Municipal Wi-Fi Battle Moves to Texas

Cryofan writes "The fight in Texas is heating up over municipal wireless. Texas House Bill 789, under consideration in Texas, would impose one of the most extreme bans on municipal involvement in any form of communications--free or otherwise (the bill could ban free library access)."

Re:PDF of the Bill

[OverlordQ]

I hate to reply to my self but in that entire 332 page PDF the word "wireless" is mentioned exactly . . . 4 times . . yes a Whopping Four Times!

It's all about where you draw the line...

[SteelV]

The United States government already manages many public works. The United States Postal Service (although it isn't completely run by the government, it is largely funded by the government and thus, in my opinion, under government control), as well as many public works. What's different about this public offering? It can be argued that it is a necessary service in our modern age in order to communicate/do business (similar to the USPS). I think the government will probably just mess it up, like it does most things, but maybe give it a shot. Widespread, tax-payer funded Wi-Fi being funded by our tax dollars will hopefully just save it from being squandered elsewhere... but they'll probably just charge us more... sigh!

Municipal WiFi is not free.

[cowboy76Spain]

I do not understand how people can be so cinnic. They do believe municipal WiFi is free? If the city town spends money on it, then it will have to recover them from somewhere else (maybe raising the taxes to all the population, maybe giving less funding to an area that may be more important, or maybe by charging the users -as any company-). It can't just assume its costs and get in red for that.

I think the true reason /.ers like it is because, beeing usually more computer savvy -and having all of them internet- they want their neighbours that do not connect to share the connection costs.

BTW, a previous topic did state that europeans are switching from a public telephonic network to a private one because it is better... nothing more far from reality. Companies that provide social services (Postal, Communications) were often owned by the states(that granted them the monopoly) to ensure that they did provide their service to everyone, even if it was not economical (for example, providing postal service for remote small towns, where the cost of going and check if there is something to send is always bigger than any expected revenue). The reason of privatizing them now has been to allow more competence and to avoid that a state locks its country for other EU companies, and now to get the same social benefits the prefered way is for the state to sponsor them (and I can tell that some of the canges have been for worse; because the greed of the companies to win a contract and earn money often can be noted in the QoS).

Re:relevant section: 54.202

[Bent Mind]

Umm, wouldn't this ban Internet in public schools? Or are schools state owned and not run by a municipality?

Munis lay pipes, Merchants provide service

[ScrewTivo]

That is how this should work. I don't care if the pipe is copper, fibre, or radio. Then providers can set up anywhere in town and provide the gateways the community is willing to pay for. They did this for the electric utility in New York.

Re:State-run telco services have failed everywhere

[mvdwege]

Speaking as someone who lived through the transition from state-owned telco to private-owned telco, I can tell you one thing: you are talking out of your rear end.

After privatisation, the costs have gone up, the service has detoriated, and any kind of competition that even tries to arise is ruthlessly squashed.

The only ones who profited are the shareholders and the telco management. Give me a state-owned infrastructure over a rapacious bunch of MBAs anytime. I'd much prefer a communally-owned system, but for some reason the Powers That Be seem to want to squash that at all costs, no matter if the PTB are The Government or The Corporation, so I'll have to settle for the lesser of two evils for the moment.

Mart

Re:I have really mixed emotions about this.

[Vellmont]

But the question isn't do you think YOUR town should have WiFi service, the question is should the state remove the possibility of any town or government entity to supply network access? Why does the state think they need to trump local governments?

Personally I don't think most cities should get in the business of supplying wide-scale internet access. Maybe in some places it'd work, but in general I don't think it would. Small scale Wi-Fi internet access, at say an Airport, library, town-hall, etc makes a lot of sense to me. Why should the State prevent local governments from doing this? Sounds like special interest groups want to cash in by having to sub-contract with said public places to provide network access.


I do buy my water from my town (Barnegat, NJ).

It's expensive and everybody I know has a filter on their kitchen faucets or under their sinks.

I don't know anything about your local water supply, but in general people have gone crazy in this country about the purity of water. By and large it's an irrational fear since water quality of public water supplies is closely monitored. I do however filter my water with a cheap Britta because of the unknown factor of lead leaching from my plumbing, and I don't like the taste of chlorine.

And SBC corporate headquarters is located in...?

[Eternal Vigilance]

Oh, that's right - San Antonio, Texas. What a coincidence!

Looks like SBC's employees in Austin are hard at work.

Having Read The Fine Amendment (the bill amends the existing Utilities Code), here are a few salient quotes:

"...all public policy must be driven by free-market principles..."

"Sec.A54.202. PROHIBITED MUNICIPAL SERVICES. A municipality or municipally owned utility may not, directly or indirectly, on its own or with another entity, offer to the public:
(1) a service for which a certificate is required;
(2) a service as a network provider; or
(3) any telecommunications or information service, without regard to the technology platform used to provide the service."

And removed from the existing code:
"It is the policy of this state to ensure that customers in all regions of this state, including low-income customers and customers in rural and high cost areas, have access to telecommunications and information services, including interexchange services, cable services, wireless services, and advanced telecommunications and information services, that are reasonably comparable to those services provided in urban areas and that are available at prices that are reasonably comparable to prices charged for similar services in urban areas."

Roughly translated:

1. Government exists to maximize corporate profits. (When we talk about "free-market" consumers, understand we mean it in the same sense as "free-range" chickens.)

2. Citizens are prevented from organizing and offering any telecommunications service that would allow them to use their economies of scale to threaten corporate profits.

3. You'll pay whatever we want to charge you for whatever service we feel like providing, and you'll like it, since you're prevented from defending yourselves by organizing your own public service to compete with us when we ream you.

If someone wants to abide by "free-market" principles, they might start by acknowledging that a group of citizens who agree to cooperate to provide a service for the public good are a part of the market.

Any truly free and fair market should allow for a balance of both public and private participation.

Government promotion of business interests over public interests has a name: fascism. (But calling it that tends to upset the chickens, so the less-upsetting alternative used these days is "reform.")

If the communications companies (SBC alone has $40B in annual revenues, $100B in assets, and over 150,00 employees) can't compete against the residents of Plano, or Amarillo, or even Dallas, well, the real free market is tough. Compete fairly and provide a better service or find another line of work.

(And we chickens better do something about this sort of "reform" other than just post to /., or our only place in the "free market" will be plucked and hanging upside down.)

Re:this is barely news...

[morbiuswilters]

There would be nothing wrong with that, but I think you are missing the bigger picture. If a city government decides to charge for wifi access, how are they going to set it up? They could take pre-orders for early adopters, but I don't see that as generating enough revenue. If they use public funds, even if they are just borrowing them, then we are strictly back into misappropriation of tax dollars--there is always the possibility that the plan could fall through and the invested money lost, so there must be a private entity who is responsible for the debt. Okay, so we have a government run program funded by private grants, donations and private debt (which could be considered a donation if the gov't must default). However, what does "run by the government" mean? If the business of running a wifi network was being done by city employees, it would have to be off-the-clock, or else we are still using government funds for our service. Personally, I think that maintenance, and not equipment charges, are going to be the biggest cost in any long-term solution, so any administration of our wifi network is going to have to be performed by individuals paid for from the private funds or by individuals donating funds.

At this point, it should be clear that what we have is a private organization and can no longer be said to be goverment run. The risk is private, the maintenance is taken care of privately, the system is paid for privately. If the city council and the mayor want to donate their time to this project, they can, but since they are doing it off-hours it is just the same as any other citizen operating a private network. Once you realize that, you see that the only thing government can do is to force people to pay for the network under the threat of violence, imprisonment, etc... That is why I find laws like this that protect me from government projects reassuring (assuming I'm not completely misreading the whole bill).

The great thing about a private network is that it is it can take almost any form, including for-profit models or the co-operative model I provided in my original post. Peronsally, this is something I would donate time, money and bandwidth to. I think the internet is important and would assist in bringing it to as many people as possible, as long as there are suitable controls to prevent file leeching, etc... If Verizon didn't want to build a network here (and I don't see them doing so) we would have a good chance of success, assuming the individuals involved could work together effectively. What's more, we could compete against most for-profit ventures since we would have low overheads, which I think is a great thing. Now, if someone comes out with a law that prevents individuals from donating their own time and money, then I would be pissed and would certainly see it as a form of corporate welfare.

Re:this is barely news...

[Seigen]

"The point of this bill is to prevent municipalities from taxing citizens to pay for a service most people will never use." Internet access is a part of the infrastructure system. Without a decent infrastructure businesses do not get built or flourish. It is perfectly reasonable to have goverment provide it since in the end it helps the citizens. I suppose you could wait for the private sector to build roads, water and sewer systems as well, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Heck the SBC near me won't even consider offerering DSL where I am because they can't make a profit fast enough to put a small DSLAM in the remote box. I even offered to pay for the parts, but instead of giving me a real price for a small 24 port dslam (~$1500) they claim it costs $300,000 to a million to offer me DSL. No the private sector is NOT the answer to every problem since their goals are quite simply profit and not whats best for the community.

Re:this is barely news...

[Clanner]

What if the local government wants to set up wireless access because a majority of it's citizens has asked for it?

What if the government got a donation from some third party to pay for it?

If the people want it, why shouldn't the local government be able to provide it?

Government *is* supposed to mostly do what the people want, isn't it?

And to say that if enough people want something, it will get built, is a load of bull$shit. A perfect example- I live in a community of roughly 30,000 people, and we cannot get DSL access, even though all of the surrounding towns can. Why? Because SBC has limited resources and is building out their network in other, more lucrative, markets first. There's great demand in my town, but SBC has decided that there's *more* demand somewhere else. Too bad for us. By the time SBC gets around to my town, there probably won't be as much demand, which will likely bump us even lower on the list. Businesses have limited resources, and of course will go where the profit potential is highest- nothing wrong with that. But don't try to say that "if people want it, some one will provide it". That's BS and most people know it...

Re:relevant section: 54.202

[Redundant offtopic t]

As I read the sections posted by other posters, no, it wouldn't ban the 911 service, but taxpayer provided _access_ to 911.

From cmarkin's post:
Sec. 51.002. DEFINITIONS.
(2) "Basic local telecommunications service" means:
(E) access to 911 service provided by a local authority or dual party relay service;

And from Eternal Vigilance's post:
"Sec.A54.202. PROHIBITED MUNICIPAL SERVICES. A municipality or municipally owned utility may not, directly or indirectly, on its own or with another entity, offer to the public:
(1) a service for which a certificate is required;
(2) a service as a network provider; or
(3) any telecommunications or information service, without regard to the technology platform used to provide the service."

(3) plus (E) Seems to me that this would ban, say, municipality-owned emergency call boxes along roads, which is a telecomm service to access 911.