This is going to be a comment that needs to know a bit about the Seattle area, so if you're out of town, I'm sorry :).
I currently live near the top of the hill of Queen Anne, my options for internet are Comcast, or Comcast essentially. Century link is also up there with a plan for a whopping 7mbps of speed down and less than 1mbps up. Comcast offers a plan for 50mbps down and 10mbps up, I need more upload speed, but I can make do with an upload running for hours a day. This wouldn't be bad if Comcast actually worked, but it doesn't. Probably 2 or 3 nights a week my internet becomes near unusable during peak times, I resort to putting my cell phone on LTE and seeing what I need to that way, I can't even keep up with the buffer rate on the lowest quality Youtube videos.
Downtown though, there are a number of apartment and condo buildings that offer 100mbps up & down internet for $60 a month (compared to my $75 for Comcast), or 1gigabit up and down for $120 a month(not available from Comcast at all). So, we do have some gigabit internet, and I've actually found a few places I'd consider living and likely will affect my decision when I eventually move.
At least in my neighborhood, Comcast has terrible(often broken) service with absolutely no alternative. I suppose maybe the density of Queen Anne can't justify the cost of gigabit fiber to the top of the hill, but given how many Microsoft and Amazon people live up here I'd be shocked if there weren't huge interest. This seems damning as to the economic viability of fiber that a relatively dense upper income neighborhood can't get fiber without government subsidy.
Small world :) I live down at the bottom of the hill in Queen Anne. I recently got rid of Comcast as well because unlike your 2 or 3 nights a week, I had 7 nights a week of slowdown. I had their 20Mbps down, and from 1900 till 2230, I could get maybe 1 or 2Mbps. Called and complained several times a week. Other than basically getting my "service" for free for 3 months, they never did anything to fix the speeds.
Luckily, I can get the 40Mbps down and 20Mbps up from CenturyLink. Other than having to wait a month for them to turn it on, it has been rock solid. Even during peak times I have no issues with speed.
Like you, my lease is up in a few months. I'm going to try to move to one of the Gigabit areas...
Have you called Comcast about the connectivity issues? I was having problems with connections dropping and packet loss. I called them, they sent a tech out who replaced a bad wire connecting to the building. Apparently others in the building had the same problem, but I was the only one who had a tech come out.
When damaged, coax (and POTS-based DSL for that matter) are both susceptible to environmental changes, so a cool-down in the evening can significantly change the characteristics of the wire, higher levels of humidity don't help either.
In other words, yet another reason fiber to the premises is superior.
When I was in Orange County, CA not too long ago, I noticed people's take on Time Warner Cable varied widely. Then I moved and discovered the issue: everyone who hated TWC was in a "legacy Comcast" area. It's clear Comcast had purchased bargain basement equipment and TWC declined to replace it, despite the added customer service costs (which must have been significant).
I assume you're referring to CondoInternet. Just got em, and all thumbs up from me. They're all over seattle and have a few new spots in downtown Bellevue.
I assume the problem is that either your building or much of the housing around you is relatively old. CondoInternet only has offerings in places that have been fully wired with ethernet already, as far as I can tell.
I'd been a Comcast user for ~10 years before getting fed up with them. At my last place, they started hiking the price every two months after six months. When I canceled I was paying ~$100 for internet and cable tv (which I never used or wanted, although apparently it made my service cheaper). It seems that they REALLY want to keep their TV subscriber numbers up.
Interestingly, CondoInternet uses microwave links to connect the buildings they service. They do install in older buildings without CAT5e/CAT6 wiring, but they have to use vDSL over the phone lines. They still call it 100mbit although it's more like 70 or 80.
No, they don't make it legal for people or entities that could not otherwise give to candidates to give to candidates.
People/entities can donate to Super PACs that cannot donate to candidates, but that's because Super PACs -- or "independent-expenditure only committees" -- are not controlled by and do not coordinate with candidates
I don't see why this is a bad thing? Comcast is contributing to the campaign that is best in line with its interest. As long as political contributions by corporations are OK (which is another debate which is out of the scope of this issue) this seems completely reasonable.
Because corporations are not citizens. Corporations consolidate many orders of magnitude more financial power, skill at executing political leverage, and focus compared to individuals. They use that power to manipulate government in ways that are biased towards corporate need, but which don't balance other concerns. This is bad because it puts corporate power and influence very out of balance with personal power.
The aims of corporations are often dead-set against the wishes of affected citizenry, the company's employees, sometimes even the corporate executives (wearing their "private citizen" hats).
I donate to the Sierra Club, support unions (sometimes), and yes, I am still with you! I don't think any non-human entity (even if it's "made up of people") should have any sort of say in the democratic process.
Corporations don't represent the best interest of their stakeholders (employees etc), but the narrow interest of their shareholders in a competitive marketplace where shareholders are only looking for one thing. In other words, it is not the job of a company to do what its employees find most pleasing.
Well when I look around my room and see the things that I use: Television, computer, telephone, lights, etc... are things that I purchased from corporations.
Whatever their interests are, I'm certainly not knee-jerked opposed to them since I like their products and I like the effects that companies with good products provide to the economy.
At very least I think that corporations serve as a contrast to the inordinate megaphone that politicians, celebrities, and the mainstream media have.
Really, I don't think that the protestations against corporations contributing to the political process are all that well thought-out. Should Michael Moore no longer be allowed to make his documentaries? They're blatant political commercials. How about Sean Penn? Should he be muzzled from being a political spokesperson since he has such an inordinate amount of influence vs an individual citizen?
How about news organizations? Every single one out there has some sort of political bias. Should they be allowed to blatantly support political parties and candidates?
I don't like to see HN devolve into a political debate, so I'm reluctant to reply here. However, I'm passionate about this.
1. I'm a business student. I'm founding a company. I'm not opposed to corporations either. Just their involvement in politics.
2. Michael Moore and Sean Penn are individuals, not corporations. I support the right of the Koch brothers to speak out, though I don't much like what they have to say. I don't support the right of their corporation to pay to be heard on political matters.
3. It's paid advertising that I'm opposed to; corporations can make documentaries all day long if they want to, it's paying to have people watch them that I have a problem with.
4. Newspapers can blatantly support political parties and candidates. People choose to read them if they wish; they don't find them embedded in other content as paid advertising.
EDIT: in response to the below, see my post above (GP).
So you started out with a principle, "Corporations consolidate many orders of magnitude more financial power...", but now you've thrown that principle out the window with every enumerated argument.
All I can now determine is that you just don't like the politics of many corporations and want them to be muzzled.
If corporations are banned from trying to persuade people (i.e., advertising), they'll turn to bribing politicians (i.e. hiring lobbyists). Which is worse? I think that's clear.
I don't agree with Comcast's position here, but I think they should be allowed to be heard if they want to be. Democratic societies are strong because they're made up of a lot of strong non-governmental institutions and groups, not just an all-powerful government and powerless individuals.
> If corporations are banned from trying to persuade people (i.e., advertising), they'll turn to bribing politicians (i.e. hiring lobbyists).
So, you are saying if corporations are allowed to advertise, they won't hire lobbyists?
(Not that marketing to the public is any less bribery or more trying to convince people than lobbying is, the only difference between the two is the universe of people being targeted for bribery/convincing.)
No. In a competitive marketplace (not saying Comcast is operating in a highly competitive marketplace in Seattle particularly) the corporation is incentivized to do what is most pleasing for its customers. And that's a good thing.
Unions aren't exactly geared toward the best interest of its members either, even though they pretend to be.
There is nothing about the broadband market in most major US cities that resembles competition. You generally have painfully slow DSL or fast but expensive and potentially unreliable cable internet from a single provider.
No, it had ramifications on First Amendment rights as interpreted for broadly for associations of citizens. But it did not go so far as to declare associations of citizens as, themselves, citizens. More details and citations at [1] and a whole bunch of other places on the internet.
Competition doesn't work so well for infrastructure because it's both essential and it has a high physical barrier to entry. Private corporations exist to increase profit, and that means paying employees less and lowering consumer value. Municipal broadband is making citizens happier than Comcast, Time Warner, etc.
90% of people do not want better quality internet? I think even in our technophobic culture, people want to be able to watch videos of cats with greater speed and reliability.
Are you dissatisfied with the municipal monopolies that provide you electricity, water and sewage? Does water and power flow 24x7 (subject to occasional blips)? Is your garbage picked up regularly? Are you being charged obscene rates relative to cost for them?
This is just completely ignorant. Private entities provide electricity and garbage cleanups and many other essential services. They're contracted by the government in the same manner that Comcast wins contracts from the local government.
Just a note, but not all areas in the country have monopoly utilities. There are in fact quite a few with required competition, much like the throttled pipe for internet argument.
Ex: In Georgia if you have a gas line to your house you can purchase gas from any gas provider in the state. This style of legislation is probably more inline with what the constituents want than the municipally owned solution or the single provider solution.
Utilities such as electricity, sewage, and water are natural monopolies; mainly due to the significant capital costs involved with each, a sole competitor represents the most efficient long-run production costs. Though the capital costs are lower compared to the others you listed, most economists would also consider garbage collection to be a natural monopoly.
In each case, additional competitors would increase average total costs for services by lowering economies of scale. But there's a far more significant characteristic: there's no differentiation between services. Combined with their being natural monopolies, you have the primary reasons for their status as government-granted monopolies.
Broadband services, on the other hand, have seen an explosion in product differentiation. We're using one word, but what we're actually referring to are a variety of separate services with significant differences (speed, quality, manner of delivery, etc.) that offer different degrees of utility relative to each other. Whether a municipality grants exclusive or even just preferential rights to a provider, the end result is that the service provided is isolated from competitive forces outside the service region.
Even if Google Fiber is in the next town over and offering an indisputably better quality service (such as endless speed and a free magical Genie with every install, wishes included), it has no consequence on the service available in your town.
That's one of the sticking points when you're dealing with coercive monopolies. When you're talking about other utilities, the negative consequences of that coercion (in an economic sense and not the pejorative) pale by comparison to the efficiencies stemming from lower production costs. The analysis for broadband, however, isn't nearly as static.
Municipal broadband certainly isn't a silver-bullet. Some have knocked their rollouts out of the park; others have bungled them. But dx4100 is missing the point by comparing municipal broadband to private firms. The status quo doesn't consist of competitive markets; it's a collection of non-contestable markets. When entry to the field is effectively closed with no competitive forces, municipal broadband and other alternative ideas represent some of the only real options available to us.
In other words, what a sad little fucked up situation we have on our hands.
What's important is that this fiber infrastructure will compete directly against Comcast, and Comcast is working hard to eliminate or at least hamper that potential competition in order to maintain the status quo of their oligopoly.
It is an incredibly bad thing for the City for Comcast to be doing this, because it's not in the Public's interest. Increased competition, however, is in the Public's interest.
Considering it doesn't exist yet, you cannot really call it a monopoly. Thanks for confirming that you consider Comcast one though.
> even though time and time again government does a piss-poor job when given control.
You are correct there, the government's control over internet service has enabled a few mammoth carriers to become monopoly's of their realm. Be it for 'national security' interests like AT&T or be it piles of lobbyist money from Comcast.
The end result is no competition amongst peers. The only thing coming close would be companies that lease off of Comcast trying to sell packages at a lower cost. This of course doesn't last long since AT&T Comcast and others worked out exactly how to kill leased operators at will subsidizing rates in areas leasers operate to remove any profit potential from the competition that was forced to buy from Comcast anyways.
But complain about an operator that doesn't exist yet like it is a monopoly. Blame them for things they have not done yet. Try to push forward the fantasy that Comcast has a quality of service beyond destroying other quality services.
Preventing a company from getting gigabit connections is not bad for you if you are the company that competes against those gigabit connections. It isn't wrong or shady of Comcast to donate like this, just like it isn't wrong for the original poster of this link to post it here and get awareness and activism for the other side.
As an aside, I despise Comcast, Time Warner and many of their ilk, but they are completely well within bounds to do this.
I didn't say it was good or bad. It is a legally, ethically and economically acceptable practice. They are exercising their right to protect their business.
As a European, that's something I have a hard time understanding. How can it be legal for a corporation to buy politicians? Corporations are not people in any meaningful sense of the word.
They are not buying any more than you are buying a politician by donating to their campaign, putting up a sign with their name on it in your yard or voting for them.
Many people think this is buying, it is simply helping the candidate you agree with the most win the election.
It may or may not be a bad thing, but it should at least be an entirely transparent thing. There have been some other campaign contributions in this race that have been funneled through PACs to the point where you can't see exactly who is backing a candidate.
Morally--Comcast has abused their customers for years. It's
time to bust up their monopoly. Morality, trust, and honestly have steadily declined each decade, at least in
my eyes. Just because it's legal doesn't make it O.K.
I'll repeat, just because it's legal doesn't make it O.K...
It may not be a single-issue sort of thing. McGinn has not exactly been popular across a wide cross section of the local electorate, as anyone who has spent five minutes walking (or more likely ducking and running) through downtown Seattle can attest.
Comcast may be trying to kill the fiber project, or they may have some other reason for opposing McGinn.
Um? Have you ever spent any time in downtown Seattle? I live in Seattle and I feel no fear going down there to do things; I do it pretty much every week. You say you "don't live in Seattle" in a lower comment; do you live in the Seattle metro area at all? I voted for him last election and I'm planning to vote for him again.
I live in north King County, outside the Seattle city limits.
I don't feel much genuine "fear," just annoyance that I have to deal with it whenever I go downtown. If I had any business interests downtown I'd be hopping mad.
Which is weird. Whenever I'm downtown at night (Belltown not included) it seems like the only people there are older upper-middle class white people who are going out to dinner at fancy restaurants.
Sure, there are a handful of homeless people and people waiting for buses, but there's nothing too scary.
Posting as someone who's lived in the heart of Belltown for the last 3 years... even Belltown isn't that bad. Avoid 3rd, especially around and Bell Street and the worst you'll have to deal with is some rich yuppie trust fund kids from the east side. (which, arguably, is worse than what you'll find on 3rd.)
The difference between Seattle and other cities that are considered dangerous is that generally in dangerous cities it isn't a single demographic that feels uncomfortable in the allegedly dangerous parts of town. In actually dangerous cities, everybody does.
This said, Seattle's downtown does have a rather dead nightlife; you have to go to other neighborhoods for that, and it is something that Seattle should work on.
Suburban middle-aged middle-class white people. My condo building in Seattle has many middle-aged middle-class white people who are apparently quite comfortable living in the city.
I don't think it matters at all whether it's a single issue agenda or any number of issues. Is there any reason whatsoever for a company to donate to political causes other than to manipulate policy to maximize their profit? Of course they'd benefit if better service was kept out. I guess if they can hand-wave it as not directly related it looks a lot less crass to some people, but to me it seems irrelevant.
> It may not be a single-issue sort of thing. McGinn has not exactly been popular across a wide cross section of the local electorate
Can you suggest anything which there is a reasonable basis to believe is more significant than the fiber project in Comcast's analysis of the political landscape in Seattle relate to their interests, or is this just pure distraction?
Can you suggest anything which there is a reasonable basis to believe is more significant than the fiber project in Comcast's analysis of the political landscape in Seattle relate to their interests, or is this just pure distraction?
No. I don't live in Seattle, and don't have a dog in the fight. Just pointing out that a lot of people -- "corporate persons" and otherwise -- are dissatisfied with McGinn's performance as mayor.
Perhaps those "corporate persons" should run for mayor.
Oh that is right, they are not persons since they cannot be jailed or hold a position that a real human would.
Maybe if the real persons behind the corporations would lobby with their identity rather than through a lawyer protected corporate shield I would believe they have the interests of the population they are lobbying against. But they don't. So their opinions and lobbyist dollars only look like means to obtain more profits from the corporate structure they are invested in.
Constituents are living batteries for these 'corporate persons' and the political process is just a way to enact corporate will as regulatory code or law, yielding profits from the living wallets under the politicians control.
Crackheads, the homeless, and a particularly loud (and occasionally violent) group of youth that are constantly at the corner of 3rd and Pike. Persistent (though not apocalyptic levels of) gun crime.
Downtown Seattle can be a bit rough. I wouldn't lay it squarely at the feet of the mayor though - a lot of it traces back to city planning gone disastrously wrong.
Just a few off the top of my head:
- the southern end of downtown is strictly commercial. Little to no mixed zoning here, meaning that as soon as 5pm rolls by the entire area is a ghost town. If you're there past 6-7pm you will see that the homeless and addicts move in to fill the void. There is no residential or leisure traffic to balance this out. This is US-style single-purpose urban zoning run amok. Vast portions of the urban core is entirely idle after work hours.
- downtown Seattle isn't a cultural or entertainment core, unlike the downtowns of most cities. The actual food scene, nightlife scene, music scene, etc, are in surrounding neighborhoods like Capitol Hill, Ballard, Fremont, etc. This contributes to low foot traffic after work hours, which contributes to higher crime and simultaneously a magnified perception of danger.
- poor urban planning decisions meant an explosion in large-scale development without sufficient requirement for retail frontage. Lots of buildings that take up the entire block with little to no ground-floor retail, making it a pedestrian dead zone and contributing to the feeling of walking down a shady alley no matter where you are. See: much of Belltown, where the declared intent was to produce a walkable neighborhood full of restaurants and nightlife - except few residential buildings wanted to play host to them. This has resulted in little pockets of activity with vast stretches of nothingness in between them.
What city do you live in? Have you lived anywhere else?
I work in downtown Seattle and my work takes me a-walking across huge portions of it, and my bus stop is right by 3rd and Pike. I've certainly never felt unsafe, and only occasionally have I been accosted by the homeless (or possibly crackheads) looking for money. There are some problem spots, but nothing terribly aggressive, certainly not by standards I've come to expect from my time in other major cities.
It's much, MUCH better than what I saw/experienced while living in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco or Kansas City. Seattle may have some issues with theft, but violent crime isn't out of control. Play around with this [1] Wikipedia lin or this [2] comparison tool:
Seattle is 30th in total violent crime amongst cities with a population above 250,000. Not great, but not bad. For Murder Seattle is 67 out of 75. That's, comparatively, very good.
As for your specific points, I agree with them without regarding them as contributing as much negative impact as you state. You make it sound like Seattle is some pedestrian ghost town where you're taking your life into your own hands by taking a wrong turn. Like any city, some neighborhoods are better than others for leisure activities, and there are some worth avoiding into the night. But it's no worse than most other cities, and often considerably better.
I live in NYC currently. Besides living in Seattle (2 yrs) I've also lived in San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Waterloo, and London (Ontario, not the cool one).
I've seen a lot worse than what happens in downtown Seattle, and yeah, SF has it a lot worse. A lot worse.
I also have an intense dislike for the urban one-upsmanship that seems uniquely American in my experience. As if having seen/lived through worse crime is a badge of honor, and that people living/working in elevated crime areas (just less elevated than some other places) should just suck it up. SF is the absolute worst in this regard (far worse than Seattle), where any criticism about the state of poverty and crime in the city elicits a "hurrr go back to the midwest then hurrrr".
A spade is a spade, even if there are bigger spades out there. The fact that Seattle's urban planning cockups are less severe than San Francisco's should come only as a very mild, very cold comfort.
Part of Seattle's problem - one that I touched on but didn't expand on earlier - is that it feels less safe than it actually is. When it comes to quality of life though, perception of safety is equally important as actual safety. The vast stretches of nothingness at night presents a huge perception problem that I don't think can be conquered by simply telling people "yeah, that nearly empty street with no businesses and a lot aggressive panhandlers making catcalls at you isn't so bad, statistically your odds are good!".
Seattle isn't that dangerous of a city - I made that clear earlier. The downtown is mildly sketchy, the homelessness problem is acute but not as bad as some other places, but the complete void that fills downtown after work is a huge problem that prevents any major progress on this front.
By the way, Seattle is a pedestrian ghost town. Even Pioneer Square on a busy night is ghostly compared to every other urban core in North America I've ever been to. Downtown Seattle (qualified as Olive/Pine all the way down to Yesler or Jackson, and west of I-5) is completely f'ing deserted at night.
> I also have an intense dislike for the urban one-upsmanship that seems uniquely American in my experience.
That's fair, but you're talking about normative comparisons, and I'm talking about relative ones. I think relative comparisons are more useful in a country that, all things considered, has pretty safe cities. I don't mean to dismiss all of Seattle's problems, but it helps give perspective.
> Part of Seattle's problem - one that I touched on but didn't expand on earlier - is that it feels less safe than it actually is.
That's fair.
> Seattle is a pedestrian ghost town.
No, it's not. Downtown is, yes, but Seattle as a whole has many options for a pedestrian's nightlife. Capitol Hill is one of them, and it's an easy walk from downtown even.
I think that goes back to my last point. I just don't perceive the negatives of Seattle's "urban planning cockups" in nearly as dramatic of fashion.
I'm not from here, I'm not a homer. I just find much fewer problems here than I have anywhere else. I know you don't like relative comparisons, but when choosing a place to live relative comparisons are my most helpful tool.
IMO relative comparisons are misplaced here. I'm talking about Seattle's problems, as they pertain to Seattle residents - that SF or Atlanta has it worse only is a factoid mainly tossed around to try and minimize the problem or suggest inaction. I am not suggesting that Seattle, on the whole is a bad place to live - please don't draw the wrong conclusion. I am suggesting that the city has deep planning problems and despite its relative peace compared to the rest of the country, needs to aggressively address them.
Seattle's downtown core is horribly planned, in a pattern that is sadly typical of American urban cores post white-flight. Its urban planning awfulness is hardly unique to itself, and like every other city that employed the disastrously myopic single-use zoning strategy, it needs to change.
Or at least, not continue - but before I left Seattle I saw the exact same pattern in Belltown, South Lake Union, and Capitol Hill. The failure to learn from the failure of downtown Seattle IMO threatens to turn perfectly fine neighborhoods into empty, unfriendly, unpleasant shells. Every point I mentioned - large full-block developments, insufficient requirements for retail frontage, and little planning around pedestrian dead zones - is demonstrated in new developments stretching out of downtown.
Note that I am not anti-gentrification or anti-development. I support building upwards and increased density. I support urban renewal. But the developmental policy and requirements that have been the city's norm for decades supports buildings that serve to enlarge the "dead zone". The city - and its voter base - has evidently not learned its lesson, or hasn't ever been to a long-term successful urban neighborhood. Now is not the time to compare yourself to crime hotspots like SF and Detroit and feel good about yourself. There is a problem, and it needs fixing, even if it isn't the same scale of a problem like San Francisco's gigantic urban fuckup.
Well I appreciate your perspective, and will think about as I move about the city and decide where I'm going to five years from now. I do very much disagree on the value of relative comparisons though.
Ultimately, I just don't see nearly the extent of "urban fuckup" as you do even in normative terms, which is perhaps why the voters you admonish haven't responded as you think they should. I won't forget your comments though, and perhaps a in a year's time I'll be singing a different tune.
The 3rd and Pine issue has existed in one form or another, on that very spot for at least 15 years ( I used to work at 3rd and Pine back in the day ). Blaming the sitting mayor for that street corner is laughable.
Justin Carder from CHS talks periodically about 3rd and Pine even though it's off his 'beat.' That street corner is a mess but it's been a mess for quite a while and it's obvious that stepped-up police presence alone won't address the problems there, or they'd already be fixed.
I'm assuming he means the Pike/Pine alley and Pioneer square, sadly famous for aggressive panhandling, unruly 'youth', and shootings. I live in and work in downtown (haven't driven in months) and it's def. getting a little more 'rough' by the month. Especially Westlake area.
Most of those complaints are from people who haven't lived in Seattle long enough to know those areas have been problem spots for at least 20 years. My father worked downtown in the early/mid-80s and says it was exactly the same then, if not a little bit worse. Not that that excuses the problem. Also, the Seattle PD is absolutely petrified of doing anything that might incur the wrath of the Department of Justice. Blaming McGinn for the street people is like blaming him for I-5 traffic: it's been a problem before, and it will continue to be a problem until something very drastic happens (and in the case of street people, it will take something unpalatable to Seattle's NIMBY/sensitive electorate)
Crime is down nationally since the 80s. So for things to be the same, or only a little better says a lot.
I completely agree that SPD is petrified. I've live/worked in downtown Seattle for a while - and while I think some of the 'scaryness' is overblown, it's hard not to see a change in the trend over the past few years.
I don't know that I'd call it "petrified" -- I believe the common term is "de-policing." It's a passive-aggressive way for SPD to deal with leadership that they don't respect.
SPD has an incredibly strong union, which is where the real problem lies IMHO. A bad cop almost literally has to murder somebody before they can fire him. DOJ took note of the resulting abuses, but of course they aren't interested in going toe-to-toe with the union, and neither is the mayor.
It's a complex problem but it stems from a fairly ordinary failure of leadership, and that particular buck stops in the mayor's office.
I apologize, this is an assumption I'm making. I guess I meant the youth that hang out all over Westlake, especially later at night, resemble the homeless youth around Portland.
Considering a lot of them are there during school hours and you'll see the same ones there sleeping with tarps at night - I think its safe to say homeless. Probably better to say 'young adults' though - Seattle YouthCare (http://www.youthcare.org/) does a great job with the younger groups.
I used to work at the intersection of 2nd and Pine, where a stabbing took place right outside of work. Most of the violence in the area being gang-related isn't exactly the best reassurance of your safety.
> "If you want to find a scapegoat for panhandling, I'd first turn to the recession..."
How many of those homeless people are on the streets because they lost their factory jobs and the bank kicked them out of their McMansion? I am guessing very few.
The recession didn't make these people heroin addicts or mentally ill. The homeless people that make people concerned about walking around downtown Seattle during the evening aren't the "couchsurfing until I can find a new job" kind of homeless people.
Pointing at the state of healthcare, mental or otherwise, hits the nail on the head. That is a problem larger than Seattle though.
Not looking for a scapegoat, only a solution. And I lived here before the recession/GFC. I'd completely agree that the "social/medical/mental safety net in this country" is a major problem.
Sorry to divert off topic, though but: I wish local governments would start treating the Internet as a basic utility; like electricity. You'd have 2 entities involved: the government (PUC) which would, for a very basic rate, maintain your fiber; and an ISP which would actually route your traffic to/from the Internet. So, as a consumer, you'd pay a small amount ($5/mo?) for the fiber; and then depending on your service requirements, pay some gateway to get out to the 'net. This way, Comcast would just be a gateway provider. GW providers would offer different types of services to set them apart from each other (VPN? Movies? Music? etc.).
In a large minority of states, they can't. In North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, and 16 other states[1], state law prohibits any form of municipal broadband, including acting as a common carrier.
The reasoning is that municipal networks can be (but usually aren't) funded by local tax dollars so it represents a theoretically unfair advantage relative to private corporations. I find that reasoning specious especially considering I can look out my window in Texas and see a city water tower standing right alongside a private water supply company's tower, yet both departments are funded solely by ratepayers, not out of a general tax fund.
Again, this is a corruption of the democratic process. The fact that any corporation can contribute financially to influence an outcome is corruption in itself.
Can someone help me understand how a public-private partnership with Gigabit Squared for fiber is different that a similar project with Comcast for coax? Will there be any deregulation of the fiber at any point in time (e.g. a sunset date) or is this just trading one company for another?
The result is different (because Gigabit Squared hasn't reached city-wide fiber monopoly yet), but the stage is set the same. This feels so much like history repeating itself. Wouldn't surprise me if people made the same argument in favor of Comcast over Southwestern Bell (or other local telco monopoly).
This article would have been better if it quickly described the donations against the scale of the campaigns themselves and the size of the PACs. Looking at this, it appears that all Comcast related donations to McGinn's opponent total to less than $70k.
This is a serious amount of money, but how does it really factor in against all other donations? I don't know because the journalist didn't really share that information.
I'm a working to help re-elect Mayor McGinn to Seattle. We're in a close race with our opponent, who has received thousands of dollars from Comcast. I'm hoping that you will consider helping us out so that we can show the rest of the country that we can do something about improving internet service. Would you consider helping us out with $5 or $10 donation? Here's how you can help: http://www.mcginnformayor.com/donate.
And this isn't the only issue in the race. You can read about the mayor's positions and his vision for the future of our city here: http://www.mcginnformayor.com/why
Comcast has other serious challengers here in Seattle as well between CascadeLink (terrible website, but top notch service) and CondoInternet, if you can get either of those, you'll never look at Comcast again (between $30-60/month for 30/100mbit)
Those are hardly challengers; they service upscale condos and select buildings only. I live in the damn city and I can't get CenturyLink/Quest 40mbps (12mbps max), CascadeLink, CondoInternet, or the future Seattle Gigabit. Ridiculous.
Comcast services only select locations too. A good number of apartments around the city don't even offer Comcast (and instead the aforementioned and other services such as 'Wave'). The building I live in (granted, yes, an upscale condo), had several offerings.
Full on competition? No. But better than a wide majority of cities? Yes. (Try living in Florida...ugh)
High speed is cool 'n all, but on the other hand do you really want the government owning or controlling data pipes that you use for personal business?
Seattle police, for one thing, have a history of hostility toward its citizens. I'm sure they'd love easier monitoring of, for example, anti-police groups.
Solution: government runs the fiber to a cross-connect point, private companies offer services (anything, Internet, TV, phone, or something we haven't even thought of) over that fiber and pay a small fee for use of the line.
Right of way is a natural monopoly. There's a limited amount of space on poles and in conduit. The market can't support having even 4 or 5 providers all running their own lines (even if they all had equal penetration rates, none of them would be making a profit).
When it's done this way, you can choose from many different providers (see UTOPIA and the, what, 9 or 10 providers they have that are all offering 1G for $65-$70/mo.?) and there's actual competition. Those ISPs can choose to provide options for L2 encryption as well (supporting it on their end and providing CPE that supports it).
Yes, let the government own the monopoly on the "pipes" and let private enterprise compete on the type of "water" that flows down the pipes.
We will never have meaningful competition for pipes anyway so we gain none of the benefits of the free market by handing them over to private ownership.
You mean compared to the outstanding amount of privacy and security we have from private corporations like AT&T and Verizon, who repeatedly assure us that none of the data we use for personal business is ever wholesale disclosed to or split off to a shadowy government agency?
Never mind that this is dark fiber capacity being leased by a private company. They're using the glass in the ground and attaching their own equipment to it.
You can't monitor people via water or electricity. It can make sense for a city to run those things. For example, Seattle was not caught up in the WPPS (pronounced "woops") nuclear power debacle, because they run (or ran, I haven't lived there in 20 years) their own electric utility.
You can monitor people based on water and electricity usage; it's less detailed, but you can get some information from it. Marijuana grow houses are commonly found through power usage signatures. In fact, they commonly steal power not just because they use a lot of it, but so they're not instantly detected.
The new "smart meters", which provide much finer grained usage, will be even better for surveillance.
I was about to make a donation to the PAC of Concerned Good Patriots for Niceness and Helpfulness. Then I looked into the organization and discovered it was run by nonagenarian ss officers intent on converting welfare recipients into soylent-green. Imagine my astonishment!
I know it's a public-private partnership, and I know the key point is "hey, it's faster/better," but after all the NSA revelations, do we really want the government to have direct control over our network access?
It is a local government, to be fair. And honestly? The current legislative landscape means there's almost no functional difference between public internet and Comcast internet. There's still the pretext of a warrant in specific cases, but after that? Bring out the trap and trace gear and the NSA black box for everything else!
I currently live near the top of the hill of Queen Anne, my options for internet are Comcast, or Comcast essentially. Century link is also up there with a plan for a whopping 7mbps of speed down and less than 1mbps up. Comcast offers a plan for 50mbps down and 10mbps up, I need more upload speed, but I can make do with an upload running for hours a day. This wouldn't be bad if Comcast actually worked, but it doesn't. Probably 2 or 3 nights a week my internet becomes near unusable during peak times, I resort to putting my cell phone on LTE and seeing what I need to that way, I can't even keep up with the buffer rate on the lowest quality Youtube videos.
Downtown though, there are a number of apartment and condo buildings that offer 100mbps up & down internet for $60 a month (compared to my $75 for Comcast), or 1gigabit up and down for $120 a month(not available from Comcast at all). So, we do have some gigabit internet, and I've actually found a few places I'd consider living and likely will affect my decision when I eventually move.
At least in my neighborhood, Comcast has terrible(often broken) service with absolutely no alternative. I suppose maybe the density of Queen Anne can't justify the cost of gigabit fiber to the top of the hill, but given how many Microsoft and Amazon people live up here I'd be shocked if there weren't huge interest. This seems damning as to the economic viability of fiber that a relatively dense upper income neighborhood can't get fiber without government subsidy.