<story><title>Want 50Mbps Internet in your town? Threaten to roll out your own</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/want-50mbps-internet-in-your-town-threaten-to-roll-out-your-own.ars</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>DanielBMarkham</author><text>Speaking as somebody on satellite, and not happy about it, there are two parts to this problem.&lt;p&gt;Part one is connecting fiber to every house back to some centralized switching station. This part can, and should, be financed and regulated by government in much the same way power lines are.&lt;p&gt;Part two is what happens at the switching stations -- who controls the service and bandwidth to the homes. This part should be as free and open as possible, and each home should have at &lt;i&gt;least&lt;/i&gt; three available services competing for its business.&lt;p&gt;We seem to lump all of these problems together when we talk about the problem of internet connectivity. I don&apos;t know why. Maybe it&apos;s just easier that way. But it obfuscates certain parts of the discussion.&lt;p&gt;For instance, in this story things got very interesting once two suppliers were competing to connect fiber. Why? Because whoever connected the fiber would run the service, ie, have the business. It shows that as things stand, you physically have to be willing and able to take the fiber right into the house to make the current monopolistic providers increase their service.</text></comment>
<story><title>Want 50Mbps Internet in your town? Threaten to roll out your own</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/want-50mbps-internet-in-your-town-threaten-to-roll-out-your-own.ars</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nuclear_eclipse</author><text>And as I found out first hand, if the only internet provider in town starts to roll out bandwidth caps, just raise a ruckus until your senator drops legislation on the table banning caps, and then watch your ISP become a sour grape and refuse to roll out DOCSIS3 in retaliation...&lt;p&gt;Internet really needs to become a public utility operated by the city/state on cost, rather than to line the pockets of greedy corporations...</text></comment>