Broadband-Internet.GOV - Internet as Utility
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Some people wearing tinfoil hats are afraid that internet becoming a utility will mean government spies prying into your personal matters. So far, local governments have been setting up the broadband access, and they have little time or reason to spy. Even if the government instituted data collection, being on a corporate server would not keep you from it. All ISPs are equally vulnerable to government penetration. At least with CIA wiretaps listening in, you would only need to worry if you were doing something highly illegal. Major corporations are far more likely to pry into personal browsing and spending habbits; collecting the information for third parties, advertisers, and their own marketing department can be a profitable venture.
Moving to local government control is a model all areas should strive for. In Great Britain, Tony Blair urged all of his country to set up local public ISPs, and he offered to give the first to produce full access $18.8 million. Even countries like Korea are fully wired by the government, and they have access speeds many times those here in the states.
Government control of Wi-Fi or fiber optic networks prevents duplication of service. Even if places follow the model of Philadelphia, the contracted companies won’t have such a great investment to start up, so there will be more competition and more affordable prices. It would ensure equitable access to all citizens and businesses, helping the whole community’s commerce to grow rather than just a few major communications companies.
The problem for small governments is that big businesses have much bigger budgets to help push legislature. Forcing citizens to go to the polls to vote on the issue is in their favor. Ads could sway voters who don’t understand the implications of the polls, like in Lafayette. The opposing companies pray this will work. To help inform the people of Lafeyette, the citizens formed an organization called Lafayette Yes! and built a webpage (http://www.lafayetteyes.org). In it, they do a good job of explaining their concern with building this new infrastructure:
Do we say Yes! to our future or do we simply sit back and allow big out-of-state companies to tell us what to do and when to do it?…For more than 50 years, Lafayette worked to find a way to build a deep-water port…to increase business and trade in and out of Lafayette while making the most of our cultural advantages. Likewise, today, the LUS fiber optic network is our long-awaited opportunity to build a “digital deep-water port" enabling us to transact commerce with the entire world, while offering our unique cultural products and services to an expanding market. And prospects for development of a robust local film industry, computer game industry center, and music industry cluster are greatly enhanced by this kind of technology. This means good, high-paying jobs that our children will stay in Lafayette for. And that is perhaps the most important thing.
While many states have succumbed to legislation that would be a burden on public ISPs, Lafayette may have its own service soon. This is a premier battleground for this brand of legal dispute, and it could help to set a trend with other communities that share this vision. If there’s any justice, Lafayette will indeed say Yes! in July.
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