"Tennessee Could Give Taxpayers America's Fastest Internet For Free, But It Will Give Comcast and AT&T $45 Million Instead"
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/tennessee-could-give-taxpayers-americas-fastest-internet-for-free-but-it-will-give-comcast-and-atandt-dollar45-million-instead Choice quotes from the article: "Tennessee will literally be paying AT&T to provide a service 1000 times slower than what Chattanooga could provide without subsidies." Republican state Sen. Janice Bowling...told me that Tennessee's state legislature has repeatedly bent over backwards for large ISPs. "What we have right now is not the free market, it's regulations protecting giant corporations, which is the exact definition of crony capitalism," she said. $45,000,000.00 in taxpayer money. Your taxpayer money and mine. Going to AT&T and Comcast [1]. To provide their usual wonderful level of monopolistic service and keep those of us outside Chattanooga from having any alternatives. When I rebooted my DSL router for the first time this morning (emphasis "FIRST"), my ul/dl speeds were 256Kbps/160Kbps (if anyone doubts me, I'll ul a screenshot the next time I have to reboot; shouldn't be too long). Currently I'm at 512Kbps/5312Kbps, it rarely gets any better than that, and Williamson County has no plans for any sort of residential fiber. I wonder what state public schools, colleges, and universities could do with $45,000,000.00; how many sick and uninsured Tennesseans that could help; how many predatory student loans could be paid off. But I digress... So. Senator Janice Bowling http://www.capitol.tn.gov/senate/members/s16.html She lives in Tullahoma, but has to be in Nashville during the legislative session, right? That's a 1.5hr drive each way, probably closer to 2hrs when secondaries, traffic, parking, etc., are factored in, so she'd probably stay overnight in or around the Nashville area part of the time (or we could stop guessing & just ask her). The 110th General Assembly started Jan 10th & DRAT, looks like it's projected to end Apr 14th, so even is something could be put together by the May 9th NLUG meeting, there's zero chance of actually, ya know, having any sort of impact on current session. Well, there's always the next session; lay the groundwork now to amend or repeal current bills, or introduce new ones, and keep in mind 2018 is an election year [2]. Still, here's the thought I've been working toward: State Senator Janice Bowling. Someone from EPB - the source of Chattanooga's cheap gigbit fiber service. Someone involved with the Chattanooga city gov't tech incubator that benefits from EPB's products & services. Someone from Chugalug. Someone from the Nashville Technology Council. Someone from Nashville's Google fiber office, discussing the roadblocks to their service in metro Nashville & surrounding communities. I have contacts with the last three and can get help via Chuglug with #2 and #3. Getting a panel of all six at once to do a talk/presentation/discussion is unlikely (but what a coup if we did pull it off), but this alone should be the basis for some meetings we could hype & use to up attendance, right? Make sure we have it recorded (audio & video), and there's a splashy first video or two for our youtube channel we're going to get up and running someday maybe along with a new website, eventually. Wadda y'all think? ~~Dru/jonnyX (NLUG VP) [1] - How many years have these two companies been on top 10 "worst customer service" lists? This is an outsourcing request. I'm asking someone(s) on the list to do some research and post results and supporting URLs going back, lest's say, 20 years. It would be useful to know if Comcast & AT&T have headed these sorts of lists for decades. I'm sure we can come up with free food/booze/something for whoever comes up with the best & most comprehensive list. [1.5] [1.5] More work, but tracing AT&T/Comcast/telco lobbyist, PAC, & dark-money donations to their elected stooges would be interesting too. [2] - Outsource job #2: Get the names of the legislators who sponsored the house & senate versions of the bill, and those who voted for it. Use this info to put together talking points for attack ads and deliver this info to their opponents for use in the 2018 primaries and general elections. Maybe we can help vote some corporate stooges out of office. [3] [3] - Outsource job #3: Use this related article to track down & name the politicians behind the older TN law limiting municiple broadband service; make the lives of those running for any office in 2018 miserable: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/chattanooga-gigabit-fiber-network I can't do it all myself, folks. Any takers? PS - Just because I'm evil (and to thank whoever got me sick last month), here's an earworm to torture you with: As soon as I typed "Let's get political" in the subj: line, I got Olivia Newton-John's "Let's get Physical" stuck in my brain. Let's get political, political I wanna get political Never mind the voter squawks, 'cause money talks Let me hear the money talk ("Let's get Physical - Corporate Lobbyist Remix") Bonus round - torture for your eyeballs too; dig those 1981 fashions! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz9VN40nCA -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. 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