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Telco Sues Municipality For Laying Their Own Fiber
unreceivedpacket writes "Ars Technica reports that a company called TDS Telecom is attempting to sue the town of Monticello, Minnesota for deploying their own fiber network. Shortly after the town voted to lay the fiber, TDS Telecom filed suit and notified the town that they would be deploying their own fiber network. The telco has recently responded to Ars Technica, saying they only sued to save Monticello from itself, apparently feeling that the municipality is unprepared for the onerous costs of maintaining such a network, and would lack the expertise to do so."
Expect to see the telecom draw out this lawsuit as long as they can possibly take it (think SCO here) and deploy their own network in the meantime, then sue the town again if they try to lay their own network thereafter for tortious interference with business practices or other such legal BS (IANAL and don't know what statutes they could use).
Craziness. I hope a judge knocks this down quick, but I'm not optimistic.
It's basically the company telling the town, "Stay the fuck out of our business or it'll cost you dearly. It's our monopoly, dammit."
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
please someone tell me that this is a f@ckin joke.
Read radical news here
Down with the telco!
Need an automatic screenshot taker? Try here.
I read TFA and I still have no idea what the legal basis of this claim is. Does anyone have any idea on what grounds they are suing?
If only we had more good corporate neighbors like this that solved our own problems and did our thinking for us so we don't have to.
Good lookin' out, TDS. Cough.
They prey upon the rural subscribers here in Oklahoma, they charge horrendous rates for telephone service and charge long distance charges that rival what they charged back in the 1980's...you pay out the nose for these idiots...want to piss them off, move to Vonage or Skype. Fuck you TDS.
Yeah, my karma sucks....but so do the mods.
In a nutshell the telco is suing the city with the justification that they are protecting the city from itself? I think I would have a lot more respect if they just came right out and said they didn't want the city as competition. If you're going to be a greedy soulless corporation then be one for crying out loud. Knock off the fake altruism because no one is buying it. And I recommend they hire a better legal team. Every soulless corporation requires a top notch crack team of lawyers to distort and manipulate the law in their favor. "any utility or other public convenience from which a revenue is or may be derived." I know next to nothing about law but even I can see this is cut and dry. The city raised bonds to provide what is definitely a public convenience, yet the telco sues anyway. Unfortunately I think their tactic is to try and get an injunction then keep the case in court for the next two decades.
How do towns set up a municipal electric service without being sued?
More importantly, how many speeding/parking/jaywalking tickets does this Telco plan to get when passing through town?
I sat down to write a new sig tonight and all I did was make the chair warm.
oh yeah right... how considerate
why you CAPITALIST PiGs!!!
Why let a town build a network with taxpayer money when you can build a network with that same money, then charge them again for using it? It's the classic telco business model.
It was right magnanimous of 'em to sue.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
How is this any different than a town building a road. A solid internet infrastructure is just as important to city/state growth as a the transportation system. It's just simple.
"No fair, I can't compete with the state." is not a good enough reason for me to care about your problem. Things like this would have been used to stop building the Interstate system in late 50s. Reasoning like this has allowed the infrastructure of the US to suffer, because someone companies are magic beings that solve problems and the government just ruins your life.
Burn Hollywood Burn
My boss lives in a town that has had their own utilities for over a century and they have stellar service and prices are lower than the crappy monopolies provide. It started with their own power station and over the years they added phone, cable, and fiber internet services. If they need service they get local people that actually care about fixing their issues and local students can get internships that teach them marketable skills. All this and they pay much *less* than the government granted/privately run monopolies in most surrounding areas. A good example of the non-financial benefits this has provided include the fact that they were one of the few communities to have power during the great NE blackout of 2003. Basically it comes down to the fact that there is a certain cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure, and if you let a monopoly private business run it you have to pay those costs over time plus the profits that are expected by the owners of that company.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
http://www.burlingtontelecom.net/
fiber. to the curb. you can do it too. if you need it to run your life civilly, it's a utility
You can boycott TDS by boycotting U.S. Cellular.
...they only sued to save Monticello from itself, apparently feeling that the municipality is unprepared for the onerous costs of maintaining such a network, and would lack the expertise to do so...
So the company loves the city more than the city loves itself?
How ironic! This sounds preposterous to me.
These United States never cease to amaze.
On the basis that if the town were to install a network and the telco had some actual competition in the marketplace, they might not be able get away with screwing the customer. (Just a guess, based on historical experience with monopoly cable companies, Ma Bell (back when it was a nationwide monopoly), utility companies, etc.)
Power to the people!
Municipalities are the only ones who can defeat monopoly service providers. More power to Monticello!
From what I understand, maintaining fiber networks isn't all that hard. In many cases, it's lower maintenance than existing infrastructures.
Switching from copper to fiber is a big deal in heavy manufacturing and especially in electric plants. Most electric plants are heavily wired with copper. Problem is that copper is more prone to interference. When copper fails, it can be quite difficult to isolate the failure. Copper is also several orders of magnitude lighter (weight wise) than copper and a lot less bulky. Vendors usually quote a "50%" cost reduction from copper.
In the building trades, fiber only construction saves a good amount of space and labor. I've read that medium size office buildings can sometimes shave $300,000 off their construction costs.
I can't recall exactly, but I believe most new airplanes are being built with fiber. It's much easier to install and maintain than the copper it replaces. I remember reading years ago that some lab at MIT (I believe) developed a device to allow fiber optic cable to directly replace the copper wiring coming out of the instrument panels. I am afraid I can't remember reading if this was ever implemented.
I'm not an expert, but I think the rational for this lawsuit is rather weak. I don't know what else their town is working on, but I doubt they expect their parks and recreation staff to maintain their fiber network. They'll hire a subcontractor, probably the same people the telcos were going to hire and be done.
Good for them.
Towns already run their own water pipes, sewer pipes, fire alarm systems, roads, etc. What is one more cable?
I call BS if you say running fiber takes more expertise than running water and sewer pipes. Electrons can go uphill of their own accord, water needs help.
apparently feeling that the municipality is unprepared for the onerous costs of maintaining such a network, and would lack the expertise to do so.
Ptttht....if the telco really feels this way, I tell them "here, drop the lawsuit, and if we truly can't match par with your network, we'll sell the line to you guys and admit we were wrong."
Would the telco take them up on this? Shah right...
...in bed
Since the fiber plant is going to be a monopoly, this is how internet access should be sold: have the part that is going to be a monopoly be regulated, and then allow competition where that is easy.
The only trick is not allowing the people in charge of just the fiber to interact with the data running over that fiber, as the Canadians are discovering with Bell.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
How much does it cost to lay, install and Admin a fibre network for the city?? Say $30 million (rough, plucked out of thin air made up figure). TDS come along, and being the concerned citizens decide that the Fibre network is too much for the city so they sue them for $28 million. City settles for $15 million. So now TDS has been given a $15 million discount on setting up the Fibre network... = Profit....
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
like someone wiping their corporate ass.
they only sued to save Monticello from itself, apparently feeling that the municipality is unprepared for the onerous costs of maintaining such a network, and would lack the expertise to do so.
I, for one, am deeply grateful to our corporate overlords for saving the population of Monticello from themselves.
Way to go!
Governments should not be competing with private businesses. It's not their role. Monopolies aren't fun, but government run monopolies are downright depressing. Even if the government allows competition, how do you compete with an entity that has the power to tax or borrow against taxes?
Much of the current "problem" is due to previous government created monopolies in local telephone and cable. The solution is not more of the same intervention.
At the same time, I think the lawsuit is misguided. If I were a shareholder I would be telling the company to cut its losses, pull up stakes, and get out of Monticello. It's clear they've gone over to the dark side, and it's pointless trying to compete with techie-welfare.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
How do we prevent more of these pesky lawsuits?
My only idea is we increase penalties so parties like this telco can be ordered to build out the network for free or some major penalty.
Now that would be justice!
I recall, decades ago, when Ann Arbor was about to repave Division street - the main north-south drag for the core city. They were going to do it up properly so it would last.
They'd had a lot of trouble with utilities tearing up the roads to work on their underground stuff, then not restoring them adequately. (In southern Michigan winters this resulted in frost heaves that soon tore the road back open, resulting in the need for more repairs - sometimes over and over. By which time the information about which utility had torn it up originally had been lost.)
They couldn't really ban them from digging up the street to work on their stuff.
So they passed a new ordinance that would result in a MAJOR cost for any company that tore up the street AFTER it was redone, for a decade or so, and gave 'em some large number of months to get their underground installations fixed up and upgraded before the repaving. (I think they imposed some "fee" - read "fine" or "tax" - but don't know the details.)
That street was dug up all summer as the several utility companies rebuilt everything under it and installed new conduit and manholes for future expansion. (Better to get it in now, while there's no special issues on doing the work, than take the chance that the city's post-repaving gotchas would stick in court - or cost more in court fees to get them struck.)
And that road surface stayed pristine for years.
Now it seems to me that, if this telco wants to play hardball, this municipality could find similar stuff to do to them. B-)
Granted that the courts might eventually strike down whatever the city does as unfair competition, too. But it would still cost the telco more money to get that to happen - and tit-for-tat is well recognized as a very successful strategy.
Downside is it needs to be done in a way that doesn't end up stalling both projects while the citizens sit on their thumbs waiting for an internet connection.
= = = =
Also: Didn't a federal court just strike early-termination fees for cell phone providers? Might be possible to go after that if the telco does a long-term contract lockin to try to keep the citizens on their net once the delayed city net is live.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Basically the really huge freaking breakers at the substation connecting the plant to the grid tripped for some reason. The plant suddenly found itself without a load to support, and quickly shut itself down to prevent massive permanent damage to the equipment. If you generate a ton of electrons without having someplace to send them the equipment that deals with those electrons tends to get VERY hot very quickly and not be very happy about it.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
The Telco's have no rights to force people to buy their goods.
I might add that CABLE TV SUCKS too. There is no variety or quality.
Much of the populated areas of Monticello resemble an industrial park. Whoever is in control of that fiber is in for some serious cash from the plants that have setup shop there. This will be a damn interesting battle, the city will fight this tooth-and-nail.
Great news! Now to get my municipality to vote to build their own fiber network, and Verizon will run Fios.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Fresh out of college, I got a job with TDS in their Madison headquarters. I was working on one of their new product lines at the time during the internet boom of the late 90s. I know it's been a decade since then, but I'm fairly certain that my comments below will ring true today...
/. citizens, I can tell you that this doesn't surprise me one bit. Those PHBs at TDS simply don't know what life is like in a real market economy. They're in the legal death throws of a monopoly. That's why I don't work there anymore, and why I'm posting as AC.
Most people at TDS are reasonable. They're the Dilberts, not the PHBs. The problem is that management in the organization simply doesn't understand competition. They fear it like a vicious dog clawing at their corner office window. Here's an example.
After the Telecommunications Act of 94 (I think that was the year), it opened the door to other telco competition. Their answer was to form another company, TDS Metrocom, to compete primarily against Ameritech. The result was astounding. Instead of one cohesive structure, we ended up with two completely separate companies that didn't get along well. Not just physically separate (different headquarters), but even technically segmented.
Another entertaining example was one of the products I was working on. The proof of concept was showing red flags at every turn. The idea was just plain stupid, but management thought it was going to "revolutionize everything". During a meeting with my Bosses, Bosses, Bosses Boss (i think there were a couple more layers to go above that even), the guy asked me about the product. I could almost hear the sphincter of his direct report slam shut from across the room, and I started speaking the Truth. Hey, I was barely a year out of college, what did I know? After about 5 minutes of explaining in minute detail about how this product was a bottomless pit of time and money, the meeting was abruptly cut short.
So fellow
As little as possible should be done by the government — that's the principle.
Having them provide Internet service is like running word-processing in a kernel.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
And the neocons say unregulated capitalism isn't destroying our democracy. Eisenhower, how we miss thee...
Hard to argue with that logic. It's always been proven right :>
They have there own fiber network. Have for a while. Works great and is cheap. 8Mbps symmetrical for $72 a month (the slowest is 3Mbps for $33).
From their website:
Although we are a City Department, this network is privately financed and clean of any taxpayer contributions. To pay for the effort, Burlington Telecom will provide the three basic services itself: cable TV, telephone, and high-speed Internet. But anyone else will also be free to use the network to deliver these or other services. (This is similar to a City providing public roads while also providing basic bus service as well. Citizens and businesses can use the bus service or they can use the roads to provide their own transportation.)
We believe that the citizens of Burlington deserve to have such open and universal access to a telecommunications network with sufficient capacity and flexibility for the foreseeable future at a reasonable cost. We will strategically and efficiently roll out BTâ(TM)s services to the community in a consistent, cost-effective manner with an emphasis on quality customer service. Here are our goals:
1. to provide the highest quality telecommunication services available
2. to provide superior customer service and technical assistance
3. to provide a single, easy-to-read bill for all your services
4. to be competitively priced if not cheaper than our competitors
www.burlingtontelecom.net
It can be done and done well.
We need our lawyer politicians to enact "loser pays". That will greatly reduce the demand for lawyers and .... um .... nevermind.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Dig up their bones...er, cables! It's time to riot!
Those damn phone companies think they own you.
Oh, sorry, they do.
TPC forever!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Case Study 1: Be at least the size of a small town or school district, right up to a medium country, and threaten to dump Microsoft for Open Source. Microsoft cuts you a significantly better deal than you had before.
Case Study 2: Be a small incorporated town without fiber from your monopoly telephone provider and threaten to put in your own fiber here and now. Phone company stops you in court while immediately and suddenly laying their own fiber, and even giving you a sweet deal for all your municipal facilities.
Case Study 3: ???
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What on earth do the managers of a city of 8000 people know about data networks? probably nothing.
Some independant contractor probably sold them the idea that they could become the town of the future if they laid fiber to the home. Reality is it will leave the contractors pockets lined, and the city with a half assed infrastructure thats too expensive for the 40% senior citizen population of the town to pay for.
Its happened all over the country the last 5-8 years. its no more than modern snake oil.
It sure SOUNDS like the sort of thing you should get all outraged about, but this is really not the solution to the countrys data needs. its got to be federally ran. or state level at LEAST.
I don't find that especially cheap, particularly since I don't need the 8Mb up nearly as much as the 8Mb down. I'm getting 8Mb down, and substantially less up from Comcast, but also for $50 or so, rather than $72. And many people don't even consider Comcast all that great or cheap.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
When the cities in Utah were hashing out Utopia, Qwest threatened to do the same thing. They used the same reasoning and threatened all the same things. For all I know, they actually did file a couple of suits. The dire predictions failed to pan out, of course, but it isn't surprising that another phone company would choose the same tactic. Monticello can refer the courts to whatever happened with UTOPIA.
I live in Big Lake, MN which is just a few miles away from Monticello, MN. The story misses a few things. First of all Monticello approached the Bridgewater to build the fiber network, and Bridgewater decided not to. So Monticello went ahead and decided to do itself. The second thing people should know is that Monticello does not have a normal small town finance system. Monticello Nuclear Generating Plant provides a huge cash influx to the city, allowing it to pursue large projects.
dont_forget
*spits on ground in disgust*
Is there any legal way to call the Telcom spokes-creep a "lying sack of shit" without being tied up in court for the next 30 years?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I dunno ... I get 8 mb down / 1 mb up from Comcast for $86/month. I could really use the fast backchannel, so the GP's $72 sounds pretty reasonable in comparison.
It's all in where you live, I guess.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
...would be to build as just a foundational infrastructure. It would be fiber all the way from each home and business to the various connection points. These would be buildings, not little pedestals. These fibers would then be leased out to any company wanting to provide services over them. There would be 4 actual optical fibers to each home and business (more for special cases), so it would be possible for "light up" providers to offer only one type of service, and customers could get their phone, TV, and internet, from different providers if they so choose. Or people and businesses could lease them directly to have a very high speed point to point service wherever they want.
It's not competing against the telco ... it's providing them with a fiber based infrastructure they can use. It's not competing against cable TV ... it's providing them with a fiber based infrastructure they can use. It's not competing against broadband services ... it's providing them with a fiber based infrastructure they can use.
It's just a road. The city and state generally build roads and let people use them. The directions the telcos and cable TV companies are trying to go is the equivalent to not only them building the road, but also them building all the vehicles and allowing no other vehicles on the road, and them restricting what parts of town people are allowed to even go to.
Cities often provide public transportation. So some basic default services is not out of the question, anyway. But it might get structured so it is not a major competition. For example, it might provide connectivity only within the city itself and not to the world internet. It might carry only over-the-air TV stations, and not all those satellite based national channels.
I'd bet a lot of business would love to jump in and provide services over an infrastructure they don't have to pay all that up front cost to build. Whether it's paid for by leasing the fibers, or by taxes, is something the city would have to decide.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Copper is also several orders of magnitude lighter (weight wise) than copper and a lot less bulky.
I assume you meant to say that fiber lighter than copper?
This is obviously a lawsuit filed to sabotage competition. If the town can prove this, the company is in for a world of hurt.
... Monticello, Minnesota, then they would just pull out and go away.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I'm a resident of Monticello, and I'm shaking my head at what is going on. The city has spent over $1 million to research etc. whether the city will be better off with fiber. Meanwhile TDS has gone ahead and is laying fiber throughout the town.
The question is. Would TDS have done this if the city hadn't pushed their buttons? The town's population is only 11,000. Yes, just eleven thousand!
As an aside, the company TDS hired to drill/lay the fiber has proved their ineptness, cutting numerous telephone cables (whole areas of the city cut off, and at least once penetrated a main gas feed.
the municipality is unprepared for the onerous costs of maintaining such a network, and would lack the expertise to do so.
Because it's impossible for anyone to so much as break even on such a network. TDS would be laying its own network out of the goodness of it's corporate heart. And it's utterly impossible to hire network techs and sysadmins in today's job market...
And the brethren went away edified.
SBC^H^H^HAT&T paid^H^H^H^Hdonated under $90,000 to 3 reps and got a law banning exactly the problem TDS is suing over.
So the cheeseheads are safe!
Couldn't this idea of running fiber to homes really bring in a good, practical use for WDM?
I mean, we assign the SP a wavelength and now we can have competing SPs on the same links. WDM and its variants are really made for metro access anyway. We have the tech... if a city wants to build out the infrastructure, why not?
Its sort of like how in Texas, a neutral company runs the power lines and you can select any provider you want. The neutral company here just happens to be a muni.
I agree that government should play a role in infrastructure but if they're going to do it at all, then they should spend the additional money to make those channels as large as possible. If they need an eighteen inch channel, then maybe they should do a twenty-four inch one, and so on. If they're planning to spend the money to dig up streets, create utility vaults, and so forth, then let them spend the money to do it right the first time and create a right of way that will then be available for other services. The more space they put in now, the less money they'll have to spend later on and the easier it gets to do maintenance without digging up the streets again.
If it were up to me, municipalities all over the place would be putting in precast, modular component tunnels under major streets that would be big enough to stand inside and to carry telecom lines, electrical lines, gas lines, and so on, all on top of water and sewage lines. This would cut monopoly power waaay down and massively decrease the cost, likelihood, and problems related to breakdowns, not to mention make things like greywater processing much more practical.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I announce I'm laying my own girlfriend, and all the sudden all these other guys rush in with injunctions to stop me from laying while they lay their own...
a series of tubes /
made of many fiber strands /
stymied by lawsuit
If this were just about fiber to private homes, then maybe I would agree with you. But first of all, this system is planned to start out with fiber for schools and other municipal users. Secondly, what about commercial users? 25 million for 12,000 private homes is Sarah Palin territory. Huge debt for minimal gain. But since Monticello is home to quite a few office parks, we're talking about, at the least, several hundred business users, each of whom should and hopefully would bear some of the tax burden of this as well as getting much of the gain.
Now, if we're thinking about this as a business, which is a distortion but I'll run with it, it's normal for telecom companies to spend as much as a couple thousand dollars to acquire business customers. So if we assume five hundred businesses, then we're talking about just acquiring that business being worth about a million of that money. If we assume 700 children of school age who would use that service, well, buying computers for that many kids would last nowhere near as long and would cost over a million bucks, all things considered.
It all comes down to numbers, though, doesn't it? Do we compare this to a sewage system, which will deliver value for a hundred years or more, or do we compare it to a wireless network which will need to be rebuilt every five years or so?
How many years of service would this proposal provide?
How much of this money goes for short-term equipment like routers and how much for long-term infrastructure like fiber and putting in channels?
Who will own that city-provided infrastructure?
How many customers will use this?
Of what types?
Will they billed for this and if so, how?
I don't know. And afaict, neither do you. You've got interesting and useful things to say about the contract type and such, for which I thank you. But as for total net value, unless you've got answers to most or all of the questions above, you might want to get off your high horse a bit and cut them a little more slack.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I'm wondering if a different approach would be for a city to build the infrastructure while saying they where doing it to better monitor - say - traffic signals and city utility meters, and then after it's built "open it up" to interweb connectivity...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Time Warner Cable vs. the city of North Kansas City http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4185/is_20060105/ai_n15995825
The town lays the fiber while the telco lays the pipe the good 'ol American way -- through the courts. All the while, the "people", of which whom this government is supposed to be working for, tells them to take a seat and hire legal assistance. This should motivate people in that town to get off their asses and vote the ass-clowns out of office that are responsible for allowing this sort of nonsense to persist. Many people forget that laws are not cast in stone. If it's not working in the public interest, then CHANGE THEM! And it's not about singing to the choir fellow /.'ers. When will people say enough is enough and tell them to take their company and shove it unless they plan on making life a little better for the average citizen.
Best of luck to us all. At this rate, the likes of Comcast will consolidate many of the regional ISPs and take us all for a ride. To add insult to injury, they'll utter words like 'Thank you for choosing us as your service provider' when they know damn well there are not many major providers left. The hubris nowadays is just incredible.
Shortly after the town voted to lay the fiber, TDS Telecom filed suit and notified the town that they would be deploying their own fiber network.
Sure, it's bad news that the town is getting sued, but look at it from the consumer's point of view: Two independent fiber networks - that's got to be good for redundancy and bandwith. Any news if either or both going the last mile?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
as someone who lives in minnesota.It like we have to put with retarded ISP such as qwest and comcasst,which people are sick of the crappy serivece and the "service techs" that get nothing done right. So to get rid of the monopoly. they build their own network. I know my city was thinkg of doing to get rid of comcast.
"No fair, I can't compete with the state."
This I find incredibly ironic.
Anyone have a backlog of cases and/or laws gained through this argument?
The ultra-right has been saying for almost a century now that the government is simply incapable of doing anything efficiently and effecitvely, so they should stay out of things like healthcare and unemployment benefits.
Foot, meet mouth, mouth, meet other foot and both hands as well.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
If it's illegal for towns to lay their own fibre and big telcos are unwilling, then surely there's a business opportunity here.
I'm sure lots of private investors would be happy to stump up the initial cost with an agreement to quality of service and permitted prices to recoup their investment. The ROI and startup costs should be pretty predictable by now. Slightly more expensive for the town but at least they get their network without legal hassles.
I Live in Monticello, Mn. and have been following this for some time. I'm fully in favor of this and believe it's in the best interest of the community. It'll benefit home users, but it's even more critical to attract big business and help grow the town.
Just a couple of things I want to set straight.
First, Monticello is being sued by Blackwater Communications (TDS) for using bonds to pay for the city fiber network. They can't stop the city from putting it in, but they're trying to make it painful. Originally it was to pay for itself and not cause additional taxes. The mayor has now openly said it may take taxes to do it, but the city will see it through.
Second is that several years ago, TDS, as well as the local cable co. were approached by the city to partner in this effort. Both flat out said no.
Third, only after the city was about to break ground did TDS decide to put in there own fiber network. Which by the way, I don't believe is truly fiber all the way to the wall. Seeing that the cities network fails is the only way to control pricing as the city had already stated what services would cost and trust me, it blew TDS out of the water!
Fourth, TDS has also begun a misleading campaign calling local residents, including myself, telling them about how the cities network will be under par and how business services are superior. Funny, cause I work in IT and am pretty technical; BS always smells! It's all about what "Joe Schmoe" doesn't know and how they usually believe what they are told. Oh ya, and the idiots accidentally called the mayor pitching the bull; oops! They've also started blanketing the neighborhoods with 1-year free broadband offers. Read the fine print cause if you bite your screwed! It's another way to lock things up by removing potential customers for the cities network. I get these adds in the mail literally every couple of days. I'm so sick of it I'm considering calling them and telling them not to mail me.
Personally I can't stand TDS anymore and won't even consider using them for anything EVER again. My land line with them has been dropped, my internet switched to cable (until the cities fiber is available), I use my cell and Skype. This is a prime example of corporate greed hurting the community!
they get sued for delivering exucation, water, roads and sevage treatment.
HTTP/1.1 400
Telco is an Indian company. I was shocked to see how the hell it is suing and on what basis. Then i realise that the OP was using shortform for telecom company. Man these shortcuts are getting too much.
This is called a MAN (metropolitan area network).
If you can build one of these...
profit!
One simple way City Hall can fight back is to simply pass a resolution/law delicensing the corporate charter for operation within the city/Town.
Simple, effective and clean: Like an Airburst Nuke.
It is a nuke, because the corporation has no recourse legally to this, it is simple, because it does away with the problem of fighting the lawsuit: After all if the party does not exist legally, then there is no lawsuit.
I wonder if the people will be aware of this right: If so, their local elected officials and mayor should push for this resolution and de-charter the corporation on trumped up charged. Plus, get the sheriff to auction the properties of the corporation after giving it "2" hours notice to vacate its premises.
The corporation would beg.
People don't know their powers against large corporations: Withdrawing a charter is a death sentence.
But that requires guts and courage, which none of our cowardly town halls and mayors do not have.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
That will greatly reduce the demand for lawyers and .... um .... nevermind.
No, it wouldn't. "Loser pays" just changes who writes the checks, not whether the costs are covered.
But more importantly, the reason is that "loser pays" only stops those people in the middle zone of plausibility from risking legal action. The people making the egregious, psychotic claims are either too delusional to realize their folly, or they have some other objective. Either way, the idea of them eating the costs either doesn't occur to them or doesn't matter, so loser pays only punishes those people with reasonably good cases that just didn't break their way.
The knife's edge cases are important, because they help define the elusive boundaries of the law, and by doing so, are the main engines of change in established law. You move the mountain one boulder at a time. Loser pays makes legitimate people afraid to take on legal teams that dwarf their own financial resources (like, I don't know, large telecom corporations) due to risk of financial obliteration when handed the corporation's bill.
We already have a mechanism for an award for fees and costs where appropriate.
[...]
First hatched in 1996, the Hometown Utilicom network in Kutztown was designed as a âoetalkingâ electric system, where if a transformer malfunctioned, itâ(TM)d communicate with the main system and be easy to trace, said Frank Caruso, Kutztownâ(TM)s director of information technology.
But now, the system services more than 1,000 households with Internet and cable, Caruso said. He said the system covers the entire 1.5 square miles of the municipality and there are about 2,200 electric meters in the area, so Hometown Utilicom serves 49 percent of the people in Kutztown.
Caruso said the boroughâ(TM)s total investment in the project has been about $8 million since its inception, and the services are available to everyone within the borough, though some people elect to stay with the original service provider.
The money invested in the project didnâ(TM)t come from a tax hike either. It came from a taxable bond that allows private companies to purchase and use the fiber lines and transfers from the boroughâ(TM)s Electric Service Fund. This debt could be repaid if the Kutztownâ(TM)s town council decided to do so, Caruso said.
Caruso said the FTTH system doesnâ(TM)t just help the customers using it. He said once the system went online, the competitionâ(TM)s cable TV prices split in half. People out of the service area pay about $53 for cable, but residents who have the choice of Hometown Utilicom or Service Electric Cable TV and Communications pay $25 for cable.
[...]
The article also doesn't mention that Kutztown has deployed wifi around the town.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
There is an international organization called Broadband Cities that could help this municipality. The organization is a band of municipalities all the way from Iceland to Brazil that are bringing fiber to the home on their own. I was a speaker at one of their conferences showing off a IPTV solution our company makes for eGovernment and the consensus was that Telcos are actively ruining the adoption of fiber to the home. Either by obstructing the municipalities work like this or by limiting the data speeds so they can ramp up slowly and make consumers pay more and more for faster speeds.
This is much more serious than people here think because this is e.g. stifling a revolution in offsite medical care for example via HD video conferencing and stopping free speech as well because without the speed limitations anyone can open their own tv channel, schools etc...
This fight with the Telcos is also about the rural areas where they are not interested in connecting to high speed networks.
I happen to work with on of the largest Telcos and until recently it was their strategy to push ADSL rather than fiber to the home because it was cheaper for them even though the fiber is only a few meters away from the home.
I always direct people to look at Burlington Vermont as a case study. http://www.newrules.org/info/bt.pdf (PDF) It explains about the long process Burlington went through to install fiber optic around the Queen City.
they only sued to save Monticello from itself
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAhAhA
*breathes*
AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
1) Municipality issues right-of-way permits, Telco pays for them and owns the infrastructure
2) Municipality isses ROW permits for free, owns the infrastructure and leases it to Telco to manage it (as in concession)
3) Municipality goes after public tender bid for building up the infrastructure - whoever wins: see 1)
4) Municipality goes after public tender bid for both building up the infrastructure and infrastrcuture maintenance (lease) - whoever wins: see 1) and 2) (i.e. two bidding lots)
Now I'm really curious - if Municipality is so decided to go after actual laying down the infrastructure... who's going to supervise the works? Who's going to maintain infrastructure? Who's going to provide services? Some newly established Municipal Telco maybe? :-)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
without a government a big "corporation" would simply hire mercenaries to enforce their will. these days, we'd be worse off under a truly free market than we are now -- which is pretty damn bad anyway.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The city of Lafayette laid its own fiber and BellSouth sued. A Louisiana district court ruled in favor of the city. Shortly after, BellSouth pulled its 1000+ employee call center from the city, citing "changing economic conditions."
Monticello has every right to do this if they want to. Who is it for a phone company to decide that they shouldn't. The phone company is not voted into power by the people of Monticello. The phone company's job is to provide a service to to the people at a cost that covers their expenses and allows them to make a profit. That is their own job and has nothing to do with telling the town what kind of services or infrastructure they should be building or not. Republicans always love to talk about a free market and the elimination of regulation. However, the same people use their own companies to leverage the courts and litigation to prevent the government from providing services that compete with their company. So on one hand they claim a free market but then leverage BIG government to create their own monopolies and rake in the dough. It is quite a hippocratical setup and I will be glad when its over.
If the phone company (or most other corporations for that matter) believed in a free market they wouldn't be going to the government for handouts and regulations to prevent competition to begin with. I imagine that the CEO of the phone company would claim this is unfair competition. So what, that is the nature of a free market. They need to suck it up and get off their duff and adapt their services and business model so that they can compete with Monticello if that is the case. Instead they violate the spirit of a free market and try to use litigation so they can sit on their fat behinds with the table cloth tied around their neck and eat the whole pie by themselves. They don't want to have to compete with anyone else at the table for a slice of the pie.
They can be replaced. The municipality simply has to reject that telco. This is absurd. Public utilities are granted their monopoly in exchange to serving the public, with quality service and without exploiting the monopoly for profiteering. Suing the city because they are 'competing' with the utility is surely grounds for not renewing that utilities' contract.
Comcast file suit against Grand Rapids, MI for deploying a large wi-fi network. They basically put wi-fi on several of the buildings downtown, then charged for a subscription and you could get pretty quick wireless internet downtown with just a regular wireless card.
Comcast filed suit and they removed all of the wireless access points.
I wholeheartedly wish victory on Monticello. The good citizens of this town decided to take action to deliver a high speed broadband solution when the local Telco was sitting on its ass eating twinkies because it saw no financial merit. Sometimes it takes a grass roots effort for change. Now, the telco is suing because it is concerned about lost revenue. Hell, boys, you had the chance and you blew it! Now the citizens get to take action.
here were i live, if a telco wants to lay down cable they have to have a permit from the town and of course pay a monthly fee for "underground usage", and one more thing, a town did indeed built their wireless network and gives it for free for the people living their. No "mambo jumbo" big fat telcos suing the town council for free internet access. This is indeed the land of freedom
About a dozen years ago a company dug a trench through my yard to bury a fiber optic cable. It was for our city government, which was going to setup a public utiltiy to connect to the Internet because the cable and telecos were not responding to requests and their proposals would cost too much for too slow a service.
Of course, the cable and telecos whined to Congress about "unfair competition", plus they greased the political wheels via "campaign contributions". Congress agreed and asked the cable and telecos if they would be willing to do it. "Why of course, but we'd need to be reimbursed for our expenses." Congress gave them $200B or so to cover "their expenses", but the funding bill didn't have any penalties for non-compliance. So, the cable and telecos TOOK the $200B as pure profit, going mostly to upper management as salary and "bonuses" and stock holders as extra dividends, but promptly FORGOT to do their part of the bargin -- actually complete the fiber optic deployment.
So, I set here using a 10Mb/s connection that costs me $72/month (no cable TV included, unless I want to pay an additional $55/month) while my friends in Japan and Korea, who have fiber optic systems, enjoy 100Mb/s connections for 1/4th the price.
Don't you just love greedy corporate monopolies run with the blessings of the best Congress money can buy, because most are paid off by lobbyists? Not! Those vermin cost each of us $2,000 for NOTHING. May they rot in Hell.
http://www.newnetworks.com/failedfiberstates.htm
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Isn't there some rule or law against this?
Notice that I indicated leasing pipe space to the water vendor (and other, similar products). Some communities own their own water company and/or power company.
Actually in the US most places own their own water system, whether it be city or county. Only about 1 in 20 people get their water from the private sector. Atlanta, GA was one of the first cities in the US to privatize water, when they sold the water system to United Water. United Water is now owned by France based Suez, the world's largest private water company. However the deal went bad, because of poor management Atlanta retook control of the water system.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
he investment should benefit the taxpayer (investing in infrastructure, decent education - things that build up the society over the long-term) but should probably not go into the taxpayer's pockets.
"Excess" money shouldn't be taken from tax payers to begin with, and if there's enough money to invest then it's excess and maybe too much money was taken.
Taxpayers aren't necessarily good at taking a long-term view.
That's their own fault, that or the education they got was bad. Heck when I was in 9th grade, in a public school, the teacher I had for my civics class taught us about saving and investing. He had us play this game, we pretended we had $25,000 to invest and we could invest however we wanted. We played it over a few weeks and watched what happened to the money. I like others would write down what we wanted to buy and sale, say it's Monday and I had stocks in company A I wanted to sell then use to money to buy sticks in company B I'd writer that down. Then on Tuesday I'd check the financial section of the newspaper to see how much stocks in A and B sold for. X = number of stocks in A tymes the price of A then divide X by Y's selling price to see how many stocks I could buy in Y.
While investing takes more than that, it doesn't require a degree in finance.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Yes, in this case I really don't think the telco cares if they have to pay lawyers fees for the other side. This action is to send a message to other communities and/or stall the town.
Now if they were forced to eat the cost of the fiber deployment BECAUSE of frivolous legal action, I bet they would not take this route.
The Trust Buster was Teddy Roosevelt and even he had dickkish moments by classifying Sir Thomas Paine as an Atheist--clearly the dumbest comment I ever read from him.
There's a debate on whether Thomas Paine was an atheist. Some like Teddy Roosevelt said he was while others say he wasn't. I guess in a sense it depends on what the speaker means, Thomas Jefferson for instance was a Diest and while he believed Jesus was a great teacher he didn't believe he was the "Son of God", savior. He actually took the Christian Bible and cut out all the stuff about miracles and such to create the Jeffersonian Bible.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
A couple of "things you wish you could say at work" quotes come to mind for TDS/Bridgewater
Ahhh.... I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again.
I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
Unregulated capitalism LEADS to corporatism.
No he's not, it's government that gives corporations their power. Without that power corporations couldn't exist as they do today.
If you don't regulate companies so that they can't take advantage of people and things
I would love to see corporations have their Corporate Charter revoked.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
That's a really good idea, although personally I'd organize a co-op to do it rather than make it part of the city government. As far as the network itself, the only thing I'd change is this:
There would be 4 actual optical fibers to each home and business..., so it would be possible for "light up" providers to offer only one type of service, and customers could get their phone, TV, and internet, from different providers if they so choose.
Why not just make the city's local network one big LAN, such that individual subscribers can communicate with one another freely? Then, if you want Internet service you just sign up with an ISP and send your traffic to their Internet gateway -- no need to rewire anything or run multiple lines. You'd get your TV channels off a streaming server; they could even use multicast. VoIP would work in the obvious way. (Why allocate an entire fiber just for telephone service?)
It seems to me like this would scale a lot better than using a separate fiber for each service provider.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
I'm fully in favor of this and believe it's in the best interest of the community. It'll benefit home users, but it's even more critical to attract big business and help grow the town.
While I agree the town should be able to do it, as long as not all of the residents are required to pay for it, I disagree the city needs to grow. That's the same mindset corporations have, they "have to grow" or they'll die. Where exactly does this belief come from?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Seems frivolous to me, if they want to compete against the city, have at it. But they shouldn't have a leg to stand on if the cities residents vote to provide this service for themselves out of their own tax dollars.
The government directly competes in the mail market with USPS.
The USA Constitution specifically gives the government power to establish the US Postal Service, "Section 8 - Powers of Congress"
"To establish Post Offices and Post Roads"
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I use about 300g on an average day, but up to 1500g/day in summer when I have more stuff to irrigate.
Question, do you use sprinklers for irrigation? If you do check into using soaker hoses or a drip system. Also you may want to check into installing a cistern or rainwater catchment system. It's also a good idea to water in the morning before it gets hotter, the cooler it is when you water the less water will evaporate.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
In my opinion, town-owned utilities are a good idea only if a town is fairly small. Where the population is large, the utilities become isolated from marketplace feedback. Corruption and lack of incentives to improve the service lead to stagnation.
Corruption can happen with a natural monopoly whether the utility is publicly or privately owned. With a private company there's not much choice but if it's owned by local government then voters can vote in new people though.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Municipalities are the only ones who can defeat monopoly service providers
Actually it's municipalities, government, that creates monopolies. The use a right of way or easement, which is needed for someone to lay down fiber, cable, or powerlines, requires government approval. If I wanted to and had plenty of money to do it I couldn't simply lay a lot of fiber and offer net access, phone service, or tv to anyone who wants to buy from me. in the city.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I disagree the city needs to grow. That's the same mindset corporations have, they "have to grow" or they'll die. Where exactly does this belief come from?
Usury. The borrowing of money at interest requires economic growth just to break even.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation
In modern economies such as that of the United States relatively little of the national GDP is in currency (coins, banknotes, accounts backed by central bank), so that most is created through lending.
Since most money is created through lending at interest, the amount of money created is always less than the amount of debt (created money + interest), requiring a balance of economic growth and inflation, and eliminating the possibility of a sustainable economy.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
There's more than one company that makes fiber optic cables.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The borrowing of money at interest requires economic growth just to break even
It doesn't require growth all it requires is more revenue than expenses. I'll use a bakery as an example, because friends have told me I should start one. I love baking and used to spend a weekend once or twice a semester baking when I was in college. I'd take what I baked to campus and share with people in my classes. Now if I did open a bakery all I'd have to do to make a profit would be to sell enough so I'd end up with more after my sells than I spent on baking.
My sister who's a CPA, Certified Public Accountant, runs her own accounting business. Well her and some of her friends. Her business makes money and the only reason for her business to grow is because they want more money, they don't need to grow to stay in business. Her husband, my brother-in-law, is a CFP or Certified Financial Planner and he used to work as a day trader. He traded using only the money he had, he didn't borrow money to trade. Hopefully I will be starting my own business, not a bakery though but as a photographer. As such all I need to do is generate enough income to pay my bills and have money left over.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
even if you don't give a corporation a corporate charter (Something I am pretty much against ANYWAY)
Corporations do have their place, though not like they are now. The first two corporations were the Honourable East India Company, granted it's corporate charter in 1600, and the Dutch East India Company, granted a charter in 1602. Both companies were shippers, they shipped goods between England, for Honourable, and the Netherlands for the Dutch company and India. Shipping was a risky business. The crew could mutiny, the ship could sink because of a hurricane, or it could be attacked by pirates. When cargo was lost for any of these reasons, or others, the ship owner was liable to the owner of that cargo and had to pay them back. The ship owner was also liable for the lives of the crew. These liabilities made shipping a bad business so the British and Dutch crowns granted corporations limited liability, all investors could lose is the amount they invested in the corporation. The increased trade benefited many people not just a few. However it could also harm people, so corporate charters were only granted if the corporation improved the common good or public good. If a corporation no longer served the common good it could have it's charter revoked. Today revocation doesn't happen but if it did then corporations would have to change.
Big Brother sucks, but sometimes you need him. And I say this as someone who refuses to vote democrat or republican, so I take govt with a grain of salt :)
Agreed but I distrust businesses less than I distrust government. In the 20th century alone governments killed, exterminated, more than 70,000,000 people. European governments did a pretty good job in the Americas, the NAZIs exterminated 600,000 Jews and I don't know how many others, Stalin massacred 20,000,000 and it's said Mao massacred 50,000,000. Then there was Pol Pot during the '70s in Cambodia, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, what happened in Rwanda with genocide there in the early '90s, and the genocide started in the later '90s in Darfur.
No business, except possibly the tobacco industry, has killed as many people as government has. And chewing, dipping, or smoking tobacco is voluntary.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
What you say is correct at the level of the individual. Similarly, as an individual, you are better off if you have your debts paid off. However, as you will see if you read the wikipedia article I referenced: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation that paying off debts reduces the money supply "The destruction of money created through loans occurs as the loans are paid back". The point is listed as [citation needed] but there is a more detailed explanation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking#Money_creation. It isn't that hard to grasp, most money is created through loans (fractional reserve lending), when the loan is paid off, that (loan based) money is gone from circulation.
If we as a society allow most of the money supply to be created as loans at interest, then the total debt exceeds the total money supply. To pay that interest, there has to be an increase in the money supply which means either economic growth or inflation.
Just consider inflation. Let's say your CPA sister is making $100,000/year in 2008 (just wanted a round figure). If she still earns $100,000/year in 2018, she will have gone significantly backwards in real terms. She needs to be making probably $130,000-$140,000 just to be staying at the same level she's at now. That is the essence of the constant need for economic growth. It is to pay interest. Even if you are not personally in debt, you are still affected because of inflation.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
The rich can afford to find ways to avoid taxes or move out of the country. There is also not a lot of them. They tend to horde a lot of it as well, calling it "investment".
The poor don't have a lot of money and each attempt to tax them costs the same but scaled up with the huge numbers of them. They can't spend any money because it all goes on loans (to enrich the rich who have money to lend).
The middle class have savings and income over the poor. The savings get spend and the money they make isn't enough to afford expensive accountants to remove or reduce tax levies. They are wealth without the wealth to move away from your jurisdiction. You have more money than the poor and in fewer people, so the cost of getting taxes out of them is negligible.
What ever happened to sovereign immunity? Are governments really that chicken shit to use it. And since when is a municipality required to use any entity outside of it self to do anything that the said municipality has decided to do. If they can afford to lay the fiber then they can afford to hire the personnel and equipment to maintain the network. What they are really afraid of is loosing the Municipality as a telephone customer, because once the fiber network is operational there won't be a need to have an outside telephone carrier. My local PUD has it's own fiber network and doesn't pay a single penny in telephone charges to the local telephone company. All the mayor has to do is start the bureaucracy rolling toward the Teleco and stick it to them.
It isn't that hard to grasp, most money is created through loans (fractional reserve lending), when the loan is paid off, that (loan based) money is gone from circulation.
No, money is created by creating an item or providing a service people are willing to pay for. Say I own some acreage in a forest. I harvest some trees, not clear cut mind you but selectively cutting down a few. After kiln drying the wood it is cut then used to make furniture. People who are then willing and able buy that furniture. The buyers got what they wanted and now I have money I can spend myself say on food. Maybe one of my buyers is a farmer, then when I buy my food that farmer. He created money by farming and I created money by making furniture.
Perhaps farming was a bad example as farmers in the US get massive subsidies, early this year congress passed by a veto proof margin a farm bill giving agricultural operations almost $300 billion in tax payer money.
Thing is while loans can allow businesses to make bigger profits, money creation does not require loans. All it requires is selling something for more than it costs to provide it.
Just consider inflation. Let's say your CPA sister is making $100,000/year in 2008 (just wanted a round figure). If she still earns $100,000/year in 2018, she will have gone significantly backwards in real terms.
Yea, inflation does eat into money. However my sister's business doesn't have to get bigger, just the income does. Ah, maybe that's where our differences are. Whereas you may say increasing income is growth, what I consider growth would be increasing customers, facilities, and employees.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I bow to your clearly superior rhetorical skills. Absolutely brilliant.
Your beliefs are as Utopian as Mao. You just don't see it.
Exploring your opposition is good for you. Try it and you'll see. Actually, just exploring the arguments of the current middle would be good for you. As a bonus, you'll be smarter for it and you'll be able to talk to people like me without using so many exclamation points.
What I'm talking about is how money is created, ie: how the currency supply is generated, not the process of earning some of that money. Producing an item people are willing to pay doesn't create any new money, it simply moves existing currency from your customer to you.
I'm talking about the Federal Reserve system and fractional reserve lending, which is what creates the need for perpetual economic growth (that was the question I was answering). Neither my assets nor my income are dependent on me personally borrowing money, but that doesn't change the nature of the currency I use, just my standing in that economy.
There's an explanation of what I'm talking about here: I Want The Earth Plus 5%. It's a simplified explanation, but it's a good introduction to how our currency system works, not the earning of money but the production of currency.
"All the perplexities, confusion and distresses in America arise not from defects in the constitution or confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation." - John Adams.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
I Want The Earth Plus 5%
That page lost me where it says "This meant that for every $100 he held in deposits, it was possible to make 42% profit, most people believing he was only making 2%." I do not see how he can say 42% profit on $100. In the example $45 or 5% of $900 was made, then the $900 morphs into $100.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"if it says nothing about something the feds don't have the power, it limits the feds"
This is a popular myth. There is nothing to this effect in the constitution or in the ratifications.
"The framers of the U.S. Constitution advocated that the power of government would be limited.?" "As so eloquently explained by Alexander Hamilton and John Madison, the "practical security" of imposing limited power in each department may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government."
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson James Madison, the principal writer of the Constitution, wrote this:
"The second object, the due partition of power, between the General & local Governments, was perhaps of all, the most nice and difficult. A few contended for an entire abolition of the States; some for indefinite power of Legislation in the Congress, with a negative on the laws of the States: some for such a power without a negative: some for a limited power of legislation, with such a negative: the majority finally for a limited power without the negative. The question with regard to the Negative underwent repeated discussions, and was finally rejected by a bare majority. As I formerly intimated to you my opinion in favor of this ingredient, I will take this occasion of explaining myself on the subject. Such a check on the States appears to me necessary 1. to prevent encroachments on the General authority. 2. to prevent instability and injustice in the legislation of the States."
Perhaps you need to go back to school to learn what the USA's Founding Fathers thought about government.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
"they only sued to save Monticello from itself"
Well if that is really True then the town should revoke The Telecoms Business License to help the town rid itself of Monopolistic thugs.
In todays age.. Where Fiber is going to be the dilevery method that everything comes over.. The Towns/CIties should own that Infrastructure so that we don't see the Telco's/Cable companies maintain monopolies and open the doors to competitive services.
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
from what I've read of him, he seems more like a lazy and bitter malcontent than a real revolutionary
Though I didn't say it in that post Paine was more than a lazy malcontent. He wrote the line "These are the times that try men's souls" as well as various tracts in support of democracy while serving under General George Washington during the revolution.
I myself do not like the French Revolution
I support the French Revolution, that is I would have back then. What I would not support is the measures used, the ends do not justify the means. The Terror or Reign of Terror was stupid. Actually Paine was one of the victims of The terror. He spent almost a year in a Luxembourg prison when an "American minister, James Monroe, secured his release."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?