General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAT&T fights to keep your internet as slow as possible
Chattanooga, Tenn., is more than 2,400 miles from Silicon Valley, but residents of the Southern city have access to broadband that's 50 times faster than the majority of Internet connections in technology's capital. Why, you ask? Chattanooga's municipally owned electric utility, EPB, provides its broadband Internet.
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Just let that sink in for a secondChattanooga residents enjoy broadband 50 times faster than Silicon Valley, and it's a local government that provided it. Which makes AT&T's claim that government interference is what's getting in the way of their advancing technology ring pretty hollow. In the news article referenced above, an AT&T flak, Daniel Hayes, actually said "[p]olicies that discourage private-sector investment put at risk the world-class broadband infrastructure American consumers deserve and enjoy today." As if AT&T were actually providing world-class broadband. As if AT&T gave a flying fig about providing world-class broadband to the millions of people who are trapped in markets where it has a stranglehold. They care even less about people in rural communities that don't have service at all.
What AT&T is trying to do in Chattanooga definitely has an impact on the rest of the nationthey want to put a stop to municipal broadband there. They want to bully other states and localities and prevent them from doing what Chattanooga has doneactually deliver world-class broadband, with no profit at all going to AT&T.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/8/1481869/-AT-amp-T-fights-to-keep-your-internet-as-slow-as-possible
Greybnk48
(10,171 posts)AT&T is doing a bang up job!
Sometimes it makes me want to
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)I'm waiting for Google Fiber to hook up in my neighborhood. As soon as they do-supposed to be within a month-I'm telling AT&T to go do things to themselves.
ananda
(28,873 posts)It's taking forever!
Wounded Bear
(58,693 posts)Bubzer
(4,211 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,693 posts)no offense intended. Just a courtesy for the rest of us.
Bubzer
(4,211 posts)I appreciate you letting me know I forgot to add it!
Wounded Bear
(58,693 posts)kind of like our little side conversation keeps kicking your post.
Bubzer
(4,211 posts)Wounded Bear
(58,693 posts)BTW, it IS an important subject. I like keeping it visible.
Bubzer
(4,211 posts)Corporations always using whatever excuse they can to eek out a few more dollars from people who both cannot afford to pay for internet access...but in this day and age, cannot afford to not have it. Internet access has become far more of a utility than it used to be... and yet companies such as Comcast and AT&T still charge for it like they're installing brand new gold-plated fiber-optic line.
It's absurd.
begin_within
(21,551 posts)Bubzer
(4,211 posts)begin_within
(21,551 posts)Bubzer
(4,211 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)Bubzer
(4,211 posts)Thav
(946 posts)jj S&ks >m > NO CARRIER
TalkingDog
(9,001 posts)In case anybody needs an example.
..... just sayin'.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,130 posts)trumad
(41,692 posts)Bubzer
(4,211 posts)trumad
(41,692 posts)I doubt the average American has money enough to spare for that.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)The comparison couldn't be clearer...
lindysalsagal
(20,726 posts)They're not good enough for me.
meow2u3
(24,768 posts)which bars local governments from competing with them? Did AT&T ever get the memo that anticompetitive practices are illegal and maybe even criminal?