“A couple of months ago, I interviewed a woman in public housing in the small town of Wilson, North Carolina. She told me that the best thing that ever happened to her family was getting internet access over the city’s municipal fiber network,” Susan Crawford writes for Wired. “Included in her monthly rent bill is a $10 fee for 50 Mbps symmetric access (equal uploads and downloads). Why is this so wonderful? Because her sons are getting better grades, now that they don’t have to go to the library to use the internet.”
“Sadly, New York City is far behind Wilson, NC when it comes to ensuring ubiquitous, reasonably priced fiber optic internet access for every resident,” Crawford writes. “As far as anyone can tell, the digital divide in the city is stunning: A September 2015 audit by City Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office found that more than a quarter of city households lacked “broadband” internet access (defined as any wired connection other than dial-up, meaning that monthly subscriptions to totally antiquated DSL connections over copper lines qualified).”
“In our flagship city, prices for second-rate (non-fiber) access are artificially sky-high and out of reach for many families. And what’s so remarkable is that the city actually does have the regulatory authority to do something about inadequate competitive fiber access in Manhattan and the Bronx,” Crawford writes. “The problem is that, as far as I can tell, the city that never sleeps is, in fact, asleep: It is not taking advantage of its powers. That is why I sued the city five years ago seeking information about its regulatory efforts.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The lack of competition in the ISP market results in overpricing and under-investment by the ISP monopolies.
Competition is the keen cutting edge of business, always shaving away at costs. — Henry Ford
Competition is not only the basis of protection to the consumer, but is the incentive to progress. — Herbert Hoover