LogFAQs > #936444622

Mr Hangman posted...

The crisis highlights the importance of ubiquitous broadband internet. Whether that means it should be a public (as in publically owned) utility is another question enitrely that nothing about this crisis proves in any way. "Like water, gas, and electricity." Gas and electric utilities are sometimes publicly owned, but usually are private. You can make a "common sense" argument about the objectives we should have in terms of access and quality of internet connections, but there's absolutely nothing close to an obvious "common sense" solution when it comes to the regulatory structure surrounding it, that's incredibly complicated, and this article like so many others glosses right over all of that.

Public utlity =/= publicly owned
It means it's recognized as an essential service and is regulated by a public utlities board.

Phone, electric, gas... none of these are government-owned. They're regulated by them, though. And there are restrictions in place to ensure people can't have their service terminated easily.