On the most recent episode of This Week in Tech (TWiT), Leo and the gang discussed a couple of the most recent efforts to ban municipal broadband, which is essentially local government providing broadband. I'm all for the idea of the government stepping in and taking a larger role in providing broadband access, treating broadband like a utility.
However, that idea is met with a considerable amount of resistance from those in the private sector, like SBC (AT&T as I understand it). They view government involvement as interference in the market, and unfair competition... which it may well be. However, if a city government wishes to provide city wide wi-fi as a service to their citizens, I don't have a problem with that. After all, industry would be slow to move into most locations with low population areas with newer broadband technologies (read: wifi)... or slow to move into any situation which it didn't see as profitable or sufficiently explainable to shareholders.
The blog post they mentioned was on zdnet - "Revealed: Muni WiFi's enemy #1 is SBC-AT&T's #1 campaign contribution recipient". It may just be coincidence that the legislator who proposed a ban on municipal broadband was the #1 recipient in congress of SBC's money. Well... ok, so we all know better... but I wanted to at least entertain the idea for a second.
I'm committed to the idea that lobbyists should be locked in a small room with each other and a pile of one dollar bills to fight over for eternity... oh, and that corporations should not be able to contribute to campaign funds. I just need to think of a way to organize my ideas (which a lot of people hold) into something fruitful.
Posted by Jordan at February 22, 2006 7:55 PM | TrackBack