« Ricochet, at Long Last, Dead | Main | Alternative to VPN: IronKey's Secure Network »

March 31, 2008

Toronto Columnists: City Owned Exclusive Broadband a Good Deal

By Glenn Fleishman

Scary idea to force Torontonians to implement universal broadband, even to those with broadband: I’ll admit I don’t understand Canada as well as I should, but this column in the Toronto Star advocates public ownership of broadband in the city that would supplant all privately supplied broadband to homes. I’m not kidding. Toronto Hydro is considering selling its telecom division, which includes its well-engineered but limited One Zone service (6 sq km of downtown).

This op-ed recommends that the city buy the division, and have it build service, which they estimate at about $100 per household, which could save $300 to $400 per household per year for those with broadband. But that means that they prefer any market for broadband to be destroyed in favor of a publicly owned and operated network. Which, frankly, would scare me if such a thing were proposed in my city.

It’s not so much that any given broadband firm is so marvelous that I wouldn’t prefer another. (I am surprisingly happy with my DSL from incumbent Qwest, including their fantastically improved technical support.) But, rather, that cities seem to do best in ensuring that missing pieces of all kinds are provided to those least able to advocate for themselves. This, in my mind, extends to cities providing incentives for supermarkets to be built in disadvantaged areas. (There’s always an irony that people least able to afford food must travel the furthest to obtain food at prices below that offered in their neighborhood, typically through convenience stores. That’s changing.)

One prominent argument that I found myself agreeing with when the discussion of municipal Wi-Fi was in its infancy was the problem of building a broadband network that used taxpayer dollars to improve the lot of some citizens, often those who could afford a variety of broadband options. Plans that used city budgets to reduce costs for telecom or provide municipal services are more egalitarian, and seem to have won the day.

In this case, the op-ed writers are suggesting a course that would eliminate all competition. Can anyone trust their city well enough that they support starting a bureaucracy that would completely de facto (not de jure) prevent any better service from being installed? Or that would require you to pay as part of your taxes for service that you wouldn’t use?

The columnists do more sagely suggest that a “city-wide fibre/wireless network could be an important boost to city departments and other civic services that have growing needs for networking, such as education, libraries, police and emergency health services.”

Posted by Glennf at March 31, 2008 1:50 PM

Categories: Municipal

Comments

Post a comment