Across the nation, city governments are looking into what it would take to offer “free”, city-wide wireless internet access to all residents. A few small cities, such as Alexandria, Va. and Marshalltown, Ia. already offer this, and larger cities like Philadelphia are not far behind. Don’t be suprised if, in a few years, municipal telecommunications services are as popular as municipal garbage collection.
Proponents say that providing wireless internet access will benefit many people, would be relatively inexpensive to impliment, could tie into existing government equipment, and could attact new businesses and residents to the city.
In actuality, this will lead to higher taxes and internet prices, will stifle competition, eliminate jobs, and lead us down the slippery slope towards censorship.
The most glaring drawback to this plan is that it will stifle competition, driving many private internet service providers (ISPs) out of business almost immediately. How many people will continue paying for internet service when the city provides it using their tax dollars? The immediate side effect will be lost jobs from the now out of business ISPs, and a government monopoly on internet access.
Initially, the amount of your taxes that goes to fund the wireless network will surely be less than you are now paying your ISP, but once the government establishes a monopoly you can count on those taxes going up. As with any government bureaucracy, budgets only go one way — up. Instead of private competition driving your internet prices down, the “telecommunications” portion of your municipal bill will go up yearly just like your water and sewer.
With competing private ISPs, you will always find some company trying to attract your business by providing you with “more for less.” They have incentive to upgrade to the latest equipment, provide fast, stable connections, and to offer their customers a high level of service and support. If they don’t, there are many other service providers ready to take your business.
Where will the government find incentive to provide you quality service and great connections? You are forced to pay for the service, regardless of your intentions to use it. If there is an outage in your neighborhood, who would you rather call — the city, or a private company? I waited over an hour the last time I renewed my drivers license. Can you imaging calling the government for tech support?
Most alarming, is the censorship angle. With the government providing the service, elected officials will have access to your web surfing habits, and will have the ability to control the content you are allowed to receive.
Think this sounds far-fetched? Consider this. Pro-life taxpayers make a great point that it is immoral to use their tax money to fund abortions. Wouldn’t taxpayers who are morally opposed gambling argue that they should not have to pay for others to view this content? Perhaps city law enforcement discovers web sites and forums that are used by local gangs. Shutting down access to these sites could prevent violence. Of course, pornography would have to be blocked to “protect the children.”
If the government controls your access to the internet, it is just a matter of time before they decide that some content just shouldn’t be available.
The government should not be in the business of providing internet access. Private companies are all over this one. This industry is a glaring example of the free market at work. Ten years ago, the internet was very new to most people and access was slow, unstable, relatively expensive, and not available in all places.
Now, nearly 70% of the US population uses the internet. Almost 70 million households now have high-speed, broadband internet access. Even small towns usually have several local internet service providers to choose from. Because of the private companies competing for profit, technology has advanced so far that we are now talking about providing wireless high-speed access to entire cities — and there are private companies who already offer this.
If we want to see continued innovation, improved performance, and lower prices in this field we must keep the government out of it! Innovation naturally occurs when government steps aside and lets the free market work. Government never delivers on it’s promises and our internet access is something that we should never put into their hands.
