You do realize that is what he is trying to do... Give you, and your neighbors the choice and opportunity to build your own (well vote to have someone build it for you) broadband network. The reason he is getting involved is that there are about 20 or so states that have laws on the book, written by the telecoms themselves, that outright ban cities, counties, municipalities, etc from building out there own network should the populace decide they want to, or puts restrictions in place that make is almost impossible to build out the network. These are protectionist laws for the incumbents, and removes YOUR choice, which you are bitching about.

Do a little research before making stupid statements, otherwise you look just like the me to people who vote straight down party lines regardless of how stupid their party is (that goes for both sides).

You do realize that Franchise Agreements are not necessarily bad. They are typically a double edged sword, both protecting consumers in that locality, but also providing (in some cases stupidly long term, 1 VA area did a 100 year agreement) a monopoly to a particular content/broadband provider.

VZ, ATT and Comcast have all lobbied the crap out of those localities, and gutted the franchise agreements, removing requirements like they have to wire up the entire area, and removing consumer protections such as limiting price hikes.

So eliminating them might not be the answer, better enforcing them when they are signed and making sure they are not stripped of any meaningful content that does not benefit the telco would be a good start.

As much as I hate Verizon (and I do really hate Verizon, but not as much as I hate Comcast), Verizon offers fixed LTE (http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/lte-internet-installed/) It's not cheap mind you, but it at least uses the same network and bands as their LTE phones, so if you get LTE phone service from VZ where you live, you should be able to get their home LTE service.

Or maybe he runs a server, or maybe he is a developer pushing out udpated ISO's every night or every few hours.. Or maybe he lives in a house with 5 roommates who all constantly play games and stream movies...

Or maybe, he just works from home and transfers allot of data between his home office and his corporate office...

Don't be a dick..

Edit: Damnit, I hate having to reply to my own post, I got the fine value wrong, it was not 45B, I just cannot find the value right now.

Actually, yes, yes I do. Go read this https://www.techdirt.com/artic...

But here is an excerpt from the story in case you are too lazy to go read.

A decade ago, we wrote about how Verizon had made an agreement in Pennsylvania in 1994 that it would wire up the state with fiber optic cables to every home in exchange for tax breaks equalling $2.1 billion. In exchange for such a massive tax break, Verizon promised that all homes and businesses would have access to 45Mbps symmetrical fiber by 2015. By 2004, the deal was that 50% of all homes were supposed to have that. In reality, 0% did, and some people started asking for their money back. That never happened, and it appeared that Verizon learned a valuable lesson: it can flat out lie to governments, promise 100% fiber coverage in exchange for subsidies, then not deliver, and no one will do a damn thing about it.

Same exact promise in NJ, Verizon backed out of that as well, and managed to avoid a 45B fine http://www.dslreports.com/show...

Oh hey, look, NY City has the same problem... http://www.theverge.com/2013/1...

So yes, I do expect Verizon to wire every single household in a particular area. They made billions of dollars on tax breaks, cities, counties and states gutted consumer protections and franchise laws to appease the likes of Verizon, ATT and Comcast, and those companies turn around, and screw the residents.

This is because the way the telecoms provide coverage data, which the FCC has typically been too scared to challenge because of the revolving door of politician to telecom employer (pretty much every FCC head has joined a major telecom, or telecom related lobby after leaving office for a shit ton of money), and they don't want to rock the boat.

Surprisingly, the current FCC head appears to have a pair of balls... although they are small, at least he is doing more than anyone else ever has.

As for why the offerings appear better than they really are. The telecom industry counts an entire zip code as being serviced as long as 1 property in that zip can get service from a particular ISP. Obviously there is usually more than 1 property getting service, but the telecoms typically cherry pick the most profitable areas in a zip, and provide them with service, and leave the rest to rot. in some cases that means maybe 25 to 50% of a zip will have actual service, but the in the numbers game, the entire 100% is counted as being serviced.

It makes things look really rosy, with lots of competition which in reality is non existent. The ISP's protect there actual broadband deployment data secret, even from the feds claiming it would harm their ability to operate. To some extent that would be true, seeing as the gov would see what is truly happening, and that would allow smaller communities (which these laws currently ban) to build out their own infrastructure.

As for all the others in the entire thread claiming this is about the gov running the internet, well, that is typical political posturing. This has absolutely nothing to do with gov control.

And as it relates to any topic, a person writing a story or an article can always find a slant one way or another to meet their own political views or agendas.

As far as new taxes, have you looked at your bill recently.. all those lovely below the line fee's disguised as taxes of some sort, or regulatory recovery fees, you know things that should be included in the price because they are the cost of doing business, but instead are disguised as creative taxes and fees which are not mandated by any gov (state local or federal) entity, just so the company can keep it's base advertized price the same and claim they are not raising prices.

Under regulation, this would hopefully go away. Also, the feds have said they do not have to apply all of the Title II regulations (and they specifically call out the tax portions) to ISPs.

Reading comprehension fail... I completely missed what you had in parenthesis...

I will take my beatings

Easter egg.. sorta...

Look at the first letter of each paragraph :)

If they are cycling those kinds of distances without a support vehicle, they are stupid and let Darwin have his shot. The statement is correct, very very rarely will a cyclist be without the ability to obtain water, even when riding distances. And as has been previously pointed out numerous times, the amount of fluid you would need to take in to generate water in this devices, far outweighs what this device can produce. You are screwed either way

Not to mention when out on the trails, you inevitably come across a rider who did not bring enough water, and you have to share (well you don't have to, but you would be an ass not to)

We use thinks like NUUN, Gatorade powder (this stuff sucks and makes you more thirsty, but is not the same as what comes in Gatorade you buy at the 7 11), and dozens of other brands. basically fancy salt tabs with some additional stuff. Some of them are tasty.. some not so much.

I'm a cyclist. So I can safely say, that serious cyclist spending $5k+ on a bike are doing so for weight. Those are the same people who spend $100 for a carbon bottle cage that weighs only a few grams less than a $5 plastic or metal cage. They will most likely never purchase something like this for any serious use. Those that do, are those who have more money than sense, and buy expensive bikes so they can ride down the trail at 5mph on their expensive bikes in their expensive clothing blocking the paths looking like a cyclist. As for me, I do 100 mile rides regularly, for events, there are always rest stops every 20 miles or so, for non events, rarely are you going to cycle any place that you won't be able to find water to refill your bottle at least every 40 or 50 miles (I can go 40 to 50 miles on 2 bottles of water). And if they are in areas like that, odds are they will have a camelback or something similar for water, and additional supplies (tubes, tools, nutrition etc).

I drive an AMG C63.. slightly higher risk car :)