Here's a headline for ya...

Telecoms lobby against public wireless networks.

Oh Fuck!!! The people found out that they could provide Internet service to themselves a hell of a lot cheaper than the ISPS have been. What the hell are the companies gonna do now?!?!

Funny, huh? It's amazing, when the free market called Capitalism works against businesses that routinely bilk consumers, they cry foul. They are upset because the citizens of Philly can provide Internet service to themselves for next to nothing compared to what the big companies are charging. If the people can do that, why should they not be allowed to?

Here's another line from the article...

But the telecoms industry, ...calls such public-sector projects unfair competition.

A chief complaint: a city can draw on taxpayer dollars, while a private company has to pay interest on borrowed capital. Also, the telecoms complain, public-sector projects are subject to far less regulation.

And why shouldn't such a venture be free from regulation? The entire purpose behind regulation, it's very existence was brought about because businesses tend to rip people off given half a chance. Let's put this in perspective. In order to provide Internet service, one needs the hardware and the know how. That's it. Somebody sets up the hardware, which is, to be fair, expensive. They also provide the connection to the Internet, which costs money as well. However, I know from experience that just a few people can provide service for hundreds of individuals for just startup costs and time. I used to work with a couple of guys that did it in their spare time!!! Granted, this was back in the day when dial-up was all you had, but they had 100s of customers giving them $20 a month. Hmmm, let's just look at 100 customers, that works out to $2,000 every month. They had more customers than this, and (I talked to the guy about it) the initial investment in hardware was $6,000. They made a killing, and sold the service to another provider after a few years.

Now consider just one provider, the cable company, charging $40 a month, with over 1,000 customers. $40,000 a month per 1,000 customers. Think it costs that much to provide the service? Not even close. "We have to pay our creditors." they whine. I asked the guy about that as well, said they recouped their initial investment in just a few months. AND, you would think that a larger company would have no trouble with the initial cost, of course not.

The point is, if someone is providing a service for a lot less money than somebody else, why do these larger companies feel it is ok to cry foul. That is what the free market is all about, the best of the providers survive, if you aren't up to par, you go under.