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Two Cities Ask the FCC To Preempt State Laws Banning Municipal Fiber Internet
Jason Koebler writes Two cities—Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, North Carolina—have officially asked the federal government to help them bypass state laws banning them from expanding their community owned, gigabit fiber internet connections. In states throughout the country, major cable and telecom companies have battled attempts to create community broadband networks, which they claim put them at a competitive disadvantage. The FCC will decide if its able to circumvent state laws that have been put in place restricting the practice.
"battled attempts" is really lobbied attempts.
Vote out the scumbags at the state capitol that passed such a law
major cable and telecom companies have battled attempts to create community broadband networks, which they claim put them at a competitive disadvantage.
Complete bullshit.
F#ck the little people, screw the community. Work for us and get paid a slave wage. Only the board of directors is allowed to private-jet set around the world. Welcome to America! Enjoy the nightmare!
Got money? Use it to law-twist any possible threat to your monopoly into non-existance! You can't give us even a hint of 'competitive disadvantage', that's illegal!
Isn't that a bit like asking the bouncer at a casino that cheated you to help you get your money back?
A tale of two cities who subsequently found their mayors and city council ousted in the next election by a multi million dollar political campaign whos donors coincidentally happen to be in "battled attempts to create community broadband networks." These cities later rescind their request, disband the municipal network, and offer local cable companies a grant for unspecified improvements. cable rates increase, another batch of phone support goes to india, and somewhere, in a tropical land far away, a man on a yacht begins a tireless and agonizing journey into the wineroom to select an elusive vintage that can pair with both lobster as well as filet mignon.
Good people go to bed earlier.
And republicans are even worse.
You stupid partisan hacks are too blind to see both parties are full of shit and scum.
As a Wilson Resident, I can say confidently...
The local bank (BB&T) couldn't get speeds fast enough to do business.
The city ran fiber and put in great speeds - residential basic is 10/10 and business is even better.
Time Warner - the local incumbent cable cried bloody murder while they offered nothing close.
Any problems? call a local number and talk to someone local and problem gets solved.
Wow you really added to the discussion there.
FTA:
Last week, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican who has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the cable and telecommunications industry, introduced an amendment to a key appropriations bill that would prevent the FCC from preempting such state laws.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Aren't these two states, Tennessee and North Carolina, states who routinely harp on federal government interference in states rights?
Now they're asking the federal government to override what their own state governments have said.
Reminds me of Texas where that company blew up because they were storing exorbitant amounts of explosive materials and which had never bothered to be regulated because, you know, regulations are evil. Once the place blew up, Gov. Perry says "Texans take care of their own" then proceeded to whine how their request for federal disaster aid was (initially) rejected.
It would be nice if people had some sort of internal consistency. Either the federal government is too big and needs to stop weedling into state government, or it's not.
I can't wait to hear how those who say there is no need for net neutrality will react to their own states asking for just that.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Since when does the FCC have the power to "preempt" laws?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
And when the municipal broadband costs 10x as much, just raise taxes and throw people in jail if they don't pay. And if the service is bad, again raise taxes and throw them in jail if they don't pay. And if they complain, just raise taxes and throw them in jail if they don't pay.
Your competition being able to raise prices (taxes) at the point of a gun to pay for their bad business is a competitive advantage. Not being able to opt-out is a monopoly with the police enforcing it on citizens.
Sure it might be better, but it definitely can be much worse.
If you do a decent job of structuring the municipal broadband delivery company, you can bias it towards the “better” end of the spectrum. For example, you can require that there be no cross-subsidy between broadband and any other municipal function, and no support from general taxation.
The broadband company would have to support itself through user fees, like the Water District does in my town. You pay a monthly fee if the fibre runs past your house. If you want to connect the fibre to your home, you pay a one-time connection charge, followed by a higher monthly fee plus a charge per bit for incoming and outgoing data. If there is a problem you pay to call Customer Service, and a higher price if the call requires a technician to visit your home. These charges would be refunded if the company decides that the problem is their fault. There would also be a service level agreement, and your costs are reduced to near zero if it isn't met.
In addition, and this is crucial, there must be no legal barrier to someone else running his own fibre, and connecting it to the municipal system. He would pay the municipal system for his connection, of course, and provide his own customer service. That competition, or even the possibility of it, will keep customer service quality high.
except most of these laws come from republican controlled state legislatures.
Oh, you want a local internet utility to compete with your shoddy telco monopoly? Can't allow that.
Oh, you want a local minimum wage higher than the state or federal minimum? Can't allow that.
Oh, you want a local employment non-discrimination law? Can't allow that.
Oh, you want any of a dozen other topics we oppose as a local level? Can't allow that.
Welcome to the The GOP: the party of small government, handling things that lowest or local level...unless we oppose it.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Why won't you edit?
you forgot "Oh, you want a free market in sales (such as car)? Can't allow that."
When you cant win, ad hominem.
On the other hand, they oppose building broadband, or anything else. The level of regulation they want pretty much means we'd be headed back to the stone age. Further, their policies would make it much, much harder for independent ISPs because their platform is that the government should do everything, and the government is controlled by the big corporations. So while it's not their intent, their policy proposals actually strongly favor the large established corporations by their effects.
If the residents of these cities want fiber internet, can't they just pool their money and start a privately owned ISP? Not only would the early investors get the internet speed that they want, but they'd make a profit as well after their company takes off. Or, if they want to, the early investors could even run the ISP like a cooperative. All that the city would have to do is get out of the way.
Now, if you tell me that that can't happen because customers would not be willing to pay enough money for their service to make the privately owned ISP profitable, then that means most residents don't actually want high speed internet. Right? If residents truly want high speed internet, then they should be able to make it happen without using any coercion.
It's not as if there is a free rider problem here; no one is getting internet service without paying their fair share. So, if you're telling me that we need taxation to "solve" this problem, then you're tacitly admitting that residents aren't willing to put their money where their mouth is, unless they are forced to.
Then run for office yourself.
EEEEEWWWWWW
/jk
Have you seen the caliber of psychopathic nimrods that run for office?
That's beneath me.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Separate the wire to the house from the service that runs on that wire. The problem will be solved.
Internet providers can still be internet providers, they do not have to be wire maintainers too.
The part that really gets me is the monopoly is maintained and perpetuated by these companies. It costs $X to install and maintain the wires in a community. Over time, the people in that community will pay $X regardless if Verizon does it, Comcast does it, Cox does it, if the home owners associations does it, or if the local government does it. Why not pay $X and let the local government or a third party handle the wires (which can contract out to Verizon, Comcast, or any number of third parties to actually do the work) and then the internet providers can compete for your service over those wires?
I know there is more to this but to me, this just makes sense.
Did you see dear leader on The Colbert Report last night?!!! /swoon
/. in a few days.
/.'s mancrush on EM. I think it's nice that a few billionaires are willing to spend a little of their money on nerd projects like Musk, Bezos, Cameron.)
I'm sure that story will wander its way to
(Just poking fun at
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Do we really want an Internet that, with regard to the U.S. consumer, is essentially owned and operated by Comcast/Xfinity? Screw that, I say, the more competition that can be arranged the better, and the sooner the better.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"Last week, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, the Tennessee Republican who has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the cable and telecommunications industry, introduced an amendment to a key appropriations bill that would prevent the FCC from preempting such state laws."
GET THE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS!
As a North Carolina resident--this past legislative session has been pure entertainment, if not extremely scary. The legislature has far more pressing matters to deal with then stimulating growth and ensuring our state has the latest in technology offerings. Not sure if you folks have been paying attention but women are making their own decisions regarding birth control and pregnancy and to top off the gays are trying to get married!! Who can think about prosperity in times like these!! If not for our conservative overlords legislating morality, North Carolina would be lost!! Lost I say!!
Roads (and rail-roads), health-care, electricity and telephone — government and government-sanctioned monopolies provide such outstanding services, only a fool or a sell-out would try to prevent their scope from expanding. Tokyo may have competing privately-owned subway lines, but we here in America know better than that!
Take Municipal WiFi — which the young and progressive generation was hailing on this very site only 10 years ago — was not that a roaring success, that swept over the nation?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You are an idiot if you think the demorats weren't on the same boat, backing the same legislation.
Welcome to the American public - mostly brainless sheep.
Time Warner in NC typically secures their monopoly in NC by paying a bribe to the local governments in the form of an 'access fee'. Now some of those cities and towns are suffering the backlash of unrestricted price gouging from Time Warner. Consumers are in open revolt as service pricing in NC seems to jump >10% every 6 months and service quality has fallen off a cliff PARTICULARLY on the internet side of the service. It's third world awful and getting worse. Days long outages where the highest level of technical support's answer is, and I quote "I don't know and there's nothing anyone can do about it" unquote (actual answer I got from L2's management yesterday) have become routine. Billing 'errors' that result in huger overages are rampant and record keeping is nonexistent eg, Time Warner's new excuse is to claim they can't/won't address problems because it's and again I quote "your modem" unquote. Which is isn't because we ALL had to stand in line at the local 'service center' for up to FOUR Hours to get it handed to us BY Time Warner.
So here's what has to happen. Every day, every single day, snatch up one management or higher Time Warner employee and crucify and set them on fire and put it on YouTube. Every day, grab one and kill them until either they change their business model or they run out of people.
I believe that contravenes the US Constitution's ban on religious tests to hold office (Article VI, paragraph 3).
Which matters not one bit in actual practice. There are 7 states (Arkansas, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas) where the state constitution effectively prohibits atheists from holding public office. Arkansas furthermore prohibits atheists from serving as a witness in court. While this technically hasn't been enforced in a long time, the law hasn't been changed either.
Plus good luck getting elected if you are honest about being an atheist. It's basically considered political suicide in most of the country.
Nice troll but, of course, completely wrong.
You could have spent a minute and actually read the Green Party platform but then you wouldn't have been able to post your rant.
For instance, your assertion that they support big government and corporations controlling everything is directly contradicted by this statement in their platform:
"Since governments too often have an interest in controlling the flow of information, we must constantly guard against official censorship. In our society however, large corporations are a far more common source of censorship than governments. Media outlets kill stories because they undermine corporate interests; advertisers use their financial clout to squelch negative reports; powerful businesses employ the threat of expensive lawsuits to discourage legitimate investigations. The most frequent form of censorship is self-censorship: journalists deciding not to pursue certain stories that they know will be unpopular with the advertisers."
You should actually read their platform. There's a lot in there you might agree with (if you're willing to open your mind).
http://www.gp.org/what-we-beli...
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
You have to remember that corporations spend good money bribing politicians to buy these laws. This is pure free enterprise. I'm sure that the Supreme court will uphold the right of corporations to buy our politicians... after all, they are the defenders of corporations.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
...but that's a pretty low bar. For years with Comcast we had random half-hour outages in the evening. That ended about a year ago, so yay for them for finally dealing with whatever the problem was. I rented a place in California last year that had Comcast internet, but it only worked before 3 PM or so. I suspect the problem in both cases was massive under-provisioning, but if they weren't skimping on bandwidth how could they afford to keep buying up other companies?
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Truly the purest form of capitalism....
If you can't compete in a fair and open playing field, just have your lobbyists buy off a few politicians and legislate your competition out of existence before they ever become a potential threat to your virtual monopoly. God forbid they actually might have to be competitive, they might not make as many dump trucks full of money. Seeing as they would probably have to drop their rates AND invest some money in their network infrastructures to bring them at least up to par with Europe.
The bill itself along with the record of its changes as well as who sponsored and voted for it can be found on the North Carolina General Assembly's website.
Indeed. In fact, they've not been enforceable for over 145 years per the Fourteenth Amendment and Marbury v. Madison (Anything repugnant to the Constitution is void from it's beginnings...)
Bullshit they haven't been enforceable. The Fourteenth didn't eliminate state sponsored discrimination upon its passage. Issues like Jim Crow laws persisted for another hundred years after that and was supported by the Supreme Court in rulings. The 14th Amendment is one of the most heavily litigated parts of the US Constitution.
In the few enlightened enclaves in a blood red sea, they should invoke the idea of Cities' Rights, that the hoity-toity, high-falutin' 'State Government' can't tell us how to run our lives!
Local Control can cut both ways, oh Sons of the Confederacy.
... or does it strike anyone else as unlikely that Tom Wheeler would do that?
I work in IT (Solutions Architect). I moved from Chattanooga, TN to Denver, CO about 3 years ago. I pay more money for 30Mbps up and 5Mbps down on DSL in Denver than I did for 1Gbps up and 1Gbps down on FIber in Chattanooga. I also design IaaS solutions for companies in the Denver area, the same thing I did in Chattanooga. I had an easier time of it in Chattanooga than in Denver thanks to the county wide fiber and 300Mbps wireless. There are groups here that want to shift their current IT setup to colocation or managed services and can't because of a lack of cost effective connectivity solutions. And those that can get the budget for the shift are paying more than they should typically for the connectivity. When a city an over an order of magnitude larger has fewer connection options and at a higher price, there is an issue. It is ridiculous. What EPB (power company in Chattanooga that runs the fiber connections) is doing has really boosted the IT sector in Chattanooga. It is (or should be) a no brainer.
Let's try this one more time, because clearly you missed the entire point. I'm familiar with their platform, and with the actual effects of the policies they advocate, which are frequently the opposite of their stated goals. Let me copy / paste the thesis from my post again since you seem to have missed reading it the first time:
> so while it's not their intent, their policy proposals actually strongly favor the large established corporations by their effects.
To avoid to much redundancy, I'm going to stick to just the first half of their platform to show a dozen or so of their policy proposals. Te second half is more of the same, and a dozen is enough to see the pattern. Their platform includes the following position statements:
citizens are the government [this is their key mistake that makes their policies go against their intentions].
ownership and control of the electromagnetic spectrum to the public [government].
federally funded childcare
Livable Income [federal government pays everyone]
[expand social security]
[Federal] Civilian Conservation Corps
End the privatization of broadcast frequencies [government-controlled media]
Tax electronic advertising to fund democratic [government] media outlets.
require that holders of broadcast licenses present controversial issues of public importance in an equitable and balanced manner [whatever the current administration considers "balanced"]
revoke licenses from outlets that fail to satisfy these obligations.
Governmental (PEG) Access Television
generous public [government] funding for Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television and National Public Radio (NPR)
It's pretty clear, isn't it, that they are for more government - WAY more government. In fact, the preamble of their platform says they seek to refute the idea "that government is intrinsically undesirable and destructive of liberty". They think more federal government leads to more liberty. How cute.
The fact, and this point isn't really arguable, is that the federal government is largely controlled by large corporate interests. That's simply what is. The greens want a lot more federal government control of people. The corps control the government. Therefore, the policy proposals of the greens would in fact mean more corporate control by way of their assistants, the politicians. The greens don't WANT more corporate control, but they want more government control, and don't seem to realize it's precisely the same thing. It's the same people running the corporations and the government, as we've seen this week with the chairman of the FCC / president of the National Cable Television Association, Tom Wheeler.
When Greens say "the FCC should have more power and do more", that means the head of the FCC, Tom Wheeler should have more power and do more. Who do you think Wheeler actually works for? Not for you or me.
Amazing what users will go through to get the service they want vs the service monopolies provide. Who could have known!
Get the politicians out of politics!
Those states were gerrymandered by the GOP. Impossible to vote out the GOP until the courts shoot that down (and yes, it meandering in the courts, though it is possible that it is only about federal).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Instead of inventing things these people will or won't do based on your personal gut feeling (since you are dismissing their declared platforms as inaccurate) why not take a look overseas to where people with that platform have been elected and see what they have actually done or not done?
Why stop there? Apply it to all parties - give up on the pre-conceptions and pay attention to what they actually DO after being elected. Consider how the Department of Homeland Security came to be an enormous thing under a "small government" party and then various contradictions under the current administration which is of course a different party - but perhaps not as different as they pretend.
I'm quoting their official platform. Are you saying that they're lying about what policies they advocate?
Their official platform has a list of new and expanded powers they want the FCC to have. That's their official platform. They just haven't thought through the fact that the FCC is run by cable industry lobbyist Tom Wheeler, so new powers for the FCC IS new powers for a top cable lobbyist.
Take the blinkers off and see what is actually happening. For instance compare how portions of the Army and Veteran's hospitals do things compared with private enterprise. If you really want to see "building a cadre of elitist bureaucrats" take a look at some hospitals in private enterprise and some "too big to fail" companies.
Trying to pretend bad management is inherent in either the public or private systems is somewhat simplistic, and to be frank, utterly stupid. You can get it anywhere if you have the wrong horse judges doing "a heck of a job". You tend to see it more in public institutions when they adopt the worst private methods of promotion (old roommate, cousin, guy in the tennis club, he/she looks cute) instead of procedural methods (evaluation to see if the person to be promoted has actually been doing a good job).
I'm saying your interpretation defies reality. "It's pretty clear, isn't it, that they are for more government - WAY more government". Just like Homeland Security is way less government? How many people does it really take to draw up a few rules for an industry? How does that expand to the "big brother" dystopia you are pretending they want?
Sadly that tells us more about yourself than anything else which makes the contribution to the discussion you made above almost entirely worthless IMHO.
I'm sorry, but you are misinterpreting or misrepresenting Greens, at least in this paragraph:
It's pretty clear, isn't it, that they are for more government - WAY more government. In fact, the preamble of their platform says they seek to refute the idea "that government is intrinsically undesirable and destructive of liberty". They think more federal government leads to more liberty. How cute.
The entire point of that line is that governments are not always bad, and they can lead to liberty. The rest of the platform is basically saying "we need all of these things to have a good government again".
I'd call the notion that government never leads to more liberty "cute", but it's ugly and overly cynical. Let me give you a few examples of the federal government creating more liberty:
* abolishment of slavery (Civil War will give you a lot of fun arguing points, I'm sure, but still true)
* abolishment of Jim Crow laws
* child labor laws
* Roe v Wade (trollbait, but millions of Americans have been grateful for this liberty)
* hopefully someday, breaking cable's blockade of good internet (I don't have the liberty to have fiber because a municipal official made a deal with a donor?)
I'm not a Green, but I'm with them on this. And I think any sane person should be. Government is not always bad.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
few examples of the federal government creating more liberty:
* abolishment of slavery (Civil War will give you a lot of fun arguing points, I'm sure, but still true)
Fugitive slave act.
* abolishment of Jim Crow laws
Abolishment of regulation = more liberty, yes
* child labor laws
1 point
* Roe v Wade (trollbait, but millions of Americans have been grateful for this liberty)
Troll bait indeed. Freedom to live vs freedom to kill. Going into that won't move this discussion forward.
* hopefully someday, breaking cable's blockade of good internet
It's government that enforces the cable monopolies. They are called franchises, and it's the government saying only one company can run service to a given neighborhood. An EXCELLENT example of government doing harm.
It's government that enforces the cable monopolies. They are called franchises, and it's the government saying only one company can run service to a given neighborhood. An EXCELLENT example of government doing harm.
I got the impression you were making the argument about the federal government specifically. Sometimes the federal/state government increases liberty by getting rid of a federal/state regulation. Sometimes abolishing a regulation leads to less liberty.
Neither I nor the Green Party believes government never does harm. I am certainly not claiming that federal, state, or local governments are free of corruption.
The core of the argument is that 1) government is not inherently bad and 2) we can substantially improve the quality of our government through 3) changes in electoral rules, campaign financing, and the revolving door. When a large voting bloc stops believing 1 and 2, we're basically doomed. I'd much rather argue over the best #3 and how to get them implemented.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
#3 certainly needs some discussion.
I don't think the CONCEPT of government is itself bad. I do think that in this post-Constitutional era of the NSA, the Patriot Act, etc., giving more power to THIS government is foolish. Quite foolish, actually.
Note that when you wanted a good example of this government doing something that was clearly good, you had to go all the way back to Lincoln for examples. More Lincoln might be good. More Bush, or more Obama?
AFTER you fix it so that extraordinarily people are in power, giving them even more powers might make sense. Giving more power to this administration, or to President Chris Christie in a few years, or President Jeb Bush doesn't seem prudent.
You live in a country where a far too common morality (or amorality if you prefer) is that it is virtuous to make money by any means that is not illegal. That huge tangle of rules and "big government" that you rail at is the only thing that stands in the way of situations like the poisoned milk incident in China.
The price of the freedom to have such a morality is the state putting in rules to limit the damage.
It does suck in many ways but it's a trade off to avoid the full Oligarchy that would happen if the government (and the people who vote in this case) was too "small" to have much of a say about how society is run. A balance is hard to strike and the corrupt are pushing hard to remove as much balance as they can so they can profit to the injust disadvantage of others (eg. removing rules on water rights has resulted in farmers downstream with a dry river bed).
It seems some of the things you hate about the greens are really about hating the idea of democracy in general which is why I've been spending time replying to your posts despite not giving a shit about your local green party. Is that correct or have you just been making some sort of overblown comments for effect and do not really have such an extreme view?
What's interesting here is that private companies are trying to use the law to prevent efficient, attractive publicly-owned network service offerings from operating. Normally, we'd here the "private is good, public is bad" mantra....and be expected to believe it. Yet over and over we find that the well managed public service offering can be the best offering for everyone because it places service provision ahead of profit.
Since governments shouldn't be in the marketplace at all, the right answer is to have the FCC rule that exclusive provider contracts are unlawful, thereby permitting any company with the resources to provide any sort of electronic access they choose.
I know it's not fashionable to read the article, but you didn't even read the title?
This is about wireless. I pointed out that the platform of the Green party is to give the FCC new powers to do a, b, c, and d. Which in effect means giving Wheeler those powers. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Or in your case, milk in China.
If you for some reason want to make a comparison between the US and China on the topic of "big government", you might notice that China isn't exactly an example of small government. In China, the milk producers report directly to the government bureaucrats, more or less exactly what the Greens want to do here. Yes, that system results in melamine in milk.
Duh.
--- wad
Fair enough. I appreciate your honest reply.
W was a unique president. Off the top of my head, he's the only recent president who seems to have actually done everything wrong. Obama has done some good... but since everything he does is controversial and subject to the harshest rhetoric I've seen in the US, I decided to leave him out of this.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Given Obama's approval ratings, the odds strongly favor the republicans in 2016. Hopefully you'll like Jeb Bush better than you liked GW Bush. As for me, I'm not real confident in any of the major contenders, so I'm aiming to minimize the damage they are allowed to do. Maybe the next president will be stay busy covering up the fact that they're getting sexual favors from the subordinates and not have time to screw things up too much.