Living in Privatopia could mean paying for telecommunications services provided by your HOA, even if you choose another provider as this broadbandreports.com item explains.
The problem is developers sign long term contracts with a single Internet Service Provider instead of putting in open access fiber owned by the HOA. Good for the developer prince but not the HOA serfs. An open access fiber to the premises infrastructure would give residents a true choice of ISPs since any number could choose to offer services to the residents.
2 comments:
Forced consumption of services from economically unregulated vendors specified by the HOA board or the developer has been a problem for a very long time with HOAs and other involuntary membership corporations.
Examples include:
Telecom (Telephone)
Telecom (Internet)
Telecom (video services)
Water
Propane gas
and even Electricity
and no, homeowners are not "agreeing" to this. These need to be antitrust suits and the target should be the HOA corporation and those that control it including the managing agent.
-icdelight
What happens in the future, when communisties are developed so there is only one demarcation point between the Internet Service Provider and the neighborhood (or condo complex), with the developer/HOA owning the telecommunications infrastructure on the local area network side?
Just like your employer, your HOA will have the right to monitor and filter what you do on the internet, reading your e-mail, and place software on your computer. After all, it's their network, not yours, and you "agreed" to it when you "signed" the "contract."
It will not matter if the terms of use were in place when you moved in, or unilaterally amended by the HOA corporation after-the-fact. The "contract" allows them to amend the "contract."
Imagine the Glorious Privatized Corporatist Future longed for by conservatives and libertarians! We will have the same rights at home as we do at work, because every aspect of life in the mandatory-membership HOA union will be governed by the same corporate contract law.
Private e-mails critical of the HOA leadership will be blocked at the Common Interest Internet Community Gateway owned by the HOA, with a fine tacked on for every e-mail blocked. Web sites like this one will be redirected to www.caionline.org ; which will be everybody's home page by default, as set in Group Policy for the network neighborhood.
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