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.

Comments

Vote

[rossdee]

Vote out the scumbags at the state capitol that passed such a law

Re:Vote

[jonwil]

But what about if every politician you get to pick from is all spouting the same BS about why municipal broadband is bad?
Who do you vote for then?

Re:Vote

[FictionPimp]

Then you run for office.

Re:Vote

[pereric]

Have you checked the Greens? They tend not be as involved in corporate welfare and - coincidentally(?) not really take much financing from such corporate entities ...

Re:Vote

[i kan reed]

And, when, as is the case in North Carolina, those scumbags have gerrymandered both parties into "safe" districts, with the party most responsible having over 50% of the state as such?

What then?

Protest at the capital where they arrest hundreds of people on trumped up charges? Become a violent revolutionary over a tiny infrastructure debate?

Re:Vote

[Anonymous Coward]

Their also a bunch of fucking moron socialists that refuse to allow anyone to build or expand anything and would have us all living in fucking caves eating vegetables all day. I'd sooner kiss a toilet seat than vote for the idiots in the "green" party.

Re:Vote

[thaylin]

I cant, my state says I must believe in the Lord to hold public office...

Re:Vote

[Charliemopps]

Vote out the scumbags at the state capitol that passed such a law

This is a very complex issue and has very little to do with the topics you're probably concerned with.

I'll burn up even more Karma educating the ill-informed.

Back when Telephones were a new thing, the government wanted to push their expansion to everyone in the country. It was seen in the same light that we see the internet today. A huge economic boost that would be the most beneficial in rural areas.

First the government just mandated "If you serve here you have to serve rural areas!!!" That went over like a lead balloon. Businesses just refused to install anything. The problem is that one company would come in and do what the government wanted, install service in the profitable city centers, then raise prices for those people to offset the costs of servicing rural customers who are extremely unprofitable to serve. But, rural customers having telephone service is, in the long run, more profitable for society as a whole. But then a competitor would come in and install only for the profitable business centers and drag their feet on installing the rural customers. Able to offer the business parks a cheaper rate, they'd drive the first company out.

So an agreement was struck. The local municipality would sell the telephone company a "franchise" or whatever the term in your local area is. Often this is called a "Monopoly" by the ill informed, but it's anything but that. This agreement comes with heavy burdens for the telephone company. They agree to provide service to everyone, at the same price. (differences exist for commercial and residential) They can not charge you more based on where you live. They also agree to provide service for a period of time, and they cannot abandon this obligation without approval from the municipality. In return, they retain exclusive rights to provide twisted pair copper service in that area.

They do have competitors... LOTS of competitors. Your local cable company, other phone companies, wifi providers, and on and on. It may seem as if there is a monopoly because where you live there is only one option.

Here's the key point to all of this: If you only have one option for a phone company that's because it's unprofitable to serve the area you live in. The only reason you have a phone company option at all, is because they are forced by that franchise agreement to serve you. If the Monopoly you're complaining about did not exist, you would have no phone service at all. None. There are hundreds of phone companies in this country, if it were profitable to provide you service, you'd have a lot of options. Go to any telephone company website, find their get a quote section and put in an address for the local buisness park around you. You'll have dozens of options for service. Alternatively, the easiest way to see where its profitable to provide service is to simply look at your local cable companies footprint. Cable companies are not under the franchise obligations. They only serve areas that are profitable. That footprint is very tightly held within the profitable part of town. Outside that the phone company is losing money.

Now, recently, some municipalities have tried to start their own fiber services. The fact that they are leaving out in these projects is where they are targeted. I've seen dozens of them (I work for a telco) and in every single case the local town is trying to instal Fiber to a local business park to attract new business. A noble idea, but the fact of the matter is, that business park in almost every case is the only profitable part of the entire town. (most towns that try this are relatively small) The park is paying for everyone elses phone service! If they suddenly had virtually free fiber service, the town suddenly becomes a huge expense to the telco. They'll refuse to sign the next franchise agreement and the town will be stuck with maintaining the infrastructure themselves.

If you support this sort of thing you have to realize that what you're supporting is lower prices for businesses, poorer service for everyone else and probably a lot of rural service loosing standard pots service and internet all together.

Re:Vote

[disposable60]

I believe!
I believe that contravenes the US Constitution's ban on religious tests to hold office (Article VI, paragraph 3).

Re:Vote

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about if every politician you get to pick from is all spouting the same BS about why municipal broadband is bad?
Who do you vote for then?

Who PAID for that municipal fiber?

Was it Google? No.

Was it the politician, right out of his pocket? No.

Was it the local resident in that state or town that paid for it via taxes? Yes.

I don't give a shit who is spouting BS. They should get two words from the local taxpayers. Either "Fuck Off" or "You're Fired"

Re:Vote

[compro01]

Those laws have been unenforceable for over 50 years.

Re:Vote

[sumdumass]

Yup.. and those provisions haven't enforced in most of US history.

There are a few states that had constitutions before the US constitution was created. Before the 14th amendment, the majority of the US constitution only applied to the federal government.

Re:Vote

[interkin3tic]

Maybe start by asking why they are all spouting the same nonsense. Then conclude that it's because we have stupid voters who tolerate it. Then move.

Re:Vote

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be the FSM. I'd be fine with that.

Re:Vote

[Svartalf]

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...)

Re:Vote

[PPH]

But, as telcos love to point out, broadband is NOT phone service. It is not subject to the same regulations. That's why they were able to provide it to some neighborhoods and not others. And price it any way they wanted. And maintain it in whatever crappy manner they wanted.

So now the municipality steps in and says, "We can play that game too." We'll pick and choose where we want to run our fiber.

Oddly enough, the argument that municipalities will end up runnig fiber only to the most lucrative areas undermines the telco's arguments. If the city couldn't get the telco to run fiber there, what chance do they have to get it run to less profitable areas?

Re:Vote

[oh_my_080980980]

Or mention of Verizon rigging on their deal with the state of New Jersey after collecting Billions of dollars from Jersey tax payers.

FYI competition mean competition within an industry not between industries. So for example AT&T and Verizon are competitors. Time Warner Cable and Direct TV would not be considered competitors to AT&T and Verizon.

Somebody needs to educate themself.

Re:Vote

[Just Some Guy]

Here's the key point to all of this: If you only have one option for a phone company that's because it's unprofitable to serve the area you live in.

You're full of shit. I live in a wealthy suburb of San Francisco and have almost no Internet service options (which is what we're talking about in this article - Internet service). Any provider not hamstrung by regulations favoring incumbents would make an absolute killing here. Comcast has the monopoly (I don't care what you call it) on high speed Internet access in my area and has refused to do anything with it except raise prices through the roof while making my Netflix stream play like ass.

While I sympathize with my rural neighbors, I can't think of a single legitimate reason why their choice to live in difficult-to-serve areas means that I have to have shitty, expensive Internet in the heart of the world's high-tech capital.

Re:Vote

[Nimey]

How do you propose to do that? The districts are gerrymandered to hell and back to favor one party or another and most people don't vote in primaries, so the primary becomes both a UGG ME MORE EXTREME THAN OTHER GUYS contest and the de-facto general election.

The way the country is at this moment you're apt to wind up with a state house full of teabaggers, and while that will at least be different it would be overall worse.

Re:Vote

[Gr8Apes]

Well, you have to start with Gb somewhere, and the most profitable areas seem logical. If the telecos won't, then someone else has to. And, TBH, the telco's (and cable) have been doing everything they can to move away from common carrier rules. If the telcos stop serving the rest of the community (hint - the major cost was in laying copper, not in running it) then I suppose the municipality can go ahead and pick that service up too. It wouldn't be a bad thing. Don't forget that fed universal fee, the municipalities may be better off running it themselves if they want decent service.

Re:Vote

[weslocke]

I don't know about the rest of the country, but since I'm currently sitting in the EPB market that was one of the two area submitted to the FCC I'll have to disagree with you.

Our entire local service area is (more or less) fiber ready, with full speed access available from office complexes down to lower-income residential areas. The sections that initially rolled out weren't "Come to our city" showplaces, but instead established areas both commercial and residential.

At my home (in an average suburban neighborhood) I pay _I believe_ $70/mo for gigabit access (which btw is bidirectional... I test out at around 930mbps both upstream and downstream to the EPB central servers).

And since this is Chattanooga, there are plenty of backwoods trailers and rural houses that are really enjoying their new high speed access without having to be in a "highly profitable" section of town.

And believe me, the areas here and there that don't have access yet are pretty much champing at the bit to get it and be able to drop Comcast like a hot potato. (Which might I add, you should see the Comcast ads around here. They almost seem desperate, but that might just be personal bias) ;)

Re:Vote

[non0score]

Your argument may have merit in rural areas (quite frankly, I don't know). But in the two biggest metropolitan areas in California, I haven't seen more than one service provider for cable, and one service provider for DSL. When I called the company that didn't offer service, they specifically said "that's [X Company]'s area, so by agreement we can't serve there." What competition are you talking about?

Re:Vote

[bigpat]

Often this is called a "Monopoly" by the ill informed, but it's anything but that.

Was with you up until that point. Maybe when these "burdens" in return for a franchise were conceived they were considered onerous, but now with regulatory capture they really do result in local monopolies and are often in effect exclusive of competition. And basically all the companies have to do is pick and choose which communities they serve and then the burden is something like providing the local schools and the Town with free connections and maybe they will throw in some money for a local access cable tv station where the local politicians get to give some friends, family and their kids air time on local tv. All that "burden" is just passed along to the local subscribers as either extra fees or built into the cost of the service.

Re:Vote

[Darinbob]

This is a city, not a full state. Let's say you're in Austin and Texas forbids what you want to do, no way would you win a state wide election. Thus you head to the federal government to complain that your state government is quashing your rights and hope they agree. Of course, the state's rights people might disagree and insist that locally bribed politicians should take precendence over nationally bribed politicians.

Re:Vote

[Darinbob]

That's the last ditch effort I would think. It is smarter and more effective to appeal to the proper agency in these affairs, whereas trying to fix a corrupt state government by electing one or two people is a foolish game. Ie, first go to FCC, if that doesn't work go to the US Supreme Court, and if that doesn't work then you figure out how to have a state wide revolution to kick out comcast funded politicians (good luck if it is just one tiny town in the entire state wants municipal broadband).

Re:Vote

[Talderas]

Would that be a recently cleaned toilet seat, one that's been used, or one that someone left a hot steamy load on?

Re:Vote

[Optic7]

You believe in Lord Vader, don't you?

Re:Vote

[Bengie]

They didn't use taxes, they used bonds.

Re:Vote

[blindseer]

I don't see how gerrymandering has anything to do with it. Gerrymandering only works if the people vote with their party instead of with their brain. Present yourself as a better candidate than those picked by their party leaders and you are sure to win.

If only that were true. Sadly too many people do vote with their party instead of their brain.

Re:Vote

[i kan reed]

People do vote with the party. Or at least enough people do to establish broken democracies.

Re:Vote

[Reziac]

I don't know about other stuff or what's current, but back in the 1980s Southern California had basically two telcos: Pacific Bell (good service and reasonable rates), and GTE (horrible service and much higher rates). GTE, being the poor little put-upon underdog company, was given protected monopoly areas where PacBell was not *allowed* to offer telco service.

Fast-forward to the massive restructuring that eventually turned GTE into Verizon, and now Verizon enjoys the legacy of GTE's protected monopoly areas.... which they remained even tho Verizon was now the 800 pound gorilla.

Re:Vote

[mgcarley]

Wait a second... you say "Cable companies are not under the franchise obligations. They only serve areas that are profitable. That footprint is very tightly held within the profitable part of town"...

I have some contracts that say "franchise agreement" at the top from a few different cities and counties around where I am (the mid-west - not rural rural, but not a big town, either) that would beg to differ on that.

And I don't think they're losing money... based on *my* cost for bandwidth (as delivered) and the prices they're charging multiplied by the number of subscribers in the area it looks like... yup... hand over fist. Helped enormously, no doubt, by all the fees on the bill (like franchise fees and tax) being extra.

Re:Bullshit

[paiute]

major cable and telecom companies have battled attempts to create community broadband networks, which they claim put them at a competitive disadvantage.

Complete bullshit.

No - they are right. Municipal broadband might have good customer service and actual high speed connections, which would be a serious competitive disadvantage to entities like Comcast, who do not want to have to match those.

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. When I think government service, I think good customer service. Then we would have the choice between an ISP that charges for carry on and another that is modeled after the DMV.

Re:Bullshit

[FictionPimp]

I'd love comcast to have the level of service the Indiana DMV provides.

I can do 95% of what I need without going into the office. If I do go in I can schedule a slot and simply walk in, do my business and walk out. I recently bought a new vehicle and was shocked at how fast and pleasant the experience was.

Comcast on the other hand quotes you a 8 hour time frame the installer will arrive, sends a contractor who may or may not be competent enough to even pull cable, and then blames you if anything goes wrong.

Re:Bullshit

[CastrTroy]

I don't see what's wrong with having government have a monopoly on some basic necessities. The government has a monopoly on my local water utility, and they do a pretty good job of things. Electricity and natural gas are highly regulated by the government, and I'm very happy with the service I'm getting.

In fact, of all the monthly utility bills I have, the ones I despise the most are landline phone, and cable tv/Internet. And those are both delivered by commercial entities that have a monopoly because they own the lines. With cable and phone lines, you can buy services off another companies, but they are just paying big corps who own the lines, making it so that there's really no way to escape them. And if you ever need your lines fixed, and you're with one of the other guys, the guys who own the lines make sure it isn't fixed quickly. Even with other connectivity problems, the internet providers are often just renting some racks inside the big corps data center, meaning even small configuration issues can take a long time to get resolved.

I like my cell phone provider, because they've allowed smaller players to buy some of the spectrum so they can operate completely independently of the big boys, and they offer much better service, with lower prices for more features.

this is also known by a different name

[nimbius]

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.

Re:this is also known by a different name

[Anonymous Coward]

''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."''

- GET THE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS!

Re:this is also known by a different name

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Apathy is the greatest danger to democracy. If the voters did not care to know the issues, if the voters could be bamboozled by a few million dollars spent on an ad campaign and turn against the mayor who tried to help them, how can the be helped?

Re:Bullshit

[thaylin]

Can you point to a single multiple broadband setup that uses that model? The 2 in question support themselves from the services, not through taxes. Using hyperbole, or just in general made up scenarios, does not help your cause.

Go Greenlight

[poeman]

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.

Re:Go Greenlight

[nctritech]

North Carolina has been passing some batshit crazy laws ever since the Republicans managed to get a large enough number of seats to run the show as they please. I had hoped that they would fix some of the problems with the batshit things that had been piling on before them, but instead they made things ten times worse. I hate both parties. They're equally scummy. It makes one feel powerless to know that voting the bums out always means voting more bums in that are not any better in the end.

Back on topic, something I witness with regularity is that anyone who lives in a rural area can't even get DSL. CenturyLink doesn't put in the equipment needed to reach a surprisingly large number of people. Probably 1/3 of the county is on dial-up, satellite, or 3G-if-you're-lucky cell provider based Internet access. I know one guy who has a Verizon MiFi that he has to place in a box in his front yard and then use a wireless repeater to make it reach his home. The cities can't "compete" with CenturyLink due to the bullshit NC law that de facto outlaws municipal broadband, but CenturyLink doesn't give half a crap about servicing the entirety of the county. The cable providers (Charter, Time Warner) aren't any better, but their existing delivery infrastructure is far more limited and would take longer to build up.

The bottom line is that the monopoly ISPs won't spend any money to service more people while taking money from rural broadband initiatives to do just that, and towns that want to fix that problem for citizens are legally barred from doing so. In terms of Internet access, this state of affairs is borderline totalitarianism and should not exist in America.

Re:Go Greenlight

[An Ominous Coward]

How are the two major parties equally scummy when by your own statement the Republicans made things ten times worse than the Democrats?

Re:Go Greenlight

[nctritech]

Because the Democrats had already managed to royally fuck things up before the Republicans showed up. Hell, the NC Democrats started the process of ruining NC broadband in the first place. Granted, there's an equal number of "R" sponsors listed...but look at who wrote it up in the first place.

Also of interest to readers of this post: a blog the City of Wilson started when they got fed up and took things into their own hands.

Re:Go Greenlight

[John_Sauter]

.... I hate both parties. They're equally scummy. It makes one feel powerless to know that voting the bums out always means voting more bums in that are not any better in the end.

You've bought in to the lie that there are only two parties. Look beyond the Republicans and Democrats and you might find better bums.

Re:Go Greenlight

[nctritech]

I vote Libertarian when candidates are available for a position. The problem is that everyone else doesn't. Those people are what's wrong with the political process.

Re:Go Greenlight

[John_Sauter]

I also vote Libertarian when I can; I am a card-carrying member of the Libertarian party. When I can't, and I'm too lazy to run myself, I do enough research to figure out who is the current office-holder, and vote for his opponent. If he is the only person on the ballot for the position, I leave the line blank.

Re:Go Greenlight

[amicusNYCL]

They're equally scummy because both of them are willing to sacrifice whatever ethics and morals they claim to have and will buttfuck the public whenever they get a check that is big enough. It doesn't matter who started this, or who continued that, it doesn't really matter who was at the plate when the check came in. Neither of them are willing to stand up to corporations and actually have the integrity to say, sorry, I can't accept that money because I have an ethical problem with it, and I'm also going to tell everyone that you offered it to me. That's why they're equally scummy.

Re:Go Greenlight

[Nimey]

You'll have to change the system before third parties become viable in this country. First Past the Post has to go, as does letting politicians draw their own goddamn district boundaries.

Re:Go Greenlight

[John_Sauter]

You'll have to change the system before third parties become viable in this country. First Past the Post has to go, as does letting politicians draw their own goddamn district boundaries.

Not necessarily. Even with the disadvantages you cite, the original two US political parties, the Whigs and the Federalists, were toppled. It can happen again. Even without de-throning the Republicans and Democrats, a third party can gather enough support to make the difference in a close contest, and that causes the major parties to give at least lip service to their concerns.

Re:Go Greenlight

[Nimey]

The Whigs and Federalists disappeared because their parties collapsed. It's going to take some doing to get one of the big two to collapse these days.

Re:Stop insulting scumbags.

[visualight]

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.

I'm confused

[smooth wombat]

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.

Re:I'm confused

[thaylin]

The problem is that, at least in NC, the hypocrisy of the states rights group is large and thick. They dont want federal involvement in state affairs, but the state has no problem taking rights away from the cities, counties and other municipalities, same as they account the federal government. This is a local city trying to get the feds to stop the state governments abuse of power.

Re:I'm confused

[istartedi]

States Rights has always been nothing more than a tool used by people who want something. Usually what they want is to take something from other people. They would just as easily use religion, economics, erroneous statistics, philosophy, or any other intellectual tool they could find.

IMHO, ultimately states don't have rights any more than corporations do. PEOPLE have rights. The PEOPLE should have the right to freely associate and provide broadband. If they want to do that through their city government, fine. There's no need to appeal to "states rights" which has quite a checkered past.

Re:I'm confused

[div_2n]

Chattanooga is a city that has quite a few very wealthy interests that wanted to better their community because they would benefit too. The people that you might normally think of as being against such a venture were not. The broadband is just one piece of the puzzle of investments that have been made with open arms of power brokers.

If you were to have visited it 10 or 15 years ago and then came back today, you'd swear that you were in a different city. The transformation has been nothing short of amazing. And that's why the city is full of tourists most of the year.

Re:I'm confused

[Nimey]

"States Rights" is almost always shorthand for "the state should be free to oppress you, but the feds had better not try to oppress you or put a stop to the state oppressing you". There's a reason why the Southern racists kept talking about states rights.

Re:I'm confused

[catprog]

Or they want local power to trump state to trump federal.

Re: Bullshit

[Amtrak]

I was just about to say the same thing. I've lived in 4 different states and the Indiana DMV is the best run government office I've ever had the displeasure of working with. On a side note the Illinois Secretary of State was the worst.

FCC does not make laws

[Scutter]

Since when does the FCC have the power to "preempt" laws?

Re: FCC does not make laws

[Anonymous Coward]

Federal agencies can override state laws. Bush started a policy of using federal regulations to override state laws restricting business. A policy which was stopped by Obama - http://www.progressivereform.org/preemption.cfm

Re:FCC does not make laws

[alen]

internet is interstate commerce since the data will cross state lines, which means its subject to federal regulation

anything that goes on strictly inside the state is not subject to federal regulation

Re:FCC does not make laws

[plover]

Since when does the FCC have the power to "preempt" laws?

Since their founding. Your city cannot pass a law permitting the operation of a 200kW tower broadcasting white noise at 2.4 GHz. It's why the FCC exists.

Re:FCC does not make laws

[thaylin]

There are lots of things that happen within state lines that fall subject to federal regulations...

Re:FCC does not make laws

[nedlohs]

When a state law and a federal conflict one of them has to win. If the federal law is within the powers delegated to the federal government then it will (yeah, yeah, as if there are any in practice limits to federal law these days...).

In this case there's a federal law stating:

The Commission and each State commission with regulatory jurisdiction over telecommunications services shall encourage the deployment on a reasonable and timely basis of advanced telecommunications capability to all Americans (including, in particular, elementary and secondary schools and classrooms) by utilizing, in a manner consistent with the public interest, convenience, and necessity, price cap regulation, regulatory forbearance, measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.

If that and a state law preventing the deployment of "advanced telecommunications capacity" conflict then to the courts it will go to determine which one trumps the other and if that one even applies to the case in question. And in an ideal world if the federal government has the authority to create such a law.

Re:FCC does not make laws

[swb]

Welcome to a law school! I see you have chosen extended scholarship on the history, scope and meaning of the US Constitution's Commerce Clause.

Please see the law librarian for a beginniner's biography to begin your studies.

Re:FCC does not make laws

[thaylin]

I am not just talking about the commerce clause... A state cannot just build a nuclear reactor, even if they are not going to sell the electricity across state lines, without NRC approval. The EPA can have a say in spills inside a state...

Re:FCC does not make laws

[swb]

But all the magic comes from the Commerce Clause.

You can't build a nuclear reactor without importing components for it across state lines. It starts there. I'd also imagine that NRC and EPA approval would also stem from (mostly) reasonable arguments that the natural environment (wind, water, etc) is inherently interstate and that any risk from a nuclear accident would have interstate impact. Probably some justification on national security grounds relative to radioactive materials as well.

The same thing would be used to justify federal anti-discrimination laws should I decide not serve some group in my local restaurant in which I only serve food obtained locally, cooked in a kitchen made entirely of locally-sourced, locally made cookware and served on locally-made dishware from locally-sourced materials in a building made from locally-sourced building materials by bearded, local bohemians wearing only locally sourced clothing who only drink locally brewed beer in locally made mugs.

can be done

[John_Sauter]

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.

Re:can be done

[silas_moeckel]

Frankly if this is done right the muni primarily provides the natural monopoly portion, just the glass back to the CO, no active gear on poles etc. At the CO they could provide power/cooling and implement there own layer 2/3 network to act as an ISP.

CWDM makes it easy to have a muni network and 8+ other networks on a single fiber. A muni might also resell it's active infrastructure allowing smaller players to enter a market and for efficiency serving lower utilization clients. Besides internet access it's fairly simple to provide library, school and government web site access via a google like install fee to cover costs. Offering metro area network type services is an easy add on, point to point via a dark channel and lit services and multipoint via lit services can be a huge boon to companies. Companies can fill in back-hauling to telco hotels and other muni's allowing for meta services to be built on top much like today's long haul fiber market.

Re:can be done

[phizi0n]

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

Fuck no.

People that are not using the service should not have to pay for it just because someone decided to run a line past their house. That would just encourage the planners to run dark fiber everywhere and collect fees for years before people decide to connect.

There's little reason to charge by the bit or have data caps like most ISP's do. It's not a finite resource like water is. The major cost is last mile, once you have that in place it is a minor cost to upgrade your backbone to support extra usage. The last thing parents need is a huge bill because their kids watched a ton of 1080p youtube videos last month, downloaded a lot of games off steam, or whatever else. The penalty would either be so small that it would be meaningless to have at all or big enough that it would cause massive bills by surprise like cell phone service and smartphone app pricing have done in the past.

Re:can be done

[John_Sauter]

...People that are not using the service should not have to pay for it just because someone decided to run a line past their house. That would just encourage the planners to run dark fiber everywhere and collect fees for years before people decide to connect.

There's little reason to charge by the bit or have data caps like most ISP's do. It's not a finite resource like water is. The major cost is last mile, once you have that in place it is a minor cost to upgrade your backbone to support extra usage. The last thing parents need is a huge bill because their kids watched a ton of 1080p youtube videos last month, downloaded a lot of games off steam, or whatever else. The penalty would either be so small that it would be meaningless to have at all or big enough that it would cause massive bills by surprise like cell phone service and smartphone app pricing have done in the past.

I don't think you are taking economic realities into account. I modeled my proposal on the local water company. It costs money to run the fibre past each house. Somebody has to pay for that, and who better than the owners of the houses. Having this source of revenue encourages the utility to run fibre along each street, not just the wealthy neighborhoods. They wouldn't get paid for truly “dark fibre” only for fibre which can be connected to and provide Internet access.

Yes, data communication is a finite resource. It costs money to send a bit reliably across town or around the world—lots of people work hard to make sure the Internet stays up. Who better to pay those costs than the people who want that bit moved?

If parents don't want to monitor their children's (or guests') Internet activity, they can ask the utility to cap their daily data volume to prevent unpleasant surprises. There are other solutions, more difficult technically but not beyond reason. For example, the traffic of children and guests could be marked so that it could be limited in badnwidth and daily volume.

Re:Bullshit

[Mr Foobar]

Yes. When I think government service, I think good customer service. Then we would have the choice between an ISP that charges for carry on and another that is modeled after the DMV.

I don't know about your state or province (or whatever), and as a resident of Florida, I can certainly find a lot to complain about with my state's services. Our DMV is not one of them. Excellent and friendly service, in and out in minutes (beside a the small wait in the lobby), just an overal great experience from off all places, a freakin' state agency. As the guy ahead of me mentioned, my time with AT&T is nothing to compare with our DMV. A lot of companies could learn from them.

Re:Bullshit

[snake pliskin]

The Chattanooga fiber network (electric power board provided - owned by the local city government) competes with comcast and at&t for internet, tv and telephone service. When you have a problem you call a local number and speak to a local person.... not someone two states away or a different country in some cases. And yes, the fiber here is legit. You get the speeds you pay for.

Re:Bullshit

[Lord Lemur]

Why wouldn't you be able to opt-out? They want to compete with, not ban the other Telco's.

Re:Bullshit

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

How can you be so crass as to bring filthy, filthy, empiricism to a discussion about government?

Only people who lack faith in the a priori truths of Objectivism would be so base as to drag some nonsense about "what is actually happening" into the discussion. It's simply a fact that absolutely anything a government does is just a cover for expropriating the wealth creators and building a cadre of elitist bureaucrats to centrally mismanage things.

Re:Stop insulting scumbags.

[dywolf]

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.

Re:Bullshit

[plover]

Actually, communities tend to run infrastructure remarkably well. Look at water systems. When is the last time you were in a location with city water, turned on the tap, and nothing came out? (Assuming you weren't cut off for lack of payment, of course.) Towns know how to keep the water flowing. If a town is without water for a period of time, it makes national news. (Yes, there are developing nations that do not have potable water coming out of their taps. The US is not one of those nations, and this is a US topic.)

Governments are not incapable of running such a program, and they are not inherently guaranteed to suck at it.

Now, is this different because it will require tech support? Sure. Are cities prepared to deal with the calls, the service interruptions, the network attacks, etc? The cities that are asking are going into this eyes wide open. The FCC is not mandating that cities must carry their own networks, they are simply being asked to rule on a non-competition clause that unfairly prevents the city itself from providing said competition.

I think the biggest problem the cable companies face is that cities now know exactly how much it costs to run a network, and it's nothing like the extortionate rates the cable companies are charging today. If the city has a competent manager leading the project, and good engineering staff, they will deliver fast data along with great customer service at a price that is not only going to be competitive, it's going to dominate. Everyone wins, except for the shareholders of the cable companies - and as they've been winning for a couple of decades already, my sympathy for their plight is not exactly overwhelming.

Re:Bullshit

[thaylin]

I think you forgot a /sarcasm, lol.

Re:Bullshit

[StatureOfLiberty]

Sure it might be better, but it definitely can be much worse.

Worse than no high speed broadband service? Wilson built their system because Time Warner and others refused to. So, the city decided to solve the problem themselves. When you refuse to serve a community, you can't complain about 'unfair competition' when they decide to serve themselves.

(Time Warner thanks you for your loyalty)

Re:Bullshit

[plover]

I have to say something on Comcast's defense here. I have never had bad customer service from them, and I've had cable through them for a very long time. Do I pay through the nose? Yes. But they answer the phone when I call, they get a service guy out to my house in hours, not days, and they hit their promised windows. The technicians are competent, and they're friendly: "hey I've got a 1TB DVR in my truck, if you want I can swap out your old 200GB DVR, you'll get a lot more hours of storage."

I have had no problems with Comcast's customer service. (That said, I haven't had to cancel my service with them for about 25 years, and haven't had to go through the horrors of talking to a "Customer Retention Specialist".)

Re:Stop insulting scumbags.

[thaylin]

you forgot "Oh, you want a free market in sales (such as car)? Can't allow that."

on the other hand, they oppose building ...anythin

[raymorris]

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.

Re:Bullshit

[jjerjor]

First: From my personal experience, municipal fiber was quite good as deployed in Provo UT. The city installed and owned the fiber and leased usage to telco companies. The usual major players were allowed to use the lines as well, but were not as popular for internet because smaller start-ups offered better service at a lower price for the same or better speeds. I recall having 100Mb down AND up through a company called MStar for $49 a month (not an introductory rate). Second: No such wine exists. Just grab two bottles.

Re:Bullshit

[meta-monkey]

I live in Florida. Yesterday I had to call the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. All I had to do was wait for the option to press '1' for spanish to expire and I was connected immediately to a real person who answered my slightly complicated question easily, clearly and quickly.

I also own a business (and have owned two) in Florida, and every time I've had to deal with the Florida Department of Revenue (sometimes I got busy and forgot to pay my sales taxes) they have been friendly and helpful.

I wish, wish Cox Cable had the kind of friendly and expedient service Florida's government entities do.

Re:raise money privately?

[3.5 stripes]

Municipal companies like this are not funded through taxes..

Sorry to unstuff your strawman.

recoiling in disgust is not the same as apathy

[Thud457]

Then run for office yourself.

EEEEEWWWWWW
Have you seen the caliber of psychopathic nimrods that run for office?
That's beneath me.
/jk

Re:recoiling in disgust is not the same as apathy

[WheezyJoe]

Then run for office yourself.

EEEEEWWWWWW

Have you seen the caliber of psychopathic nimrods that run for office?
That's beneath me. /jk

Yep. And that's how shit keeps happening, the circle jerk goes round and round.
But just imagine if a bunch of non-nimrods stepped up, put cooler heads together, start chipping away at the nimrods.
Might go slow at first, but man, how cool would it be if our legislatures were nimrod-free.

Nimrod-free
(how nice it would be)

Re:recoiling in disgust is not the same as apathy

[Nimey]

More like I haven't got time due to having an actual job, and I don't want my personal life becoming public fodder for an attack machine.

Re:recoiling in disgust is not the same as apathy

[Reziac]

It helps considerably when that state legislature is a part-time avocation, not a full-time career. Frex, here in Montana it's 90 days every other year -- not enough time to pass bullshit and certainly not enough income to make a living. So the nimrods who are unhireable except as politicians don't thrive here; you can't live off being a politician in MT. (And a lot of local positions, like some county commissioners, are volunteer.)

Conversely, look at California where the legislature is a fulltime job, and observe what a crowd of Peter Principles it's attracted...

And yes, I have considered it, because common sense has to start somewhere. Hell, there's a opening on the local mosquito abatement board... not every job has to be ruling the world. Fixing your little corner is most of it.

Re:Bullshit

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm not sure I want to live in a world where that statement doesn't imply sarcasm...

Re:raise money privately?

[mrlibertarian]

Municipal companies like this are not funded through taxes..

Then why not start a private company? Why does it need to be a municipal company?

Seperate the wire from the service

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Bullshit

[thaylin]

Then dont use the municipal broadband, use comcast....This is not giving the cities a monopoly...

Re:Bullshit

[thaylin]

Obviously it did to me, but sadly there are lots of people who it would not.

Re:Bullshit

[timrod]

Providing choice in providers doesn't really help all that much. I would know, living in central Connecticut. In CT, we have exactly two power companies - Connecticut Light and Power and United Illuminating. UI only serves a small portion of the state, so CL&P has a monopoly over the vast majority of the state. Technically, you're free to choose your power provider.. except all of the providers are CL&P. The state had to add de-regulation language to allow the "choice' in providers, and most of the people in the legislature acknowledge it was a gigantic mistake to do so.

As a result, Connecticut residents pay some of the highest electric rates in the country, and we get worse service - it took CL&P weeks to clean up after Irene and an October snowstorm we had a few years ago because they were busy sending all of their workers to other states because it was more profitable to do so.

Re:Bullshit

[MobyDisk]

Especially since the alternative is for the government to delegate the monopoly to another company. It's a monopoly either way.

Re:Bullshit

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I own a large commercial building in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

That's a small commercial building, Dwight.

Re: Bullshit

[Pascoea]

Surprisingly, IN MY EXPERIENCE (In Minnesota), the DMV was an absolute nightmare, even compred to Comcast. I have lived in Michigan, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and now Minnesota. MN has BY FAR the worst DMV. It took me 3 hours and four trips to two different buildings get my drivers licenses and vehicles registered. Comcast, on the other hand, was insanely painless. I stopped in their store, grabbed a cable modem, went home and plugged it in. Now, let's not talk about the time that they shut my internet off for no reason, blamed it on "security" (apparently someone had walked into the store using my address to start up a new account). Since it was after 8PM the sales office was closed and they couldn't turn my internet back on. It took an hour, but eventually I got through to a call center in CA that was able to turn it back on.

More power to 'em, I say.

[kheldan]

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.

Re:More power to 'em, I say.

[mi]

Do we really want an Internet that, with regard to the U.S. consumer, is essentially owned and operated by Comcast/Xfinity?

Whatever Comcast's failings, I wager, you'll find the Internet owned and operated by the government far worse. I predict mandatory "child-protection" filters, for example. Also, any time you violate the service terms (which will be copied from those of commercial providers), you will be committing a crime (however small), rather than merely breaking contract. Oh, and the tech-support will not only be incompetent, but also rude — because, being government employees, they will be impossible to fire.

the more competition that can be arranged the better

A government entering a market — any market — is the end of competition in it.

Re:More power to 'em, I say.

[kheldan]

Yeah sure whatever you say, pal. All I want is the Internet to not be de-facto owned by Comcast, or AT&T, or Verizon, or whichever asshole corporation you care to name, because they will ruin it too, but in even worse ways, and they'll charge everyone up the ass for it while giving less and less value in return. This shit keeps up and I'll just skip the goddamn Internet completely and go back to reading more books instead.

Re:More power to 'em, I say.

[mi]

This shit keeps up and I'll just skip the goddamn Internet completely and go back to reading more books instead.

Please, do. Instead of adding anything to the discussion, you simply repeated your previous comment — only with more swear words. Please, disconnect. Remember to logout.

Re:raise money privately?

[Mr D from 63]

One problem many towns would face is that there is already a restriction on anyone else using the poles, that was put in place when thy agreed to let cable companies have exclusive access for this purpose. If it were open to competitors, you wouldn't even need a co-op, somebody would come in with a better product.

Re:raise money privately?

[Hodr]

Presumably it is easier to get access to easements and existing municipal infrastructure. Funding is easier as they can self finance through municipal bonds vice getting loans from the bank, and they add a sense of legitimacy that may encourage fence sitters to choose the new option.

Re:raise money privately?

[Anonymous Coward]

I might pose the opposite question. Why start a private company when the government can offer the same service for less? Municipal companies do not need to make a profit, so their operating costs are lower. Their motivation is serving the community, not profit. It's the dirty little secret that Business doesn't want people to think about. Municipal companies providing good service for less threatens their ability to funnel money into their own pockets.

Re:Stop insulting scumbags.

[Anonymous Coward]

"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!

North Carolina has far more pressing matters!

[HycoWhit]

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!!

Re:raise money privately?

[mrlibertarian]

If it is easier for a municipal company to get access to existing municipal infrastructure, then the municipal must be making it harder for private companies to do so. This is an example of the local government standing in the way. Remember, I said they need to get out of the way.

Financing through municipal bonds is another example of government cheating, because holders of municipal bounds are exempt from federal income tax. Also, any extra "sense of legitimacy" that a municipal has is probably based on the assumption that a municipal company will be bailed out with tax payer money if necessary. Once again, if residents want high speed internet, can't it be provided by a company that follows the rules of every other private company?

As far as easements, I've never liked the idea of governments forcing easements on private property. I think the existing easements that were created by governments are immoral, and should be retroactively converted into a leasing agreement, in which property owners allow private companies (cable companies, power companies, etc.) to rent easements for a period of 5 to 10 years for some agreed upon yearly fee. That way, the relationship is more like landlord and tenant, instead of master (i.e. government) and slave (i.e. property owner).

Re: Bullshit

[istartedi]

Even the District of Columbia DMV was pretty good, and DC is not known for efficiency. When I got rid of my car, it didn't take very long to hand the plate to the guy, who marked it invalid. That was that. Comcast? I got charged after disconnecting, and the dispute is unresolved after two months.

In other words, "disconnecting" from the DC DMV was easier than disconnecting from Comcast.

Government is GREAT at providing services!

[mi]

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?

Re:Bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Never had to cancel? Then you're in luck! The rest of us who aren't paid shills have all experienced almost uniformly bad Comcast customer service. Want proof instead of stupid anecdotes? http://www.ibtimes.com/comcast-customer-service-not-terrible-nonexistent-call-center-workers-say-1638228 and http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/05/comcast-time-warner-cable-still-have-the-angriest-customers-survey-finds/

Time Warner in NC is actually the devil

[gelfling]

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.

Re:raise money privately?

[swb]

I think roads are the best (and in some ways the most literal) examples of what municipal broadband should be.

The government builds roads past my house but it only provides "dark asphalt" (aka dark fiber), it doesn't provide any of the services that could be provided by the highway.

The government then licenses "service providers" to provide services on the municipal roads -- taxes for trucks that deliver things to my house, taxis, or even access fees for me to drive a vehicle on those roads. I have to pay myself to utilize the services provided by the roads.

Municipal broadband should be the same way -- it should only be the transit network, anything else -- IP connectivity/Internet should require me to pay an internet provider who in turn has paid for whatever access they need to the municipal network the same way businesses pay fees (direct or indirect) to use the roads to deliver services.

Comcast could sell TV services or Internet services, although I would expect that some other ISP would offer an better product than Comcast and they would be a marginal player, which of course is their entire objection -- hey have a rent-seeking monopoly they want to maintain. If the pipe to your house was open to any service provider, it seems likely they would only get a minority of people who wanted traditional cable television.

Discrimination against atheists

[sjbe]

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.

Re:Discrimination against atheists

[WheezyJoe]

Plus good luck getting elected if you are honest about being an atheist. It's basically considered political suicide in most of the country.

Pffft. Who's requiring you to be honest? It's politics. Fuck being honest about that shit. It ain't nobody's business.
(besides, if religious nuts would just keep it as their business, instead of always making it everyone else's business, religion wouldn't be such a fucking problem)

Re:Discrimination against atheists

[sjbe]

Who's requiring you to be honest? It's politics.

Nobody. But speaking for myself, I'm not about to hide the fact that I think overly devout theists are mentally ill. So I guess I'll never get elected.

if religious nuts would just keep it as their business, instead of always making it everyone else's business, religion wouldn't be such a fucking problem

But they gain power by spreading their religion. That's why they fight against contraception, push for school prayer and other youth indoctrination, fight any science that points out how ridiculous their mythology is, have missionaries, etc.

Re:Discrimination against atheists

[Nimey]

Atheists are distrusted as much as Muslims are among the general population: http://www.pewforum.org/2014/0...

Outside of local races in certain areas, I wouldn't expect an open atheist to be elected right now in the USA.

Re:Discrimination against atheists

[JeffAtl]

It's all in the phrasing though. Atheists were demonized for generations as being wicked and disturbed, so it still carries a negative stigma to even those that aren't very religious at all. The famous Jack Chick tracts portrayed athiests as being worse than actually being evil.

That's why most tend to describe themselves as secular humanists.

Re:on the other hand, they oppose building ...anyt

[mspohr]

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...

But we bought those laws, they're ours!

[mspohr]

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'll admit they're better than Qwest(Century Link)

[Radical Moderate]

...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?

Re:Vote - House Bill 129 / Senate Bill 87

[ProzacPatient]

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.

14th Amendment

[sjbe]

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.

Cities Rights

[ThatsNotPudding]

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.

Am I just being cynical...

[q4Fry]

... or does it strike anyone else as unlikely that Tom Wheeler would do that?

Re:raise money privately?

[ahaweb]

Interesting thought experiment: how do you differentiate a non-profit competitor from a merely poorly run competitor that doesn't set prices to maximize profits?

Re:Bullshit

[plover]

Since the city is still going to have to tie into someone's top tier backbone to carry their traffic to the rest of the world, they'll still likely have to route it through Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, or some other provider's network, and the NSA's taps are on those top tier providers. I also don't know if a city would fight against a National Security Letter any more or less than any other provider, so they would still never tell you about a tap. But at least they could go in claiming to start from the moral high ground: "Support Cleveland's new city-wide Internet service - We Have Never Tapped Anyone's Data (only because we haven't been asked.)"

First Hand Experience...

[ashelley]

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.

Re:raise money privately?

[dgatwood]

A nonprofit competitor is required by law to spend any profits they make on upgrading infrastructure. So unless they massively overhire or have higher expenses because of economies of scale or renting a more expensive building, the nonprofit is pretty much guaranteed to be able to undercut any for-profit competitor while providing better service, because it doesn't have the extra overhead of profit taking.

Comprehension fail. Green: Give Wheeler more power

[raymorris]

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.

Re:raise money privately?

[Belial6]

Your leasing plan would grind us back to the stone age as fast as the extreme environmentalists would. Without the eminent domain that was used to create those easements, we would have no roads. No telephone. No internet. No businesses. Nothing. We couldn't even come close to supporting our current population.

Being a libertarian as opposed to an anarchist, you should want government, just as little as is necessary. Easements for infrastructure is very far into the necessary range for government.

Re:raise money privately?

[Belial6]

If the municipality put in a literal pipe, much like they do for sewer and water, not only would they be working in a domain that they are already extremely versed in, they would also allow for private companies to run new cable to be run at a fraction of the price it is today. If companies didn't have to worry about getting right of way access or digging up roads you would see a lot more companies pulling fiber.

Re:Stop insulting scumbags.

[Darinbob]

Get the politicians out of politics!

Re:Bullshit

[Darinbob]

Even the worst DMV service is friendly and helpful in comparison to Comcast.

Re:Bullshit

[bigpat]

a serious competitive disadvantage to entities like Comcast

Oh no imagine what we would lose if Comcast and Verizon had to compete with real fiber service providers... all that bandwidth which now goes to aimlessly broadcast things like Golf TV or five hundred niche channels that make the companies more money than allowing you to do what it is you actually would want to do with the bandwidth.

Good luck with that

[WindBourne]

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).

Instead of fantasy try reality

[dbIII]

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.

Re:Bullshit

[dbIII]

It all pales in comparison to Australia's Telstra. An utter fuckwit called Sol Trujillo came over here and decided to lower the level of customer service to the worst he'd seen in the USA.

They're lying? I'm quoting their official platform

[raymorris]

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

[dbIII]

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).

Re:Bullshit

[dbIII]

I've seen that view expressed seriously in this place far more times than I wish to remember - typically followed by a discussion of what a "real" libertarian is.

"quoting their official platform"? Really?

[dbIII]

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.

Re:"quoting their official platform"? Really?

[raymorris]

> How many people does it really take to draw up a few rules for an industry?

Just one, Wheeler in this case. We agree their platform calls for the FCC to have more control, right?
We agree that the FCC is run by Wheeler, a career cable company lobbyist, right?
They want to give him more power, he's a cable-industry lobbyist. Do we disagree so far?
That means they want to give more power to a cable lobbyist. Seems pretty simple and clear to me.

Of course, they also WANT Wheeler to be a good guy and to act in the public interest. The fact is, he doesn't. Bureaucrats and politicians are self-serving. Wanting them to be saints doesn't make them saints. Pretending that they'll stop being that way if we just give them more power is foolish.

Re:Comprehension fail. Green: Give Wheeler more po

[bhiestand]

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.

Re:Bullshit

[bhiestand]

Key part of your quote:

The quality of drinking water in the United States remains universally high, however. Even though pipes and mains are frequently more than 100 years old and in need of replacement, outbreaks of disease attributable to drinking water are rare.

Universally high quality drinking water? That's "remarkably well". Yes, infrastructure needs work because nobody is willing to spend the money to do it. But, as of today, nearly everyone has potable water.

Re:Comprehension fail. Green: Give Wheeler more po

[raymorris]

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.

Re:Comprehension fail. Green: Give Wheeler more po

[bhiestand]

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.

Re:Comprehension fail. Green: Give Wheeler more po

[raymorris]

#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.

Since you seemed to have missed this so far

[dbIII]

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?

the FCC regulates milk now?

[raymorris]

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.

Re:the FCC regulates milk now?

[dbIII]

I'm merely replying to your inaccurate "On the other hand, they oppose building broadband, or anything else" and similar rubbish. Please don't attempt to misdirect away from that to avoid responsibility for your own actions.
In my country the greens are pushing for broadband and the "conservatives" are opposing it because major donor Rupert doesn't want the competition.

Silly monpolies, you have to bribe the feds too...

[wad4ever]

Duh.

Re:Comprehension fail. Green: Give Wheeler more po

[bhiestand]

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.

Hopefully you'll like J Bush better

[raymorris]

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.