Supernet
I originally found out about Supernet while checking out the Alberta Government's Web site.
Supernet boils down to giving a conglomeration of large hardware and software companies (notably CISCO and Microsoft) almost $200 million dollars to build a high-speed network. Then, apparently, schools and hospitals can use it at ``reduced rates'' (which are left unspecified).
Now, first off: is $200 million best spent in giving schools the possibility of using a high-speed network? If budgets are already stretched thinly over teacher salaries; if parents have to pay ever-increasing user-fees for basic necessities like text-books; if student-teacher ratios are still getting worse, is there room in the budget to both pay the Supernet monthly fees AND buy computers and hardware to use it AND pay someone to look after the new school network? Doubtful.
Are hospitals -- with already insufficient funding -- able to afford the costs of connecting to a high-speed network? Also doubtful.
I say it's better to increase education and health-care funding.
But, with Christmas so recently passed, I'll be generous: let's pretend for a moment that an additional high-speed network (besides the one the Alberta Government sold to Telus and the two controlled by Rogers and Shaw) is needed. There are still big problems with the proposed implementation:
First of all, there is no requirement to use the network which taxpayers have ALREADY paid to put in the ground: the formerly-AGT phone network. This covers the entire province, and could be utilized as a high-speed connection between schools and hospitals with little additional infrastructure. Certainly, the email I received in answer to mine (see below) says that the consortium in charge of Supernet is ``obligated to consider'' using existing infrastructure, but this is a far cry from utilizing all the existing bandwidth available.
Furthermore, the Alberta taxpayer owns nothing besides a promise for the $193 million they are investing; none of the network to be built will be owned by the Alberta government. The promise the public gets is merely the government's ``perpetual right'' to use the system; use which they must pay monthly fees for. This is hardly worth $193 million.
Proprietary systems are being utilized to glue the network together. CISCO and Microsoft make the lion's share of their money by utilizing the immoral patent and copyright systems to keep their software and hardware proprietary and unimproveable. Indeed, Microsoft has made sure you don't even own the copy of software you pay for, and is moving toward a subscription-based model where you won't even HAVE a copy of the software. Surely, a public network needs to be open? You'll note that Brenda Harris contradicts almost everything in her email and the Supernet proposal in the final paragraph, saying, ``SUPERNET will be established under an open philosophy''. Such is clearly not the case: the hardware is proprietary, the software is proprietary and the fiber itself isn't even owned by the public. What is open about this?
The Klein government sings constant praise to the wonders of the free market; why are they using $200 million in taxpayer dollars to help develop more Internet Service Providers? Isn't corporate welfare something a free-marketeer should shun?
Following is the email I originally sent, with the answer I recently received following that.
From: Mike Warren <mike [at] mike-warren.com%gt;
Subject: Supernet
To: Cypress-Medicine_Hat [at] assembly.ab.ca
Date: 07 Dec 2000 19:53:36 -0700
I was just reading through the Supernet Web site