• DigitalBits@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Honestly, essentials shouldn’t be (majority) privately owned. This includes water, sewage, electricity, most roads, and internet.

    To me, as the cables in the US are privately owned it seems that unless you “luck out”, you essentially have 1 realistic option for internet. I’ve been told that it’s fairly regional, so apparently it’s not so bad in the major cities.

    In ~99% of NZ the internet (fibre) cables are either crown-company owned (essentially state), or joint owned by private/public. This essentially makes EVERY ISP buy their bandwidth off the cable owner. There is no ISP monopoly (only a physical cable monopoly), and just like power companies, changing ISP’s is trivial. I think a lot of europe does something similar too, and apparently some cities in the US do this too.

    • hydrashok
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      1 year ago

      Would love to see this. I keep pressing my city to start a municipal network and require it for all future builds. I’d love to just run a single fiber line and be done with it forever.

      Should be just like changing long distance service was 40 years ago. They didn’t run a new phone line to your house. And this time around I don’t have to worry about dinner being interrupted by a telemarketer on my landline. :)