Hi, Ed,
Very interesting!
I keep mulling this idea that broad band build-out CAUSES economic development.
Putting aside the correlation/causality problem for a bit and assuming per
argumentum that it does work, HOW does it work? In practice, who uses gigabyte
speed, and for what? Let’s say I am a small business in Santa Fe making
Widgets or selling Widget Repair Services. Suddenly 1-gig broad band comes to
my neighborhood, what am I suddenly enabled to do that I couldn’t do before? I
assume that if there is a group of people in the World capable of giving that
issue a good airing, it would be this list. I would particularly like to hear
from members in far-flung places that have this sort of service. Is it
available in Europe?
Allow me to put the Luddite position. Here’s a quote adapted from Julian
Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot.
“[Flaubert] didn’t just hate BROADBAND as such; he hated the way it flattered
people with the illusion of progress. What was the point of scientific advance
without moral advance? BROADBAND would merely permit more people to LOG ON,
meet and be stupid together.”
My Inner Luddite assumes that the chief drivers of broadband-envy are gaming
and movie downloads. He finds neither of these activities morally urgent.
How is he wrong about this? Can somebody make the case?
Nick
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
<http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/
From: Friam [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Edward Angel
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2016 7:48 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Ting Internet | Crazy fast fiber Internet for US cities
I have a difficult time believing that Ting will decide to come here. Some of
the reasons:
The pricing is very interesting. Right now I pay about $60/month for 80 mbps
downloads and 5-6 mbps uploads. The service has been very reliable. So it
sounds good to have the possibility of getting gigabit speeds for only another
$30/month. The other side of this is that the $60/month is about twice what I
would pay for the speed I get elsewhere so it’s not clear that the biggest
contribution Ting might make is to lower the monopolistic rates Comcast and
Qwest get away with. More important is that I question how many households in
Santa Fe really need gigabit speeds. FRIAMers are not representative of the SF
population and even among us, how many of us need that speed..
The second issue is where the service would be available. At their range of
costs per drop, they would be restricted to a small radius in the center of the
city. I live a couple of miles up Hyde Park Road near the Santa Fe Institute.
We have all underground utilities so I can’t see any way Ting will ever get up
here. The $9 vote even if all 100 or so of my neighbors did it seems totally
irrelevant.
But my largest problem by far is issue of cherry picking and providing service
in only select areas which for residential customers means where the rich
people live. That leaves out most of the residents who are poor and live on the
south side of the city. As I understand it, Ting would not be required to
provide service to the schools, most of which are on the south side. I suppose
one could take the position that as a private company Ting should be able to
decide who it wants to attract as customers. On the other hands, then what is a
“public” utility? This was a major issue when I was involved with the city
trying to stop and then fix their 2010 telcom franchise ordinance. One
interesting side note to that sad effort is that Qwest tried to block the
franchise ordinance which would have allowed cherry picking arguing that they
(Qwest) had to provide service for everyone and it would be unfair competition
to allow other telcoms to pick their customers. This issue was part of the
reasons Qwest sued the city over the ordinance.
Santa Fe has an over 20 year history of making disastrous decisions on telcom
that prevented putting in the infrastructure that would have created an
environment where companies like Ting could come here and provide premium
service while all residents would be guaranteed a decent affordable level of
service. At this point I tend to agree with what I see as Sean’s view that
progress will be incremental. Sad situation for most of the residents of Santa
Fe, especially the school kids.
I encourage any of you that are interested in this issue to get on the 1st mile
list serve (http://www.1st-mile.org/). There’s lots of information there about
what is going on here and in other communities by people who have many years of
experience working on these issues.
Ed
_______________________
Ed Angel
Founding Director, Art, Research, Technology and Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab)
Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of New Mexico
1017 Sierra Pinon
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505-984-0136 (home) [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
505-453-4944 (cell)
http://www.cs.unm.edu/~angel
On Mar 5, 2016, at 11:26 AM, Nick Thompson <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
Dear Friammers, particularly those in Santa Fe,
I have been rummaging around on the Ting Website trying to figure out how this
thing could possibly work. Fibre? Really?
<https://ting.com/blog/internet/charlottesville/>
https://ting.com/blog/internet/charlottesville/
Look at the second item in the blog. Apparently they have an interesting
“foot-in-the-door” strategy, which they are using in Charlottesvill, VA. They
ask you to kick in $9 dollars to “vote” for your neighborhood.
Also, at the city level, one can express interest. See
<https://ting.com/internet/townvote> https://ting.com/internet/townvote
Nick
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