Along with family, appreciating what we have, and sharing our benefits, the holidays have a strong sense of tradition. Several years ago, our team put together "Twas The Night Before Muni Fiber" and we've made it a tradition to share it each Holiday Season.
We look forward to more collaborations, challenges, and sharing in 2018. Enjoy and thank you for your support!
A holiday poem in the style of "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" by Dr. Seuss.
Every American on the Internet liked network neutrality a lot
But the FCC’s Grinchy Pai, former lawyer for Verizon, did not!
Pai hated net neutrality! He despised it, he dreaded it!
And on December 14th, he and his cronies, they shredded it.
It could be, perhaps, that he wanted more dough.
ISPs could make more with lanes fast and lanes slow.
But whatever the reason, cash or prestige,
His choice pissed off subscribers by many degrees.
Americans cried out in anger and dismay!
“We like net neutrality! Don’t take it away!”
“It’s good for free speech and new businesses too! Selling, reporting, and artistic debut!
We need it for school kids who have tests to take.
We need it for far away doctors with prognoses to make.
We need it so businesses can hit the ground running.
We need it for working from home, for homework, for funning.
We need it to save money. To get good Internet service.
We don’t want ISPs to decide what to serve us.”
“You have market protection,” he said with a snort.
But ILSR elves proved there was nothing of the sort.
The elves showed very little, almost no competition.
But Grinchy Pai didn’t care for the net neutrality tradition.
He wouldn’t listen to pleas to stop and investigate.
Even millions of fake comments didn't make him hesitate.
His planned to kill net neutrality completely.
His overlord ISPs would reward him so sweetly.
“Pooh-pooh to subscribers!” he was grinchily singing
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What monster makes you tremble? Chills you to the core? Sends shivers through your soul? Could it be…the Monopoly Monster? Count Comcast? The Mummy from the Last CenturyLink?
We know how you feel and to help ease the fears that quicken your pulse when your open your monthly Internet access bill, we’re reanimating several goodies from Halloween 2015. We’re haunted by how these still ring true!
Enjoy, download, share!
We can use words to explain the debate around broadband speeds in the hallowed halls of the FCC, or we can let Jeff Lofvers do it with this awesome webcomic. Lofvers, a software developer, artist, and the creative force behind the Don’t Hit Save webcomic recently released this gem.
We know you'll appreciate it, so please take a moment to check out Don’t Hit Save and consider supporting his work.
If you’re like much of the country, you may be stuck in a bad romance with your Internet Service Provider. In the spirit of the holiday, the writers at MuniNetworks.org reimagined three of the biggest providers as their sweeties and, you guessed it, things weren’t all wine and roses.
Comcast - “The Creep”
by Kate
All across the U.S., Internet subscribers are settling for Comcast when there’s no one else to date. After the excitement of a new relationship in the form of low price introductory rates disappears, you are left with nothing more than slow, inconsistent speeds and jacked up service fees. What had been a steady relationship quickly hits rocks when Comcast becomes lazy, realizing that you will never break up with them because there’s no one else in town to date. When you finally can’t stand Comcast’s high costs, added fees, data caps, and inconsistent speeds, you decide to take a break but just like a bad date, Comcast refuses to take “no” for an answer. What can you do when your only other choice is DSL? You’re trapped by “The Creep.”
AT&T - “Darth Vader”
by Hannah
AT&T is the empire of telecom. The empire will control everything and everyone through the power of the Death Star or, in AT&T’s case, through lobbyists and high prices. AT&T’s willing to put in a minimal level of support in rural areas: just like the empire maintains a small outpost on Tatooine but doesn’t care that the rural planet is full of smugglers and run by a mob of Hutts. Personified, the company is most certainly Darth Vader: manipulative, secretive, and powerful. He will only help you if there’s something in it for him. He doesn’t actually care about your feelings, only that he maintains power over you (it's just like paying AT&T not to spy on you). Don’t date Darth Vader – you can’t trust him.
CenturyLink - “The Old Geezer”
by Lisa
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Xmas and New Year's Eve are traditionally a time to get sentimental. We started getting sentimental about last year's poetic holiday masterpiece by Tom Ernste and Hannah Trostle and decided to share it again this year.
From all of us at the Community Broadband Networks Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, we wish you a happy holiday season and a 2017 filled with great moments!
Are you spending the Halloween weekend watching scary movies on Netflix? Researching pagan rituals online? Scouring the web for last minute costume ideas? If you are don't have decent Internet access, even those simple tasks can be downright horrifying.
If you are trapped as a cable monopoly zombie, you understand the difference between Broadband Tricks or Treats. We created this graphic last year to celebrate the spooky differences between community networks and cable monopolies and it's too good to bury in a shallow grave! Here it is again...back from the (un)dead!
View a larger version of this graphic here [pdf]. Stay up to date on community networks with our newsletter!
Much like the the bone-chilling flicks celebrating eerie entertainment that dwells in the depths of our dark imaginations, monster cable and DSL Internet service providers strike terror in the hearts of subscribers…if they survive. Mesmerizing fees, hair-raising customer service, and shockingly slow connections can drive one to the brink of madness.
In celebration of Halloween 2016, our writers each selected a national ISP and reimagined it as a classic horror character. The results are horrifying! Read them here…if you dare!
AT&T’s Frankenmerger
by Kate
This shocking film tells the horrific tale of a mad scientist in his quest to create the world’s largest telecommunications monopoly monster. The scientist’s abomination runs amok, gobbling up company after company, to create a horrifying monster conglomerate. Watch the monster terrorize towns across America as it imposes data caps, denies people access to low-cost programs, and refuses to upgrade infrastructure. What nightmare lies ahead? Will the townsfolk and their elected officials unite to stop the monster, before it acquires Time Warner? Watch and find out!
The Mummy From Last CenturyLink
by Scott
Archaeologists unearth the Last CenturyLink Mummy from a rural field of copper wires. Townspeople put the Mummy on display in Hard Luck City Hall. Little do they know the Last CenturyLink Mummy was once Pharaoh of DSL (Dreadfully Slow Line) service. Long ago, he was cursed by subscribers and doomed to remain in the slumber of purgatory, much like the DSL Internet access they endured. He awakes when he...
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It’s good for you, it’s good for all of us, and for many people, discussing it is as thrilling as watching paint dry. We’re talking about the principle of network neutrality, if course.
Stephen Colbert has found a new way to share this important issue and he has found a thrilling way to do it - on a roller coaster with Professor Tim Wu!
Check it out!
This time of year, goblins and ghouls are in plentiful supply. There is, however, a much scarier prospect than kids in rubber masks and bad Halloween candy: the reality of our monopolistic internet service providers. Enjoy the following images designed for Halloween and feel free to distribute widely.
