Would you rather have community or corporate control?

Federal law dictates that you if want to ship a letter via UPS or FedEx (or any third party), they must charge you twice the USPS or three dollars. Which ever is greater.
Doesn't exactly meet my standard of competition.

Not exactly the same thing, but it would be if....
The city of Philadelphia let you use Comcast or Verizon if they had to charge you $2/Gb vs $0.50/Gb or free.

Competition and innovation online occur not in delivery, but on content.
Installing wide scale wi-fi, while not trivial isn't exactly building a Pyramid, a Gothic Cathedral or an Apollo project. There isn't any innovating in installation. Many pockets lined, many dollars changing hands. Call my cynical, but I don't think any new technology will come out of it.

The question is, do I want community or corporate control? With community control, it immediately becomes a political question. And you can get nonsense like this. Corporate control means open the taps, I sort it out, and if I don't like it, I have options, and I can take my business elsewhere.

My $0.02.

With community control - it becomes a democratic question - not just a 'political' one. I understand lack of faith in bureaucracy - but you seem to lack faith in voters there.

If I understand you correct - you believe that delivery is simply infrastructure and not a place where innovation will occur - that's real close to the point. In software engineering there is a belief in the 'dumb network' and it's in the end points - the application points - that logic and process should lie. Hence, just like you state, that is where the innovation will occur.

Having a level of broadband available to the citizens at a decent rate - infrastructure - along with allowing competition for more advanced, higher speed services if desired - not only makes sense - it makes as much sense as having community control of paved roads.

Karl, I do have faith in voters; after November 2nd ;) and especially January 30th. However, "community control" as an idea does not scale well. It gets political. My HOA is a perfect example. You think 400 homes could agree on simple things (like trash collection), but it's incredibly bitter.

You mention roads. Is PennDOT a community organization? How do we control that? We don't. It's political. You need to be politically active and involved. And even then, you might not get your way. That's not community control. That's cedeing control.

If 10 neighbors or a city block want to buy a commercial internet connection, and manage it amongst themselves, that's one thing. It's another for 100,000 or 1,000,000 of them to manage it.

First question is, who provides it? Comcast,Verizon, infinate smaller companies? a minority-owned ISP? John Street's friends? Sam Katz's friends?
How do you get it? Wireless. But how? What if you don't have wireless equipment? Do you buy it for everyone? Do they buy it? What if they're low income?
What's the bandwidth? Is there a monthly download limit?
Now you have to support it somehow. How does that work?
Some may want porn blocked from it, it's government run afterall. Some won't. Will a google search for "breast cancer" come back legit, or will stuff be blocked?

Another thing, how many people who have a computer in their home do not have an internet connection? I would wager a very small percentage. So you're in effect subsidizing internet access for a small group people who don't have it, and didn't find it of enough utility to purchase it on their own.
How is that fair to the entire community?

And how is it fair to those without computers? Should we purchase computers for them too?

We do have control over PennDOT. It's not direct - but if the roads aren't taken care of in a way people are satisfied with - then our political representatives get voted out of office. There is nothing stopping the folks from Bucks from voting their displeasure at the ballot box. That's the way representative democracy works and I *like* our form of government very much thank you.

"First question is, who provides it? Comcast,Verizon, infinate smaller companies? a minority-owned ISP? John Street's friends? Sam Katz's friends?
How do you get it? Wireless. But how? What if you don't have wireless equipment? Do you buy it for everyone? Do they buy it? What if they're low income?
What's the bandwidth? Is there a monthly download limit?
Now you have to support it somehow. How does that work?
Some may want porn blocked from it, it's government run afterall. Some won't. Will a google search for "breast cancer" come back legit, or will stuff be blocked?"

These are some interesting questions and should be addressed.

"Another thing, how many people who have a computer in their home do not have an internet connection? I would wager a very small percentage. So you're in effect subsidizing internet access for a small group people who don't have it, and didn't find it of enough utility to purchase it on their own.
How is that fair to the entire community?"

You're missing the impact of small businesses and startups using this service and building upon it. Just as they do the electrical grid.

I never said I have a problem with our form of government. Community control implies a direct democracy one man-one vote, not a republic.
How is voting anyone out of office in displeasure going to help build a road in Bucks? It's not. It just sets the new guy back on the seniority list. PennDOT is one of the most intensely political bodies in our state. A road build here is one not built there. It's Bucks vs Blair vs Allegheny vs Lackawanna vs vs vs vs the other 63. I-76 has been f'd up since the ribbon was cut in the 50s. Why hasn't it been fixed?
How long was the Blue Route under construction? Where's my Pulaski Expressway? Or my 422 spur into Phoenixville? Yet things like I-99 get built? That's politics. Not community control.
If that's community control, it's a terrible example of community control.

I'm not missing the impact of internet for small businesses. I'm a small business. I use the internet. I found it of extreme utilty in running my business. That's why I've been paying for it since 1995.

Extreme example:
A hydroponic basement marijuana grower isn't going to suddenly use free electricity (if he didn't use it before) in his operation because it's delivered to his doorstep by the government. If he wasn't on the grid, he would have been running a generator long before then, or paying PECO to connect and provide service when he started his business.
If he was a decent business man, the profit gained by growing with lamps will have far exceed the electrical start up costs. It pays for itself!

What kind of business would be improved by getting something for free that they would pay $20, $30, $50/month before? If they can't afford the cost, I'd argue they're barely hanging on to begin with. A company that needs to be online is already online.
If you're a new business, and you find the internet useful, you're not going to wait for John Street to give it to you. You're going to have it when the doors open.

If you're at home with a computer, you very likely have internet access (the figure i saw was 80%/w computer in 2000; it can only be higher now); and if you don't have a computer at home, what's free internet access at home going to do for you?

How many schools and libraries in the city don't have internet access? If there are any left, those should be wired; it's like a school having no books.

Yes, it would be great to sit on the Art Museum steps and email. But if it was so important I had to have it, wouldn't I have a blackberry? Wouldn't I have an internet connection on my cellphone hooked up to my laptop?

I remain unconvinced of it's use to the city as an entity, other than bragging rights against other cities. But this is Philadelphia we're talking about. Perhaps someone can get rich off of the process.
To individuals, the internet is useful. But the ones that think so can already get to it.