The growth of municipal broadband networks

Mon Mar 28 01:07:37 UTC 2011

Owen DeLong wrote:
> On Mar 27, 2011, at 12:35 AM, Michael Painter wrote:
>
>> Owen DeLong wrote:
>>> On Mar 26, 2011, at 11:36 PM, Jay Ashworth wrote:
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>>> From: "Owen DeLong" <owen at 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
>
> Yes, that's the reality we're faced with... The question is how do we
> overcome it and resolve the situation in the public interest. We can
> either work to resolve the problem, or, accept it as fait acompli and
> wear the yoke of corporate slavery for the rest of our lives. I, personally,
> prefer to look for alternatives.
>
> Owen

Yeah, well, I have an "Anonymous" t-shirt, but clearly I'm in the minority.
Maybe a 'turncoat' member of the Plutocracy, with multi-millions of $ laying around, can be persuaded to mount a 
Presidential campaign and try the "Change We Can Believe In" schtick again?...naaa.
Your turn.
--Michael