Wisconsin Kills WiscNet, Because The Only Good Infrastructure Is AT&T Infrastructure
from the infrastructure dept
Support for the "free market" is a phrase that is often abused by companies to really mean "support for this particular company." It seems that's what's happening in Wisconsin with AT&T. The University of Wisconsin has been pretty instrumental in its role in developing key internet infrastructure technologies, which it uses in various ways. The current WiscNet helps supply high speed internet to Wisconsin schools and libraries, and also acts as an important testbed for new technologies. And AT&T hates it. So it was able to kill it off by suggesting it was somehow anti-free market:The move was accomplished via an eleventh hour provision AT&T managed to get inserted into the budget, in a state ranked 43rd in broadband access nationwide. Christopher Mitchell at Community Broadband Networks directs our attention to the fact that Internet 2 President H. David Lambert tried to help prevent WiscNet's defunding, writing a letter to Wisconsin's Governor Walker regarding his since-successful effort to help AT&T kill WiscNet:We see this all too often in the telco world. If there were real competition, this probably wouldn't be an issue. But so many telcos seem to focus on making sure that they're the only game in town, creating a monopoly -- which is a real "free market" problem. Contrary to what people are saying, this isn't a "free market" issue, this is an issue of regulatory capture, leading to diminished infrastructure.AT&T's ability to crush any and all public Wisconsin broadband benefit projects would be slightly-less obxnoxious if AT&T was providing the kind of infrastructure that made all of these projects unnecessary, but they're simply not. AT&T connectivity in many parts of Wisconsin consists of over-priced T1s, and lawmakers there are more than happy to write laws protecting AT&T ability to not only over charge for outdated infrastructure, but ensuring that connectivity-strained communities have no alternatives. Wisconsin's AT&T-run government is the future for all states without serious U.S. political reform, and the result will inevitably be disastrous for the future of cutting-edge connectivity.Yet, just when other states in the country are scrambling to invest in network infrastructure to help their universities rise to meet the international research and education challenge, this legislation could essentially disconnect Wisconsin from the global research it now leads. The result would be devastating. As the only intensive research institution in the United States that would be barred from participating in its own networks, Wiscnet and Internet2, the University, with respect to the ability to participate in global research, would become an immediate equivalent of a third-world University.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: broadband, competition, free market, infrastructure, internet 2, wiscnet, wisconsin
Companies: at&t
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
just goes to show
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: just goes to show
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is a naked power grab, and those hired thugs^H^H^H^H^H *legislators* should be ashamed of themselves.
I'm not surprised, but at the same time utterly appalled, at how transparently greedy our elected officials - at all levels - have become.
I know that I am becoming increasingly ashamed of my 20 years of military service to protect selfish prigs such as these.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Beneficial to local businesses
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Beneficial to local businesses
It's not likely they abide by it much being that such a determination would be wholly arbitrary and AT&t could easily take it as a loss-leader just to keep competitors out.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Beneficial to local businesses
The demise of WiscNet will open opportunities for local entrepreneurs and ISPs. AT&T might get some of the business, but local firms will get a lot of it. And that means new jobs and more money staying in the local economy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Beneficial to local businesses
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Beneficial to local businesses
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Beneficial to local businesses
But the researchers and faculty and students (and citizens) can. They know that they've been royally screwed here, and that no amount of nonsensical blathering about "local businesses" matters. It's just so much BS.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Beneficial to local businesses
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Article updated:
They've amending the budget to keep the money and not make themselveslook like idiots by giving back the $40 million. Then they're conducting some sort of audit (another waste of money) which only delays for two years, but does not get rid of, the restrictions that ATT wants on WiscNet...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
We have the opposite problem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: We have the opposite problem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: We have the opposite problem
I pay less than $50 per month for 100 mbit (in Sweden), with four or five ISPs to choose from.
I have 7.2 mbit in my phone. And its old.
I say again: You need more competition.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: We have the opposite problem
But he... They say France has too much laws and doesn't have a good free market hehehehe.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: We have the opposite problem
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Free Market? What a joke!
A regulated market, if properly implemented, can protect the public from predatory companies by enforcing fair competition. The ultimate goal would be to achieve perfect competition. This would reduce the barrier to entering the market, make it easier to get out and allow the public to drive market prices rather than companies trying to manipulate the public and the market.
Unfortunately, we are far too close to an unregulated market as the behavior of AT&T and their ilk have demonstrated. Their kind has been given unfair advantages over smaller companies and have been granted duopolies in most markets. How many ISP's do you have? How many cable TV providers do you have? They get all the perks of being a utility, without any of it's necessary restrictions.
It's not just internet providers either. Wal-Mart is the bane of all small businesses. They bribe local governments to grant them taxpayer money to build their stores despite the fact that they don't need it. They use cheap foreign-produced products manufactured by people that are little more than slaves just to undercut all small businesses and push them out of the market. They also siphon a large amount of money out the the local economy and move it to their shareholders and CEO's. So, little or no money comes into the local economy and most of it is coming out. This leaves swaths of people to live in poverty where there used to be stability. It kills off good-paying jobs and replaces them with lower-paying Wal-Mart jobs.
Free market my ass! If they got what they were really asking for, it'd throw us into a depression that would make 1929 seem like a birthday party. The government doesn't care though, their rich friends will make sure they don't get caught in the wake of it all. Then they'll stage another bullshit war to fight so they can throw more young people out there to die, so they can have more natural resources to keep up this downward spiral.
AT&T should be ashamed of what they've done. This will put back progress quite a bit, just to get another few million dollars in their filthy pockets. I wish I had the kind of money to buy legislation that really would serve the public good!
Remember, when a company or an economist talks about establishing a free market, they are trying to do completely the opposite thing for their own benefit.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Free Market? What a joke!
In a true free market, WiscNet would have been able to continue with AT&T having to offer a better product to get customers. That is not what is happening here.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Free Market? What a joke!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Free Market? What a joke!
If you don't want big companies getting laws passed to make sure they can control a market while doing as little as possible to give consumers what they want you can just move to Mao's Red China you crazy socialist.
ATT should be allowed to buy whatever region they want, pass laws to ensure there is no competition and charge fuck all for horrible service and only offer dsl. Its the American way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Free Market? What a joke!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Free Market? What a joke!
In a "free market" AT&T would have just used their money to prevent them from ever have existing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Free Market? What a joke!
Now people will demand ACTION! We need the federal government to seize control of the internet to force it to be free! Then we can stop the greedy capitalist private sector from forming monopolies and getting rich off the backs of the populace!
And then, after the bill is passed, the government will use its newfound power to award AT&T an exclusive, no-bid contract for all services, everywhere, thereby creating the monopoly everyone had feared. Then people will decry the "failure" of the "free market" to prevent monopolies, and the cycle will continue. It never ends.
It's funny how everyone understands that our government works for our corporations, and yet they still argue that the only way to solve it is to give the government more power. That's like saying the only way to prevent being beaten up by a thug hired by the mafia is to replace the thug's club with a gun. Sure, the gun would be more deadly to a mafia boss than a club would, but you're forgetting who works for who in all of it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Free Market? What a joke!
Of course the government is bought out by these businesses and that is greater the issue to be dealt with in order to achieve this secondary goal. Before we can truly deal with health care, internet, copyright, civil rights/liberties, and economic systems, we need to remove incentives and opportunities for representatives to become corrupt or coerced into favoring businesses over the people. Then, we can work on shifting the power back to the people and serving the public good. I assumed this was obvious and unnecessary to point out to make my point. Because it hasn't happened yet doesn't make my point less valid when I was assuming government corruption should be dealt with as well. Why should I have to point out something so obvious?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Free Market? What a joke!
A "regulated" market is how a business achieves market dominance. That's why I'm trying to say! You decry monopolies without realizing that the government is precisely what makes monopolies possible!
we need to remove incentives and opportunities for representatives to become corrupt or coerced into favoring businesses over the people
As long as you give the government the power to regulate corporations, corporations will use that power against competitors, to the detriment of consumers. This is not a deficiency that can be corrected by more rules.
I was assuming government corruption should be dealt with as well.
Your proposed course of action amounts to "first, let's keep our politicians from smelling like shit, and then we'll work on not throwing them in the sewer". If you want to end corruption by removing incentives, remove a politician's ability to pick winners and losers in the market.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
AT&T sucks! They rip off their customer, employees alike!
Supported biz and gov ckts, 100 tickets to each engineer.
Since then I have canceled the Uverse TV portion of service, after hearing this .... Voice and internet is next. But as most know, no real choices! here, its AT&T or Comcast, Comcrap is no better!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What's the problem with Wisconsin's decision?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: What's the problem with Wisconsin's decision?
if the former, it's true enough.
if the latter, you need steel toed boots applied to sensitive portions of your anatomy until the stupid stops :S
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: What's the problem with Wisconsin's decision?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Some busy tourist "seasonal" towns are stuck on dial up just some 4 or so miles out of town.
Fast for a town of 100,000 people is 100KP/s download speeds(culled down, since you can get a few downloads going at around 80KPS).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Socializing the internet isn't any better than the current options.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
People pay for the services that are deemed necessary in today's society through taxes, regardless of whether individuals support or make full use of them (ahem, the military). So of course it's a "very bad business model" because it's not a business, it's a public service--like publicly paid teachers, police officers, firefighters, civil engineers, physicians, etc, whose standards are demanded by the people and not left to the whim of a company (i.e., AT&T not providing adequate service in areas that have demanded it for years) bent on making a buck.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
What we need are controls in place that prevent providers from abusing their customers with throttled service, bandwidth caps, and forced bundling. Anti-competitive practices also need to be halted. Real network neutrality, competition, and common carrier status will go a long way to making a better network for us all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Do you think that car makers should be forced to make all luxury options available at a the base price?
I could go on, but I won't on that point.
I think the only problem that exists is that the very last mile, "pole to house" is a problem. Replace the phone wires and cable TV line with fiber, example,and let the home owner actually own it, right to the point it hits the pole. Let every company have the choice to run their services to every pole. That would allow for real competition.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
That is nothing like what I was suggesting. Bundling is taking services or products that are related and putting them together into one package. To use your beer analogy, it would be like selling you new beer, but to get it, you have buy some of their old, putrid, expired beer too (at full price!). I know first-hand that this is the kind of tactics they pull, my local provider (I only have one(1) ISP where I live) will not allow me to have a DSL line without purchasing a land line service, despite the fact that I don't need the stupid thing! I'm forced to buy service that I don't need/want and it just costs me money. Why? It's because they want you to give them your money, either by coercion or by downright force.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Incorrect. It will actually cost taxpayers MORE if schools and libraries have to find an alternative.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/wisconsin-public-internet-fights-tel ecoms-attempts-to-kill-it-off.ars
"Then, as Superintendent Evers pointed out in his letter, financially and operationally cutting WiscNet off from Wisconsin institutions will cripple its efforts.
"The provision in this legislation will very likely make it impossible for WiscNet to continue offering Internet access," he noted. "If our schools and libraries must use other Internet providers, most will pay at least 2-3 times more than what WiscNet now charges."
And:
To put it in comparative terms, UW Chief Information Officer Ed Meachen told WTN News that because of the different bandwidth pricing approaches, WiscNet costs the UW system $2 million a year. BadgerNet would cost $8 million.
Badernet is "Wisconsin's state wide-area-network, which depends heavily on AT&T as its primary vendor."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And serious political reform isn't going to happen, because the telcos (like any other major lobbying group) have both political parties equally wrapped around their little fingers, making every election "heads I win, tails you lose" for the monopolies.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Not dead yet ...
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/outlook-for-wisconsin-educational-internet-improvedd eluged-with-calls-state-legislators-take-wiscnet-off-death-row.ars
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Let's back up and get it right.
"Broadband Grant: The grant will be allowed to go forward. Future financial commitments will require Joint Finance Committee approval. In communities where we do not have funds committed as of June 15, 2011 we will need to return to the Joint Finance Committee with our community partners to present our case and to secure their approval. Additionally, during the next six weeks we have committed to meeting with and striving to find a way to collaborate with the telephone companies (I think this is really important and I am personally committed to doing everything I can to make this a win-win-win for everyone but most importantly for our communities and for the people of Wisconsin).
WiscNet: An audit and study of WiscNet’s operations will be reviewed over the next two years. We think this is very healthy and we welcome this action. WiscNet will also be allowed to continue serving its member organizations while the study and audit is being conducted. Additionally, the University will retain full membership while the audit and study is being conducted. Questions about the legality of WiscNet, its programmatic operations, and its financial arrangements in particular will be studied in the audit. We believe this will be beneficial for all parties."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Capitalism works this way. Every time.
It's made a bit worse by the fact that the politicians are bought and sold like commodities these days, but even when the system is "working" at its normal level, the Government acts merely as a broker to maintain some sort of functioning in the market, as a truly free market cannot exist - it would self destruct immediately as the parties in it went completely off the reservation doing anything and everything to get ahead in the absence of any regulations.
The only way out of this mess is to abandon the whole concept of money, trade and capitalism and go with something that's based in reality and reason - like a resource-based economy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]