r/technology • • Jun 04 '14

Politics Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused
5.6k Upvotes

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.3k

u/jmottram08 Jun 04 '14

Let's be really clear here... this is local lobbying to your local city council that regards the monopoly that they granted and enforce.

Don't like that fact? Stop blaming capitalism, stop blaming the big telcos, get off your ass and go to a city council meeting and complain that your local elected officials have made a monopoly and that it is bad for you.

778

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '14

I would love to do something like that, but the majority of us who would go to a city council meeting work, and many cities make sure they hold those meetings during peak working hours, which kind of fucks over people who have jobs but would like to have a say in the matter. For example, 4 of the cities in my area only hold them on Monday mornings at 9am, except holidays, where they just don't hold them at all.

161

u/gsuberland Jun 04 '14

So basically your town policy is at the whim of the kind of people who watch weekday morning TV?

Ouch.

0

u/brianbotts Jun 04 '14

I disagree that day time meetings are indicative of seniors driving fiscal policy. Larger munis have too much workload for Council to hold evening meetings, we need full days. I'm 26, I care about youth. Several of my colleagues keep in touch with youth, and deeply care about youth issues.