Keep The Monopoly Intact at All Costs

Sponge Bob

From the US , a good special from News.Com

Across the country, acrimonious conflicts have erupted as local governments attempt to create publicly funded broadband services with faster connections and cheaper rates for all citizens, narrowing the so-called digital divide.

how uncanny the following paragraph reads over here.

In some cases, local governments have simply stepped into a vacuum left by commercial providers that have proved slow or unwilling to bring broadband to their residents. But the situation has grown more complicated with public broadband proposals in major cities already served by private industry. These projects highlight a growing conviction that broadband is not merely a luxury of modern urban life, but rather an essential public service that could increase tourism and commerce while squeezing new efficiencies from services such as health care, education and even sanitation.



Despite the technology's youth, the dynamics over its control are as old as the nation itself. Governments and private businesses have long quarreled over who should control the build-out of highways, canals, railroads, the postal system and telephone networks. Oftentimes, what begins as a project of one side eventually falls into the hands of the other: The railroad system was first constructed by private companies but is now controlled largely by the federal government, while the postal system is run by Washington but faces stiff competition from private couriers such as FedEx and United Parcel Service of America.

jwt

In some cases, local governments have simply stepped into a vacuum left by commercial providers that have proved slow or unwilling to bring broadband to their residents.

Or in Irelands case local government continues to suck the life out of Group Schemes ala WestMeath County Council who continue to obstruct, obfusicate and object at every possible turn and are currently denying hundreds if not thousands of people access to broadband due to their short sightedness!

John