Verizon-Pushed WiFi Bill Becomes Law in PA

Cryofan writes "A Wall Street Journal article (via freepress) tells the sad tale of how legislation barring PA municipalities from offering paid telecom services was signed into law. 'Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell said late Tuesday night that he had signed into law a large telecommunications bill placing severe restrictions on the ability of cities and towns to offer telecommunications services, an item that was heavily lobbied by Verizon Communications Inc. and other big telephone companies in similar legislation across the country.'" (Also mentioned last week.)

Comments

Skill OK for non-govt. groups

[btrapp]

The title of the article is a little misleading - while the ruling does bar municipalities creating their own networks, this does not stop private groups of citizens from creating municipal networks.

So a motivated group of citizens can still create a city wide wireless network, it's just the local governments that can't. (I wonder if the govt. can give grants to the citizens... that'd be a nice work-around)

Exception made for Philadelphia

[trickofperspective]

It should be noted that Philadelphia made a deal with Verizon that will allow it to go forward with their original city-wide WiFi rollout despite this law.

~Trick

Play-by-Play

[ackthpt]

as quoted from the Pay-Per-View Avarice Hour of Power

Gov. Rendell: This bill is a piece of crap.
Minion of Telecoms: We're rich
Gov. Rendell: I cannot be bribed!
Minion of Telecoms: Oh, we wouldn't dream of it!
Gov. Rendell: Good to hear it, I'll just veto this sucker.
Minion of Telecoms: We'll direct our considerable influence to your opponent in the next gubenatorial election.
Gov. Rendell: ... ah yes, there's the line I sign on scrit-scrit-scrizzitz-scrit-scrut
Minion of Telecoms: Good boy, here's a dog biscuit.

Re:Quite right, it's anti competitive & monopo

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes,

Well, before wireless, it was wired. In 1995, the State of Texas passed a bill that prevented the City of Austin from string fiber optic between its high-schools, libraries, fire stations, police stations, and power substations.

Seems that Southwestern Bell though it mighty uncompetitive of the City of Austin to replace old crappy 9600 baud modems with something that would be faster *and* cheaper! Of course, the Texas Leg voted was anti-people back then too.

Re:I see Verizon's point of view...

[chris_mahan]

Oh my God you are so right!

I can't believe the government is funding public libraries, they're taking money from commercial bookstores. Like, OmiGod! And the streets! Woah, they should let go of city maintenance and allow the commercial road surfacing companies to fill in the potholes on the street... But wait, there's more! Why is the police allowed to operate, don't they know that they're taking money away from commercial security providers? Heck why do we have cities to begin with, we could just outsource everything to India...

Wait...

I'm dashing off to the patent office with a big grin on my face...

Re:Ahhh, the essence of Capitalism...

[kwiqsilver]

That's not competition, that's a tax-funded program. How is verizon (or any other carrier) supposed to compete against that? Verizon can't take the money from you against your will, like the government can. Verizon can't force you to be a customer.

And when the big corporations lobby for preferential legislation (which they do frequently), it's not capitalism, it's socialism. In capitalism the government can't hinder or support any private entity: their fates are left to the market to decide.

Re:Big Ed

[Doc Ruby]

You sure are naive about telecom. The tariff lets all the "competitors" avoid competing on new features, by specifying all the features and their prices. It also prices starting new telcos in the $BILLIONS, keeping out any new competition. When something new comes along, like DSL, they tweak the tariff to kill new competitors, like they did with DSL. The only orgs foolhardy enough to start competing with telcos on something disruptive like WiFi are local governments, and now they're slapped down (at least in Pennsylvania). Even though the limited bandwidth of WiFi in a given area makes it most effective for municipal communications, like emergency services, sanitation and other state communications. If Verizon were able to compete, it would let towns and cities educate the market with WiFi, while rolling out WiMax or even (gasp) 3G, or maybe even finishing the phased-array tech that effectively unlimits bandwidth spectrum constraints (never). A competitive telco would actually see the lengths to which cities and towns are going to get wireless coverage, and *sell it to them*. Instead, they've just outlawed any possible competitive motivation to deliver this hotly desired service to their market. So no one gets it. And they've got legions of people hooting about "the market" when no such dynamic exists in this industry. I'm glad you're satisfied with your wired status quo.