Despite the FCC, more than 750 predominantly conservative US communities have built their own publicly owned ISPs

[doctorow]

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/01/24/breaking-internet-loses-votes.html

…

[Boundegar]

Well they’re going to regret it when they see the cool Spectrum commercials.

(Time-Warner was so ashamed of their record on customer service they changed their name to Spectrum.)

[anon50609448]

Of course most places setting them up are conservative communities. Contempt for the law is a Republican value. I don’t see how this relates to congressional Republicans, though, since contempt for the people who elected you is also a Republican value.

[jeff_fisher]

I suspect this is mostly because lightly populated areas vote republican, and lightly populated areas have a very large number of small towns and cities. Its essentially a measurement bias where Tacoma WA, which has municipal fiber broadband, with its 200,000 or so residents is considered equal to one 50 person mountaintop town comcast can’t be bothered to operate in.

I also suspect that out of the way rural places are most likely to setup public internet, because the corporations can’t be bothered or charge a huge amount because serving such a tiny market won’t ever make them money.

Rural phone service is heavily subsidized by taxes paid on non-rural phone service. I think internet is not.

[lolipop_jones]

Good for them. Local broadband co-ops are exactly the right solution to the problem of poor or no coverage in sparsely populated areas.

I don’t think there is any connection with the net neutrality vote, though. The net neutrality rules which were recently overturned did not mandate any rollout of broadband coverage to all unserved locations.

[anon24181555]

Did you see the Burger King Whopper ads on net neutrality?

[MadLibrarian]

A lot of the small community based broadband are started because Comcast, Spectrum or whoever can’t be bothered to provide internet service to those far flung communities; it would be too expensive difficult, or whatever. But they will fight tooth and nail to keep you from doing it yourself; it is truly ‘dog in the manger’.

[timrowledge]

“Cooperative “? “Community “? A lot of the same letters as “communist” in there… mighty suspicious I’d say…