The FCC Can't Help Cities Trapped By Predatory Internet Deals With Big Telecom 93
Jason Koebler writes: At least 20 states have laws that make it illegal for communities to offer local government-owned high speed internet access. Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler threw consumers a bone by suggesting that the agency could make it easier for cities to skirt those laws. That's a great first step — but many cities have locked themselves into telecom company-caused messes the FCC probably can't fix. The FCC's power becomes much less certain once you drill into the other major reason—besides state laws—why cities can't offer broadband to their constituents: local, long-term agreements with internet service providers.
You make a deal with the devil (Score:1)
And you're bound to get burned.
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It's easy: Make franchise deals (cable *and* Internet deals) in cities and towns illegal to open up competition. Done.
Nothing easy at all about that. Franchise agreements exist primarily to regulate access to public right-of-way easements. So that you don't end up with an unholy mess of wires all over the damn place. And in order to make them illegal, you'd have to gut and re-work entire city charters and how State, Federal, and Local laws and powers work with/against each other.
And on the way, you'll have to dismantle Homeowner's Associations, and completely change how multi-unit complexes are allowed to operate. Because
A Question from a Stupid Foreigner. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A Question from a Stupid Foreigner. (Score:5, Interesting)
If the FCC is seemingly so impotent to regulate the industry, just what the hell are you guys paying it to do?
Prevent breasts from being shown on TV.
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This. Breasts on TV would be the end of American civilization itself.
You mock, but a child exposed to such things would be horribly scarred, psychologically. The economy would ultimately suffer as well from the burden of supporting them.
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I really hope you're joking...
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I advocate that we blind children at birth:
- it would prevent any trauma caused by wardrobe malfunctions
- it would prevent kids from seeing their own penis/vagina (and immature women from seeing their own breasts)
- it would prevent kids from seeing any and all the horrors of this world
(and if it works, I suggest we deafen them too so they don't ear all the swear words and heathen rethorics)
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Yes, but they don't live the American Dream. Crushing debt for health care, lifetime fear of being told that you're not employable because of a non-debilitating chronic disorder, the opportunity to give up all rights to have courts redress grievances because you 'liked' the defendant at some point in your life, which mandated that you go through binding arbitration through lawyers paid by the defendant in a non-ethically questionable arrangement. After all, "That's the American Way!" these days.
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Yeah, but you guys are Socialists.
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This. Breasts on TV would be the end of American civilization itself.
You mock, but a child exposed to such things would be horribly scarred, psychologically. The economy would ultimately suffer as well from the burden of supporting them.
We already have a way of supporting them. It's called a bra.
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Well, let's hope it's a happy ending..
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And avoidence of 8 words to not be heard.
The Federal Communications Commission is big business's whore.
Are those the 8 words?
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Shit
Piss
Fuck
Cunt
Cocksucker
Motherfuck
tits
and tits doesn't even belong on the list.....sounds like a snack.....yes I know it is....Tater Tits
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Is the 8th word "Net Neutrality" ?
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Unfortunetly, they're the only ones listening to us.
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Prevent breasts from being shown on TV.
Stop people from saying "shit" on the radio
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Uhm.
Prevent womens breasts from being exposed on TV after men rip their tops off.
TFTY
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Prevent breasts from being shown on TV.
Not quite. An completely isolated breast or two is just fine as long as long as the slasher with the bloody knife soon loses interest and finds a better target.
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Re:A Question from a Stupid Foreigner. (Score:5, Interesting)
As with many things in the U.S., it boils down to the complex relationship between different levels of government. Telecom is regulated largely at the national level, but in part at the local level. The right to sign monopoly deals with local providers is one right that is delegated to local government, under current law anyway. So if a given local government actually signs such a deal, they're stuck with it.
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Re:A Question from a Stupid Foreigner. (Score:5, Informative)
a town or city signs a deal with a company to provide services to citizens with all kinds of conditions to protect both sides
what is the FCC supposed to do about it? any town or city can pull out of the contract, they just have to pay up, lose revenue or whatever the contract says the terms are
now this comcast/verizon vs netflix issue, that's a different story
FCC - what it does (Score:5, Insightful)
Title 47
http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/te... [ecfr.gov]
I don't particularly want to understand the FCC's area of authority, so here is Title 47.
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The FCC is there to regulate *consumer*, not industry.
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A lot of the "teeth" have been removed from many regulators over the years, in order to prevent their "interfering" with Big Business. That also helps explain part of the recent financial crisis, as banking regulators were carefully de-fanged over the last thirty years. Also, what Trepidity said.
This is how it should be.... (Score:1)
When you get to this level, it's not really the FCC's mandate anymore. It's the FTC's mandate, as it has become a federal trade/transport issue. When a municipality can't transport data to another municipality because of a contract with an infrastructure provider who is interstate, that's FTC territory.
Plus, I think you'll find there's only one state where this is illegal; in all the other states, it's just legislatively prohibitive (following the laws, it would cost too much to provide to the community).
Local government mismanagement (Score:2)
Your local governments made sweetheart monopoly deals to get cable money. Now you think the solution is for your local government to make a different kind of sweetheart monopoly deal for municipal internet access?
Open up local wired infrastructure to competitive use instead. The wire is in the ground. End monopoly access to it. Let companies compete for subscribers.
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Nah, I think the local government should review the contract to confirm that the provider is meeting their obligations. If they are not, then a simple contract cancellation due to non-performance of the provider should be all it takes to clean up the mess.
Re:Local government mismanagement (Score:4, Informative)
Nah, I think the local government should review the contract to confirm that the provider is meeting their obligations. If they are not, then a simple contract cancellation due to non-performance of the provider should be all it takes to clean up the mess.
LOL, you must be new to this country. [consumerist.com]
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Nah, that's what I think they _should_ do. Nothing in there that expresses any expectation of local governments actually implementing such a practice.
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How about doing what has been done in the US, and is being done successfully all over the world:
Let the local government own the network.
Either the local government makes their own infrastructure company for maintenance and development of the network itself, or let an established company do it.
The point being of course, that everyone can buy access and then sell services in the network. Whoever runs the network publicly document costs, and charges everyone the same, cost based, non-profit fee.
Meaning you ha
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If the wire was used entirely for broadband, instead of 300 channels of crap nobody watches and 10 million phone lines that nobody wanted, it would be enough bandwidth to make the entire fiber-optic debate moot (for another 30 years anyway)
politicians put the public over that barrel. Tea p (Score:5, Insightful)
The local governments, the politicians, made those deals because it gave them what they want (campaign money). They aren't over a barrel, they are perfectly happy with the arrangement. When a citizens' group ASKS them what they think about the public getting screwed, they'll SAY they don't like it. They made the deal willingly, though. It's the public that they stuffed into the barrel.
I'm not a tea party member, so maybe I shouldn't speak for them, but I'm pretty sure they are AGAINST having the government outlaw competition like this. I think the Tea Party way would be that anyone who wants to offer better, faster service should be allowed to do so, and the government shouldn't stop them. Currently, local governments outlaw competition. I don't think that's what Tea party people want.
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I'm not a tea party member, so maybe I shouldn't speak for them, but I'm pretty sure they are AGAINST having the government outlaw competition like this.
Here's the 10 Senators who signed a letter to the FCC Chief [netdna-cdn.com] (PDF)
Republican:
Deb Fischer
John Barrasso
Pat Roberts
Lamar Alexander
Tom Coburn
John Cornyn
Tea Partier In Bad Standing:
Ron Johnson
Tea Party:
Ted Cruz
Marco Rubio
Tim Scott
Mike Enzi
FYI - Some of the Republicans on that list are being actively targeted by Tea Party groups in the mid-term elections.
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Google "cable franchise" (Score:2)
Google the term "cable franchise". Most places have them. It is an agreement whereby the local government gives one company the EXCLUSIVE right to serve customers in that city . It is illegal for another company to come in and compete.
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It then went on to talk about how later deregulation (in 1996) has since led to cable consolidation, less competiti
where "privileged status" means "can have cabling" (Score:2)
It's a grant of privileged status where "privileged status" means "allowed to run cabling". I guess technically it's not illegal to provide service, it's just unlawful to having cabling to run that service on.
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It's not unlawful to run cabling, it's just really difficult. Making it easier for one company is not the same thing as outlawing other companies from doing it.
You are grossly mischaracterizing the situation, where municipalities have granted monopoly right-of-way under the guise of preventing service issues due to cable cuts and the like.
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Are you sure? I've been reading a lot of franchise agreements lately from a few towns in and around the mid-west, and they all seem to say "non-exclusive".
Of course, that's not going to stop a cableco making up reasons to sue and/or preventing us from having access to poles or making it prohibitively expensive to do so, and it's not going to stop a town that already has 7 providers with fiber in the ground (none of which is open for lease by competitors) saying "no more fiber in the ground because what if w
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The competitor is at a disadvantage so great as to make their business non-viable.
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I think the tea party borrowed that ideal from Objectivism. The tendency to idealise the free market as the solution to all problems, while being blind to the flaws of a free market approach.
In the case of internet, there's more of an issue with first-to-enter-wins. Whoever cables up an area first must make a huge investment, but they also get 100% of the market - enough to recoup their investment and then make a tidy profit. Whoever follows has to spend just as much, but by that point all of their potentia
unless it's better. See isdn to cable to Gb fiber (Score:2)
> In the case of internet, there's more of an issue with first-to-enter-wins.
Yep, and the phone companies were the first, since they already had both local and long haul cabling. So everyone used isdn and dial up. Until someone offered something better and cheaper (cable modems). Most people used cable modems until someone offered something better.
Local franchises (government enforced monopolies) meant that you weren't allowed to offer a better cable modem service, because the government granted one com
Re:politicians put the public over that barrel. Te (Score:4, Informative)
The Tea Party people want whatever the Koch brothers tell them to want. If the Koch brothers have a stake in telecom, I bet most teabaggers support these contracts.
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The Tea Party people want whatever the Koch brothers tell them to want.
Yes, because they're our Vampiric Masters* and we cannot refuse their any whim. (Catches fly.)
Just remember that we're nice and good but they're pure evil. And the nice thing about that is: you print it out once and push it out everywhere!
* Vampiric Masters -- Ex: George Soros, Al Gore.
Suspected: Rush (Not the band.)
--
"I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
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Yes, and tea party mentality says that once you have an incumbent service in place, let them bleed the populace blind until someone builds an entire replacement network out in order to compete. Eventually the prices will rise high enough to justify having 2-3-10 competing players! I mean hell, if it costs $1000 to connect to an important service, a lot of competitors will eventually pore in millions of infrastructure to fulfill it! Plus all the trickle down economics on hardware and fibre/copper producers,
Root of the problem (Score:2)
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These contracts are for like 30-100 years of service (no kidding). The providers would have to get 30y worth of monopoly-based income (eg. a city may have 500k customers which they can now charge $60 more per month than if there were competition for 30 years amounts to a contract worth $10B).
California and taxes? (Score:2)
What about the FTC? (Score:2)
Oops, I forgot that we don't have any actual capitalism in the USA any more, because the regulators are all controlled by industry groups. Forget it. Your cable/phone/ISP bill is going to continue to go up far faster then inflation, and your service will su
How about citizen owned IPS's (Score:2)
Like say a Credit Union. Everyone signs up, pays a small amount for the share which is then used to start the company then once its rolled out each person in the city that signed up pays a certain monthly amount and has shares in the company.
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We'd be up for it. Strictly speaking we're for profit but as a non-American I may also have some socialistic or altruistic tendencies which might be advantageous for such a project.
The question is finding *enough* people & money to make it work. Geek-heavy sites like ./ and the like make it seem easy because for the most part we do care about our technology and our Internets, but talk to your neighbours 10-houses on either side and find out how many of them care as much about their Internet services as
Laws can change (Score:2)
Breach of Contract (Score:2)
Weren't those contracts made with the promise that $telcom would provide decent internet access? Even if it was just a verbal contract. I think the cities should sue them for breach of contract, to recover those excessive costs and lost revenue due to having crappy internet connections.