- transCam / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
Tony Abraham of the Technical.ly Delaware website recently pointed out a contradiction in a post from the libertarian publication Reason on studying whether the city should get into the broadband business.
The publication, looking from afar, mentioned Newark as it made a case for municipalities not getting into the broadband business. The post pointed to many failures in municipal Internet systems, although some municipalities have operated such systems for decades.
What they missed was that the fact that the city is looking into the situation at the request of residents, not because officials were looking to add services.
City officials are fully aware of the potential costs of getting into the cable TV business and know that some of the sentient toward city broadband is based on residents unhappy with cable TV bills that include high-speed Internet.
Those companies (Verizon and Comcast) use bundling, which can result in $200 a month bills once all the premium channel options are added. The broadband Internet itself can run less than $50 month, a figure many of us can afford.
Verizon has modified some of its policies on bundling, although bills can still be on the hefty side, if you want a full array of cable channels.
A study will be undertaken on the costs and other issues, but don’t think for a moment that residents will wake up to new city-owned cable utility with free HBO and ESPN.
It can also be argued that technology could eventually change as more programming is streamed by some cable networks and more people simply quit cable and find enough streaming content.
That might make a city-owned Internet only broadband system more feasible, if it could somehow be done without burying a lot of cable.
As Abraham noted, the city’s move is democracy in action, something libertarians should support. Still, if Reason delved into Newark in little more depth, it might find even more to dislike.
After all, the council decided against bringing in a private hauler to take care of the city’s refuse at a much lower cost, after many people testified against the measure.
It turns out that the city’s refuse crews are among the most popular city employees, based on previous surveys and general comments one hears.
That degree of comfort is influenced by the city’s electric utility. Profits are used to reduce property taxes, which make the costs of city-owned refuse service a bit easier to swallow.
A News Journal piece indicated that electric rates for Newark customers run about $15 a month higher than customers at Delmarva Power. The city is then able to transfer millions of dollars that reduce property taxes.
Reason might argue that the city electric utility should be sold. The likely buyer would be Delmarva Power, which might offer lower rates. The trade off would be higher property taxes in return.
In other words, Reason has a valid argument, but needed to make few more phone calls to flesh out its sweeping assumption.
