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Comment by tgb | Hacker News Reader

The title seems misleading: the alternative is not free internet, but internet expanded out to the suburban/rural areas for free, which then charges customers for access. This is in comparison to paying commercial companies to expand to those areas. It's really just less expensive, not free.

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EPB wants to build the infrastructure for free. There would still be a monthly cost to use the infrastructure. With Comcast, it's the worst of both worlds.

How can the infrastructure be built for free? Volunteer labor and donated capital?

He means without subsidizing from the government. EPB would cover the CapEx

EPB is owned by the government of Chattanooga, TN.

But makes a profit and would fund the expansion with its own money, not tax payers'.

My takeaway from this is that Comcast and AT&T will be paid $45m by the government to develop the infrastructure.

Whilst this EPB company will invest their own money for the infrastructure.

This was my understanding as well. with EPB they were responsible for the Cap Ex with Comcast the Cap Ex would be paid for by tax breaks(corporate welfare.)

I've always found Vice to be a sensationalist, biased media outlet. [In the past, they've based their politically-motivated conclusion on data that supports the complete opposite conclusion][0]. I'm not surprised that this title is similarly sensationalized.

EDIT: Clarified my point.

[0]: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/why-are-so-many-mass-shoo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi

Your link doesn't apply here. Looks like you missed the point. :) At any rate, I changed my post to (hopefully) be more clear.

How is this relevant to the topic at hand? I don't mean this in a "so you shouldn't post" sense, I simply feel that you ended your post too soon: if vice is biased, and an example of an old, biased article on a very different topic supports that, how does that then demonstrate bias in this article?

It doesn't demonstrate bias in this article, it demonstrates that they completely lack journalistic integrity and their content shouldn't be trusted. Sorry if the example wasn't particularly pertinent to the content of this article, it was the one that came to mind on the spot.

But the municipal option is willing to expand of it's own accord if allowed, while Comcast and AT&T will receive $40 million to build infrastructure and still charge customers.

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