least has the benefit of being honest. Borrowing in the form of bonds also requires higher taxes -- just at a later date. It mortgages future generations to pay for a politician's current pet projects.
The PA law may be a gift to the Bells, but its principles are also aligned with the long-term interests of state residents.
This is 100% correct.
Municipalities are finidng that they have a need for boradband and that growing their own is cheaper than buying from a private vendor. They usually discover once the solution is in place that they have more bandwidth than they can reasonably expect to use. Selling that bandwidth back to citizens is often suggested in such a case as a means of cost recovery on the project.
Short form, municipalities don't need to be in competition with private industry, period. The necessity for profit doesn't exist, and no private company is ever going to try to compete in a zero-margin market.
But the reason most muni's even look at this to start with comes down to a number of points.
1. They're being blown off by the private sector.
2. They have exisiting infrastructure that requires the backbone (electric & water utilities), and this is a logical extension. They already own the poles and the right of way. They're not using the full asset (poles, etc) if they don't look into this....
3. They want to put in something that the private sector can't justify, but they can (economic development, etc.) or they want to set themselves ahead of the curve.
Just because Verizon can't justify it financially doesn't mean a city can't. And, to follow that up, must munis in the business went to the private sector first, only to be told "we'll lease it to you."
How is it in the best interest of taxpayers to pay the private sector more for a LEASE, when the municpality can OWN it for much less?
In New Zealand our telecom incumbant has been able to retain its monopoly over the last mile. We have one of the lowest broadband uptakes with the some of the highest prices and lowest standards in the OECD. The bright spots are where local government has stepped in in the absence of other competition.
Yet in this new, "enlightened" new century, we stand by and watch as a powerful telecom company, for all intents and purposes a near monopoly, flexes its political muscle and forecloses a similar approach to infrastructure deployment by municipalities. Having won, Verizon can schedule deployment of infrastructure to its advantage, delaying its capital investment to its shareholders benefit, and leaving local municipalities one less option to bring their voters the 21st century version of a vital service in timely and affordable fashion.
Has the pendulum swung so far that we value the rights of the corporation to such a degree over the rights of the individual or the collective municipality? This is an example of raw exercise of political power, and is unsupportable, no matter the rational arguments made about unfair competition from municipalities. Please, I think Verizon will survive a little competition. And competition does not always support the optimal solution for all, and alternatives to private sector provision of vital services should not be dismissed with such dispatch. I can only hope other states take a more deliberate approach to this issue than Pennsylvania did.
Electricity took many, many decades to get over 70 percent adoption (going from around 35 percent in 1920 to above ~70 percent only circa 1940).
Arguably thanks to private ISPs, the Internet is being adopted much, much faster. I don't have the definitive stats at my fingertips but I recall that 70 percent of households will have Internet access after 10 years of real-world commercialization. That's hardly an argument for aggressive government intervention.
I'm not defending the rights of corporations. The column was intended to defend the rights of (a) taxpayers in cities like Philly that may not use Internet access and shouldn't be forced to pay for it, and (b) entrepreneurs that want to provide a better service with better customer support, speed, etc. but can't because they can't compete against tax-subsidized free.
I know of many government runned utilities here in California
that provide timely and cheaper service then private companies
(LADWP, Alameda Power and Telecom, Sacramento MUD).
Especially when the private power companies were bleeding the
rest of California dry during the big power crisis that was, what?,
created by a private company. Alameda also provides high-
speed internet at affordable rates for its citizens.
Now if a municipality and its citizens want to start providing
services that private companies choose not to, then they should
have every right to do so. If they fail then they fail. If they want
to tax themselves then they can tax themselves. As it has been
said earlier, these things don't just happen suddenly. There were
countless board meetings that happened before the city could
move ahead with it.
I don't see why the state had to get involved if a locality decided
to do something with their public dollars. Boy, if you were to
read the law, it is a big give away to the private companies.
If private sector thinks it can do a better job by provider better services with lower prices, it (private sector) does not need to press for laws to protect its oligopoly market.
Telecommunications companies insist on a business model outdated. Last century infrastucture can not compete with current technology when deployed and applied.
Wirelles networks are the way to go in telecommunications. Imagine municipal wirelles clusters interconnected to each other through internet backbone. This is a threat to phone companies, pay TV channels, satelite channels, film and record industries, even the post office should take notice.
Municipalities definitely have the right to provide to citizens any service they can and for which demand is high.
Private sector companies should not push for laws to discourage municipalities to provide services, they should display the capacity to compete and fullfill the void beforehand.
The dogma that private sector is always more productive and more efficient than goverment must let prove itself in practice , not enforced by laws.
Capitalism demands government free market but also a monopoly and oligopoy free market.
This hardly seems like a provision that "favors Verizon over cable companies and other Internet providers." Competitors like VoIP providers can easily use these networks to provide voice service. Indeed, any Internet business can provide services over these networks. Verizon DSL or other broadband subscribers can connect where they want. Verizon prices have been falling every since we first offered DSL broadband service.
But most important, Verizon gets no exclusive right to offer service -- Comcast and many others are free to compete against us. They do and they will.
The detractors are correct however in pointing out how badly government run services treat customers. Once the infrastructure is installed its maintenance, operation, upgrade, and expansion should be turned over to a for-profit 'concessionaire'(s)who would be required to maintain certain service levels - or lose the franchise. Because existing ISPs already have the back end monitoring and support systems, and phone and cable companies already have the staff, equipment and management expertise to maintain physical and wireless networks - they will be far better at managing the service than a brand new municipal utility ever would. To them it would be incremental business - not the entire thing - and as incremental business it would not cost as much to provide the service to consumers as it would cost the City to do it itself. The City - in negotiating the franchise - can guarantee that consumers get the benefits of the efficiencies, and by building the system they can ensure that there is a viable WiFi option in their location.