[Stranger43]

If the current strategy of making telecommuting the default takes hold post corvid-19 the governments of the industrialized world is going to be forced to treat internet the same way it treats other core infrastructure like roads or railways which means that nationalization will happen if the industry fail to deliver high speed and low prices to the undeserved rural areas.

[whatshisface]

I'm not an expert, but my local MUD board has made basically no improvements since the invention of plumbing. I happen to know how their systems work and they are designed to be the deadest-simple things that will work reliably forever. There's no such thing as a "high performance sewage system" unless you count a really big one as high performance. This attitude generalizes to civil engineers in general who prefer safety over experimentation.

Now, let's compare this to my state and local governments. They're slow, hate change, they're very careful about who to give money to because their main problem is avoiding corruption. A prominent local politician campaigned and won by promising to vote no on or veto everything. Every slow-down comes from a totally legitimate anti-corruption rule and you aren't going to speed the process up without creating Tammany Hall. My local politicians have only one way to make the news, and that's by messing something up. There is no carrot, only a stick.

Those two pictures align perfectly! As a result, my water service has never been interrupted, and I have never gone to the polls with a negative idea about anyone on the MUD board. It's a great system for everyone involved.

Now, my question is, how in the world does this work with internet service, an area in which there are changes at a rate greater than once per century?

[Stranger43]

Plumbing or Highway constructions were/are highly complex high-tech when the government decided the private industry was unable to maintain it to the standards society needed 50+ years ago.

You might also be mistaking the fad driven high margin web for the rather stable internet sitting underneath it, especially if you go all the way down to the cable duct where a lot of rural houses are still using copper put down in the 30ies.

The problem here is that laying down cable ducts requires both "right of way"(often exclusively held by whoever laid down telephone cables in the 30ies) expensive survey work and real physical labor(someone have to an actual trench), all of which requires capital and if you already own the copper cable for no significant increase in revenue.

Things can be done with radio signals and i suspect whenever 6G mobile arrives it might be municipal, but radio will likely never match the bandwidth potential of even the first optical cables ever laid down.

[superhuzza]

I'm sure it was probably a typo, but I just want to point out it's COVID-19, not CORVID-19. Don't want anyone mistakenly thinking this is related to birds of the crow family.

[sp332]

I understand why the WHO avoids animal names,but CORVID would have been a much cooler choice.

[mschuster91]

There is hope that now politicians will face real pressure from their voters to get Internet regulated as utilities and to properly fund its build-out.

[unethical_ban]

This was my first thought as well. We don't cut off water or electric without plenty of warning, typically months of past due bills or eviction. When the service goes out, it is responded to as a public safety matter.

[kedean]

> undeserved rural areas

Was this just a really unfortunate typo for underserved?

[Stranger43]

of cause, modern spellcheckers are an dual edged sword.

[em-bee]

in germany this is already the case. there is a supreme coirt ruling from 2013 that defines internet access as a basic right, at the same level as access to water and electricity, or a landline. there was a case several years earlier, that a landline could not be terminated even if the payments have not been made. having internet as a basic right should affort it the same treatment