Does your city offer Internet service? Why not?

         

The community broadband map on the left shows the 133 US cities that offer residents Internet service. Is your city one of them?

It is common for local government to offer services like gas, electricity, water and sewage disposal to residents. Why do only 133 cities offer Internet service?

The reasons are different in each case, but one factor that is common to every case is that the telephone and cable companies do not want competition from cities. They fight to block municipal Internet services in many ways. In some states they have even gotten laws passed to prohibit cities from offering Internet service. The broadband preemption map on the right shows states with legislation prohibiting or making it difficult for cities to offer Internet service to residents.

(Both maps are interactive -- you can get further detail on the services offered and the restrictions placed on them by visiting the map pages and clicking on them).

The maps are taken from a report called Publicly Owned Broadband Networks: Averting the Looming Broadband Monopoly that was written by Christopher Mitchell and published by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance on March 23, 2011. You should also read Bob Frankston's comment on the report.

You may also be interested in Breaking the Broadband Monopoly, a report Mitchell wrote last May. It covers similar ground and includes many examples of municipal networks.

(We have also covered related topics on this blog in the past).

AT&T, the nations second largest wireless Internet service provider is trying to acquire T-Mobile, the fourth largest provider. If the acquisition is approved, how will that affect wireless Internet competition, service, and prices?

What are the arguments for and against municipal Internet service?

The Open Government Directive -- maybe some things can change

President Obama appointed Vivek Kundra Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) earlier this year. Kundra had been Chief Technology Officer for Washington DC, and espoused a strong "Web 2.0" vision for citizen participation, government transparency and cloud services, but he was surprisingly inexperienced. John Dvorak, a respected technical journalist, looked into Kundra's education and background and questioned his qualification to manage 71,000 IT workers and 10,000 IT systems -- asking whether Kundra is a phony.

InformationWeek, a trade publication for IT managers, just named Kundra CIO of the year, emphasizing his vision more than listing his achievements.

On December 8, we saw what may be a major step toward implementing Kundra's transparent government vision -- issuing the Open Government Directive. (You can see Kundra in the announcement video). The directive orders Federal agencies to:

• publish government information online
• improve the quality of government information
• create and institutionalize a culture of open government

And they are to start immediately -- each agency is required to

• identify and publish online in an open format at least three high-value databases within 45 days
• create an open government Web page within 60 days
• develop and publish an open government plan stating how it will improve transparency and integrate public participation and collaboration into its activities within 120 days

This activity will be tracked in an open government "dashboard" with statistics and visualizations showing how each agency is doing with respect to openness. The dashboard is to be on the Web within 60 days.

It is noteworthy that they are not talking about PDF copies of reports, but publishing data in machine readable form so it can be analyzed and summarized by others -- journalists, scholars, business people, politicians, etc.

This sounds real. The Sunlight Foundation, which has led the movement to use the Internet for government transparency, is optimistic. (You can hear more in this interview of their policy director, John Wonderlich, who sees this as "a real commitment to systemic change within the government").

It will be interesting to see how things look after those 45-120 day deadlines have passed -- we can check the Open Government Dashboard.

Perhaps Kundra's inexperience has an upside -- he may be too naive to understand that getting government bureaucracies to publish data and listen to the public is "impossible."

FCC Chairman calls for network neutrality

One of President Obama's campaign promises was to support network neutrality. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has now called for new rules guaranteeing network neutrality.

Mr. Genachowski outlined his proposal in a talk at the Brookings Institute. After discussing the importance of the Internet to our economy and society, he reiterated four current FCC Internet governance rules:

• Consumers should not be limited in the content they choose to view online, as long as it's legal.
• Users should be able to run any application they want as long as they don't exceed service plan limitations or harm the provider's network.
• Consumers should be permitted to connect products they buy to their Internet connection, as long as the devices operate within the service plan and do not harm the network or enable theft of service.
• Customers should be able to easily review their options when buying Internet service plans and learn how those plans protect against spyware and other invasions of privacy

and he added two new network neutrality rules he would like to enact:

• Internet service providers (ISPs) would be prohibited from selectively blocking or slowing Web content or applications.
• ISPs would be required to make their network management practices clear and available to consumers.

The network neutrality provisions are opposed by many ISPs like the telephone and cable TV companies and supported by content providers like Google. You can read an argument against network neutrality here.

You can watch a video or read a transcript of Mr. Genachowski's talk and a panel discussion following it here. If you are in a hurry, you can check out this short coverage from National Public Radio. Last, but not least, you can see announcements and give feedback to the FCC here.

Do you support the call for network neutrality? Do you think it should apply to mobile ISPs?