A people-owned internet exists. Here is what it looks like

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: July 26, 2017 at 10:19:30 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] A people-owned internet exists. Here is what it looks like
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> A people-owned internet exists. Here is what it looks like
> The future of the internet is in peril, thanks to surveillance, net neutrality and other assaults. But there are 
> communities that are building their own
> By Nathan Schneider
> Jul 26 2017
> <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/26/people-owned-internet-exists-net-neutrality>
>
> Like many Americans, I don’t have a choice about my internet service provider. I live in a subsidized housing 
> development where there’s only one option, and it happens to be, by some accounts, the most hated company in the 
> United States.
>
> Like its monstrous peers, my provider is celebrating that Congress has recently permitted it to spy on me. Although 
> it pretends to support the overwhelming majority of the country’s population who oppose net neutrality, it has been 
> trying to bury the principle of an open internet for years and, under Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, is 
> making good progress.
>
> I can already feel my browsing habits shift. I’m reigning in curiosities a bit more, a bit more anxious about who 
> might be watching. I’ve taken to using a VPN, like people have to do to access the open internet from China. And the 
> real effects go deeper than personal anxieties. 
>
> Although the fight for an open internet tends to have Silicon Valley tech bros at the forefront, it’s a racial 
> justice issue; arbitrary powers for corporations tend not to help marginalized populations. It’s a rural justice 
> issue, too. 
>
> The big service providers pushing the deregulation spree are the same companies that have so far refused to bring 
> broadband to less-dense areas. They are holding under-served communities hostage by proposing a deal: roll back 
> rights to private, open media, and we’ll give you cheaper internet. Trump’s Republican party is taking the bait.
>
> This is not a deal we need to make. It shouldn’t be necessary to choose between universal access and basic rights. 
> But this deal has been a long time coming, thanks to long campaigns to convince us there is no other way. It turns 
> out, though, there is.
>
> Up in the mountains west of me, a decade and a half ago, the commercial internet service providers weren’t bringing 
> high-speed connectivity to residents, so a group of neighbors banded together and created their own internet 
> cooperative. Big providers love making their jobs sound so complicated that nobody else could do it, but these people 
> set up their own wireless network, and they still maintain it. 
>
> Of course, their service remains pretty rudimentary; the same can’t be said of Longmont, Colorado, a city 20 minutes 
> from where I live in the opposite direction. There, the city-owned NextLight fiber network provides some of the 
> fastest connectivity in the country for a reasonable price. In Longmont, all the surveillance and anti-neutrality 
> stuff simply isn’t relevant.
>
> “As a not-for-profit community-owned broadband provider, our loyalty is entirely to our customer-owners,” a spokesman 
> recently told the local paper. “That will not change, regardless of what happens to the FCC regulations in question.”
>
> Municipalities across the country, from Santa Monica to Chattanooga, have quietly created their own internet service 
> providers – and for the most part residents love them, especially in comparison to the competition. 
>
> A major reason more towns haven’t followed suit is that the big telecoms companies have lobbied hard to discourage or 
> outright ban community broadband, pressuring many states to enact legal barriers. It’s happening again in West 
> Virginia. But the tide may be turning. 
>
> Consumer Reports has taken up a crusade against these restrictions. Colorado has one on the books, but jurisdictions 
> can opt out by referendum. Following Longmont’s example, in the 2016 election, the citizens of 26 cities and counties 
> in the state opened the door to building internet service providers of their own.
>
> Local government isn’t the only path for creating internet service accountable to its users. On the far western end 
> of the state, an old energy cooperative called Delta Montrose Electric Association has created a new offering for its 
> member-owners, Elevate Fiber. It delivers a remarkable 100 megabits per second – upload anddownload – to homes for 
> $50 a month. 
>
> Electric co-ops once brought power to rural areas to people that investor-owned companies wouldn’t serve, and now 
> they’re starting to do the same with broadband. The Obama-era FCC supported these efforts. Donald Trump has voiced 
> support for rural broadband in general, but it remains to be seen whether that will mean subsidies for big 
> corporations, whose existing customers despise them, or opportunities for communities to take control of the internet 
> for themselves.
>
> Whatever happens in Washington, we can start building an internet that respects our rights on the local level. What 
> would be the best route for creating community broadband in your community?
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: <http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/>



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