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Government Communications Network The Internet United States

Montana Becomes First State To Implement Net Neutrality After FCC Repeal (thehill.com) 132

Posted by BeauHD from the take-matters-into-your-own-hands dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) signed an executive order on Monday requiring internet service providers with state contracts to abide by net neutrality principles. The order makes his state the first to push back on the Federal Communications Commission's decision to repeal the open internet rules last month. The order says that in order to receive a contract with the state government, internet service providers must not engage in blocking or throttling web content or create internet fast lanes. Those practices were all banned under the Obama-era 2015 net neutrality order. Bullock's office said the executive order goes into effect immediately, but there will be a six-month grace period for companies to ensure that they're in compliance. The governor said on Monday that he is encouraging his counterparts and legislators in other states to follow suit, promising to personally email a copy of his order to any who ask for it. Further reading: The New York Times
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Montana Becomes First State To Implement Net Neutrality After FCC Repeal More

Montana Becomes First State To Implement Net Neutrality After FCC Repeal

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  • Unpossible! Why they are a Red State, and we all KNOW that Red States are all about corporate overlords and screwing the little guy! This is clearly a lie, someone must have meant California, or New York, or Washington, or some other deep-blue State!

    • The dental floss tycoons have a very strong lobby in Montana and they demanded it.

    • Re:Montana? MONTANA? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by seasunset ( 469481 ) on Monday January 22, 2018 @05:17PM (#55981337) Homepage

      I live in Montana. Not an American citizen, but proud of being here. Best place in the world.

      Have you noticed that this is an executive order signed by a DEMOCRATIC governor?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        And supported by a Republican Secretary of State. http://www.dailyinterlake.com/letters_to_the_editor/20171203/internet_neutrality_is_good_for_business

        • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

          by Opportunist ( 166417 )

          So? Not all Republicans are religious nutjobs, just like not all Democrats are braindead SJWs.

          Decent politicians do actually exist. They're few and far between and you have to look carefully for them, but when you found one, treasure him or her and keep voting for her, because it's all that stands between you and having another dud in an office.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mjwx ( 966435 )

            So? Not all Republicans are religious nutjobs, just like not all Democrats are braindead SJWs.

            Decent politicians do actually exist. They're few and far between and you have to look carefully for them, but when you found one, treasure him or her and keep voting for her, because it's all that stands between you and having another dud in an office.

            I've always just assumed titles like RINO an DINO were just American words for what we in the ROTW would describe as a centrist.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 )

      Indeed. I can't understand how this is happening. Makes me worry about my future shill checks; I mean if our corporate masters can't rely on republicon trumpanzee states to do their bidding why pay? Won't anyone think of the corporations??!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Xtifr ( 1323 )

        Actually, they might be thinking of the corporations. No Net Neutrality hurts pretty much any company that isn't an ISP. And as far as I know, no major ISPs are based in Montana. So, for any Montana corporations, this is a good thing.

    • They're a rural state and the governor knows damn well he won't survive reelection if his constituents are getting screwed over by big city folk. It's the same reason the FCC backed down on reclassifying Mobile internet as broadband and didn't lower the speed caps for it. The Republican party is heavily dependent on rural voters. The American political system is built in such a way as to grant them disproportionate amounts of voting power; most notably the Senate and Electral college but there are other exa

  • Use the legislature (Score:3)

    by magarity ( 164372 ) on Monday January 22, 2018 @05:36PM (#55981505)

    So a executive order implemented and repealed at one level of government has been replaced with an executive order implemented and repeal-able at another level. When will these people learn? You're supposed to shop like-minded judges until you get one that will find a right in the Constitution. Just kidding! Use the legislature for this kind of thing, please.

    • Yes, net neutrality *should* be enshrined in law by the legislature, however until that happens, regulations should enforce it. But let's face it, with the Repulicans in control of the house/senate/presidency, any NN legislation actually introduced will contain outs making it useless (case in point, Marsha Blackburn's bill), and I think the anti-NN folks are counting on that, knowing that "it should be a legislative issue" is more palatable than "There should be no NN".

  • After July 1, 2018, to receive a contract from the State of Montana for the provision of
    telecommunications services, a service provider must not, with respect to any consumer in the
    State of Montana (including but not limited to the State itself):

    Ok so, let's say for example, Verizon wants to say fuck you to NN, but still sell service in MN.

    They create a subsidiary for all MN government contracts that obeys the law, but then keep their main Verizon branch for all non-government "contracts". Boom, done.

    I put

    • Firstly - MN = Minnesota, not Montana Secondly - the line you quoted says "with respect to any consumer in the State of Montana (including but not limited to the State itself)". That seems to imply that non-government contracts should obey the law too.

      • Fucked up the abbrv but no, only if they want to do business with the state, not residents of the state.

        "to receive a contract from the state of Montana..."

        If a company wants to sell only to residents, they don't need a contract from the state.

        If they want to sell to the state, then they create a subsidiary and sign the contract under that company.

  • Obama signed it into law in 2015. We didn't have any net neutrality problems before he signed it so repelling something that was never an issue in the first place is a nonissue
    • Are you stupid, trolling, or being malicious? Do you not recall the whole Netflix throttling issue that brought this to prominence? Or Comcast blocking all Bittorrent (not just illegal torrents, the entire protocol)? Here's a list [freepress.net] with those and a dozen more. It's very clear where the internet was heading without net neutrality in place

      Then of course there's simple logic... you don't spend millions lobbying and buying ads to get a rule overturned unless you plan on breaking it.
  • Someone on /. smarter than I, already proposed it. Make net neutrality a prerequisite for access to public right-of-way. I think it should even be written to include forfeiture of installed infrastructure if you are found in violation and have to vacate.
  • One of the things Trump has made a big deal out of is returning rights/control over things to the States. Montana is now doing precisely that. We'll see if they're swatted down for it or not.
  • That will be some creative networking.
    A wealthy gated community wants to set up their own community broadband.
    A municipality wants to set up broadband services.
    An industrial estate wants to give exiting and new business total ISP freedom via their own new network.
    Will state bureaucrats now demand the use of existing monopoly telco providers as only they legally meet the new state NN rules?
    The state will enforce connections only to a set of NN approved ISP and a telco monopoly?
    Did the state gov help

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsqr ( 808554 )

      A wealthy gated community wants to set up their own community broadband.

      A municipality wants to set up broadband services.

      An industrial estate wants to give exiting and new business total ISP freedom via their own new network.

      Will state bureaucrats now demand the use of existing monopoly telco providers as only they legally meet the new state NN rules?

      From TFS: Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) signed an executive order on Monday requiring internet service providers with state contracts to abide by net neutrality principles. Only service providers having contracts with the state are forced to comply with the governor's order, so the answer to your question appears to be "No", unless the new service providers enter into contracts with the state.

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