this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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My internet is run by my coop power company, just a reminder that all the major ISPs took billions and promised fiber and then royalty fucked us, so now my internet is run by a rural power company.
Call your power company and find out if they're installing fiber. Support this move as it weakens Comcast and AT&T's death grip.
Net Neutrality has been taken away before and it can be taken away again. Just get with a coop. I've torrented literal terabytes without even an email telling me not to .
Co-ops are a good thing^tm^ , I belong to several small co-ops, from electric, to telephone, to farm.
A coop near us is rolling out 1Gb fiber up/down to rural homes. Considering most of them could only get DSL or use 4G/3G internet, it is amazing. I have to wait to see if they come in town for their rollout, as they have to pay another power company to use their power poles. Everyone I know is switching to the coop as it is cheaper, more stable, and unlimited.
my power company is privately owned :(
I didn't even know co-op power companies were common, it seems like an odd (but good) service to be provided by a co-op. I wonder if there's any in the UK
They're mostly in rural parts of the states where private (read: investor owned) utilities determined the region wouldn't turn a large enough profit to expand there and the state's public utility commission didn't mandate their expansion
Ah I see, well it's nice the circumstances existed for them to come about. It's good having goods and services being provided by co-ops, for the workers especially but usually for the customers too.
This is a better idea than Net Neutrality. Stop begging government to fix things for you when you and your neighbors can just fix it yourself.
The thing is though public utilities are supposed to be implemented and paid for by the tax payers of the area. Suggesting that the government shouldn't be doing what we pay tax money for doesn't make sense. That would be like saying , "oh, I know your taxes pay for your government to upkeep the roads, but stop bothering them about it and you and your neighbours band together to fix that sink hole, and those potholes, and reline that crosswalk".
Plus these ISP's took government money to provide and upgrade infrastructure and then didn't do that and faced basically no consequences.
ISPs mostly aren't public utilities, so none of that applies to them. Taxes generally don't go to them. They're no more public utilities or tax funded than a company that would come to your house and cut your grass.
It is true that several times in the last few decades the government has handed ISPs some cash in exchange for doing specific things like expanding service to certain areas. It's more than justified to be mad at them for not holding up their end. That doesn't make them public utilities, though. The government deserves a bunch of blame for that, too, because it's stupid and handed a bunch of private companies a bunch of money with no accountability mechanism. Of course they're gonna take the money and run.
That's why I'm saying stop trusting the government to fix things like this.
The government gave these companies money to build up and expand their infrastructure though. On more than one occasion. And we don't have anything to show for it.