Georgia Bill Would Prohibit Subsidies For Municpal Broadband

McGruber writes "The Associated Press has the news that Georgia State Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers is sponsoring a bill that 'would prevent public broadband providers from paying for communication networks with tax or government revenue.' Senator Rogers claims that 'The private sector is handling this exceptionally well.' Local government officials disagree. Georgia Municipal Association spokeswoman Amy Henderson says 'When cities were getting involved in broadband, it was because private industry would not come there. Without that technology, they were economically disadvantaged. We feel like it is an option cities should have.'"

Comments

Doublethink

[ClioCJS]

This is a corporate power bid to get public funds off their wires, so that they can claim the network as their own property, and no longer have to abide by [what is left of] the constitution. For example, laws governing privacy over publicly funded networks would cease to exist if no tax dollars went into something.

Most politics these days is something bad trying to be passed off as something good. It's important that we keep PUBLIC money invested in our infrastructure, so that nobody can make the claim of "the corporations made this possible, therefore we should let them run roughshod over us". They didn't make it possible. DARPA and our tax dollars made the internet happen when it did.

Re:Doublethink

[Githaron]

I don't know about you but the only way I would accept that they own 100% of the infrastructure is if they not only stopped accepting aid from the government but also paid back all previous government aid whether it was in subsidizing, perks, tax breaks, or otherwise. Somehow, I doubt that would ever happen.

Re:Doublethink

[Penguinisto]

There is a danger in doing that.

If they were successful in un-coupling themselves from any designation as a public entity, then claiming they and their equipment is purely private? They lose public rights-of-way for any stretch of their network that crosses private property (including easements in some cases). That means any property owner with a cable or fiber crossing his or her property can charge rent or cut the thing, and local governments can get real evil and charge massive rent to the private ISPs for easement

(e.g. "Dear Comcast: You recently lost public utility easement rights. You now owe me $3k/month rental fee. As an alternative, you have 90 days to re-route your cable and to repair any and all damages at your expense, and with proper approval and permits by all relevant city authorities. Failure to perform either act means that I rent a bobcat to dig up and dispose of the existing fiber found on my property for non-payment").

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[Hatta]

As well it should. Internet access should be a utility. Every place I'm aware of that has municipal internet access has a superior connection than neighboring areas without municipal internet. This is what municipal governments are for.

Re:you have got to be kidding.

[bfandreas]

Utilities and telecommunication was publicly held in Europe for a very long time.

The way starting your own service when the private sector doesn't do it usually works like this:
-build stuff with tax money
-spin it out as a publicly held company
-sell it off with a profit

And this is the right thing to do. If telcos don't want to build up because actually doing buusiness instead of just selling stock is a bit of a hassle then you build it yourself. Towns don't want their folks wander off into the City. If nobody can be arsed to sell electricity, take care of the sewage, take away the trash, keep the taps from running dry and in the 21st century provide telco services then you do it yourself.

A mayor gets voted into office for taking care of the place. As is everybody else.
Companies only have to answer their stockholders who do not give a damn if people in Stinking Dead Rat Creek get teh internets delivered in a series of tubes.

Disallowing providing service to your citizens is that is just absurd. What's next? Not allowing the town to take care of the trash since nobody thinks there's not enough money in it?

Don't AT&T etc get goverment breaks already

[RichMan]

If this bill passes I would expect an immediately ordered audit of all current providers to prove that they in no way used any public money to fund their infrastrucure. If they did then the public should be asking for the money back.

--The "private market" has already used billions of dollars of federal tax money to build out their networks. So basically what this law is saying is that it was okay for the incumbent operators to take tax money, but bar any new competition from doing the same.--

So if the bill passes the current providers should be asked to pay it all back with interest.

Just get something along those lines added to the bill and watch it disappear real fast.

Re:This doesn't make logical sense.

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

I'd love to see the campaign donor list for this dude.

Here you go.

Oddly enough, I don't see Comcast or Verizon on there.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[ColdWetDog]

That could well be true, however, why do you need a state law saying municipalities CAN'T do broadband (or whatever)? What Georgia needs is home rule legislation. Keep the state government out of things the local government can and should do.

As has been pointed out, it's rather unlikely that the legislation has been crafted 'in the best interests' of the cities. Who's the winner here?

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[cpu6502]

Another idea is to treat the Nets the same way the roads are treated

- Government owns and maintains the fiber (say 50 per bundle)
- Verizon, Apple, Microsoft, et cetera lease one fiber each
- The customer connects to whichever fiber/company they like best

It would be like a return to the old Dialup days when you could sign-on to whatever ISP you wanted.

Re:It ends up being a boon doggle

[Cutriss]

The light bulbs thing isn't about you saving money. It's about everyone making a very small change in their lives which results in a very large change for us all on this blue marble of ours. Making every single little government line item into "What does it do for me?" is part of how we got into this stupid mess in the first place.