Comment on California Bill Would Require That AT&T And Comcast Make Broadband Affordable For Poor People

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midori_matcha@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

It’s prohibitively difficult to establish municipal broadband. Much, if not all of the infrastructure used for internet in the US is privately owned.

Hundreds of billions of tax dollars were once given to these ISPs to establish fiber networks all over the land, and it’s still sparsely used outside of major cities-- in favor of milking older copper lines with cable/DSL for as long as possible. None of them are working on expanding access or improving infrastructure, simply because they don’t find it profitable to do so.

The ISPs have carved out their own little fiefdoms across counties and regions, and effectively act as a cartel with all of the steadily increasing prices and no actual competition in their territories.

The way it’s set up now, there has to be lengthy lawsuits and decades of legal teeth-pulling for the state to take it all back for public broadband. Aggressive ISP lobbying has made it all practically impossible with restrictive laws and outright bans. These little wins now are merely temporary concessions that the telecom mob will be certain to undo as soon as they inject another corporate shill into the government ranks.

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