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

[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

[compro01]

Those laws have been unenforceable for over 50 years.

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

[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

[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: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

[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

[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?

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

[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: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: 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.

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: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

[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

[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:Stop insulting scumbags.

[thaylin]

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

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.

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.