Nathanial Ashby
From WikTOPIA
Here are the responses to candidate questions from Nathanial Ashby.
Contents |
2008 Campaign for State House 64
Candidate Responses
- Do you generally support or oppose projects like UTOPIA and iProvo?
Response:"I generally oppose UTOPIA and iProvo"
- What is the basis for your support or opposition?
Response:"I do not believe its the governments responsibility to oversee telecommunications. We need to allow free-market telecommunications to compete against one another for better service and lower prices."
- Is your support or opposition based on the general concept or specific implementations used in UTOPIA and/or iProvo?
Response:"I have a sour taste in my mouth as a Provo citizen because of how iProvo came to be. The city council and mayor wasted millions of dollars without the citizens backing this project, and that is wrong. Something of this caliber should have been on the ballot the way the reconstruction of the BYU Academy Library was. It is also losing a lot of money at tax payers expense."
- What is your position on the regulation of incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) such as Qwest?
Response:"There is too much regulation, period. The government needs to back off and quit meddling in the market."
- What is your position on the regulation of incumbent cable companies such as Comcast?
Response:"There is too much regulation, period. The government needs to back off and quit meddling in the market."
- What role, if any, should the federal government play in allegations of unfair business practices leveled at incumbent carriers such as Qwest and Comcast?
Response:"The state should only interfere if there is blantant fraud involved; the same way the state would interfere if there were fraud at a gas station or bank. And I suspect that there is a lot of fraud involved already."
- What proposals or concepts do you support to bring better broadband access to rurals Utahns?
Response:"The free-market should take care of rural and urban citizens. Rural customers have always had to wait longer for services that urban customers would receive, thats a fact of life and its unfortunate. If we let businesses compete, they'll eventually race out to rural Utah to get the customers on board."
- What proposals or concepts do you support to improve average broadband speeds to be better competitive on an international basis?
Response:"Again, deregulating the telecom industry will force the companies to compete with one another. Lower prices and better service follow with fair economic competition."
- What proposals or concepts do you support to increase competitive options for Internet, television and telephone services?
Response:"In order to truly increase competition between internet, television, and telephone services, the government needs to back off. The government generally tends to screw things up and we find that regulating private companies and socializing telecommunications is not the answer."
- Do you have any other related comments you would like to add?
Response:"Regardless if you agree or disagree with my logic, whats important is that people continue to have these issues brought up by regular citizens like yourself. The government railroads the citizens a lot of the time and the citizens are left in the dark without knowing the issues. I applaud you and wish you luck and your lobbying efforts."
FreeUTOPIA Position on Candidate
Positive
This candidate acknowledges that incumbent providers should likely be investigated for fraud in the marketplace and supports having greater discussions on telecommunications policy.
Mixed
N/A
Negative
Almost all proposed solutions are to remove regulation and see what happens. This position does not acknowledge the government-created entrenchment of the incumbent providers and offers no corrections for it.
Overall Rating
Negative (1/5). While willing to take incumbents to task for their previous and current misdeeds, this candidate does not offer many solutions that would properly correct the imbalance in the telecommunications market.
