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Supreme Court Rules Against Community Telcos
acherrington writes "Today the Supreme Court ruled against a group of Missouri communities offering telecom services where it is prohibited by Missouri law. At least eight other states -- Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia -- have similar laws. Today's ruling will most likely result in more lobbying by the Baby Bells at the state level to stop community-sponsored telecoms who are fed up with poor service and monopolies."
The local electric co-op, Trinity Valley Electric, had a phone subsidiary, Trinity Valley Services. When we moved to their service area last summer, I was exctatic to be out of the grasp of the scandal-plagued monopoly I'd been forced to buy power from before. So when we signed up for electricty and they asked if we'd like to use their phone service, we said heck, yeah!
Last month, we got a note in the mail that TVS was now "Cedar Valley Communications", and no longer directly affiliated with TVEC. This was pretty depressing... it was so nice to call up the phone company and talk to a person instead of to a robot.
Now, it makes sense. With an 8-1 decision in the works, TVEC/TVS must have known that they were about to get hammered by Texas law. With little hope for legislative help from the Republican puppet government in Austin, they spun off TVS.
At least I don't have to worry about getting a bill from the clueless megacorporation I was stuck with before.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The ruling prohibits governmental entities (cities, counties, other municipalities, or groups thereof) of entering the telecom business.
Nothing precludes any small private coop, company, or partnership from becoming a telecom provider.
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 says that "states may not prohibit 'any entity' from getting into the phone business. That does not include political subdivisions of states, said Justice David H. Souter, writing for the court."
This ruling is a good thing, as it keeps government out of the telecom business, where it belongs.
This opens up a bunch of things now. Does this mean I can't let people share my wireless connection, for instance, without them breathing down my neck? The decision means total support for the local monopoly, which is sad indeed.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
This will be a good thing for emerging private telecom businesses, as it will remove competition coming from groups funded by state or city government. The government has no place competing with private citicens in the telecom industry, and today's decision by the Supreme Court, was the right one.
Heh, Free and Bush in the same sentence on Slashdot. Man that's funny.
It all comes down to the adage, "if you can't innovate, legislate!"
I guess when they talk about supporting "states' rights" they don't really mean the devolution of authority from the central government to more local ones. They just mean that the states have all the rights.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Among the industries taken over or overregulated by the Gov:
Rail Trains
Pharmacies
Telecom
Current status:
Rail Trains - all but dead
Pharmacy - corrupt and overpriced
Telecom - sucks oh so bad
If only there were a pattern so we could learn something from this.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
You would think that the Congress of the 90s would be unafraid of small towns starting their own telcos. After all, governement is so "inefficient" in their minds that they couldn't possibly compete with such "efficient" and capable telcos like SBC, MCI and Global Crossing for services like DSL, etc....
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Whats happening to the little guy, or the right of communities to represent themselves ? The local community has traditionally been the proving ground for an enterprising individual. Communities no longer seem to have any power, or rights in the locations they represent.
I remember a case in Roswell (or was it Alpharetta), GA where a car (Lexus?) dealership huffed and puffed and blew down the wishes of the people who wanted to keep the area as a nature preserve. That community lost the battle to the car dealership. Not related to telco, but none the less, an erosion of community rights, not to mention common sense.
Sigh....
Hell, read anything.
This does NOT prevent competition or free markets. It prohibits no company from entering the telecom business.
It prohbits governmental agencies (cities, counties, etc.) from becoming telecom providers.
Exactly as it should be.
The only thing that's "bullshit" is your comment.
Eldred v. Ashcroft. And now this. So much for confidence in the Supreme Court "justices" as a brake on corporate control of the Republic.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
If you read the article, this actually is a free market decision. The court ruled that government entities were not allowed into the telecom space.
You goofy kids with your "cry Bush". If your house burns down, are you going to blame him too?
If I read correctly, the ruling is pro-states' rights, not anti-community telecom. They assert that states have the right to prohibit cities from engaging in a particular activity, not that states are required to prohibit such activity. IANAL, I did not read this article but I read a similar article earlier, insert your disclaimer here.
More music, fewer hits
Was this case badly reported, or did the Supreme Court just ignore the plain english used in the law?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Well, technically a citizen is a subdivision of your local government. It sounds pretty stupid, but don't be surprised to hear SBC using this argument to shut down community telcos.
Shit under this definition, even a community co-op could be considered a government organization.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
I first read the headline as "Supreme Court Rules Against Taco" and thought oh jeez what has he done this time?
5 out of 4 people have trouble with fractions.
Wow. That topic line just about gave me a heart attack.
Thought for a second there that the Supreme Court was banning tacos.
No, actually it's NOT a free market decision. It prevents local citizens from using THEIR institutions to band together and fight monopolistic utilities.
Since private corporations are so "efficient" they should have ZERO trouble defeating "inefficient" government organizations with superior products and service. For example, the stellar service of SBC could just blow ANY municipal telco away!!!!
BTW, this law is plainly unconstitutional. It denies state governmental agencies from exercising a "non-enumerated" power. Yes, states cannot constrain inter-state commerce (telecommunications) but nothing in the constitution allows the federal government to PREVENT a state from engaging in interstate commerce.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Does anyone actually think that this Supreme Court and it's ties to big business and partial views (Scalia and Cheney) will actually rule for the people? Then I've gor some land to sell you!
Somehting like Community Government...
:)
The article wasn't that long, took all of half a minute to read. It boils down to:
1. Earlier law states entities may create their own telco groups (close enough, I don't have that window open anymore)
2. Local and city governments are sub-parts of the state government
3. The government doesn't count as an entity in part 1
4. Therefore: Local and city governments do not have this allowance under the specied law.
3 cheers for all the posters crying about loss of rights and rewriting laws and such, if they had read the article it probably would have been slashdoted by the time I got there
Whee signature.
The "over-regulated" pharmacies in Canada have far lower prices than their American counterparts.
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Namaste
but nothing in the constitution allows the federal government to PREVENT a state from engaging in interstate commerce.
No, there isn't. But what the SC did was allow states to prevent cities from starting their own telcos, if the state wants to. In other words, the SC gave more power to the state... by taking it away from cities and other, smaller government bodies.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I read the article(more like a blurb) but I haven't dug further (I live in WI so it doesn't mean much to me right now)..
Couldn't these companies use VOIP? As of right now VOIP isn't considered a typical phone service and regulated by Big Brother correct?
Or are they typical overly broad and generalized laws that apply to any way of providing a service using a phone?
No sig for you!!
I'm curious what (if any) effect this ruling will have on telcos sponsored by non-profit organizations. My undergraduate college is has just started a communications company to serve the community. Which side of the line do these organizations fall under?
JGG
If he did it, then yes.
In the way the USA economy is set up, there's only one place for a government-backed company to exist. That's where there's no way any business could provide that service if it had to compete, yet that service is vital to our way of life.
For example, take the US Postal Service. A daily mail pickup and drop-off at every address in the USA (including the most rural) would simply be impossible if there was not one and only one company providing that service. This is a perfect case of a service the rest of the government depends on, that likely would not exist if the free market was left to fend for itself. FedEx and UPS can compete in the high-price overnight market with the USPS, but nobody else has the ability to get a physical document from any point in the USA to any other point in the USA for 37 cents, or less than that even if you have a large volume of mail and pre-sort it properly.
In the case of Amtrak, the government is keeping the national railroad network alive for the sake of transportation redundancy. This came into play after the 9/11 attacks when all air traffic in the USA was grounded... the trains were able to keep running and some people and things were able to reroute themselves to get where they were going.
This is also why the government keeps up the Interstate highways. In theory, in the state of war on the US mainland, the Army could easily control any stretch of Interstate highway so that vital convoys could have a fast and trafic-free mostly-direct path from one metro area to another.
So long as there's still a profit to be made in the ISP business, then the government doesn't belong in it, just to regulate it so things don't get out of hand. If things ever do get totally out of hand (and we're nowher near that yet), then the government should step in to make sure there's affordable Internet access for the sake of keeping the network alive.
This is one case where it is better to have a large corporate monolith providing your service rather than a small municipal monopoly. One of my friends lives in Atoka, TN and their only choice for service is the Millington Phone Company. For two years that phone company has been promising broadband and better service, but have never come through on those promises. My friend is very mad because people just 200 yards down the street have BellSouth and broadband service. She even asked BellSouth if they could run a line the 220 yards, but BellSouth said that they couldn't because of the Millington monopoly. My friend has talked to whoever she could, even the FCC with no results. It looks like the Supreme Court was who she should have been talking to all along.
Smeghead every day of the week.
With little hope for legislative help from the Republican puppet government in Austin, they spun off TVS.
That seems an odd position to take, given that it's the Republican FCC commissioner that keeps pushing for the legalization of competition in communications, and fighting off the courts when they try to turn it back.
The local electric co-op, Trinity Valley Electric, had a phone subsidiary, Trinity Valley Services. [...] Last month, we got a note in the mail that TVS was now "Cedar Valley Communications", and no longer directly affiliated with TVEC. [...] Now, it makes sense. With an 8-1 decision in the works, TVEC/TVS must have known that they were about to get hammered by Texas law.
That doesn't make sense either. As another poster has already pointed out, the Supreme Court decision was against GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (cities, townships, counties, etc.) running phone companies. A Co-op is a corporation with its customers as its stockholders - as strictly private eneterprise as any other corportation. Unless TVE is a misledingly-misnamed government entity the ruling would not apply to it.
When we moved to [TVE's] service area last summer, I was exctatic to be out of the grasp of the scandal-plagued monopoly [bucorp] I'd been forced to buy power from before.
As far as scandal-plauging, there are few scandals to equal the routine operation of nearly ANY government operation. I, for one, am more than happy to see the big government, now that it's broken up the national telephone monopoly (a creature of its own regulation), telling the little governments to dump their own creatures.
To anyone who lives in a region with its own city phone service, who believes that their service is good and wants to keep it that way, I have this suggestion:
Go to the legislature of the governmental body that runs the little tellco (i.e. city council or whatever) and suggest they spin it out as a coop. (This will preserve much of its structure, and give the customers even more say in its operation than they had as citizens of the parent governmental division.)
If you don't do this, expect your government to sell it to the local corporate-behemoth tellco at a kickback-driven bargan price - which will be paid off at compound interest in your next telephone bills.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
You people sound like commies. The Corporation must have NO threats to it's power. Corporations are the ONLY organization allowed to compete in a free market.
You people have the Newspeak down to a t - good job, you useful idiot.
I bet you're not even rich!
This has nothing to do with community telcos; it's about city and state governments getting into the telco business. The article headline is a blatant troll. There again, it is Michael.
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Yes! DEMOCRACY in all business! Let's have the gubment take everything over and run it for the benefit of the people! Surely this has worked everywhere else it has been done!
Power to the people!
Stick it to the "Man"!
We shal overcome(TM)!
Hey hey! ho ho! (insert bad thing here) has got to go!
Guess what - the Republican party was founded on the idea of local government providing services (by investing in community chartered companies). It was called "internal improvements".
Don't they teach US HISTORY in schools anymore?
Don't forget: ...
- defense of victims against robbers, burglars, muggers, rapists,
- construction and maintainence of roads and bridges
- maintainence (especially fire-protection) of old-growth forests and waterways
I could go on for pages. B-(
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
with businesses. Governments tax any business in their areas. It's not fair to be able to tax a business and then use the funds to provide a competing service.
Privately owned co-ops are OK, but the costs may be prohibitive.
[snip]Pharmacy - corrupt and overpriced
In what way does this have to do with the government? Compare the "market-based" (read: monopoly-controlled) US system with the Canadian system. Note that buses of US citizens head to Canada for cheap drugs -- not the other way around.[/snip]
How do you explain the textbook market then? Has overregulation resulted in the high price we pay here in the US for college textbooks? No. It's corporate behemoths raping us because they can.
NY Times article
Oh, don't sound so condescending. Capitalism and its unchecked greed can cause just as many problems as a socialistic society. They're just different problems.
Alright, this sickens me to no end. I have been in telecom for almost 10 years now and this is complete BULL SHIT.
Telecom is an expensive business dam expensive. Whats a 5ESS go for, something like 10 million. What about a Titan 5500 (2-3 million and up). These are rough price tag's for Central Office Equipment. Your not going to get a whole influx of people into the business it is an expensive one to start. Who can afford some of these prices? Cities and govenerments.
Lets just block some competetion and open it up to the private sector. Get a clue: It wont happen. The price is too high.
PS: dont forget the price to lease dark fiber, DWDM and the Tight Trasmission Laser (TTL's) for your 48 boxen.
Please no prices from ebay showing a different amount. You may still need service and support contracts. Not to mention a crap load of qualified people to run this junk.
That's baloney. Powell's son is trying to get others to do his work for him, and the courts have stated he hasn't been granted the authority to do that by congress. You can paint it anyway you want, but I have paint thinner.
= 9J =
>They assert that states have the right to prohibit
>cities from engaging in a particular activity, not
>that states are required to prohibit such activity
So what exactly does this say, does it allow states to prohibit ANYONE from starting a new small telco, if that state so chooses to do? Or does it only allow states to choose to prevent a city-run or country-run telco starting up, but does NTO allow states to choose to prevent a new small PRIVATELY owned telco from starting up??
If they can say no to ANYONE, that's bad. But if private telcos can still have a chance, that's still good.
While I'll agree with you that this is a pro-states rights decision, the end effect will be the large Telecos buying state representatives and senators. This was pretty much all that municipal telecoms had to fight the large telecos. Now that the gloves are off the large telecos will buy anti-municipal teleco legislation. It's sad really, the community next door to me (Cedar Falls Iowa) has bad Fiber to the curb for what, 10 years now, much longer than most other communities in the state (or just most other communities period) the local muni telecom/cable companie decided to do it when the big boys where barely starting to think about it.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to the few shining examples of Municiple telecom done properly now that the big boys are free to by our elected officials.
What if it is just turtles all the way down?
The Republican FCC can out strong against the little guy in this case as you can see in the first two paragraphs of the Court's decision.
The little guy in this case was a group of rural counties.
The court ruled that the word "any" in the federal law prohibiting states from regulating any telecom does not mean that states cannot regulate counties because they are political subdivisions of the states and therefore states should have a right to regulate themselves.
So much for the Rublican idea of local control!
See for yourself:
Findlaw.com
the trains were able to keep running and some people and things were able to reroute themselves to get where they were going.
You sir did not need to get back home to New York from Seattle on Sept 11th.
I couldn't get an Amtrak train past Chicago. It took over a week for me to get home, once backtracking because there was a flight from San Jose to New York I was able to make.
If they are trying to keep a redundant train system they are not doing a good job.
Counties are nothing more than a subdivision of the state. In fact, almost *all* state statutes are enforced by counties.
Incorporated cities are, also, subject to regulation by the state. In fact it is the states grant of regulatory powers to cities that allows them to exist at all.
This ruling only affects a state's ability to regulate subdivisions of state government.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Your friend just needs to change the numbers on her house and any local signage for a few days. Then, call BellSouth and ask to be hooked up.
Tell 'em you just moved into an old abandonned farm or something. And make sure you rip out all signs of there having previously been telephone service at the house.
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
jeez, I sure hope nobody has a heart attack at your house.
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
"Capitalism" (a term which is broader than just meaning "free markets")is not the problem, corruption is. The goal should be to create a system where it is harder for corruption to go unchecked.
In a free market economy, there is far more incentive for governments to fight corruption than in a socialist economy. The one caviat to that statement requires that the government do its job by enforcing anti-trust laws (something they have been VERY lax with over the last 15 or 20 years).
Name a socialist country that is less corrupt than the worst of the free market capitalists. The closer you get to a command economy, the more corruption you breed.
Not that I'm against guns, but they don't help you much if your kid is choking on a piece of steak. Or if you slip in the shower and crack your head open. But of course, you can call 911 on a cell phone - so the whole thing is moot, isn't it?
But trading the evil of your landline provider for the evil of your cellular provide is hardly a win-win. But at least with Cellular you get to leave your house...
Now we just need more alarm and monitoring companies to switch to cellular service instead of landlines...
Oh, get a clue.
Rail traffic ... have you ever considered the subsidies
the government offers to the auto, road, and aviation industries?
In terms of subsidy per passenger mile, those industries
are far more heavily subsidized than rail traffic.
Or to put it differently, the problems rail traffic has
are basically that its competition is so extensively subsidized
that it's all but impossible to compete.
"Our" government is quite heavily in the business of distorting the economy. Primarily to benefit military industries (the auto industry only really took off after WW2, as a way to turn tank-production capacity into a dual-use technology) at the expense of more naturally efficient mechanisms. Although the individual characters in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? were clearly not real, except maybe Jessica Rabbit!, the plot to abolish the public transport system is very well documented as being true. But the major war contractors were allowed to get away with it.
Profit is not God. Although far too many of the people now running "our" government worship it, even when it conflicts with their basic responsibilities to support healthy (local) communities and to support civil rights.
The area that I'm concerned about here: will this regulation retard development of free wireless services like The Personal Telco Project.
As my local electric co-op likes to point out, the munis have lower rates, but they are not investing in generation. Both the coop, and the big infester owned utilities in the area have higher rates (by a little), serve much less customers per mile of line (~100 for the munis, 45 for the company, and 14 for the co-op. The latter are real numbers as of the annual meeting this week). They can also legally take over any line the others have built, at no cost (but this varies from state to state).
You can be sure town governments who know nothing about telecoms will screw this up in the long run too, but you won't even know how until it is too late. Low prices are not everything, as all the wal-mart haters point out.
A copy of the decision can be found at Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/000/02-1238.html
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
I wasn't referring to that. I was referring to the destruction of all morality for the sake of making a buck and meeting the bottom line. To hell with the environment: that's not profitable. Forget the social welfare: we can make much more money off of mindless consumer drones than elevating educational and social standards.
A society such as this will eventually rot from the inside and fall apart. Corruption isn't the only problem affecting capitalism. Religion won't completely fill this gap because it has lost touch with the present. I don't know the answer, but I can plainly see the problem.
I'm not anti-capitalist. I'm not pro-socialist. They both have problems that affect them somewhere along the line. I'm just stating that something is wrong and we, collectively, need to arrive at a solution within the next few hundred years or we'll be in serious shit.
Like basic municipal services, roads, sidewalks, water, sewers, and trash that facilitate good health and transportation and indirectly
Na, I think that facilitating communication is one of the jobs municipalities. This is one of the purposes of roads and sidewalks. Lest we forget how mail travels and the greatest communication organization in the history of the world
Of course we should remember that the Postal Service has been supplanted by quicker, more agile competition
Republicans have MANY myths. One of the biggest is that Government doesn't innovate. In fact, public agencies do a pretty good job in some areas (certainly not all, we don't live in a black/white world). In the realm of communications, government agencies have done a DAMN GOOD job.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
Every large institution has ineffeciencies but largely the FDA process takes so long because you're talking about people's health. You need to be careful and you need plenty of people with no financial interest in the outcome to be examining the data.
The city of Alameda, on the SF Bay, generates their own power. In the year of extortionistic prices(1), residents of Alameda maintained low prices.
Public utilities will often fail when the don't innovate where private companies could.
Clearly, despite (ironythere) the TeleCommunications act of 1996, our phone services have NOT innovated (DSL doesn't count, it was there before, waiting for both demand and switch updates and, frankly, external equipment, to drive it).
How many of us know places who can't get DSL? I'm in a major metro area and can't get CALLER ID!!. They plead that the switches aren't yet equipped, etc, etc.
These are the companies that won't lay fiber when the roads are open. In the fire area of the hills of oakland, after the roads BOILED away, they refused pleas to put in fiber when they where trenching.
My mom's rural phone switch only got touch tone when the area gov't MANDATED it. The e911 project was how they got an updated switch. Government mandate, not the ignored customer demand.
So business, in this case, is acting as incompetant as I'd expect gov't to act. Yet I have more faith in local gov't that is accountable to people around them than I do in say, SBC, which sprawls across the country. Or Verizon. Talking to the workers out there in the field, they generally concur. Profits are funnelled out of profitable california, where workers are swapping supplies ala radar OReilly.
If cable service, phone and power, regulated monopolies all with little actual competition, are not providing what a town's citizens need, then the only real choice is to offer an alternative themselves.
So do I. I have the stuff to handle 10,000 lines.
I read last night's headline as "Tivo Plans CowboyNeal on Demand"
:)
I was very disturbed, and decided it was time for me to go to bed. What a plesent surprise to find this morning that I had just transposed lines
Tivo Plan Commercials On Demand
Posted by CowboyNeal on Wed 24 Mar
It is bad enough when a regulatory body (I am looking at you CRTC) is unwilling to make any real moves to help small telco startups from being crushed by large monopolies, but to have a group like the supreme court of the United States blatantly crush a small (Community Run) telco is insane.
Wouldn't it be a novel concept if all of the consumers got together and started their own telcos? Then what would the big guys do? Oh, wait a minute, we used to have those before deregulation - They were called crown corporations. Can you remember when your telco used to be more concerned with service than profit? Well I can. (I live in BC by the way.)
That really is my homepage, no kidding.
The New Deal?! Please, that was an economic disaster almost on the scale of Mao's Great Leap Forward! Look at the data for the 1930s, you will see economic pickup well before FDRs (unconstitutional) socialist programs were implemented. However, when he started to tak over large portions of the economy, you can see the economy tanking. The Great Depression would not have been nearly so great had FDR not interfered. What got us out of the depression was the war, after which, we were the only ones in the world with any major industrial capacity.
In fact, the markets did not recover until the 50s after we were rid of Truman, (Mr. "lets nationalize the steel industry"; Yea, that would be a good idea)
The idea of the "middle way" has largely been dismissed by anyone serious about increasing economic activity. The Scandinavians got away with it because they were small, homogenous societies with a strong work ethic. That is no longer the case, and they have been despirately trying to dismantle their systems before they end up like a third world country.
Norway, for example, could never support their system without their massive exports of oil and other raw materials. That combined with their almost exclusive use of hydro-electric power has provided them with a windfall to support their bloated system. However, they are now running up to the edge of what they can afford.
Also look at France and Germany (no culture bashing here, I actually like the French. They have a natural unemployment rate of around 10%! Ours is about 5 to 5.5%. Could you immagine the American public's reaction to such an unemployment rate?
Anyone who thinks that socialistic economies are "better" have never looked at the data. The only legitimate argument that can be made in favor of socialisim the one of equity. If you believe in wealth re-distribution, (which is a legitimate POV) the socialism one option. However, if you believe in economic efficiency and growth, the free market capitalism is the best way. Of course, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I believe in strong anti-trust laws to protect against corruption.
Capitalism has provided more wealth and more freedom to more people than any other system in history. Lets try to address corruption. Dragging us into a socilistic morass is not the answer.
End Rant
You're bang-on right: [t]he government's purpose is whatever its citizens decide it should be.
We, the citizenry, have established a Constitution which establishes our government. Our government is one of enumerated powers: the government is allowed to do something if and only if the Constitution says we, the citizenry, will allow the government to do this.
Many of the states have in their state constitutions the same basic idea as in the Federal Constitution: unless the state constitution explicitly permits the state to do something, the state may not do that something.
So there are really two questions here: (a) does the Missouri Constitution allow local governments to compete with businesses? and (b) does the Telecommunications Reform Act allow local governments to compete with businesses?
If either of the two is "no", then we, the citizens, have decided government's purpose is not to get involved in the local phone business. And guess what?
The answer is "no".
So yes, the government's purpose is whatever its citizens decide it should be.
And that's precisely why this case was decided correctly.
They already did that with the local cable company.
Rates are up 80% since. Sure we have 10 more channels, but most of them worthless.
I WILL be at the city council meeting if they ever even hint about selling of the municipal phone company.
And yes, I do believe that the cable was sold off for a kickback-driven bargin price.
This was NOT a ruling against "community telcos" - in fact, it is a ruling for states rights. and the people of most states have not forbade their local governments from creating telcos.. whcih means (you guessed it) this ruling doesn't have a damn thing to do with them.
still, I'll reply to your query with an example of why it's a bad thing to allow states to become telcos: here in Starkville MS, back in the mid 90's when the world was making the leap onto the web, we had only one ISP - it was the local college, Miss State University. And the service was free to the community, but you had to pay for the long distance bill yourself if you lived out of town - which most folks do.
And none of those "greedy corporations" like AOL or Compuserve woould move into the area, because they felt they couldn't compete with "free." So, for years, the people in Starkville got free internet dialup service while the rest of us paid about ten cents a minute.
FINALLY the college cut the cord - you didn't get to log into the campus network unless you were a student. Within months there were three ISPs in the area, all of them expanding rapidly out from town into local telco dialing areas. Now you can choose from a variety of ISPs even in the most rural Mississippi communities... all because the local state funded institution FINALLY got out of the business of providing free community access to a valuable service.
And before you go complaining about sending all that money out of state, I'll point out that at least one of those local competitors was a fellow who started with a few phone lines and grew the business into one of the largest ISPs in the area. He's now a retired Millionaire, and he's a local boy who gave a lot of other local folks jobs (and no, this doesn't have anything to do with Worldcom - that's down in the south part of the state).
At the same time, the area has many MORE new jobs because that same organization (the state funded university) is providing infrastructure to businesses who move into the local research park. Which was created on the back of the universtity, but still exists as a private entity which pays the university for services - an option available even to the people in these states where there ARE laws against the state providing telco services.
This is also why the government keeps up the Interstate highways. In theory, in the state of war on the US mainland, the Army could easily control any stretch of Interstate highway so that vital convoys could have a fast and trafic-free mostly-direct path from one metro area to another.
Unfortunately it misses 5 state capitals:
The five State capitals not directly served by the Interstate System are Juneau, Alaska; Dover, Delaware; Jefferson City, Missouri; Carson City, Nevada; and Pierre, South Dakota.
This is from the Interstate Highway site of the Federal Government.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Railway, postal, highways...All of these services are vital to the economy, the workings of the government, the military and almost everybody who lives here.
And I would add to the list: telecommunication networks, energy networks, hospitals, schools, etc...
Isn't it the responsibility of the government to insure that there are affordable, well run, easily accessible versions of all these services, even if it means creating government owned entities.
Too much slashdot...
"Did you know you can do calculus without a calculator?"
They already did that with the local cable company. Rates are up 80% since.
Which "that" - spin it out as a coop, or sell it to a big player?
If it's "sell it to a big player", that's what happens if you DON'T complain.
If it's "spin it out as a coop", where the hell were you and the other subscribers when the coop board that bumped the rates was elected?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Unfortunately it misses 5 state capitals:
:)
The five State capitals not directly served by the Interstate System are Juneau, Alaska; Dover, Delaware; Jefferson City, Missouri; Carson City, Nevada; and Pierre, South Dakota.
Wow. How'd they get Honolulu, Hawaii connected to the Interstate system?
The rail network is not kep alive for redundancy, it's a VERY efficient method of cargo transportation. Almost all of the truck cargo that had any significant distance to go gets driven to a rail station, loaded onto a train, moved to another station, then unloaded and hooked to trucks.
In Flagstaff, Arizona you see 60+ trains carring thousands of tons each day.
Passanger transport isn't the railroad's main use. It's not like Europe. In Europe, there's a ton of light rail, made for high speed passenger trains. Here is't all heavy rail, made for slower cargo trains. You can (and Amtrack does) run passenger traffic on it, but that's not the reason for it to exist.
It takes about 1% of the energy to move something by train as it does by truck an equal distance. Multiply that by millions of tons and thousands of miles and it quickly becomes apparent why trains are here to stay.
If it's "spin it out as a coop", where the hell were you and the other subscribers when the coop board that bumped the rates was elected?
Oops. I misred your comment, conflating it with the flames above. Sorry 'bout that.
I take it your local government sold the cable off to a big fish, who's now lining his pockets. Right?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
This is also why the government keeps up the Interstate highways. In theory, in the state of war on the US mainland, the Army could easily control any stretch of Interstate highway so that vital convoys could have a fast and trafic-free mostly-direct path from one metro area to another.
In theory nothing. This is exactly why the U.S. interstate highway system is so well developed. The intent was speficially to allow military vehicles quick access to any part of the country. Interstate highways were also designed such that the government (military, police, or whoever) could quickly take complete control of any given section simply by closing the on-ramps. Many sections were also built to be easily converted into ad-hoc runways for military aircraft.
You might also hear the highway system referred to as the National Defense Highways, but most likely only in your history books. Dwight D. Eisenhower lobbied and eventually convinced congress to pass the the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which would provide for 41,000 miles of road (total) by 1975.
This has been another Slashdot history lesson. Thank you.
The one caviat to that statement requires that the government do its job by enforcing anti-trust laws ...
Anti-trust laws are opposed to the concept of a free market.
They are part and parcel of a regulated market.
Truly free markets are an extreme end of the spectrum.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The government has no place competing with private citicens in the telecom industry, and today's decision by the Supreme Court, was the right one.
Governments have every right to compete in the same marketspace if they can do a superior job for less money and do it with purely volunatary funds, such as through municipal bonds. Non-profit organizations such as governments and co-ops can often provide superior service that the big companies aren't interested in. Plus, if the people of the town didn't want their government to set up a telco, then they could've voted it out of existence. Citizens are the shareholders in a muncipal utility, and they have the right to directly agitate for positive change, whereas customers of the big cable/telco companies have NO vote WHATSOEVER -- especially if there's a monopoly!
(I wish I had that kind power over the Comcast monopoly where I live and their awful, awful service. It would be nice to have a cable modem without having to deal with them.)
This decision was the right one, but only because it preserved states' rights, not because of some fanatical "all government is bad" hate-fest logic. For the buyer of telecom services, it will only mean higher rates and poorer service, as many posters here attest has already happened.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
That in America there were laws _against_ monopolies! I must have been misinformed.
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
Huh? The government isn't keeping any national railroad network alive... the profitable and privatized freight rail industry is. Amtrack trains ride the same track as the freight trains.
Bell Canada. It was the only game in town. A MONOPOLY. But, it was under government control, and (at that time), the government wasn't (so much) the enemy of the people. In regard to the telecom game, they pretty much did a worthy job. That is, if Bell screwed you, a simple call to the CRTC would get their butts kicked into shape and your connection flowing nice and smooth.
In the Eighties, it cost $15 a month for basic service. There were no extra fees, and Bell couldn't refuse to hook you up. FIFTEEN BUCKS a month.
What did competition bring?
Well, first of all, there isn't actually any competition. There's STILL only one phone system; it's just that now third party companies are allowed to buy discount bandwidth on that one system and re-sell it at lower rates. --And they don't have to pay to help maintain the physical system. Hmm.
And how does the phone company react to all that dropping revenue and the increasing cost of maintenance and development in a growing market? Why, they raise the cost of basic local service! Something goes wrong with your land line? Well, now it costs $100 bucks just to get some contracted company out to look at your phone. (Unless you buy the 'insurance' package for a few extra dollars per month).
And now if somebody screws you, who do you call? That's right! Nobody. Now, if you're unhappy, you're supposed to switch over to a different carrier, because that's how competition works!
On paper, anyway. --And only if a couple of chapters and logical positions are deliberately missing from the Free Market handbook.
If there was 'real' competition, there'd be more than one company stringing lines up all across the country. And that's called, "redundant, wasteful stupidity". Because competition slims down bloated structures, right? Sure.
There is NOTHING wrong with the idea of socially controlled telecommunications. Communications shouldn't BE a profit-making venture. It's a vital resource to a healthy society. Do you want to talk to people who enjoy sharing ideas, or would you rather communication happen among a bunch of Lawyers who think in terms of "Billable Minutes"?
I think enough discussion and information has been presented over the years to quite put an end to the reign of 'Free Market' armchair philosophers who read a book on it once, and who vote for square-jawed right-wing criminals who promise to punish the 'lazy' unemployed, but who make policy to ensure that unemployment is nice and high so that Big Business will have permanent access to cheep labor.
My phone service and phone bills suck now thanks to 'free market' politics and the people who push for such things. Thanks guys. The worst part is that I saw it coming, bitched and complained, and the world patted me on the head and called me silly.
Ah well. At least most of the hobbits are using cell phones now. It's easier than ever to walk through the world unchallenged, now that most people have voluntarily radiated their brains. Just don't get caught playing by the house rules! Man! Hell hath no fury like a muggle trying to categorize you on a computerized form!
"I don't need one of those awkward and painful a brains. See? Instead, I have a set of instructions! Much easier! Amd Thou Shalt Not. .
-FL
Thanks AC, that might be the better explanation of the subject I've ever read. Truly.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Correct, they sold out to a big fish.
The neatest increase was when they rescrambled the channel linup AND increased rates without announcing anything before hand. A card showing the new lineup could be found in the much larger bill the day after they made the change.
Capitalism provides open-ended incentive to be greedy. There are corrupt people in any system, but Capitalism makes it much more fun.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The US is a democracy.
Negative. The US is a democratically elected REPUBLIC.
That depends on the laws you are talking about. I think you are confusing a free _market_ with _freedom to do what you want_.
Laws which prevent collusion and price fixing preserve the market.
USPS: government-run monopoly SPECIFICALLY authorized by the US Constitution.
:)
See also: US military.
Try starting a competing military and see where that gets you.
"General welfare"
Items affecting the lives, mostly pertaining to the protection of rights, of the public at large.
Having decent telephone service doesn't fall under this umbrella. People are not "forced" to pay for telephone service. They can take it or leave it. If they wish to have service, they can pick from the available service. If they don't like the price, they can go without. Obviously if someone is paying for service, it is worth as much or more to them than they are paying for the access. If they're paying more than it's worth to them, that's THEIR problem.
Monopoly: A business that exerts enough power to be able to force other companies or competing startups out of the market, and actually exercises this power for this purpose.
A shitty small-town telco is not a monopoly. They are the only game in town because nobody else wants to play in that location.
In large towns, the company complained about the most is usually the largest, not the only. You've still got choice, you just may not like it. That doesn't make it the problem of the people who support the tax base in your area (i.e. those who would be subsidizing your telephone calls for a government-run telco).
I live in Oregon and I own a lot next to my house that I decided to sell. The lot is between two houses and is backed by a public street. ``Common sense'' would dictate that I should have been able to sell the lot MONTHS ago to a buyer. However there is a runoff of water that drains from the street and in Oregon, this somehow qualifies as wetlands. I have to get buyoff from Washington county, The Oregon Division of State Land AND the Army corps of engineers!
I can assure you the ``little guy'' is getting screwed by other ``little guys''
The LADWP and other California municipal utilities had a surplus of power generation. So instead of being "raped" by the private generators, they "raped" us harder. The average price charged by private wholesalers was $247 per megawatt hour. The LADWP charged an average of $292 per megawatt hour and Glendale charged an average of $327 a megawatt-hour.
Why would you want to create a new government monopoly, which will be impossible to compete against locally.
What is/was the scandal? I'd like to know because I write them a check every month :/
In 2002, their European operations took a nosedive, and they had to borrow a wad o'cash to get things back together. I can't find any decent muckraking on the events, probably because the local paper is widely known to be a corporate tool (just ask these guys or these guys).
But here's one mention (2/3 down the page), and the local paper did mention the problems in a puff piece saying how great everything is now: turn off JavaScript to read without registration (google cache also requires you turn off JS).
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
you just gave me a great idea for a half-life mod
Belmont MA has its own teleco-it has been ther eforever -so do other towns-any fibre optic line will become a teleco. The ruling shows us how tech sophisticated the Court is.
"As far as scandal-plauging, there are few scandals to equal the routine operation of nearly ANY government operation. I, for one, am more than happy to see the big government, now that it's broken up the national telephone monopoly (a creature of its own regulation), telling the little governments to dump their own creatures."
You're a Republican, your boys control Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court, and have taken "scandal" to depths unplumbed since Caligula: ignoring al Qaeda until 9/11/01, then turning that into Iraqmire, outing Valerie Plame at CIA, creating the biggest $2T government ever, spending the biggest-ever $5T surplus on his bestest rich buddies for the biggest ever $10T debt, and lies lies lies. When are you going to drop that ridiculous "smaller government" lie? Or better yet, join the Democratic Party, which has actually balanced the budget, shrunk government, and protected Americans, in spite of the incessant sabotage of Republicans in government, media and boardrooms.
--
make install -not war
That seems an odd position to take, given that it's the Republican FCC commissioner that keeps pushing for the legalization of competition in communications, and fighting off the courts when they try to turn it back.
are you brain dead? since when does passing laws that allow big companies to purchase as many outlets as they choose, thereby exerting tighter control over our information, mean more competition.
oh, wait. you must be a republican. i forgot to translate that from doublespeak into the language of the intelligent open-minded thinking person. it's called openspeak.
Hey, weren't African Amercians promised 40 acres and a mule at emancipation? And let's not even TALK about what the gov promised Native Americans. Yeah, yeah. They have casinos. blah blah. they still got a raw deal IMB.
Still, there is economic incentive for the feds to accomplish this. But 2007? I think I might as well ask the next black guy I meet where his mule is (as long as he's smaller than me and doesn't know kung-foo).
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
That seems an odd position to take, given that it's the Republican FCC commissioner that keeps pushing for the legalization of competition in communications, and fighting off the courts when they try to turn it back.
Republicans say they are for individual rights, states rights, free markets, free enterprise, and competition. But saying and doing are two different things.
In fact, "individual rights" is just a code word for pushing a Christian right agenda; when people try to assert their individual rights (abortion, sex, nudity, gay rights, etc.), Republicans want to restrict things and punish. With the Republicans, you get individual rights, as long as you are a good, conforming Christian and spend a lot of money.
"States rights" is a codeword for shifting federal taxes to the states, which makes it easy to claim to have lowered federal taxes; when states try to actually assert their "states rights" (drugs, gay marriage, etc.), the Republicans are up in arms.
And "free enterprise" to Republicans means getting in bed with big businesses; efficient and responsive community operated utilities don't fit into that concept (after all, they don't make big campaign contributions to federal politicians).
Democrats have their own set of misleading codewords, but, on balance, I still think the kind of deception and word games the Republicans play are still more harmful.
They need to redo the tax credit for solar, wind, and alternative .
.
.
.
.
clean power solutions
The methane sewer gas of all the major california cities alone
would make for some major production
Tax credits for highly insulated, or energy efficient buildings
should come back as well
Ppl like guerilla solar started because of the run around they
get from power companies in california and other places
http://www.homepower.com/magazine/guerrilla.cfm
Truly...power to the ppl
Peace !
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"