On 27/03/2011, at 6:35 PM, "Michael Painter" <tvhaw...@shaka.com> wrote:
> Owen DeLong wrote: >> On Mar 26, 2011, at 11:36 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote: >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>> From: "Owen DeLong" <o...@delong.com> >>>> As such, I'm sure that such a move would be vocally opposed by >>>> the current owners of the LMI who enjoy leveraging it to extort >>>> monopolistic pricing from substandard services. >>> As I noted, yes, that's Verizontal, and they have apparently succeeded >>> in lobbying to have it made *illegal* in several states. I don't have >>> citations to hand, but there are a couple sites that track muni fiber; >>> I can find some. >>> Cheers, >>> -- jra >> Laws can be changed if we can get enough momentum behind >> doing the right thing. >> Owen > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture > While I agree that laws can and should be changed and I agree that the USA's telco privatization scheme no longer fits the pace of technology, those who believe have a long way toward momentum. Those of us who believe in a muni or a national broadband infrastructure are opposed by a mountain of money (to be made) and an army of lawyers. For instance, when this army couldn't hope to have muni networking outlawed on a national basis they turned to each state legislature. They're ticking off the states one by one: http://www.cybertelecom.org/broadband/muni.htm jy
