North Carolina Still Wants To Block Municipal Broadband 289
An anonymous reader writes: In February, when the FCC rolled out its net neutrality rules, it also voted to override state laws that let Texas and North Carolina block ISPs created by local governments and public utilities. These laws frequently leave citizens facing a monopoly or duopoly with no recourse, so the FCC abolished them. Now, North Carolina has sued the FCC to get them back. State Attorney General Roy Cooper claims, "the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State's political subdivisions." He adds that the new rule is "arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act; and is otherwise contrary to law."
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's about money. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a Democrat living in North Carolina. Roy Cooper is the Democratic Attorney General who plans to run for Governor in two years. He is interested in campaign contributions from the telecom industry. That's why he opposes municipal broadband even when private companies have no intention of offering it to an area. He thinks regular voters are not paying attention so there is only upside for him in this. This is the same Att. Gen. Cooper who opposed gay marriage in NC until the courts forced it to happen. He is not impressing me. Hope he has some competition in the 2017 Democratic Primary for Governor.
Re:It's about money. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner Cable say "It's nice to find some politician that actually stay paid off and don't want to rock the boat"
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To be fair, Cooper only opposed gay marriage because, as he pointed out, it's his job as AG to represent the state of North Carolina. He was on record as opposing the ban.
It's not clear to me if the same dynamic is in place here, however.
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To be fair, Cooper only opposed gay marriage because, as he pointed out, it's his job as AG to represent the state of North Carolina. He was on record as opposing the ban.
He was lying. [aside]You can tell when politicians do that by checking to see if their lips are moving.[/aside]. Virginia's Attorney General was in a similar position, except it wasn't just a state law, it was written into the state Constitution. Yet he still refused to uphold the law [npr.org]. So Cooper was just blowing smoke up your ass. He defended the anti-gay marriage law because he decided that was the most politically beneficial position, and had a handy excuse to use for doing it.
Re:It's about money. (Score:5, Insightful)
It was Virginia's AG that did not do his job.
They swore an oath to uphold the state's constitution and their laws regardless of their personal beliefs. Virginia's AG usurped the authority given to the state legislature and failed to act on their behalf. His job is to represent law makers to the state supreme court and higher.
I don't agree with the ban but you can't overlook someone's failing as an AG simply because the outcome was favorable to your side. Roy Cooper was correct, since in my state the AG would face impeachment for refusing to act on behalf of the legislature.
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Because that is an analogous situation to the one you seem to support.
I did not intend to leave that impression. Just pointing out that prosecutors do what they want, and justify it later. The VA attorney clearly violated his oath, regardless of the merits of the cause.
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Cooper tried to split the difference by being against Amendment 1 banning gay marriage and being against gay marriage at the same time. The Attorney General is charged with upholding the law. The highest law is the US Constitution and the NC Constitution makes that clear. After the Windsor decision, there was no excuse for any state official to defer to state law because it was clear that the US Constitution (equal protection and due process clauses) confer equal rights on everyone. And state law did no
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Of course, if North Carolina and Texas claim loudly from one side of their mouths that they demand more State's rights without federal interference, then turn around and with the other side of their mouths deny their municipalities from having municipal rights, then they're just hypocrites. Of course, that is a redundant word when discussing politicians.
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Because brib....ahem "campaign contribiti.....ahem "corporate free speech".
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
In 100 years, there will be singularity. In 2084, when the singularity takes over the world, your area was scheduled for destruction by nuclear missile, because uploading its control virus onto your brain implant chips (mandatory by international treaties since the 2076 terror attack on google city (new name of mountain view since 2060), pushed by US president Bush junior junior) would have required too long.
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Re: Why? (Score:3)
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Re:Why? (Score:4, Interesting)
I see that you still have the illusion that the politicians are not totally bought and paid for by business interests.
I believe that George Carlin said it best:
"Because the owners, the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.
Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want:
They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests.
Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!
You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It's a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.
By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you.they don’t give a fuck about you they don’t give a FUCK about you.
They don’t care about you at all at all AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.
It's called the American Dream,because you have to be asleep to believe it."
I wonder why... (Score:5, Informative)
You have to admire the hypocracy of state legislators who argue for "state's rights", who don't care about "city and county rights" to roll out broadband to attract jobs and new people to their area. It's almost like they were hypocrites, ignorant of freshman economics, sold to the highest bidder or something... /Lives in Tennessee, has the same bunch of ignorant cretins passing laws that an 18 year old freshman could easily shoot down as dumb.
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Hypocricy? No.
For all those who are going to argue this point: keep in mind, States cannot declare bankrupcy, but counties, cities and other subdivisions can.
Should states be able to tell municipalities, that they can't run a broadband service? Should states be allowed to tell cities they can't run acity sponsered colleges? What about allowing states to force farmers to charge more for food leaving the state?
I don't know where the line is I don't care. What I would wish to see is simply nationwide local l
Re:I wonder why... (Score:4, Informative)
Disclaimer, I live in NC and generally support municipal broadband projects when communities are underserved. I'm a big fan of the Wilson fiber service.
First, there is no concept of a citizen of a city or municipality. People are citizens of a state. Cities, counties, municipalities are all creatures of a state, and thus are under the control of state government, not local or federal government. There's no hypocrisy because the general argument in favor of states rights is not about ultimately devolving power to the smallest possible unit of control, but about maintaining state legal authority from being assumed by the federal government.
The main argument against municipal broadband projects is that they frequently fail and leave the municipality saddled with debt. This becomes the responsibility of the state government. Thus, state governments have the power to regulate what projects municipalities embark on, because the state government is the ultimate guarantor.
The secondary argument against municipal broadband is that municipal projects are typically able to entirely bypass permitting and other planning approval stages (costly stages and costly permits; let's not forget the requisite greasing of the political wheels). They are frequently given rights of way and access that private companies do not have authorization to use. There is a good chance that a municipal broadband network would discourage other companies from making a significant investment facing this kind of unbalanced competition. If the project then goes on to be a significant money loser, the municipality is even worse off than when it began.
Examples of municipal projects that have failed or otherwise had explosive debt:
Provo, UT (saved by Google)
Lafayette, LA http://www.rstreet.org/2014/05/30/muni-broadband-the-gift-that-keeps-on-taking/ [rstreet.org]
Davidson, NC and Mooresville, NC http://www.lakenormancitizen.com/news/news/item/6426-reinventing-mi-connection-an-inside-look.html [lakenormancitizen.com]
Utah UTOPIA alliance http://www.wsj.com/articles/municipal-broadband-is-no-utopia-1403220660 [wsj.com]
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LUS Fiber (Lafayette), S&P upgraded their bonds from A to A+ based on strong performance this year. They went cash positive in 2012.
Your second link indicates that MI-Connection is likewise cash positive and beginning to pay down debt.
3rd link is paywalled, had to get it via Google search. That one has real problems, but it appears to be a matter of political sabotage rather than being an intrinsically bad idea.
So what your links really say is that (SURPRISE), big projects sometimes take longer to pay o
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Though this may be a bit Godwin's laws ish....
Remember that State's Rights were used as a justification for secession.
But, in the Confederate Constitution, it pretty much was a copy of the US Constitution.... three exceptions. 1) anything based on age was of course reclocked to start of Confederacy. 2) anything based on number of states was reset to number of Confederate states 3) you HAD to allow slavery. No choice.
So, the US Constitution allowed various slavery modes (not that this was good, but we're
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Look at it this way, can, or should, the state be able to override a county's ability to limit a cities property tax? If so then why should it be limited to the state, and why should the fed not do the same?
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Look at it this way, can, or should, the state be able to override a county's ability to limit a cities property tax? If so then why should it be limited to the state, and why should the fed not do the same?
Well, the legal reason is that the US government is Federal, and the state governments typically are unitary.
That is, under the US constitution, the states have a limited degree of sovereignty. However, under state constitutions the local governments typically do not have any sovereignty.
That is why states can and do charter and abolish local governments as the need arises. If your school district has an abysmal educational record, your governor can appoint somebody to come in and basically run the distri
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Except the NC constitution makes it not unitary, but at least semi-federalist
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Except the NC constitution makes it not unitary, but at least semi-federalist
Well, to the degree that this is the case within a particular state, they certainly are sounding like hypocrites!
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Washington DC would like to have a word with you.
Red herring. I didn't claim the States could or should leave the Union. I simply claimed that the Federal Government can't decide for them how much power they wish to delegate to their political subdivisions. You should familiarize yourself with the 10th Amendment and concept of enumerated powers
Strawman: He was not talking about succession, he was talking about states rights.
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However you are still failing to look at the picture. The NC constitution is similar to to the US constitution int hat it gives power of taxation to the, or more important, the regulation of trade, to the local governments, so the situation is the same for how the US treats NC as how NC treats locals in this case.:
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The states are not sovereign under the US Constitution, the PEOPLE are sovereign. The states do not have the right to oppress the people, but is almost the only reason "State's rights" are invoked. Pot legalization is pretty much the only case I can think of where State's rights have been invoked in favor of the liberty of the People rather than against it.
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Oh, there's a little bit. If the bigger (fed) can't regulate the smaller (state) in an industry that is pretty much inherently interstate in nature, then why can the bigger (state) regulate the smaller (city)?
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Because the Constitution says nothing cities, counties, or planned communities?
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Because the Constitution says nothing cities, counties, or planned communities?
So I'm still confused here, does fed overrule state or state overrule fed? Or is it just "both, as needed" per usual?
If California can legalize pot yet the law still supports the feds arresting anyone possessing it, seems to me that means the FCC can force states to allow ISPs to operate irregardless of the states wishes.
If the state does have power to tell the FCC to go away, why can't California do the same exact thing under the same exact laws to the DEA?
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Not only that, but the Internet doesn't even respect international boundaries, let alone state boundaries. The FCC is absolutely within its rights to play the "interstate commerce" card here. You can argue the merits of the FCC position, but it's disingenuous to argue that this isn't under Federal jurisdiction.
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The 14th Amendment gives the Federal government the right to defend the People against the States. Nowhere are the States given the right to oppress the People, despite the fact that is almost the only circumstance where the phrase "States' Rights" are invoked.
Most places still face monopolies or duopolies (Score:3)
>> laws frequently leave citizens facing a monopoly or duopoly with no recourse, so the FCC abolished them
Um...how many cable network providers do YOU have where you live? Does ANYONE have three (3) or more?
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Um...how many cable network providers do YOU have where you live? Does ANYONE have three (3) or more?
Chattanooga, Tennessee. EPB, Comcast, AT&T. But yeah, almost no one has a choice. I'm lucky.
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Kansas Citian here. Where I live, I can select from AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast, and Google. And of course there's a bunch of smaller ISPs that resell bandwidth from the big four.
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>> laws frequently leave citizens facing a monopoly or duopoly with no recourse, so the FCC abolished them
Um...how many cable network providers do YOU have where you live? Does ANYONE have three (3) or more?
In Atlanta, I have Charter, and aside from that, a choice of AT&T UVerse and Comcast
Not the whole truth (Score:3)
State Attorney General Roy Cooper claims, "the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State's political subdivisions."
Not to mention that municipal broadband providers won't kick back as much in campaign finance support as the major cable companies. The FCC is really going to cut into that revenue stream pretty heavily with these rules.
States Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
While it seems like the federal government is out of line taking the right to govern away from the states, in reality it is the states that are taking away the right to govern from local governments that ACTUALLY WANT municipal broadband.
Ensuring that municipalities maintain their rights to roll out local broadband isn't a perversion of states rights, its preventing states rights from perverting local rights.
Re:States Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm fine with the state setting minimum requirements. (Your sewer system shouldn't back up into the public's basements. -- Yes, we've had this happen.)
However, the case of municipal broadband is the state setting a maximum requirement. "You can't provide this level of service - only less than this level." You can argue whether or not municipal broadband is a good idea and the answer will vary on a case by case basis, but a blanket ban on local governments providing this service is just wrong.
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While it seems like the federal government is out of line taking the right to govern away from the states, in reality it is the states that are taking away the right to govern from local governments that ACTUALLY WANT municipal broadband.
Ensuring that municipalities maintain their rights to roll out local broadband isn't a perversion of states rights, its preventing states rights from perverting local rights.
Trying to follow your logic, i end up where you started: federal government [is out of line] taking the right to govern away from the states - i don't know the constitution of USA, but i think that (usually) a federation has less power over its states than a state has on its municipalities.
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While it seems like the federal government is out of line taking the right to govern away from the states, in reality it is the states that are taking away the right to govern from local governments that ACTUALLY WANT municipal broadband.
Ensuring that municipalities maintain their rights to roll out local broadband isn't a perversion of states rights, its preventing states rights from perverting local rights.
There is no such thing as "local rights". The federal government has 8 areas where it can legally legislate based on Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. Everything else is within the purview of state governments. This is where the concept of "states rights" comes from.
Your confusion stems from seeing the relationship between the federal government and the various states as being similar to the relationship between a state and its local municipalities. These relationships are - in a legal sense - to
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State powers to not trump the right's of the People. The 14th Amendment gives the Federal government the power to defend the rights of the People against the States.
EPB to the rescue? (Score:3, Interesting)
odd politics (Score:2)
Yee Haa! States' Rights (Score:2)
The South rises again!
Wanna go to war on this?
The right of a legislature to be utterly corrupt. Canada could probably be persuaded to join.
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The South rises again!
"The South's Gonna Do It Again!!"
"Do what? Lose?"
Too Bad For North Carolinians! (Score:5, Informative)
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In these cases, these politicians' constituents are the big ISPs who don't want any competition (even in areas they refuse to serve), not the voting public.
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I'm getting the fastest internet service in the country for $59 a month. [...] Too bad about all these state legislators who seem to feel the need to protect their constituents from super-fast internet speeds at affordable rates that the private companies never seem to feel the need to deliver.
Well, the issue would be is that $59 that you're paying at least "revenue neutral" (i.e., the city government isn't losing money).
The complaint about having the government be an ISP is that they can afford to operate at a loss because they can use your tax dollars to fill in the gaps. I can understand the argument--remember the Space Shuttle and the effect it had on commercial launches in the US? That said, private businesses are not providing service because they claim they can't do it profitably (even w
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Too bad about all these state legislators who seem to feel the need to protect their constituents from super-fast internet speeds at affordable rates that the private companies never seem to feel the need to deliver.
About 15 years ago, I was one of the first to sign up for Comcast high-speed internet in my neighborhood. I basically had the whole pipe. It was awesome.
Then others in the neighborhood signed up. It sucked.
Then Comcast added more capacity and it sucked less. But it was never the same as the early days.
I'll be curious to see how you're faring in a year or two.
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I'm getting the fastest internet service in the country [timescall.com] for $59 a month.
With an initial install cost of 40 million funded by the denizens of Longmont, I hope a lot of you subscribe at $59/mon!
I'm looking forward to getting fiber as well. Funny how back in the day those who played network games from a university were LPB (low ping bastards). 80ms pings?! So unfair to those of us on dialup...
Too bad about all these state legislators who seem to feel the need to protect their constituents from super-fast internet speeds at affordable rates that the private companies never seem to feel the need to deliver. I guess luckily for them, most people have no idea what they're missing, or a lot of those guys would be getting kicked out of office right now.
Actually, North Carolina is one of the most active states in the country in terms of upcoming fiber installs. All of the main populations centers--Charlotte metro area, the Triangle (Raleigh/
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Couple years ago we had a referendum and opted out of the state's blocking of municipal broadband services.
Wait, you can do that?
I wonder what would happen if such a referendum passed in a state capitol.
Also, what other laws can you opt out of?
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buy a new house at kechter. they all have brand new wiring which is better than what i've seen in the older sections of the city
In other words... (Score:5, Funny)
The state government is saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with the state's right to interfere with local government.
Re:In other words... (Score:4, Informative)
The state government is saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with the state's right to interfere with local government.
Which is true. See my post above for a full explanation.
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The state government is saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with the state's right to interfere with local government.
Which is true. See my post above for a full explanation.
North Carolina legislature has just passed a law that all RF generated in North Carolina, must by law, stay in North Carolina, and none generated outside may pass into North Carolina.
There is a lawsuit pending against the laws of Physics. DEbates are schedule with Bill Nye the Science guy and the IEEE. Phlogiston theory accounts for this, and is the actual truth, not this godless radio physics not to be owned communist stuff. so we must teach the controversy.
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Technically, I think the states are saying that only the Legislative Branch has the authority to create laws.
I agree with the states on this one (begrudgingly as they just want kickbacks). Laws are created by the Legislative Branch, however the U.S. has long been in this muck of government created agencies given the power to create laws by "interpreting" law.
Example 1, BATFE says that it's perfectly legal to by the assisted shooters brace and put it on a "Pistol" that shoots a rifle caliber. The device wa
Gotta love corrupt government. (Score:2)
Blocking municipal is how you identify the completely corrupt officials.
The whole state's rights argument is bullshit (Score:3)
Everyone knows that it's a powerful telecommunications lobby flexing it's muscle in a state where there are lots federal dollars being spent on that industry's services. You don't piss off the industry who paid for your last election, be that for local, state, or federal office, so the whole argument about who has the "right" to look out for those citizens is nothing more than a deliberate distraction for the suckers (voters) who continue to act against their own best interests by electing Big Telco's whores to public office.
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Utter bullshit. The welfare of the citizens affected is not really a consideration to anyone with a dog in this fight. Let's get that part right, at least. You don't piss off the industry who paid for your last election, be that for local, state, or federal office.
Oklahoma called - Things aren't working quite like their owners said they would.
Stop shooting yourself in the foot (Score:5, Interesting)
Municipal broadband is a good thing. It might not be a needed item in population centers. But once you get outside of those areas and into "the sticks" your options disappear just as quickly as all the other traces of modern civilization. You're left with two, one, or sometimes no option.
My company currently has the best internet connection it's ever had in almost 20 years, provided by wireless point-to-point from the nearest city. In terms of cost, uptime, bandwidth, you name it, this connection is better in every category. The ILEC in the area (Frontier, formerly Verizon, formerly GTE) can't event begin to compete. All they offer is T1. Comcast just started to pull cable, but why would I choose to switch the worst company in the western hemisphere for an inferior solution? Besides, we all know what Comcast has to offer.
I'm going to stick with the better solution provided by the local government. If something better comes along, great. If anyone in my state's capitol starts to try to make this illegal they will hear from me ad nauseam.
Thank God (Score:5, Funny)
Dialup forever! - Long distance charges may apply.
Qustion on US views (Score:3)
I'm really not trying to troll but am curious about the outlook of US citizens. It seems that many people, at least on here, are in favour of having their local government act as an ISP. I find this attitude so weird because there is such a reluctance to move to a government backed health care system, even one that is only funded by the government and provided by private firms. So why is government health care socialism and bad while government internet access good?
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It isn't so much that government internet access is good. It's that a. no matter how terribly incompetent and/or bureaucratic our local governments might be, they couldn't *possibly* be any more incompetent than Verizon/Comcast/Charter/AT&T/etc., and b. having any competition at all, even incompetent competition, would more than likely force the above-listed companies to care at least a tiny bit about trying to keep their customers, once the choice wasn't between them and no internet. We have basically
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It's a complicated issue, but a lot of it boils down to what level of government is doing it.
In the case of municipal ISPs, it's a local government. Local governments provide all kinds of services to the public as a matter of course. Around here, they provide electricity, water, a library, police, fire, trash collection, sewer, landfill, permitting, zoning, street maintenance, free WIFI (which sucks), and all kinds of other things.
The federal government can't provide most of those things, by law. States
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Oddities in the US political system mean that the only stable governing system is two political parties.
One of those parties is currently ruled by fear. Whatever Fox tells them to fear, they will fear. Even if it makes no logical sense. Members of that party are currently terrified that routine military exercises are a pretext for the federal government conquering Texas. Never mind that Texas is already conquered and subject to the federal government. There's also gems like "Get your government hands o
Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems that some people are more anti-government than they are pro-market or have become so accustomed to making the same argument that they're not even bothering to look at the issue at hand.
At least it makes sense for the politicians to oppose it. They probably get all kinds of brib^H^H^H^Hcontributions from the companies that are paying for these monopoly rights.
Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines (Score:5, Insightful)
You people don't understand because you seem to be working under the assumption that politicians are out to serve the public, and that this is somehow an ideological issue. If you look at it instead as "scumbag politicians, acting purely in their own self-interest, soliciting big campaign donations from cablecos/telcos" it makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?
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You people don't understand because you seem to be working under the assumption that politicians are out to serve the public, and that this is somehow an ideological issue. If you look at it instead as "scumbag politicians, acting purely in their own self-interest, soliciting big campaign donations from cablecos/telcos" it makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?
Your idea is also an opposite extreme assumption. In other words, one should keep BOTH assumptions in mind and do not whole heartedly believe in only one extreme assumption, then it would make a lot more sense.
Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to believe that politicians aren't just a bunch of amoral, self-serving scumbags, you go right on ahead.
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If a politician, *especially* a local politician, wants to keep the job then the self-interest motivation says to listen to those local voters who live within walking distance. Thus I would trust the motivations of the local politician here over that of the distant and impersonal broadband corporation. It does not seem clear that the local politicians are opposing Comcast and TWC merely because of huge profits to be made, but instead they want their own local broadband because this is what the voters have
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Well, there is the argument that no matter how many rules you make, the municipality automatically has an unfair advantage. And this is true. The municipality gets to set the rules, by definition they have a better position than the telcos. If TWC wants to run cable, they need to raise money from existing customers or investors, get permits and approval from the municipality, buy property or usage rights and then maintain a customer base to pay for maintenance.
If the municipality wants to run cable, they ca
Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, if local government is using public funds to run fiber, allow other telcos the use of that fiber at cost. Same as many countries forced the incumbent, formerly state owned telcos to open up part of their infra to newcomers on the market.
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Muni's should make a level playing field. We have the tech to do it, a single fiber per home/business (ok maybe more for business) can with cheap passive gear provide 8+ different connections (bidirectional CWDM). So the muni's role is the physical plant they provide a point for all comers to connect possibly a L2 network for others to build upon and to provide baseline services.
Part of all that is to stop thinking in IPv4, it's trivial for a town to get enough IPv6 IP's to hand out /64 or greater to ever
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Most of the municipal broadband out there now used a bond and are set up to operate and pay off the bonds from revenue. They still work out to be a much better deal for customers than the telcos offer and often provide broadband where the telcos had no intention of offering anything in the foreseeable future.
Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines (Score:5, Funny)
there's no reason why a local municipality shouldn't be able to collectively decide that they want to take a crack at creating something better.
No, you see, "local municipality" is just a codeword for "big government", so the problem is that you don't want big government doing things like running utilities, because fascism, and when you have big government (i.e. a council of a town with a population of 1,000 people) competing against the free market and small business (i.e., Comcast), then that's unfair because monopoly. Not Comcast's monopoly, the monopoly that big government would have (because it's the government, duh). Also, small businesses like Comcast could not compete with big government like the council of a town with a population of 1,000 people.
Hope that clears it up for you.
Re: (Score:3)
<snip>
Also, small businesses like Comcast could not compete with big government like the council of a town with a population of 1,000 people.
Have you got a license to use that much sarcasm in one post? That exceeded the unlicensed sarcasm allowance. You'll need to file a form and pay a fee. The queue forms on the left. The office is open on alternate Tuesdays if the previous Wednesday was a full moon.
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It's different because you can be called to court and/or have your property confiscated if you don't pay for municipal broadband and not even Comcast can do that.
I'm in favor of municipal broadband, and in one of the places where the state decided not to allow it, so I have strong feelings about the stupidity and blatant disregard for the good of the public that has been evidenced by my so called representatives.
Despite my preferences and irritation the difference between government and private enterprise i
Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines (Score:4, Insightful)
Ignoring your double negative, it's because the town doesn't want to pay obscene 90+% profit margins [stopthecap.com] that leave the town and don't help its economy. They want to pay the upfront costs using a bond, then run the broadband service at cost.
Private companies know they can't compete with a service run at cost, and that's why they lobby to ban them outright.
The people of the town can elect or depose the leaders of city hall.
What do you mean?
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Actually you analogy is really flawed. First of all USPS is not a municipality service. It's a federal one.
Secondly,UPS/FedEx have not really indicated they can't get along with USPS. Tather, USPS has given all sorts of indication it cannot get along with UPS/FedEx.
Re:Why Would Anyone Want Gov't Broadband? (Score:4, Funny)
It would end up being like Amtrak.
So you're saying Amtrak is worse than Comcast. Yes?
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In some areas, the major ISPs haven't provided any wired, high-speed access. In this case, the local governments - after trying to get the major ISPs to come in and wire the town and being shot down by the ISPs - want to wire themselves. They are being prevented by doing so by the state who is acting on the request of the ISPs - who don't want any competition even if it's in an area they refuse to service. Assuming the citizens of the local town vote to form a municipal broadband service, why should the
Don't care who provides it (Score:3)
If the government can provide a fast pipe at a reasonable price with good service why would I not want it? I don't necessarily think it is the best possible option but I certainly wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. My local government provides lots of services quite competently. If they can provide a better value than private companies I certainly don't care.
It would end up being like Amtrak.
I've ridden Amtrak. I don't see that as an insult. Amtrak provides a fine service despite being required to provide service on unprofitable routes.
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Re:Another good reason to not live in North Caroli (Score:4, Interesting)
Move to Chattanooga. It's one of the few cities in the southeast that built up a hugely successful municipal broadband fiber-optic system before the telcos bribed the state legislators into killing them off everywhere else. It's like an island paradise in the sea of shit (which the scumbag legislators of TN have been trying to sink for years).