The local government should own the "pipes" and rent them out.
Some people are down on "socialism" without realizing they love it. We have socialized police, fire, sewage, (usually) water and road repair plus some others I'm forgetting.
Socialism is people getting together to help each other. Businesses have no special right to view citizens as their exclusive feeding ground.
A few places in the U.S. do already have this system and it works well. The city owns the fiber optic links between your house and a central office, but you get to choose your own ISP (often from dozens of options).
> The local government should own the "pipes" and rent them out.
This is essentially what happens in the UK. BT have to rent out lines to everyone else.
Guess what? Almost all the ISPs are capped at the speed at whatever BT can provide. The only company I believe in the UK that goes above those speeds is Virgin which almost twice the speed at almost the same price as the competition.
I used to live in the countryside and until there was fibre installed the speeds were terrible (less than 2mb/s). State own broadband isn't magically better.
> Some people are down on "socialism" without realizing they love it. We have socialized police, fire, sewage, (usually) water and road repair plus some others I'm forgetting.
In the UK our council tax pay are supposed to pay for road repair. The roads in the UK are awful. There are pot holes everywhere and I've had 3 punctures last year.
The toll roads (the few of them that exist in the UK) don't have anyone on them. Take 30 minutes a day off my journey time in the car and the road surface is perfect.
> Not in my experience, though admittedly I live in London.
Well outside of London it is generally awful. TBH London might as well be another planet when compared to the rest of the England (same goes for Manchester and Birmingham, I stay far away).
I currently live near Manchester and before that Hampshire. So that is two opposite ends of the country pretty much and it is the problem there. So my experience seems to reflect that of what is reported.
>I'm sure you realize that council tax is supposed to pay for a lot of things, and that council incomes are way down over the past 10 years.
So? It has been like this since the late 90s. I remember my father complaining about it since then. In anycase the roads are awful.
Some people are down on "socialism" without realizing they love it. We have socialized police, fire, sewage, (usually) water and road repair plus some others I'm forgetting.
Socialism is people getting together to help each other. Businesses have no special right to view citizens as their exclusive feeding ground.