[TriLUG] OT: URGENT: H.129 to be heard in Thursday's Finance Committee!

[Michael Peters]

On 03/15/2011 12:02 PM, Bill Farrow wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 11:44 AM, Chris Merrill
> <chris at webperformance.com>  wrote:
>> Think about the big infrastructures you mentioned - roads, water, gas, electric.
>> They are mature technologies whose requirements have not changed substantially
>> for decades (centuries in some cases).  Put in a water line and you can safely
>> assume it won't need to be upgraded for 50-100 years.

This is a decent argument against broadband as public infrastructure, 
but I still believe it's not the full picture.

> Not quite right: the roads are constantly being resurfaced, rebuilt,
> and expanded. Electricity distribution has gone through many upgrades
> over the years, from substation upgrades to street transformers, and
> even now smart grid tech is being rolled out to the endpoints.

Exactly. Having it be an government infrastructure doesn't mean it won't 
change or evolve. There will still be companies developing new broadband 
technologies even if their main clients are municipal broadbands. Do you 
think that TWC creates it's own hardware? In fact, what innovations does 
TWC bring to the table?

-- 
Michael Peters
Plus Three, LP