Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Saturday, March 7th, 2015

How a Mid-Sized Tennessee Town Took on Comcast, Revived Its Economy With Socialism

Author:     Carl Gibson
Source:     The Huffington Post
Publication Date:     03/06/2015 3:59 pm EST
 Link: How a Mid-Sized Tennessee Town Took on Comcast, Revived Its Economy With Socialism
Stephan:   This is what is doable if communities can reach a critical consensus on something life-affirming through individual choice. In this case it is the internet; its parallel is the story I ran some weeks ago about Burlington, Vermont creating its own power, and becoming independent. As power and communications become cheaper and more comprehensive the effect will be to make it easier for communities to take control of the basic infrastructure of their lives, and this will lead to decentralization. The economic model will change, as social wellness so blatantly becomes obviously the better choice.
Night view across the Tennessee River in Chattanooga Credit: Frank Kehren Photography

Night view across the Tennessee River in Chattanooga
Credit: Frank Kehren Photography

Chattanooga, Tennessee, has provided a model for all American towns who want to see their economies and populations grow quickly. And that model is simple: give sub-par internet providers like Comcast some legitimate competition with publicly-owned municipal broadband networks.

“People understand that high-speed Internet access is quickly becoming a national infrastructure issue just like the highways were in the 1950s,” Chattanooga mayor Andy Berke told CNN Money. “If the private sector is unable to provide that kind of bandwidth because of the steep infrastructure investment, then just like highways in the 1950s, the government has to consider providing that support.”

If you’re sick of having only one cable/internet company in your town and have horror stories about dealing with a global corporation that has a monopoly and doesn’t care about you, you aren’t the only one. According to a 2011 survey by the FCC, 61 percent of Americans have only one cable and internet provider to choose from. […]

Read the Full Article