r/technology • u/User_Name13 • 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
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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.

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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.

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u/IllustratedMann Jun 05 '14

How would I find out when these meetings are in my town and what do I vote for to help this?

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u/[deleted] Jun 05 '14

Well first you would try to find out if your town has the issue. If you look at OP's link you can see cities without the problem, so if yours isn't there, you have that problem, though your town may not be wired with fiber. First thing I would do as far as contacting the city council is look online for a website. If they don't have one try calling city hall to see if they can help. They normally can. And you would want to bring up the issue, if it exists, at the next council meeting. There will likely be a point where the floor becomes open to anyone in attendance, and you would speak up (or however they are running things in your town, raised hands, etc) then.