Poll of the Day > The Coronavirus Crisis Proves the Internet Should be a Public Utility

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://qz.com/1826043/the-coronavirus-crisis-proves-internet-should-be-a-public-utility/

The spread of the novel coronavirus around the world has made many of us shut-ins and proven conclusively that the internet should be a public utility. Its a basic necessity in the 21st century, like running water, gas, and electricity. Indeed, the United Nations in 2016 declared that internet access is a human right.

Internet service providerslike Comcastrecognize this, as evidenced by recent announcements that in these unusual times theyre relaxing data restrictions, offering free service for a limited period, suspending disconnections, and hooking up new customers. Meanwhile, many American public schools have issued laptops to students who couldnt afford them, hoping the extended disruption to studies wont disproportionately affect the poor, although this doesnt necessarily mean every kids household will be connected to the internet.
That is all very nice for now. But these charitable actions only highlight the need for widespread access regardless of economic circumstances.

Perhaps after the pandemic panic gives way to a new state of normalcy, the people will demand inexpensive and reliable high-quality broadband, and maybe private internet service providers will have to sing a different tune. They already recognize that access is essential, based on their response to the coronavirus quarantines. That will make it harder to walk back the admissions and concessions theyre making today, and they may well find that if they dont want to keep playing nice, a time will come when theyre no longer necessary because the game has totally changed.

Some snips from an article that should be fucking common sense, but apparently needs to be stated.
Imagine if we were forced to stay inside w/o internet. No teleworking. No online banking. No Amazon or other online services. It's a fucking joke that cable television is considered a utility but internet service is not.

streamofthesky posted...

They already recognize that access is essential, based on their response to the coronavirus quarantines. That will make it harder to walk back the admissions and concessions theyre making today, and they may well find that if they dont want to keep playing nice, a time will come when theyre no longer necessary because the game has totally changed.

Didn't stop them from rationing it with artificial data caps for ages to extort top dollar for functional internet for decades.

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Btw, Verizon gave us each an exta 15 GB of data through 4/30 due to coronavirus. Normally we only have 6 (actually 3, but I did some limited promotion to double it), so that's...quite the increase.

I don't need it...never have used more than 0.5 GB in a month, I have a home internet and all... But I guess it's nice to have as a backup if we lose our normal internet service.
And apparently it's not too difficult for Verizon to just hand out all this extra data usage. Hmm...

I dunno about public utility as in the government would think a 56k modem and amiga is the most you would need. And increase taxpayers burden like it was a uverse 500g plan

Also its disallowe thank your frind Ajhit and his predacessors for why it cant. Yu know those free phones and programs that are offered by big brands. Yeah they do that for free or subsidized prices so that way the government doesnt take over. Its the exact same reason why you have to file taxes when the government already knows your income better than you come jan 1rst. Aslong as the free software (albeit janky and poorly made by the tax companies) is offered then the government (USA) is not allowed to process your taxes for you only audit and enforce


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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.

Mr Hangman posted...

If it's just about putting some barriers to service termination, sure. But usually the people arguing for this are asking for sweeping regulations that they think will magically cure every annoyance they have with ISPs without being able to articulate how any of them work.

Sadly, I kind of have to agree with this.

It's easy to say "This should be this way." But it's also completely useless. What's necessary - and much, much harder - is coming up with a realistic answer to HOW things can be made to work that way.

In a perfect world, everything that should be would be, with infinite resources and perfect efficiency. But we don't live in that world.
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