North Carolina Still Wants To Block Municipal Broadband

An anonymous reader writes: In February, when the FCC rolled out its net neutrality rules, it also voted to override state laws that let Texas and North Carolina block ISPs created by local governments and public utilities. These laws frequently leave citizens facing a monopoly or duopoly with no recourse, so the FCC abolished them. Now, North Carolina has sued the FCC to get them back. State Attorney General Roy Cooper claims, "the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State's political subdivisions." He adds that the new rule is "arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion within the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act; and is otherwise contrary to law."

Comments

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because FUCK YOU , that's why.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

State's Rights, man! 100 years from now, some will say it was about Comcast owning internet slaves. Other's will say it was about the Federal government trampling over a States' rights to govern. Picture two white ethernet cables forming an X on top of a red field! That's the new flag to fly, ya'll!

Re:Why?

[NotDrWho]

Because brib....ahem "campaign contribiti.....ahem "corporate free speech".

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Comcast: Fuck you, pay me.

Re:Why?

[NotInHere]

In 100 years, there will be singularity. In 2084, when the singularity takes over the world, your area was scheduled for destruction by nuclear missile, because uploading its control virus onto your brain implant chips (mandatory by international treaties since the 2076 terror attack on google city (new name of mountain view since 2060), pushed by US president Bush junior junior) would have required too long.

Re:Why?

[unixisc]

This is correct. As a former NC resident, I don't agree w/ NC trying to block municipal broadband, but regardless of that, I don't support the feds getting in and telling them that they can't block it. It's the Tenth Amendment. If NC residents don't like this decision, they should replace the government they have in the next election they get, participating actively in the primaries as well to ensure that neither the GOP nor Dem nominees are people backed by TWC or AT&T (Comcast is not a player in that state)

Re:Why?

[unixisc]

Why not just say JEB - as in John Edward Bush?

Re:Why?

[mspohr]

I see that you still have the illusion that the politicians are not totally bought and paid for by business interests.
I believe that George Carlin said it best:
"Because the owners, the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the real owners now, the BIG owners! The Wealthy the REAL owners! The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions.

Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice! You have OWNERS! They OWN YOU. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying, lobbying, to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don’t want:

They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. Thats against their interests.

Thats right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. They don’t want that!

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shitty jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it, and now they’re coming for your Social Security money. They want your retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street, and you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it all from you sooner or later cause they own this fucking place! It's a big club, and you ain’t in it! You, and I, are not in the big club.

By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care! Good honest hard-working people; white collar, blue collar it doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-working people continue, these are people of modest means, continue to elect these rich cock suckers who don’t give a fuck about you.they don’t give a fuck about you they don’t give a FUCK about you.

They don’t care about you at all at all AT ALL. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Thats what the owners count on. The fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick thats being jammed up their assholes everyday, because the owners of this country know the truth.

It's called the American Dream,because you have to be asleep to believe it."

Re:Why?

[Fire_Wraith]

There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and nuclear destruction orders have been on display on Slashdot for 69 years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Slashdot? Oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s only a few keystrokes away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout.

Re: Why?

[jd2112]

Hillary Rodham Clinton Bush. One thing I learned from watching "Game of Thrones" is that there is always intermarriage between political families.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

State's Rights, man! 100 years from now, some will say it was about Comcast owning internet slaves. Other's will say it was about the Federal government trampling over a States' rights to govern. Picture two white ethernet cables forming an X on top of a red field! That's the new flag to fly, ya'll!

Tell you what, you can start talking about a new flag when you stop trying to fly the old flag that says the South won.

Re:Why?

[sycodon]

What a waste of words.

You can't just throw out parts of the Constitution you don't like. You can't ignore the law because you have a fucking stick up your ass about "owners". While you might applaud the FCC and while you might even say what they did is morally correct, it's not legally correct.

So rant all you want, it doesn't matter.

Re:Why?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State's political subdivisions

Regardless of the merits of municipal broadband, and bought-and-paid for legislators, the powers of local governments are given by state constitutions and laws. The feds simply have no constitutional say in it.

They can stop states or local from outlawing various bands or having jammers, but they can't grant powers to localities against state wishes. The state authorizes the localities and gives them life.

Re: Why?

[WindBourne]

In 15 years, the biggest threat to cable and phone will not be fiber, but satellite. With the 2 systems going in, you will have GB connection, with better ping times than cable or Twp.

Re:Why?

[Darinbob]

Don't forget, it's not just the confederate flag that they're flying, but the confederate *battle* flag.

Re: Why?

[Grishnakh]

We already have satellite internet. Go to hughesnet.com and check it out for yourself.

The problem with it is that the ping times are terrible. There's nothing that can be done about that unless you figure out how to communicate faster-than-light, because radio waves take a certain amount of time to travel to a geosynchronous satellite and back. You could stick satellites in lower orbits, but then they won't stay there long without boosting, and more importantly, you can't fix a satellite dish on them because they're constantly moving across the sky, just like the ISS does. Only GEO orbits allow you to fix a dish on a satellite and not need to move it.

Re:Why?

[dbreeze]

I got a +5 with this story last time http://slashdot.org/comments.p... , this time it is even more fitting. And, this IS a true story......

"(I've told this story on here before but it needs re-telling....)
    I moved to a rural NC area about 10-12 years ago and desired to start a computer shop but soon discovered that dial-up was all that was available. At that time satellite was prohibitively expensive for my meager funds and not that much faster. I heard about the state legislature enacting a new "E-NC" initiative to facilitate rural connectivity and with a cell tower only a few hundred yards across a field from me I decided maybe I could try a wireless internet service venture instead. I found a contact number and had a very interesting conversation with the director of the E-NC initiative at that time....
    I explained my situation and idea to him and asked about the possibility of getting funding to try a start-up to service my local areas internet needs. He told me that they had exhausted the funds set aside on 3 projects already. They had researched each proposed area, contacted the local phone/cable companies and verified that they had no plans of pursuing high-speed internet options in the area, and then released the funds for the start-ups. As soon as the funds were released the phone companies suddenly announced they would begin DSL service in 2 of the areas, effectively killing those start-ups. In both cases it was Sprint(later to become Embarq) who pulled the shenanigans. Of course, they also controlled the area I lived in. We didn't get a DSL option for another 6-7 years when the 3g wireless options came around and finally made them move.....
    Big money/corporations are(generally) evil...... jus' sayin'........"

Re:Why?

[dbreeze]

There's a group making some progress on this... https://movetoamend.org/ Y'all please take a look and support them however you can.

They're not going to be getting much MSM attention... https://movetoamend.org/corpor... , that's the "tell" these days on who's who in this war.....
You don't think it's a "war"...? Try standing up against harmful corporate/big-money interests sometime and let me know how considerate and kind they are to you....
It's straight-up Mafia rules anymore.... you're either "made" and play on their side, an enemy to be squashed, or a victim to be used.

Re: Why?

[WindBourne]

Which is why they will have 7000+ SATs at 500 miles. Ping time will blow doors off fiber.

Re: Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean intramarriage.

Re:Why?

[rastos1]

(Apart from Constitution being ignored on regular basis nowadays) do you see there anything in the rant that calls for Constitution violation? Or is it Constitution that gives right to corporations to buy politicians left, right and middle?

Re: Why?

[Grishnakh]

And how exactly do you propose to lock a dish onto a single satellite when they're moving around like that? Or is the idea to have enough of them out there that you don't need to lock onto a single bird, just have one in range?

Either way, it sounds expensive. Launching 7000 satellites isn't cheap, plus you have to have them reboosted constantly (500 mi is not a very high orbit, though it's better than the ISS) somehow. Unless they think they're going to get a ton of subscribers (and their system will actually be able to handle them all), it's not going to be economically feasible. Remember, they tried almost exactly this not that long ago with the Iridium satellite-phone system. It was a complete failure, and while it's still in use, the company that built and launched the satellites went out of business and it all had to be sold to another company for pennies on the dollar; they kept it going because their start-up costs were so low and they didn't have much of an investment to recoup. That doesn't sound like a good business plan to me. The only commercial satellite services that have been successful have been ones using GEO satellites, like DirecTV, since you can just launch one or two satellites and get coverage of the whole USA and not have to worry about boosting or replacing it frequently. GPS has been successful, but it wasn't commercial at all (the government does it for military purposes; we're just all benefiting from it), and even it only has a few dozen satellites.

Re: Why?

[WindBourne]

I do not propose anything. Musk and SpaceX are the ones proposing and building.

Re:Why?

[Whorhay]

Meh, ever since the civil war it could easily be argued that the Fed can do whatever they like. In legal theory the union is made up of individual states that grant is specific rights. This should mean that member states are empowered to leave the union if they so desire. We all know how that turned out.

You could also argue that in the same way that states join together to make the union and grant the Fed powers, small localities join together to make a state and grant such state government powers. It would stand to reason that the individual localities should be able to tell the state to shove off.

Obsessed with keeping government out of business

[Anonymous Coward]

The single-minded obsession certain groups have with preventing the government from providing a service that private industry already provides is bordering on hysterical.

Maybe they should take a page from UPS/Fedex and work with municipal broadband (USPS) instead of fighting it.

I wonder why...

[MetricT]

You have to admire the hypocracy of state legislators who argue for "state's rights", who don't care about "city and county rights" to roll out broadband to attract jobs and new people to their area. It's almost like they were hypocrites, ignorant of freshman economics, sold to the highest bidder or something... /Lives in Tennessee, has the same bunch of ignorant cretins passing laws that an 18 year old freshman could easily shoot down as dumb.

Re:I wonder why...

[squiggleslash]

You write as if there's some great principle involved that anyone's claiming to upkeep (and being taken seriously when they do) that involves the best place to exert power.

Truth is that all these positions are based upon where someone believes they can politically win power. If the country as a whole, and hence the Feds lean X, then expect supporters of the opposing position Y to support slightly more local locations of power.

Pro-Slavers were very, very, happy to be opposed to "States rights" back when they were proposing (and passing) Fugitive Slaves laws that imposed huge immoral burdens on the Free States. As soon as it looked like the anti-slaves might win power at a Federal level, suddenly they back-pedalled.

Re:I wonder why...

[Shakrai]

You have to admire the hypocracy of state legislators who argue for "state's rights", who don't care about "city and county rights" to roll out broadband to attract jobs and new people to their area.

Show me the part of the US Constitution that says the Feds can tell a State it can't regulate its political subdivisions. My State limits the annual property tax hike that can be imposed by Towns, Counties, and Cities. Can the Feds override that too? Can they compel a State to allow its political subdivisions to set up municipal garbage service where such service is privatized? Water service?

The FCC's ruling here was a bridge too far. It's entirely proper for States to define the boundaries of acceptable behaviors for their political subdivisions. And what's the big fucking deal anyway? These States are simply saying that their political subdivisions can't get into the internet business. They're not stopping you from setting up a co-op; if the State tries that you should be able to make a Federal case out of it, because (amongst other things) they're interfering with interstate commerce and your right of free association.

Re:I wonder why...

[thaylin]

Look at it this way, can, or should, the state be able to override a county's ability to limit a cities property tax? If so then why should it be limited to the state, and why should the fed not do the same?

Re:I wonder why...

[butchersong]

There is no hypocrisy here. As much as I am on the side of municipal broadband the FCC is overstepping itself here. I think even those in the NC legislature that would be in favor of municipal broadband would be against the federal government telling the state how to regulate its cities and counties.

Re:I wonder why...

[suutar]

Oh, there's a little bit. If the bigger (fed) can't regulate the smaller (state) in an industry that is pretty much inherently interstate in nature, then why can the bigger (state) regulate the smaller (city)?

Re:I wonder why...

[i.r.id10t]

Because the Constitution says nothing cities, counties, or planned communities?

Re:I wonder why...

[Rich0]

Look at it this way, can, or should, the state be able to override a county's ability to limit a cities property tax? If so then why should it be limited to the state, and why should the fed not do the same?

Well, the legal reason is that the US government is Federal, and the state governments typically are unitary.

That is, under the US constitution, the states have a limited degree of sovereignty. However, under state constitutions the local governments typically do not have any sovereignty.

That is why states can and do charter and abolish local governments as the need arises. If your school district has an abysmal educational record, your governor can appoint somebody to come in and basically run the district. They'll listen to the locally-elected school board, but ultimately they are a dictator accountable only to the state. Your only recourse is to go to the state government for relief if you don't like it. In contrast, the President of the US cannot do the same thing with a local school district. At most he can withold Federal funding, though in reality this is a pretty big stick.

That's the reason for the situation as it stands, and it has its roots in the history at the founding of the US. Before the US Constitution there were the Articles of Confederation, and under that charter the US government was even weaker - it had no real sovereignty of its own and was a bit like the UN.

This is in contrast with how most nations function. Most governments are unitary in design. The PM of the UK can in theory fire a random teacher in a random elementary school, since ultimately the whole chain of command reports up to them. In practice they usually have local councils/etc, but typically there is no true sovereignty other than in the sense that the national government imposes rules upon itself.

Re:I wonder why...

[Shakrai]

Look at it this way, can, or should, the state be able to override a county's ability to limit a cities property tax?

In the United States? Absolutely. That's how our system is structured. The States retain all powers not specifically surrendered to the Federal Government, per the US Constitution. They are sovereign entities in their own right, not dependent on Washington for their power. Their political subdivisions are completely arbitrary creations, that can be created or destroyed at the whim of the State Legislature.

If push comes to shove, what happens if NC or TN simply dissolve the political subdivisions that are attempting to do this? Will the FCC also try and prevent that? Where would that authority come from?

Re:I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because out governmental system (as far as the feds are concerned) is divided amongst the Federal Government, the States and the People. The Cities and Counties don't exist as entities in that. The cities and counties derive their authority from the States and the People, and the Feds (should) have no say in that, any more than the state should have a say in how you divide up the chores and income in your household.

Re:I wonder why...

[TheCastro1689]

Actually they are preventing you from setting up a co-op. A lot of these cases have to do with the fact that Comcast et al set up contracts with no competition from anything, not just the city.

Re:I wonder why...

[thaylin]

Except the NC constitution makes it not unitary, but at least semi-federalist

Re:I wonder why...

[Bengie]

The FCC is tasked with governing and regulating how citizens communicate, including the Internet. They are not clearly overstepping their bounds, they're just in a grey area as to where the line should be drawn. Part of their job is to make sure citizen have "good" access to the Internet. It can get pretty bad before the FCC can step in and make changes, but many think we are already there and the FCC is dutied with fixing the situation before it gets worse.

Re:I wonder why...

[oh_my_080980980]

Look up the FCC sometime jackass.

Re:I wonder why...

[oh_my_080980980]

They're called cities jackass. Nice word play, political sub-divisions. Cities existed before states were created and yes States are not sovereign entities that can work outside the Federal government. We fought a fucking war to prove that point!

Re:I wonder why...

[oh_my_080980980]

But it does about interstate commerce. Not too mention the FCC can regulate the internet. Move on Potsy.

Re:I wonder why...

[thaylin]

However you are still failing to look at the picture. The NC constitution is similar to to the US constitution int hat it gives power of taxation to the, or more important, the regulation of trade, to the local governments, so the situation is the same for how the US treats NC as how NC treats locals in this case.:

Re:I wonder why...

[oh_my_080980980]

No, cities and counties derive their authority from the people. Not too mention, the people fucking want this. So fuck off. The state is not responding to the will of the people but rather corporate interests.

Re:I wonder why...

[dissy]

Because the Constitution says nothing cities, counties, or planned communities?

So I'm still confused here, does fed overrule state or state overrule fed? Or is it just "both, as needed" per usual?

If California can legalize pot yet the law still supports the feds arresting anyone possessing it, seems to me that means the FCC can force states to allow ISPs to operate irregardless of the states wishes.

If the state does have power to tell the FCC to go away, why can't California do the same exact thing under the same exact laws to the DEA?

Re:I wonder why...

[Shakrai]

Cities existed before states were created

In which case they deprived their authority from colonial charters. That authority was inherited by the States. There is no city within the United States that stands alone with supreme sovereignty. Any city within the United States could be dissolved tomorrow if the State Legislature decided to do it and their Governor was willing to sign off on it.

We fought a fucking war to prove that point!

Red herring. I didn't claim the States could or should leave the Union. I simply claimed that the Federal Government can't decide for them how much power they wish to delegate to their political subdivisions. You should familiarize yourself with the 10th Amendment and concept of enumerated powers.

Re:I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me the part of the US Constitution that says the Feds can tell a State it can't regulate its political subdivisions.

Your phrasing is a bit too broad, the authority from the Constitution is where the Fed has the authority to tell a state that its regulations of those political subdivisions are interfering with Federal issues.

For example, it is quite clear that the Federal government could tell a state that its laws regarding voting and elections were wrong and violated the respective Amendments., regardless of how they regulated any political subdivisions. That's clearly within the domain of Congress to legislate on, thanks to numerous Amendments giving it the authority to do so.

Same with religious, or free speech, or the court system.

Or in this case, interstate commerce.

My State limits the annual property tax hike that can be imposed by Towns, Counties, and Cities. Can the Feds override that too?

Yes. If, for example, a given political subdivision needed X dollars to perform some function, the feds could say "Raise the money for it" and if there only avenue was to do so by raising the property tax, that could be ordered.

Can they compel a State to allow its political subdivisions to set up municipal garbage service where such service is privatized? Water service?

The federal government certainly has the authority to regulate garbage and water service, where it impinges on the environment. My city is currently under a consent decree for its sewer service. Though in this case, it's pretty easy since the river flows into three other states, more if you count the eventual outflow.

The FCC's ruling here was a bridge too far. It's entirely proper for States to define the boundaries of acceptable behaviors for their political subdivisions.

But not all boundaries that are set up, are necessarily acceptable. Do you see the difference?

And what's the big fucking deal anyway? These States are simply saying that their political subdivisions can't get into the internet business. They're not stopping you from setting up a co-op; if the State tries that you should be able to make a Federal case out of it, because (amongst other things) they're interfering with interstate commerce and your right of free association.

But they are. If some group did try that, I can guarantee that Comcast, Time-Warner, Verizon, would knock on the state capitol's doors to get the law they wanted. In fact, they did. That's why there are laws regulating municipalities from doing so, from even authorizing somebody to do it.

And you're right, this is about interstate commerce and free association. You can question the federal government's methods, you can question the state's methods, but the Internet is clearly a means for the exercising of certain well-established rights. Thanks to the 14th Amendment, Congress can legislate on it, and thanks to that power, the FCC, a delegate of Congress, can exercise its authority.

Re:I wonder why...

[Shakrai]

I am not familiar with the NC Constitution but if the State Legislature is violating it your recourse is with the State Judiciary, not the FCC. The FCC has not claimed NC's Constitution has justification for this power grab. Even a Federal bureaucrat couldn't do that and keep a straight face.

Re:I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US both the Federal Government and States have partial sovereignty.
The States were originally sovereign nations who relinquish part of their sovereignty to form a Federal Republic.

This all means there are some things the Fed can force on a State and other things it can not. This agreement is outlined in the US Constitution and supporting documents.

Counties and Cities on the other hand are simply administrative districts of the States. To be quite frank, legally the counties and cities have no rights that were not fully granted and revocable by the state.

   

Re:I wonder why...

[Moridineas]

Disclaimer, I live in NC and generally support municipal broadband projects when communities are underserved. I'm a big fan of the Wilson fiber service.

First, there is no concept of a citizen of a city or municipality. People are citizens of a state. Cities, counties, municipalities are all creatures of a state, and thus are under the control of state government, not local or federal government. There's no hypocrisy because the general argument in favor of states rights is not about ultimately devolving power to the smallest possible unit of control, but about maintaining state legal authority from being assumed by the federal government.

The main argument against municipal broadband projects is that they frequently fail and leave the municipality saddled with debt. This becomes the responsibility of the state government. Thus, state governments have the power to regulate what projects municipalities embark on, because the state government is the ultimate guarantor.

The secondary argument against municipal broadband is that municipal projects are typically able to entirely bypass permitting and other planning approval stages (costly stages and costly permits; let's not forget the requisite greasing of the political wheels). They are frequently given rights of way and access that private companies do not have authorization to use. There is a good chance that a municipal broadband network would discourage other companies from making a significant investment facing this kind of unbalanced competition. If the project then goes on to be a significant money loser, the municipality is even worse off than when it began.

Examples of municipal projects that have failed or otherwise had explosive debt:

Provo, UT (saved by Google)
Lafayette, LA http://www.rstreet.org/2014/05/30/muni-broadband-the-gift-that-keeps-on-taking/
Davidson, NC and Mooresville, NC http://www.lakenormancitizen.com/news/news/item/6426-reinventing-mi-connection-an-inside-look.html
Utah UTOPIA alliance http://www.wsj.com/articles/municipal-broadband-is-no-utopia-1403220660

Re:I wonder why...

[Shakrai]

Then sue on that basis. Or petition the FCC to override those franchise agreements. I'll support your efforts wholeheartedly. What I can't support is:

City: We want to get into the broadband (or garbage, water, food, or really anything) business.
State: You can't do that.
Uncle Sam: Yes they can.

Re:I wonder why...

[thaylin]

Washington DC would like to have a word with you.

Red herring. I didn't claim the States could or should leave the Union. I simply claimed that the Federal Government can't decide for them how much power they wish to delegate to their political subdivisions. You should familiarize yourself with the 10th Amendment and concept of enumerated powers

Strawman: He was not talking about succession, he was talking about states rights.

Re:I wonder why...

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Hypocricy? No.
For all those who are going to argue this point: keep in mind, States cannot declare bankrupcy, but counties, cities and other subdivisions can.

Should states be able to tell municipalities, that they can't run a broadband service? Should states be allowed to tell cities they can't run acity sponsered colleges? What about allowing states to force farmers to charge more for food leaving the state?

I don't know where the line is I don't care. What I would wish to see is simply nationwide local loop unbundling. That is entirely legal for the FCC to impose.

Re:I wonder why...

[radarskiy]

The states are not sovereign under the US Constitution, the PEOPLE are sovereign. The states do not have the right to oppress the people, but is almost the only reason "State's rights" are invoked. Pot legalization is pretty much the only case I can think of where State's rights have been invoked in favor of the liberty of the People rather than against it.

Re:I wonder why...

[Holi]

Fed overrides state

Re:I wonder why...

[radarskiy]

The 14th Amendment gives the Federal government the right to defend the People against the States. Nowhere are the States given the right to oppress the People, despite the fact that is almost the only circumstance where the phrase "States' Rights" are invoked.

Re: I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to hear the linguistic gymnastics required to define Internet access as something that doesn't fall under the interstate commerce clause. And it's fairly presumptuous to assume the rest of those don't fall under some amount of federal rules that could override states' rules.

Re:I wonder why...

[Shakrai]

Washington is a special case, defined by the US Constitution, but of course you already knew that.

Re:I wonder why...

[Shakrai]

It's not oppressing you to say that your city government can't do certain things. My State denies towns under a certain population the ability to have their own police force. Is that oppressive?

If they're banning co-ops you've got a point about oppression but there is no oppression in the State regulating the size and scope of the cities, towns, and counties contained therein.

Re:I wonder why...

[Rich0]

Except the NC constitution makes it not unitary, but at least semi-federalist

Well, to the degree that this is the case within a particular state, they certainly are sounding like hypocrites!

Re:I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. An ironically, as a NC resident, I watch our counties and cities give away millions in tax incentives and other giveaways to attract businesses. But something that might also benefit me as a taxpayer? No way man!

Re:I wonder why...

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Though this may be a bit Godwin's laws ish....

Remember that State's Rights were used as a justification for secession.

But, in the Confederate Constitution, it pretty much was a copy of the US Constitution.... three exceptions. 1) anything based on age was of course reclocked to start of Confederacy. 2) anything based on number of states was reset to number of Confederate states 3) you HAD to allow slavery. No choice.

So, the US Constitution allowed various slavery modes (not that this was good, but we're arguing something else), but the Confederacy didn't allow the state that right. "State's Rights" south had less rights for the state. States Rights is basically an excuse for "do what I want at any given time" rather than follow any actual ruleset. In this context the inconsistency above hypocrisy fits.

Re:I wonder why...

[Cramer]

And yet, the two existing fiber deployments in NC (Wilson and Salisbury) prove the exact opposite. And in fact, most "big business" have their ways around zoning, permitting, taxation, etc.

Those that fail do so for two reasons: 1) the incumbents drag them through enough legal bullshit they're out of money before they can buy any fiber, much less string any. 2) the all too common mismanagement found within any government project burns through mountains of cash, and then their business model is to burn even more. LUS and MI-Connection are good examples of #2 -- I don't know how much was spent building LUS or buying up the bankrupt Adelphia plant, but their plans for revenue were unrealistic. What I recall of UTOPIA puts them in both camps.

Re:I wonder why...

[sjames]

LUS Fiber (Lafayette), S&P upgraded their bonds from A to A+ based on strong performance this year. They went cash positive in 2012.

Your second link indicates that MI-Connection is likewise cash positive and beginning to pay down debt.

3rd link is paywalled, had to get it via Google search. That one has real problems, but it appears to be a matter of political sabotage rather than being an intrinsically bad idea.

So what your links really say is that (SURPRISE), big projects sometimes take longer to pay off than expected and may not pay off if they are sabotaged by people who would rather see their city take a financial bath than have their sacred cow slaughtered.

Re:I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

The state ultimately derives its authority from the people yes, but you might want to examine the constitution of your state and note that the power for the municipalities explicitly flows from the state.

Re:I wonder why...

[Mal-2]

Not only that, but the Internet doesn't even respect international boundaries, let alone state boundaries. The FCC is absolutely within its rights to play the "interstate commerce" card here. You can argue the merits of the FCC position, but it's disingenuous to argue that this isn't under Federal jurisdiction.

Re:I wonder why...

[shutdown -p now]

Pro-Slavers were very, very, happy to be opposed to "States rights" back when they were proposing (and passing) Fugitive Slaves laws that imposed huge immoral burdens on the Free States. As soon as it looked like the anti-slaves might win power at a Federal level, suddenly they back-pedalled.

The most amusing part is that when those same guys got their own country to run for a short while, the first thing they did was write a bunch of protectionist language regarding slavery into their federal constitution. States rights my ass.

Re: I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if the constitution grants said power to the federal government. Gray areas and undeclared power goes to the state.

Re:I wonder why...

[hey!]

Show me the part of the US Constitution that says the Feds can tell a State it can't regulate its political subdivisions.

Easy-peasy. I don't even have to google it. The Interstate Commerce Clause. All you have to do is find some pretext that says the regulation affects interstate commerce in some way and the feds can quash it.

In this case the issue to use is plain as a pikestaff. By preventing municipalities from providing high quality internet service the state is hinder access by out-of-state vendors to consumers in that community. That justification is WAAY stronger than other that have held up to scrutiny.

Re:I wonder why...

[spauldo]

I don't have any sympathy for the Confederacy. My state wasn't around then, and Indian Territory (which fought for the south) wasn't actually the precursor to Oklahoma (it just took up the same land). That said, there is a very sound basis for the requirement for slavery.

Slavery being a state-by-state option doesn't work. A person has rights, even non-citizens, that slaves do not. The US Constitution (and both federal and state laws) had to bend over backwards to make a viable legal framework for this.

That's because the status of a person isn't a state issue. It's a federal one. The federal government determines if you're a citizen, a resident legal or illegal alien, or a nonresident foreign national. Crossing state lines does not change your status.

By requiring slavery, the status of "slave" became equal in all states.

There's also the notion that since slaves were property, a slaveowner would be able to take his property with him anywhere in the country.

The general framework of the constitution would have worked well for the Confederacy, although I'd be surprised if (had they won) they wouldn't have made amendments shortly after the war. They were a bit pressed for time when they adopted it. State rights would probably have been a key issue.

Also, from a practical standpoint, given how much trouble slavery had caused for the US government, the CS probably wanted to avoid unnecessary infighting. And there's the point that no state was actually required to sign on with the Confederacy - if Georgia, for instance, wanted to be its own country, it was certainly free to do so.

Re:I wonder why...

[Darinbob]

Part of the big deal is the hypocrisy to me. Ie, these are states which are big on "state's right" which they claim to mean local control is better than federal control, and yet they turn around and say that that the big and remote government is preferrable to municipal governments... The other half of the hypocrisy is that these cable companies were all fine and happy with local government controls when their initial monopolies were being set, but are now crying foul when those same local governments try to stop the monopolies.

The citizens of those municipalities want decent broadband, and no commercial private entity is providing that service at a fair and reasonable price (sometimes not even at unreasonable prices). It is perfectly acceptable behavior to try and get services for your voters where none exist or where the alternatives are not palatable to voters.

This happens all the time with utilities. Lots of municipalities set up local gas, power, and water boards and save a lot of money doing so. The reasoning is that since this is a utility and every house must have such utilities that it is reasonable for the locally controlled governments to provide this. Internet service is not required for every house, but it is still rapidly becoming a basic utility service.

Re:I wonder why...

[Darinbob]

If they limit their cable and internet to only sites within the state, then the feds can't get involved. However this is an interstate commerce thing, in fact it's a global commerce thing.

Re:I wonder why...

[xaj]

Demand is high in Longmont, CO. I know there are other projects in the same boat. http://longmontcolorado.gov/Ho... Early adoption always has snags, but it's finally at a point where it won't sink a community to invest in municipal broadband.

Re:I wonder why...

[Moridineas]

LUS Fiber (Lafayette), S&P upgraded their bonds from A to A+ based on strong performance this year. They went cash positive in 2012.

Bond ratings don't necessarily tell you anything about the performance of an entity. They tell you about the ability of the parent entity (corporation, municipality, whatever) to make interest payments.

Here's a different take, opinion site (I tried to stink to links from news sites, rather than opinion sites in my original post.):

http://freestatefoundation.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-gift-that-keeps-on-taking-municipal.html

Your second link indicates that MI-Connection is likewise cash positive and beginning to pay down debt.

Not quiet. From the link I cited (which I viewed, overall, as positive): "The towns borrowed $92.5 million to create the company and, while MI-Connection is now in the black operationally, it doesn’t yet generate enough revenue to also cover the towns’ payment on the debt." The chairman of the company estimated that within 3–5 years, MI-Connection would be able to stop receiving further subsidies.

That's a lot of debt. We're not talking millions of potential customers in this area either, the cities are relatively small.

But here's the biggest problem for Davidson and Mooresville. AT&T fiber is coming to the Triad and Google is coming to Charlotte. AT&T and Google cost the cities nothing (or very little), and in fact they probably make money from permitting and taxes. What will happen to these municipal networks when there's competition? Will municipal fiber be competitive with Google or AT&T?

After having read about a lot of these municipal setups, 100 million debt is not uncommon. This is expected to be paid back over decades. I guess we'll see how often they become--or remain--truly profitable over that time period.

So what your links really say is that (SURPRISE), big projects sometimes take longer to pay off than expected and may not pay off if they are sabotaged by people who would rather see their city take a financial bath than have their sacred cow slaughtered.

That's exactly the point. Governments (and corporations, to be fair! any suitably behemoth organization) are terrible at planning for this kind of project and event. It's really hard to predict the future (no shit, huh). A small municipality like Davidson, NC (population 10,000) being saddled with even a portion of 100 million debt, is a big deal. It doesn't take more than a few bad assumptions to seriously and very negatively affect the entire population of the area. Maybe they will be lucky and succeed, maybe not. It's a risk, and in my view, frequently one that is not worth taking when corporate fiber is in the process of exploding across the country.

Re:I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to admire the hypocracy of state legislators who argue for "state's rights", who don't care about "city and county rights" to roll out broadband to attract jobs and new people to their area. It's almost like they were hypocrites, ignorant of freshman economics, sold to the highest bidder or something... /Lives in Tennessee, has the same bunch of ignorant cretins passing laws that an 18 year old freshman could easily shoot down as dumb.

What part of the Constitution covers/addresses city and county rights specifically? ....

Re:I wonder why...

[sjames]

From the link you posted:

Venzon says MI-Connection is not far from the point where it can cover all of its debt and begin paying back the towns. It’s at that point, he adds, that Davidson and Mooresville will have to decide what to do with an asset, rather than how to deal with a liability.

Sorry, but that doesn't sound like a disaster at all to me. It sounds a lot like the way business actually works. It also sounds like a valuable asset in the making. If you add in the positive effects of having the best internet connectivity in the country in terms of ability to attract businesses, it's not a bad deal at all.

Note that Davidson went in on this with Mooresville, population 32,000 so claiming the debt is held by just 10,000 people is way off the mark. It's not chump change, but it's not exactly a horror. There are many government and private ventures in a lot more debt with a lot less to show for it and unlike the broadband play, little hope to break even one day.

Given the speed of their network, they will beat the pants off of AT&T and will likely be on-par with Google. Now let's talk customer service. We have AT&(your call is important to us, please hold forever)T and Google(Talk to the hand).

It's also worth considering, if not for the threat of efforts like these, do you really think any of the telcos would actually be trying to up their game?

Re:I wonder why...

[Moridineas]

Sorry, but that doesn't sound like a disaster at all to me. It sounds a lot like the way business actually works. It also sounds like a valuable asset in the making. If you add in the positive effects of having the best internet connectivity in the country in terms of ability to attract businesses, it's not a bad deal at all.

Maybe. The next 20-30 years, over which the debt is scheduled to be repaid (with interest of course), will be the proof in the pudding. You are far more confident than I am.

Best internet in the country? Better than some of the surrounding areas--for now--for sure. Beyond that...? AT&T "Gigapower" is supposed to be the same speed as Google. Having neither, I can't say for sure.

Note that Davidson went in on this with Mooresville, population 32,000 so claiming the debt is held by just 10,000 people is way off the mark. It's not chump change, but it's not exactly a horror. There are many government and private ventures in a lot more debt with a lot less to show for it and unlike the broadband play, little hope to break even one day.

I didn't claim that Davidson was stuck with the entire debt. I said "A small municipality like Davidson, NC (population 10,000) being saddled with even a portion of 100 million debt, is a big deal." I don't know how those portions were...apportioned...but the point remains. 100 million for small tax bases is a big deal.

Cities have certain mandates that nobody else can fulfill. Roads. Public schools. Other transportation and municipal service mandates.

Given the speed of their network, they will beat the pants off of AT&T and will likely be on-par with Google. Now let's talk customer service. We have AT&(your call is important to us, please hold forever)T and Google(Talk to the hand).

That's certainly a valid question. Who would you rather go to for customer support--Amazon or the DMV? The permitting office (you ever been there? it made me want to stab my eyes out) or Apple? From the article about the Davidson fiber it seems they swung the pendulum from awful customer support to good. I don't think there are any guarantees here.

It's also worth considering, if not for the threat of efforts like these, do you really think any of the telcos would actually be trying to up their game?

Yes.

Re:I wonder why...

[sjames]

As far as the public service goes, it's not fair to compare w/ Amazon, compare with the actual players. AT&T is known for long hold times and lackluster service. Google is known for avoiding human contact at all costs. The last time I went to DMV, I had my renewed license (not a temporary, actual laminated license) in hand within 5 minutes, so YMMV.

Re:I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lafayette is a resounding success. The only problem is that the local utility (LUS) has become what they beheld. LUS is not using the infrastructure as a utility but limiting access to infrastructure like a monopoly...

Re:I wonder why...

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Interesting.

I agree with everything you say, as far as justification for why it was a (Confederate) Federal Statute but nobody argued "states rights unless it crumbles under the weight of traveling state to state, then States Rights is really a synonym for Federal in some cases". We already had the "we respect property rights if you cross state borders", witness the Dredd Scott decision.

States Rights is still just as hollow of a phrase, used to justify whatever we feel like doing today.

Re:I wonder why...

[Moridineas]

I've actually had good experiences with Google Apps (paid) technical support. I've only interacted with them perhaps two times over three years, but they were fast and good both times. Our local DMV is actually not terrible either (ever since they implemented appointments). God help you if you need to call them on the phone, though.

True story about my last visit from the permitting office (we were doing a series of renovations on our office building, so I visited quite a few times). I dropped by the the permits office to just sign my name to a sheet of paper. I arrived around 12:50am on a Wednesday.

The front desk person was sitting there reading a newspaper. I walk up through the cordoned off waiting area (I was the only person in line), and say "Hello, ...". The reception lady points to a sign that says "Out to lunch" and doesn't even look up from her paper. Ok, fine, I go and sit down for 10 minutes, expecting lunch to end at 1pm. At 1pm the lady removed the "Out to lunch" sign and walked away from the desk. She's mysteriously gone for another 10 minutes. Ok...

So, I'm still standing waiting in line and still the only person there when she comes back. She looks around the room and says "Next." I walk up, say hello, and tell her about what I'm picking up. She reaches down into her files and has my form right there. She explains that I need to sign the form. I pick up one of the bank-style chained down pens and start to sign my name on the only signature line on the form. She immediately says "SIR. The front desk is for interacting with customers only. We need to keep the area clear for other customers. Please go and sign this form and return to the permits office when you are done." Again, I am the ONLY other person in the room. I had to leave the office, go bum a pen off someone, and come back.

I literally could have been in and out in about 30 seconds if that person cared one iota about her job or other people. That was an annoying experience, but not really that out of line with my other local government interactions. To be fair, I did meet a few very helpful inspectors, but sheesh... I met my fair share of similar personality types when I worked for the federal government in DC. Governments, more so than corporations, seem to offer people like that tenured positions.

Re:I wonder why...

[sjames]

It seems to be an issue that happens both in government and telecommunicatyions. For example, Comcast has 'won' awards for worst service ever year after year. There's even the briefly famous youtube of a Comcast installer sleeping on a customer's couch.

Most of the municipal broadband providers get decent customer service ratings, perhaps because they are semi-independent or perhaps because the sorts of governments that implement community broadband are the sort that remember they are public servants.

Another good reason to not live in North Carolina.

[Anonymous Coward]

What more needs to be said?

Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> laws frequently leave citizens facing a monopoly or duopoly with no recourse, so the FCC abolished them

Um...how many cable network providers do YOU have where you live? Does ANYONE have three (3) or more?

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[topher_k]

Um...how many cable network providers do YOU have where you live? Does ANYONE have three (3) or more?

Chattanooga, Tennessee. EPB, Comcast, AT&T. But yeah, almost no one has a choice. I'm lucky.

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[gameboyhippo]

Kansas Citian here. Where I live, I can select from AT&T, Time Warner, Comcast, and Google. And of course there's a bunch of smaller ISPs that resell bandwidth from the big four.

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

Colorado citizen (sp?) here. Where I live I can select from Century Link. Doesn't matter who else is in the state, or where they claim to provide service, they are the only one to run a line to my neighborhood.

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

I have 0. My 2005 built condo has access to a 4 meg connection. We connect to a street with Intel, AMD, and a string of other research labs. There are two companies that provide cable in my city, but they have do-not-overlap agreements, and the one that has the rights to my neighborhood does not think its worth running a wire into it. Of course, when I contact the city they tell me I have 12 options for internet (seven are wireless "broadband" providers or resellers).

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[TheCastro1689]

Adelphia for life!!

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[unixisc]

>> laws frequently leave citizens facing a monopoly or duopoly with no recourse, so the FCC abolished them

Um...how many cable network providers do YOU have where you live? Does ANYONE have three (3) or more?

In Atlanta, I have Charter, and aside from that, a choice of AT&T UVerse and Comcast

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[the_saint1138]

I've had between 0 and 1 choices at the last 4 places I've lived...

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[sims 2]

where i live? none. at work? i have two cable companies to chose from suddenlink or diamondnet

or if you were talking about wired broadband providers i have 0 at home and 3 at work i can choose from

att max 12/1 $40/mo ipdsl
suddenlink max 8/1 $135/mo cable
diamondnet max 50/50 $157/mo city fiber

the city has chosen not to extend their network past city limits

suddenlink is too busy letting their network rot to spend $5 in upgrades

and att has no plans for any upgrades to this area for at least the next 2 years aside from the switch from standard dsl to ipdsl

the local electric co-op that sells power to my house has fiber run to a substation down the street from me but the board has made the decision to keep their service streamlined by only selling electricity....i have to start going to those meetings

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[Darinbob]

San Jose, AT&T versus Comcast only. Not counting lower speed DSL service. The AT&T is a lot slower than Comcast, but the advantage is that it is not Comcast. but it's fast enough that speed doesn't matter much. AT&T wasn't here with fast internet-only u-verse until relatively recently.

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[SydShamino]

In central Austin, I have AT&T U-Verse, Time Warner, and Grande. Eventually Google will get to my neighborhood but they're taking their sweet time about it.

I assume by "cable network provider" you mean anyone who can provide wired broadband and television. There's no reason to distinguish whether they were originally a television or telephone provider as that is now irrelevant except perhaps in the style of their bundling. You probably wanted to exclude the satellite television providers Dish Network and Direct TV and high-latency broadband provider DishNet, all of which I and most others in the U.S. also can access, as the latency unambiguously relegates the internet service to second-class.

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[Anonymous Coward]

You should probably point out that EPB is a municipally owned ISP, the first with 1G access to their entire footprint 600+sq miles (before Google), and the revenue from the ISP side offsets rising power costs annually for it's citizens.

Re:Most places still face monopolies or duopolies

[Whorhay]

I'm in a small city, 350K or so, and in theory there are 4 providers. However when you actually call and start discussing exactly what you want and when they can install, you find that only two serve your street. I'm pretty sure the only reason I can pick from 2 is that one is the phone company and the other is an actual cable company.

Not to mention...

[Vorl]

it hurts the kickbacks that Roy Cooper gets!

Not the whole truth

[grimmjeeper]

State Attorney General Roy Cooper claims, "the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State's political subdivisions."

Not to mention that municipal broadband providers won't kick back as much in campaign finance support as the major cable companies. The FCC is really going to cut into that revenue stream pretty heavily with these rules.

Re:Not the whole truth

[Darinbob]

I may be mistaken, but I don't think municipal governments are even allowed to make political contributions... That puts a serious damper on performing a standard business transaction.

Re: Obsessed with keeping government out of busine

[Anonymous Coward]

Work? With? How about NO.

I don't, I don't want to block you!

[Anonymous Coward]

What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, NO! No. You... you... complete me.

States Rights

[Cowclops]

While it seems like the federal government is out of line taking the right to govern away from the states, in reality it is the states that are taking away the right to govern from local governments that ACTUALLY WANT municipal broadband.

Ensuring that municipalities maintain their rights to roll out local broadband isn't a perversion of states rights, its preventing states rights from perverting local rights.

Re:States Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

States (and any other political/social construct) have powers, not rights.

Powers are granted and can be revoked, rights are inherit and irrevocable, they can only be recognized or abridged either through tyranny or due process.

Re:States Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

The point that missing though (and I say this as someone who wishes these types of agreements would go away), is that the municipalities derive their authority from the states (at least in as much as the US Constitution is concerned). Cooper is right that the federal government has no authority to regulate what rights and powers the state does or does not grant its municipalities. Doesn't mean there wouldn't be some state constitutional issues to resolve, but as far as the feds are concerned, it does seem pretty clear cut.

Re:States Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a fair amount (to put it mildly) of legal precedence that supports the idea that state powers trump just about all other powers except those explicitly outlined in the state and federal constitutions.
 
Just another reason why people need to start paying attention to their state government and at least make an effort to vote in each election instead of just the presidential.

Re:States Rights

[Jason Levine]

I'm fine with the state setting minimum requirements. (Your sewer system shouldn't back up into the public's basements. -- Yes, we've had this happen.)

However, the case of municipal broadband is the state setting a maximum requirement. "You can't provide this level of service - only less than this level." You can argue whether or not municipal broadband is a good idea and the answer will vary on a case by case basis, but a blanket ban on local governments providing this service is just wrong.

Re:States Rights

[antiperimetaparalogo]

While it seems like the federal government is out of line taking the right to govern away from the states, in reality it is the states that are taking away the right to govern from local governments that ACTUALLY WANT municipal broadband.

Ensuring that municipalities maintain their rights to roll out local broadband isn't a perversion of states rights, its preventing states rights from perverting local rights.

Trying to follow your logic, i end up where you started: federal government [is out of line] taking the right to govern away from the states - i don't know the constitution of USA, but i think that (usually) a federation has less power over its states than a state has on its municipalities.

Re:States Rights

[Trailer Trash]

While it seems like the federal government is out of line taking the right to govern away from the states, in reality it is the states that are taking away the right to govern from local governments that ACTUALLY WANT municipal broadband.

Ensuring that municipalities maintain their rights to roll out local broadband isn't a perversion of states rights, its preventing states rights from perverting local rights.

There is no such thing as "local rights". The federal government has 8 areas where it can legally legislate based on Article I Section 8 of the Constitution. Everything else is within the purview of state governments. This is where the concept of "states rights" comes from.

Your confusion stems from seeing the relationship between the federal government and the various states as being similar to the relationship between a state and its local municipalities. These relationships are - in a legal sense - totally different. A state can dictate anything to local municipalities. In TN, for example, the state just proclaimed that the cities can no longer ban guns in city parks. They can do that.

The federal government, on the other hand, has no such authority. Typically, they then wield power through funding. As one example all states have a minimum age for alcohol consumption set at 21 because the federal government will withhold highway funds otherwise.

Re:States Rights

[oh_my_080980980]

Hardly, the Federal government can override states. In this case states is overriding the will of the people. See the problem.

Re:States Rights

[radarskiy]

State powers to not trump the right's of the People. The 14th Amendment gives the Federal government the power to defend the rights of the People against the States.

Re:States Rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you too can name the Constitutional process that specifically covers/addresses municipal/county "rights"? ...

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[alvinrod]

I really don't understand it either. If the government entity receives no unfair treatment and has to play by the same rules as every other company, there's no reason why a local municipality shouldn't be able to collectively decide that they want to take a crack at creating something better.

It seems that some people are more anti-government than they are pro-market or have become so accustomed to making the same argument that they're not even bothering to look at the issue at hand.

At least it makes sense for the politicians to oppose it. They probably get all kinds of brib^H^H^H^Hcontributions from the companies that are paying for these monopoly rights.

EPB to the rescue?

[topher_k]

EPB in Chattanooga is only about 50 miles from Murphy, NC. If they showed interest in expanding, it becomes interstate commerce and, therefore, a federal matter. (I'm not a lawyer, so YMMV.)

Re:EPB to the rescue?

[FranTaylor]

If they showed interest in expanding, it becomes interstate commerce and, therefore, a federal matter. (I'm not a lawyer, so YMMV.)

don't worry, it becomes interstate commerce as soon as the very first internet customer sees an advertisement for an out of state business.

Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

It is bad enough that North Carolina has been hijacked by the teaparty taliban (They actually tried to pass a law declaring an official state religion). Now the democrats want to get in bed with them.

So tired of this two-party dictatorship.

Re:Shame

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha, disregard that. I am a perfectly obedient lapdog of the GOP and I suck cocks!!!

odd politics

[doug]

This is odd politics as Roy Cooper is a Democrat, and running for Governor. I wonder how he will spin this on the campaign trail. Which segment will care about this enough to be swayed? Except for the high tech folks and people in Wilson, isn't this a non-issue? Why is he bothering?

Re:odd politics

[Anonymous Coward]

The correct term is DINO.

Re:odd politics

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not odd.

I have been watching this broadband thing in my state (NC) for 15 years now. I watched it go from 30 ISPs to chose from to 2 in most areas. Some only have 1.

It does not matter which side it is either D or R. When the D was in charge they were pushing for the exact same laws. Word for word. The laws are not even written by our legislators. Now that the 'Rs' are in charge guess which laws they push? The laws written by the telcos.

The telcos throw money at anyone who will sell themselves out for dumbass laws like this. The law that was passed to limit it (and the one the FCC wanted to get rid of)? Originally sponsored by a democrat. Voted down straight along party lines. Then flippy floppy jippy jappy its R's in charge same law brought out and passed straight down party lines.

This is about money nothing more like most politics. It does not even take much to buy a state level dude. The D's sold themselves out for about 1500. The R's sold themselves out for about 500 (as most of the work was already done and they just needed a new sponsor). Plus about 20k each for 'contributions'.

Re:odd politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I probably fall into the high tech category, but he guaranteed that he has lost my vote with this ridiculousness.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper is pad off

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Roy Cooper does not like the FCC abolishing state's laws banning ISPs created by local governments or utilities. Roy Cooper probably has been paid off by the cable industry. No surprise there

FCC and states: why?

[mveloso]

So, the voters of a state don't care enough about an issue to allow A to happen. The FCC claims authority over A and allows A. Why is this a good thing?

Re:FCC and states: why?

[Anonymous Coward]

"the voters of a state don't care enough about an issue"

Haha. This guy thinks the voters choose. You must be new here.

Re:FCC and states: why?

[Bengie]

Even if voting actually mattered for many of these decisions, mob rule via vote is never an excuse for making bad decisions.

Re:FCC and states: why?

[jonwil]

Its a good thing because states shouldn't be allowed to prohibit municipalities from installing/running their own infrastructure (whether it be water pipes, power lines, telecommunications infrastructure, transit systems or whatever else).

Yee Haa! States' Rights

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

The South rises again!
Wanna go to war on this?
The right of a legislature to be utterly corrupt. Canada could probably be persuaded to join.

Is it exclusive?

[Anonymous Coward]

If competition can come in with no obstacles this legislation sucks. If it's exclusive of competition, this legislation is great. Not sure which it is.

Why Would Anyone Want Gov't Broadband?

[BCtoo]

It would end up being like Amtrak.

Re:Why Would Anyone Want Gov't Broadband?

[Okian Warrior]

It would end up being like Amtrak.

So you're saying Amtrak is worse than Comcast. Yes?

Re:Why Would Anyone Want Gov't Broadband?

[Jason Levine]

In some areas, the major ISPs haven't provided any wired, high-speed access. In this case, the local governments - after trying to get the major ISPs to come in and wire the town and being shot down by the ISPs - want to wire themselves. They are being prevented by doing so by the state who is acting on the request of the ISPs - who don't want any competition even if it's in an area they refuse to service. Assuming the citizens of the local town vote to form a municipal broadband service, why should the ISPs who have refused to service the town have more say in whether or not the municipal broadband network gets deployed than the public?

Re:Why Would Anyone Want Gov't Broadband?

[Anonymous Coward]

> So you're saying Amtrak is worse than Comcast.

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a freight train full of tapes.

(latency's a bitch though)

captcha: disallow

Lobbyists

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in NC. The cable companies are the largest lobbyists in the state, they give more money than any other industry. is it any wonder they want to overturn this?

I am really surprised Google fiber is coming to the state, I don't understand how they got away with that.

Re:Lobbyists

[unixisc]

Why, is Google incapable of lobbying the folks @ Raleigh?

Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Greyfox]

I live in Longmont, Colorado. Couple years ago we had a referendum and opted out of the state's blocking of municipal broadband services. They're currently rolling the service out in my neighborhood and their guys did an install at my house about a month ago. I'm getting the fastest internet service in the country for $59 a month. My youtube uploads go at around a gigabyte a minute. Too bad about all these state legislators who seem to feel the need to protect their constituents from super-fast internet speeds at affordable rates that the private companies never seem to feel the need to deliver. I guess luckily for them, most people have no idea what they're missing, or a lot of those guys would be getting kicked out of office right now.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Anonymous Coward]

Great! How do we get that up into Fort Collins?

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Jason Levine]

Too bad about all these state legislators who seem to feel the need to protect their constituents from super-fast internet speeds at affordable rates that the private companies never seem to feel the need to deliver.

In these cases, these politicians' constituents are the big ISPs who don't want any competition (even in areas they refuse to serve), not the voting public.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Greyfox]

Start a petition drive to put a referendum on the ballot to opt out of the state rule on municipal ISPs. The law specifically allows for cities to do that if enough people opt out. I believe a couple of other cities either have done that or are soon going to. It's taken Longmont a couple years to get everything set up to start deploying it, and they already had a fiber ring in place from the '90's. We'll probably be just about finishing up the last neighborhood in Longmont about the time the other cities are ready to start deploying theirs.

Longmont has run the numbers and thinks the municipal broadband can be profitable. I'm curious to see if they can maintain the speeds once 20,000 people are on the network, but I've also heard them say they think they can do that too. People who get on the bandwagon early get discounted rates as long as they keep the service. After a few months the prices will go up a bit for new subscribers, but they're still going to be very competitive with other services.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Greyfox]

The voting public still has to vote for them, something they often seem to forget.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[alen]

buy a new house at kechter. they all have brand new wiring which is better than what i've seen in the older sections of the city

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[R3d M3rcury]

I'm getting the fastest internet service in the country for $59 a month. [...] Too bad about all these state legislators who seem to feel the need to protect their constituents from super-fast internet speeds at affordable rates that the private companies never seem to feel the need to deliver.

Well, the issue would be is that $59 that you're paying at least "revenue neutral" (i.e., the city government isn't losing money).

The complaint about having the government be an ISP is that they can afford to operate at a loss because they can use your tax dollars to fill in the gaps. I can understand the argument--remember the Space Shuttle and the effect it had on commercial launches in the US? That said, private businesses are not providing service because they claim they can't do it profitably (even with government subsidies to build out infrastructure). So if they're not interested, find someone else who is.

In my opinion, I have no problem with the city owning the wires that connect to my house and go to the central office. I'm a little leery about having them be a full-blown ISP, providing the service, though. I think it's better for them to open up those wires to any company that wants to provide that service on the city owned wires.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[SlaveToTheGrind]

Too bad about all these state legislators who seem to feel the need to protect their constituents from super-fast internet speeds at affordable rates that the private companies never seem to feel the need to deliver.

About 15 years ago, I was one of the first to sign up for Comcast high-speed internet in my neighborhood. I basically had the whole pipe. It was awesome.

Then others in the neighborhood signed up. It sucked.

Then Comcast added more capacity and it sucked less. But it was never the same as the early days.

I'll be curious to see how you're faring in a year or two.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Greyfox]

Sure, and the price will be a bit higher for people who decide to subscribe later. It's still very competitive with the other internet services in the area, especially since none of them actually offers gigabit speeds. I'm pretty sure my uploads to youtube go faster that transfers on corporate networks of any previous companies I've worked for at the moment. I'm also curious to see how I'm faring a couple years from now. The city does seem to feel that it'll be able to maintain these speeds, and they also claim they'll be able to turn a profit with the service.

I can also transfer my founding membership with my house if I ever sell it, which is a pretty sweet deal for anyone who wants to move in here.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Moridineas]

I'm getting the fastest internet service in the country [timescall.com] for $59 a month.

With an initial install cost of 40 million funded by the denizens of Longmont, I hope a lot of you subscribe at $59/mon!

I'm looking forward to getting fiber as well. Funny how back in the day those who played network games from a university were LPB (low ping bastards). 80ms pings?! So unfair to those of us on dialup...

Too bad about all these state legislators who seem to feel the need to protect their constituents from super-fast internet speeds at affordable rates that the private companies never seem to feel the need to deliver. I guess luckily for them, most people have no idea what they're missing, or a lot of those guys would be getting kicked out of office right now.

Actually, North Carolina is one of the most active states in the country in terms of upcoming fiber installs. All of the main populations centers--Charlotte metro area, the Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill), and the Triad (Greensboro/Highpoint/Winston-Salem) are currently scheduled to receive AT&T fiber, Google Fiber, or both(!) within the next year or two.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Centennial did this in the last election.

I'm anxiously awaiting a chance to sign up for the service, although I guess it may be a couple of years. Meanwhile, there's my 1MB DSL. (Yeah, there's also Comcast, but, well, Comcast.)

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[amicusNYCL]

Couple years ago we had a referendum and opted out of the state's blocking of municipal broadband services.

Wait, you can do that?

I wonder what would happen if such a referendum passed in a state capitol.

Also, what other laws can you opt out of?

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations run at a loss too. It's called "profit". Same overspend, different name.

If your taxes go to pay police and fire, and this is fine (and it is), then going to pay for being wired up is fine for the same reason too.

After all, if corporations always do it better than government, then they'll not be harmed. And people get to vote out their governor for raising taxes too much. Tell me when you can get your single cable supplier CEO axed for sending the company in a tailspin or raking off an extortion off the money.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Greyfox]

Interestingly, when I'm booted over to Windows for gaming, I often put my system in sleep mode so that my USB doohickies can keep recharging. While I was on Comcast, my system would wake up and not be able to resolve DNS names for several minutes. This happened no matter what DNS servers I kept it pointed at (Google's or Comcast's.) I could ping IP addresses like the name servers, but I couldn't resolve any names.

All that went away when I switched to Longmont's municipal service. System wakes up, internet's instantly accessible.

I tried CentryLink's 1MB DSL prior to Comcast but the latency was always shit with it. If my room mate was doing anything, I could see ping times in the 1 second range.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, North Carolina is one of the most active states in the country in terms of upcoming fiber installs. All of the main populations centers--Charlotte metro area, the Triangle (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill), and the Triad (Greensboro/Highpoint/Winston-Salem) are currently scheduled to receive AT&T fiber, Google Fiber, or both(!) within the next year or two.

Main population centers like research triangle were never the problem.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[RyoShin]

Too bad they didn't extend that out to us living on the bleeding edge of the city limits, right by I-25. :/

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Darinbob]

This seems somewhat bizarre. A law against it, yet you can opt out with a referendum. So why have the law in the first place? Or is there a higher bar to pass referendums as opposed to electing a city council that cares?

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Darinbob]

This is the sort of issue that most voters don't know or care about. Even where I am in California, I know lots and lots of people who dislike Comcast yet they remain Comcast customers because they get package deals. As in "ya, my cable sucks but I get a discount if I get internet also", or "I hate my internet but I get a discount if I get cable too." There is just enough discomfort to hate the company but not enough discomfort to kick them out.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Darinbob]

There are cities who have installed fiber then waited for ISPs to come in and use them. Many are still waiting.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Darinbob]

People in general don't mind being taxed for police and fire. But a lot of people dont' seem to think internet is a priority. They probably don't remember being taxed to get telephone service rolled out (or maybe they still bitch about the universal service fee). However the local government, elected by the people, are the ones who set up the local internet service board. If the people do not want to be taxed for municipal broadband then they should not vote for people who are likely to implement it. If people think it's not being run correctly then they can run for office to get on the board. They can also walk down the street and knock on the door of their city council representative and tell them what they think. It's democracy in action, if people actually remembered to leave the internet long enough to go vote.

Re:Too Bad For North Carolinians!

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems somewhat bizarre. A law against it, yet you can opt out with a referendum. So why have the law in the first place? Or is there a higher bar to pass referendums as opposed to electing a city council that cares?

AFAIK, the state law originally stated no municipal broadband at all. Period. Then it was amended to allow for municipalities to supply broadband if the residents of that municipality pass a referendum. IIRC, there was another municipality in CO where such a referendum failed to pass. This isn't a generalized "municipalities can override state laws via referendum" type of rule, it's something written specifically in to this one individual law. I suspect the state law still exists because the local referendum thing was all that the pro-municipal-broadband folks were able to achieve. If the Longmont deployment goes well, we might see additional pressure from citizens and municipalities to strike the state law altogether...

Pot meet kettle...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, saying "the FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State's political subdivisions" can be turned around and the state unlawfully inserted itself where it didn't belong, it shouldn't be allowed to tell if a municipality can give a service to their citizens or not. Even more so when they got paid by the big ISPs to push out those laws. Corruption at it's finest.

Re:Yee Haa! States' Rights

[R3d M3rcury]

The South rises again!

"The South's Gonna Do It Again!!"
"Do what? Lose?"

In other words...

[cnaumann]

The state government is saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with the state's right to interfere with local government.

Re:In other words...

[Trailer Trash]

The state government is saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with the state's right to interfere with local government.

Which is true. See my post above for a full explanation.

Re:In other words...

[doomicon]

Technically, I think the states are saying that only the Legislative Branch has the authority to create laws.

I agree with the states on this one (begrudgingly as they just want kickbacks). Laws are created by the Legislative Branch, however the U.S. has long been in this muck of government created agencies given the power to create laws by "interpreting" law.

Example 1, BATFE says that it's perfectly legal to by the assisted shooters brace and put it on a "Pistol" that shoots a rifle caliber. The device was designed by a disabled veteran to allow other disabled vets to shoot rifle caliber pistols, and for those handicapped it works very well. Well American ingenuity realized that you could use the brace as a stock, and essentially have a SBR (Short Barreled Rifle)*. BATFE saw it, and said who cares... Months later the BATFE came back and did a "clarification" on their original stance, stating it's perfectly legal to install said device... but it's ILLEGAL if you place the device on your shoulder ?! All the while completely leaving the U.S. Congress and Senate out of the law making equation.

Example 2, BATFE moves to outlaw XM855 ammo as "armor penetrating". XM855** is a 5.56 round for the M4/AR type Rifles... news flash all standard hunting rounds are armor piercing. Kevlar vest isn't stopping a 30-06 round anytime soon. Not to mention the idea of banning armor piercing rounds was for pistols duh, it's in law.

I used Pro/AntiGun examples for a reason... The above examples could be "good" or "bad" policies depending on where you stand on the issues, but, in the long run you should agree that government agencies creating laws is bad. One day you'll be cheering them, the next generation you'll be hating them. Elected officials should make laws, not government agencies hand picked by the President, that can just circumvent the process. One day these agencies can be controlled by a Social Progressive, the next a Fundamentalist Christian.

* Note SBRs are legal albeit with a $200 tax stamp.
** XM855 is a seriously poor performing round, but it's inexpensive.

Re:In other words...

[Ol Olsoc]

The state government is saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with the state's right to interfere with local government.

Which is true. See my post above for a full explanation.

North Carolina legislature has just passed a law that all RF generated in North Carolina, must by law, stay in North Carolina, and none generated outside may pass into North Carolina.

There is a lawsuit pending against the laws of Physics. DEbates are schedule with Bill Nye the Science guy and the IEEE. Phlogiston theory accounts for this, and is the actual truth, not this godless radio physics not to be owned communist stuff. so we must teach the controversy.

Re:In other words...

[unixisc]

The state government is saying that the federal government has no right to interfere with the state's right to interfere with local government.

In this case, the States' Rights crowd will be hard pressed to prove how devolution of power is valid in this case

Re:In other words...

[BitZtream]

I live in NC, citation please?

Re:In other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

NC law now states that the pull of all forces must diminish with the CUBE of the distance. This is to take effect August 1, 2016.

Re:In other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, turn on your sarcasm detector.

Re:In other words...

[Ol Olsoc]

I live in NC, citation please?

Oh, man.... whoosh!

Maybe I should start submitting articles to the Onion.

Re:In other words...

[Trailer Trash]

I live in NC, citation please?

Oh, man.... whoosh!

Maybe I should start submitting articles to the Onion.

Nah - should've given him the citation :)

Re:In other words...

[Ol Olsoc]

I live in NC, citation please?

Oh, man.... whoosh!

Maybe I should start submitting articles to the Onion.

Nah - should've given him the citation :)

Here we go:

http://injesuschrististand.blo...

Please folks, this is my warped sense of humor, it isn't even sarcasm just silliness

Re:In other words...

[Darinbob]

Wow, it must get real dense over there.

Re:In other words...

[FranTaylor]

you make it all involved but it is very very simple

internet data from out of state corporations head into your state via the internet in the form of advertisements and web pages. people in your state see these advertisements and web sites and order products and services from them. voila, the internet is a mechanism for interstate commerce and thus can be regulated by the federal government

it really is just that simple

Gotta love corrupt government.

[Lumpy]

Blocking municipal is how you identify the completely corrupt officials.

It's about money.

[duckintheface]

I'm a Democrat living in North Carolina. Roy Cooper is the Democratic Attorney General who plans to run for Governor in two years. He is interested in campaign contributions from the telecom industry. That's why he opposes municipal broadband even when private companies have no intention of offering it to an area. He thinks regular voters are not paying attention so there is only upside for him in this. This is the same Att. Gen. Cooper who opposed gay marriage in NC until the courts forced it to happen. He is not impressing me. Hope he has some competition in the 2017 Democratic Primary for Governor.

Re:It's about money.

[bobstreo]

Comcast, AT&T and Time Warner Cable say "It's nice to find some politician that actually stay paid off and don't want to rock the boat"

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Meoward]

To be fair, Cooper only opposed gay marriage because, as he pointed out, it's his job as AG to represent the state of North Carolina. He was on record as opposing the ban.

It's not clear to me if the same dynamic is in place here, however.

Re:It's about money.

[Curunir_wolf]

To be fair, Cooper only opposed gay marriage because, as he pointed out, it's his job as AG to represent the state of North Carolina. He was on record as opposing the ban.

He was lying. [aside]You can tell when politicians do that by checking to see if their lips are moving.[/aside]. Virginia's Attorney General was in a similar position, except it wasn't just a state law, it was written into the state Constitution. Yet he still refused to uphold the law. So Cooper was just blowing smoke up your ass. He defended the anti-gay marriage law because he decided that was the most politically beneficial position, and had a handy excuse to use for doing it.

Re:It's about money.

[duckintheface]

Cooper tried to split the difference by being against Amendment 1 banning gay marriage and being against gay marriage at the same time. The Attorney General is charged with upholding the law. The highest law is the US Constitution and the NC Constitution makes that clear. After the Windsor decision, there was no excuse for any state official to defer to state law because it was clear that the US Constitution (equal protection and due process clauses) confer equal rights on everyone. And state law did not prevent the Attorneys General from Colorado and other similarly situated states from moving ahead on gay marriage.

Re:It's about money.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

It was Virginia's AG that did not do his job.

They swore an oath to uphold the state's constitution and their laws regardless of their personal beliefs. Virginia's AG usurped the authority given to the state legislature and failed to act on their behalf. His job is to represent law makers to the state supreme court and higher.

I don't agree with the ban but you can't overlook someone's failing as an AG simply because the outcome was favorable to your side. Roy Cooper was correct, since in my state the AG would face impeachment for refusing to act on behalf of the legislature.

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet he still refused to uphold the law.

Interesting. I wonder if you would feel the same about a public defender who refused to adequately represent you because "you're obviously guilty". Because that is an analogous situation to the one you seem to support.

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Review and condsieration of laws on the behalf of the people of a state is also a proper choice for the Atttorney General of a state, particullary when there are opposing laws in place. He upheld the law he beleived as a lawyer held precedence.

"Herring said as he came into office, he asked his staff to review Bostic v. Rainey and, after careful consideration, he came to the conclusion that the ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution."

"Herring said that his job is to defend laws that are constitutional. This one, he said, isn't."

Re:It's about money.

[Curunir_wolf]

Because that is an analogous situation to the one you seem to support.

I did not intend to leave that impression. Just pointing out that prosecutors do what they want, and justify it later. The VA attorney clearly violated his oath, regardless of the merits of the cause.

Re:It's about money.

[Archangel Michael]

Rights apply to a PERSON, not a group of people. Marriage, is by definition a group of people. Which is why I oppose any government action, support or restriction, on marriages at all.

Re:It's about money.

[Rasperin]

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."

Or if Ghandi isn't motivating enough, then let's go for ridiculous: "Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb!"

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess contracts aren't really your thing?

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

By the same reasoning, we can assume you are completely against all contract law.

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, he's a Republican who only ran on the Dem ticket so he had a chance to get elected against another Republican opponent who was weaker than him but still viable. Got it.

Re:It's about money.

[Archangel Michael]

Can you contract away rights? Can Contracts grant you more rights than you currently have?

The rights you have in a contract, are your rights outside that contract. You cannot contract new rights that you don't already have. Gay Marriage isn't about "rights" it is about benefits granted by government.

Re:It's about money.

[Archangel Michael]

I am not against contract law. Government shouldn't be involved, one way or another, in private contracts, such as marriage. The fact that it requires a "license" to get Married is proof that government defines marriage (when it shouldn't)

Re:It's about money.

[Darinbob]

Of course, if North Carolina and Texas claim loudly from one side of their mouths that they demand more State's rights without federal interference, then turn around and with the other side of their mouths deny their municipalities from having municipal rights, then they're just hypocrites. Of course, that is a redundant word when discussing politicians.

Re:It's about money.

[Grishnakh]

How did he violate his oath? He was supposed to uphold the US Constitution, is he not? His state's anti-gay law was unconstitutional, so he had every right to refuse to enforce it.

If his state passed a law banning Catholicism, do you think he should be bound to enforce that one too, even though it's obviously and clearly in violation of the First Amendment?

Re:It's about money.

[AK Marc]

Since the government does it, whether they should or shouldn't, they are bound to do it equitably. Abolishing marriage would be one way, and the other is allowing interracial marriage, or gay marriage, or whatever "undesirable" minority that's demanding human rights these days.

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said it was un-Constitutional?

By definition, something isn't un-Constitutional until the Supreme Court says it is.

Re:It's about money.

[FranTaylor]

Rights apply to a PERSON, not a group of people.

you might want to read up on what corporations are all about, and how corporations have rights

hint: what does "corporation" mean in latin?

Re:It's about money.

[Dog-Cow]

You really don't understand contracts, do you?

Re: It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't remotely true.

The constitution enumerates the powers of the state. If the state tries to exercise powers it is not afforded by the constitution, regardless of whether it has been decided by the judiciary, it is unconstitutional, by definition.

The judiciary has the power to enforce constitutionality, and the power to decide what is constitutional or not, but that no more defines constitutionality than the litmus test defines pH.

Re:It's about money.

[Ramze]

As a former resident of NC, I call BS. Attorneys General are not puppets for the states. They are lawyers, but they're also elected (NOT appointed!) officials that offer legal advice and represent state governments in courts, but also have the right to represent the citizens of states and take legal action on their behalf as well. NC's Attorney General is also the state's highest law enforcement officer. They swear an oath not just to uphold NC state laws, but to uphold federal laws - and federal laws always take precedence. AGs have WIDE discretionary power to decide for themselves what action the state should take regarding legal challenges and court rulings.

As Attorney General, one can advise a state NOT to contest a federal ruling that strikes down the state ban. NC has no law compelling an Attorney General to contest federal rulings that strike down state laws, either.
http://www.ncdoj.gov/About-DOJ...

The AG of VA did nothing that his previous AGs hadn't already done - he chose not to contest a ruling. He did not fail in his duties. VA is trying to pass a law requiring the AG to defend the state's position, but good luck - as it's in conflict with the AG's responsibility to protect citizen's civil rights and uphold federal law. Any attempt to argue that the gay marriage bans are constitutional given the legal precedents set by even SCOTUS themselves would be spurious at best - and any good AG would advise against a lawsuit and not go forward with one.
http://www.washingtontimes.com...

NC is very upset with its AG for the statements he made declaring the state law indefensible as well as his personal belief that it's a bad law. Sure, he'll prepare the best case he can should the state force him to go to SCOTUS to defend their crap law, but anyone that's read the SCOTUS rulings and the federal court rulings based upon them knows there's no other way to interpret the law. SCOTUS will have to issue a ruling contrary to their earlier opinions for any state to have a chance to argue their marriage ban laws are constitutional within the framework they've been given.

http://equalitync.org/latest/n...

It should be noted that the NC AG is only now giving up after exhausting ALL options because all arguments his office has proposed have been rejected by various federal courts in other cases. To continue would be expensive and futile. The VA AG simply came to the same conclusion much earlier.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/L...

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are lawyers, but they're also elected (NOT appointed!) officials that offer legal advice and represent state governments in courts, but also have the right to represent the citizens of states and take legal action on their behalf as well.

So are judges. Regardless if they are elected or appointed they are still obligated to follow the letter of the state laws and the procedures contained within.

As Attorney General, one can advise a state NOT to contest a federal ruling that strikes down the state ban.

Just like any attorney. Your attorney may advise you of the best course of action but he is still obligated to represent you in the court of law.

The AG of VA did nothing that his previous AGs hadn't already done - he chose not to contest a ruling.

What an AG of one state got away with has absolutely no bearing with regards to a AG in a different state. State has a right to govern itself and interpret its own laws and constitution accordingly. The defendant would be laughed at if he claimed "but the AG in Virginia did it". The federal government weighs in when there is a claim of conflicting with the US constitution.

Re: It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooooh Archangel Micheal, you made me shoot coffee out my nose this morning. I see you make just as much sense here as on the BT forums.

Re:It's about money.

[Steve Hamlin]

Constitutionally, States are a separate legal political entity than the federal government, with their own constitutional perogatives that the federal government can't abrogate. The federal republic is made up of independent States.

Conversely, municipalities are creations of the State, don't have their own independence from the State, exist at the pleasure of the State, and the State can legislate what municipalities can and cannot do (or even whether they exist). The State is not made up of independent municipalities.

Re:It's about money.

[Darinbob]

But its still hypocritical to campaign based upon local control while also deying local control.

And in many cases, the municipalities existed as political entities before the state.

Re:It's about money.

[Anonymous Coward]

Refusing to defend a law that is unconstitutional is different than defending a criminal defendant. A) A defendant is never unconstitutional, while laws have often been so, B) Public Defenders fire uncooperative clients every single day. Analogy phail.

Re:It's about money.

[Agripa]

Many state attorney generals and even attorney generals of the United States have at times declined to defend a law and this practice goes back more than 200 years. When they do this, the court can solicit an interested party to conduct the defense. As a practical matter there is no duty to defend if it is not enforced.

Ex Parte McCardle and the Attorney General’s Duty to Defend Acts of Congress:

https://www.usfca.edu/uploaded...

Re:It's about money.

[Agripa]

The 6th amendment still applies so if no lawyer could be found to represent the accused, a trial could not take place. Of course we regularly ignore the requirements for a speedy trial in the same amendment so it would not surprise me if we ignored this as well.

Re:It's about money.

[RockDoctor]

He was lying. [aside]You can tell when politicians do that by checking to see if their lips are moving.[/aside].

What a refreshingly open and honest political culture you have. Here, we can tell when our politicians are lying by their not being decomposing into putrid puddles of greasy bones. The only honest politician is a dead one. Dead and clearly decomposing.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

At least Comcast doesn't kill people when their systems crash.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know that comcast cars have never been in an accident. Otherwise you're just talking shit. Nobody dies when Amtrak desktop computers crash either.

The whole state's rights argument is bullshit

[Jawnn]

Utter bullshit. The welfare of the citizens affected is not really a consideration to anyone with a dog in this fight. Let's get that part right, at least.
Everyone knows that it's a powerful telecommunications lobby flexing it's muscle in a state where there are lots federal dollars being spent on that industry's services. You don't piss off the industry who paid for your last election, be that for local, state, or federal office, so the whole argument about who has the "right" to look out for those citizens is nothing more than a deliberate distraction for the suckers (voters) who continue to act against their own best interests by electing Big Telco's whores to public office.

Re:The whole state's rights argument is bullshit

[Ol Olsoc]

Utter bullshit. The welfare of the citizens affected is not really a consideration to anyone with a dog in this fight. Let's get that part right, at least. You don't piss off the industry who paid for your last election, be that for local, state, or federal office.

Oklahoma called - Things aren't working quite like their owners said they would.

Stop shooting yourself in the foot

[zamboni1138]

Municipal broadband is a good thing. It might not be a needed item in population centers. But once you get outside of those areas and into "the sticks" your options disappear just as quickly as all the other traces of modern civilization. You're left with two, one, or sometimes no option.

My company currently has the best internet connection it's ever had in almost 20 years, provided by wireless point-to-point from the nearest city. In terms of cost, uptime, bandwidth, you name it, this connection is better in every category. The ILEC in the area (Frontier, formerly Verizon, formerly GTE) can't event begin to compete. All they offer is T1. Comcast just started to pull cable, but why would I choose to switch the worst company in the western hemisphere for an inferior solution? Besides, we all know what Comcast has to offer.

I'm going to stick with the better solution provided by the local government. If something better comes along, great. If anyone in my state's capitol starts to try to make this illegal they will hear from me ad nauseam.

I hope they win

[Anonymous Coward]

He adds that the new rule is "arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion..."

So if the state wins, does that mean that the local government can use the same arguments against the state?

Re:I hope they win

[Anonymous Coward]

No. States have plenary power and can generally do whatever they want subject to the restrictions on them in the Constitution. Local governments have devolved power -- only as much power as the states give them.

There is nothing stopping your state from abolishing all local government and running everything through your state legislature other than it's a really bad idea.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[NotDrWho]

You people don't understand because you seem to be working under the assumption that politicians are out to serve the public, and that this is somehow an ideological issue. If you look at it instead as "scumbag politicians, acting purely in their own self-interest, soliciting big campaign donations from cablecos/telcos" it makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there is the argument that no matter how many rules you make, the municipality automatically has an unfair advantage. And this is true. The municipality gets to set the rules, by definition they have a better position than the telcos. If TWC wants to run cable, they need to raise money from existing customers or investors, get permits and approval from the municipality, buy property or usage rights and then maintain a customer base to pay for maintenance.

If the municipality wants to run cable, they can (in order from least to most likely to piss people off) float a bond, raid the educational funds or simply hike taxes, they can then run cable wherever they want, citing "public good" for the taking of private land or the usage of private land, and then they can simply tax the populous to fund and maintain, even if there are no customers.

Muni broadband may or may not be a good thing, and the exclusive monopoly contracts a mostly a bad thing, but that doesn't mean that muni and commercial broadband could ever be considered to operate on an equal playing field.

Re:Another good reason to not live in North Caroli

[NotDrWho]

Move to Chattanooga. It's one of the few cities in the southeast that built up a hugely successful municipal broadband fiber-optic system before the telcos bribed the state legislators into killing them off everywhere else. It's like an island paradise in the sea of shit (which the scumbag legislators of TN have been trying to sink for years).

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[TheCastro1689]

Actually the USPS has a monopoly on first class mail and the use of post office boxes.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[JaredOfEuropa]

I think that government should not try and compete in a functioning market, but they definitely should have the right (and the inclination) to step in when the market fails. Set a reasonable minimum service, e.g. allow muni broadband if there are less than 3 market players having offered a plan with x Mb/s with an allowance of y GB/month for at most €z/month in the last 12 months or whatever. The incumbent telcos then have a choice to join the 21st century, or compete against the municipality.

Also, if local government is using public funds to run fiber, allow other telcos the use of that fiber at cost. Same as many countries forced the incumbent, formerly state owned telcos to open up part of their infra to newcomers on the market.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[silas_moeckel]

Muni's should make a level playing field. We have the tech to do it, a single fiber per home/business (ok maybe more for business) can with cheap passive gear provide 8+ different connections (bidirectional CWDM). So the muni's role is the physical plant they provide a point for all comers to connect possibly a L2 network for others to build upon and to provide baseline services.

Part of all that is to stop thinking in IPv4, it's trivial for a town to get enough IPv6 IP's to hand out /64 or greater to everybody. That makes it trivial for a single firewall to connect up multiple networks and route correctly. So you might end you with a muni network the connects muni services, schools etc etc. Your ISP who may or may not bundle cable phone etc but you could get IP based phone/cable from others and still have 4 free CWDM bands for later expansion.

Re:Another good reason to not live in North Caroli

[Anonymous Coward]

Or to Wilson, NC. I live about 45 min away from them. They have a municipal broadband system with really nice prices. Because of them, TWC sued and got the state to pass the laws restricting further muni broadband installations. http://www.greenlightnc.com

Would be nice to kick TWC to the curb, but they are the best choice right now. Waiting for Google Fiber to get going sometime in the next year or two.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Anonymous Coward]

But are They opposing it because They get the contributions or do They get the contributions because They have voiced opposition to it in the past? There's a distinct difference between the two situations.

Corruption runs deep in North Carolina

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people who have lived in NC for a while know the state government is corrupt as
hell.

The trouble is, most voters in NC are uneducated cretins who vote based on "hot button"
issues and thus they are easily misled.

All of this makes NC a good place not to live. I speak from experience and I am getting out of this
place as soon as my work contract ends.

Thank God

[Ol Olsoc]

The State of North Carolina has the guts to stand up for freedom!

Dialup forever! - Long distance charges may apply.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[parkinglot777]

You people don't understand because you seem to be working under the assumption that politicians are out to serve the public, and that this is somehow an ideological issue. If you look at it instead as "scumbag politicians, acting purely in their own self-interest, soliciting big campaign donations from cablecos/telcos" it makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?

Your idea is also an opposite extreme assumption. In other words, one should keep BOTH assumptions in mind and do not whole heartedly believe in only one extreme assumption, then it would make a lot more sense.

Don't care who provides it

[sjbe]

If the government can provide a fast pipe at a reasonable price with good service why would I not want it? I don't necessarily think it is the best possible option but I certainly wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. My local government provides lots of services quite competently. If they can provide a better value than private companies I certainly don't care.

It would end up being like Amtrak.

I've ridden Amtrak. I don't see that as an insult. Amtrak provides a fine service despite being required to provide service on unprofitable routes. My question is why the government isn't putting MORE money into passenger rail, particularly for regional travel. Taking a plane from Cleveland to Columbus is silly but high speed train service could make a lot of sense if it were adequately supported. We spend ridiculous sums of taxpayer money on roads and airports but for some bizarre reason we think rail service is a boondoggle.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

Actually you analogy is really flawed. First of all USPS is not a municipality service. It's a federal one.

Secondly,UPS/FedEx have not really indicated they can't get along with USPS. Tather, USPS has given all sorts of indication it cannot get along with UPS/FedEx.

Vote

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time for the people of North Carolina and other states challenging net neutrality to vote these elected officials who are owned by the large ISPs out of office. That is the only way to teach our politicians that they represent the people and not just the big corporations.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[amicusNYCL]

there's no reason why a local municipality shouldn't be able to collectively decide that they want to take a crack at creating something better.

No, you see, "local municipality" is just a codeword for "big government", so the problem is that you don't want big government doing things like running utilities, because fascism, and when you have big government (i.e. a council of a town with a population of 1,000 people) competing against the free market and small business (i.e., Comcast), then that's unfair because monopoly. Not Comcast's monopoly, the monopoly that big government would have (because it's the government, duh). Also, small businesses like Comcast could not compete with big government like the council of a town with a population of 1,000 people.

Hope that clears it up for you.

This is also known as...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[sjames]

Most of the municipal broadband out there now used a bond and are set up to operate and pay off the bonds from revenue. They still work out to be a much better deal for customers than the telcos offer and often provide broadband where the telcos had no intention of offering anything in the foreseeable future.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[NotDrWho]

If you want to believe that politicians aren't just a bunch of amoral, self-serving scumbags, you go right on ahead.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[markstrelecki]

A difference which makes no difference is no difference.

Qustion on US views

[CanadianMacFan]

I'm really not trying to troll but am curious about the outlook of US citizens. It seems that many people, at least on here, are in favour of having their local government act as an ISP. I find this attitude so weird because there is such a reluctance to move to a government backed health care system, even one that is only funded by the government and provided by private firms. So why is government health care socialism and bad while government internet access good?

Re:Qustion on US views

[neminem]

It isn't so much that government internet access is good. It's that a. no matter how terribly incompetent and/or bureaucratic our local governments might be, they couldn't *possibly* be any more incompetent than Verizon/Comcast/Charter/AT&T/etc., and b. having any competition at all, even incompetent competition, would more than likely force the above-listed companies to care at least a tiny bit about trying to keep their customers, once the choice wasn't between them and no internet. We have basically no competition in ISPs, and we'd be happy fixing that pretty much any way possible.

Re:Qustion on US views

[spauldo]

It's a complicated issue, but a lot of it boils down to what level of government is doing it.

In the case of municipal ISPs, it's a local government. Local governments provide all kinds of services to the public as a matter of course. Around here, they provide electricity, water, a library, police, fire, trash collection, sewer, landfill, permitting, zoning, street maintenance, free WIFI (which sucks), and all kinds of other things.

The federal government can't provide most of those things, by law. States can, depending on their constitutions, and local governments can depending on state laws and their own charters. This is basically what the "states' rights" debate is all about. It's been going on since this country was founded, and will likely continue until the Canadians finish their war machines, stop acting so polite to everyone, and take over the world (at which point we'll get decent health care and maple syrup).

Health care is contentious because most proposals for an actual decent healthcare system involve taking our current federal health care system (medicare) and extending it to everyone (it currently only covers people of retirement age). Medicare is considered "socialist" by a lot of groups on the right, but since it benefits the elderly, and the elderly vote, it won't be going away. Extending it out would mean more power in the hands of the federal government (a big no-no for the libertarians) and higher taxes (a big no-no for Republicans in general). Plus it would shake up the medical industry, which pulls in money hands-over-fist with the current system and doesn't want to see it change (and can afford lobbyists).

You have to understand that most people here don't actually understand what "socialist" means. The older generation grew up with cold-war era anti-communist propaganda, so "socialism" has bad connotations among a lot of the population. The right and their media mouthpieces use the word all the time in manners that Europeans (who actually do understand what socialism is) would find baffling. It's the nature of politics.

Re:Qustion on US views

[SecurityGuy]

I don't want government internet because my government thinks it's ok to read my email (and everything else). Letting them be the ISP makes it that much easier.

That said, I don't see any problem with letting local governments, with the consent of their citizens, provide that service any more than I think it's a problem for them to provide trash service, water service, etc. Internet service at this point should follow a utility model. All I want is a pipe.

Just don't make the public option the only one. Monopolies can be bad no matter who runs them.

Re:Qustion on US views

[jeff4747]

Oddities in the US political system mean that the only stable governing system is two political parties.

One of those parties is currently ruled by fear. Whatever Fox tells them to fear, they will fear. Even if it makes no logical sense. Members of that party are currently terrified that routine military exercises are a pretext for the federal government conquering Texas. Never mind that Texas is already conquered and subject to the federal government. There's also gems like "Get your government hands out of my Medicare!!". Medicare being the government program to provide health insurance to the elderly.

Much of the medical and pharmaceutical industries paid to generate a great deal of fear over government-backed healthcare. So members of that party are utterly against it. Despite the fact that the massively convoluted system created to keep those entities in business while providing more health insurance is actually working.

ISPs have not yet paid to generate a great deal of fear over government-provided Internet service.

Re:Qustion on US views

[DeputySpade]

I don't want government internet because my government thinks it's ok to read my email (and everything else). Letting them be the ISP makes it that much easier.

I can't believe on /. of all sites I had to read this far into the comments to find someone making this point. This! This! Yes. Fine. Let them set up the pipes if they want. Let people subscribe to the service if they want. I, for one, wouldn't go anywhere near it. Governments in general (though probably less so at the local level) have proven themselves untrustworthy given access to the people's communications. Being the actual broker of those communications? No way!

UPS and Fedex should sue the Post Office

[Anonymous Coward]

UPS and Fedex have far too long have had to compete with governmental offering a similar service for sending parcels.

Its time for UPS and Fedex to sue the Post Office out of business. Then maybe they can finally merge and form a monopoly like the broad band providers have done.

He's not wrong though

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreeing with the reasoning is somewhat irrelevant here. You have a federal body other than the Supreme Court superseding state law without any degree of federal representation on the part of the represented states.

I don't care if they are handing out free kittens, that is a bad precedent.

TPP & TAIPT in praxis.

[Anonymous Coward]

As applied.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Cramer]

In that the only mailbox you have in your front yard is the one for the USPS, yes. However, there are private companies providing mailboxes -- 'tho they use the USPS instead of their own courier(s).

Given the cost of the non-USPS couriers (Fedex, etc.) and the fact the USPS loses money day after day, I don't see anyone stepping up to replace the USPS.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[mi]

If the government entity receives no unfair treatment and has to play by the same rules as every other company

Begging the question, aren't you? A giant "if"...

It is pretty bad, when local governments keep would-be challengers of private companies out. When it is the municipality itself, that's running it, things can only be worse — because, infamously, you can not fight city hall. Very simply, if the town has expertise to run an ISP, why wouldn't not those people form a private company to do it? And if they don't, their establishing a governmental ISP anyway will preclude anybody with a clue from ever setting up shop...

It is like Slashdot's earlier obsession with "Municipal WiFi" has not taught anybody anything...

"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[mi]

step in when the market fails

Except that does not really happen. Pretty much by definition.

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[JaredOfEuropa]

Only if you follow the "Austrian School" line of thinking, and then it becomes largely a matter of definitions and values. Even the article you link to admits that: "What is objected to here is not that the free market has flaws, but that the term “market failure” is a persuasive definition (see How to Think Straight, para 5.47), seeming to say more than it really does by improperly applying the emotive word failure.". They recognize the phenomenon but object to the chosen label.

Not that I agree with that article. Another quote: "Market failure, if the term is to mean anything useful, must mean that there are fundamental defects in the nature of human ability to achieve certain goods through voluntary, as opposed to coercive, institutions. With this definition, the case for market failure is synonymous with the case for government intervention.". Economists like Friedman argue against this line of thinking, and even many statists recognize that where market failure exists, state intervention isn't always the solution and may make matters worse.

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[mi]

Only if you follow the "Austrian School" line of thinking

Of course. Everything else is an attempt to turn Marx' feces into chicken salad.

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[bouldin]

Only if you follow the "Austrian School" line of thinking

Of course. Everything else is an attempt to turn Marx' feces into chicken salad.

You seem to be saying there are only the Austrian school of economics and the Marxist school of economics.

There are a lot of actual economists who would disagree with you. How are you qualified to make this claim?

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[dywolf]

Oh you stupid lying fuck.
and stop linking to that mises bullshit and learn some real economics.

The potential for market failure is a reality of all markets, free or not.
Every market has the capacity for failure.

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[dywolf]

again you prove that you know nothing.

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[mi]

Oh you stupid lying fuck.

Haters gonna hate... Sigh...

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[bouldin]

Hey, mi! In a previous discussion, you made some bold claims about American universities and black people that you were unable to support with any citation:

That the Big Education discriminates against Asians and Whites has long been very well known.

They simply must discriminate against the more successful races, because otherwise they will have disproportionately many Asians and too few Blacks.

In another discussion, you claimed that towns who attempt to run their own broadband will most likely fail spectacularly, but you were unable to support these claims with a citation:

What I meant is that if the town does not have people capable of running an ISP, but creates one anyway, the service will be horrible and yet, because of governmental monopoly, nobody else would offer competing service either. The townfolk will be settled with that bond (or, more likely, a tax-hike) and shitty service. Congratulations.

And in another discussion, you asserted that anyone who didn't believe 100% in the Austrian economic theories is a dishonest Marxist, but you couldn't explain why, or offer any economic credentials.

If you can't provide evidence for all these claims, are you going to rescind them?

More importantly, if you can't support your claims, are you going to still believe them?

Because, if you can't support these claims yet continue to believe them, it shows you are highly biased.

Wait a minute.. it sure looks like you hate black people, hate universities, hate Obama, hate towns that start their own broadband, and yeah, really hate black people!

I think I get it! This is what you mean by hating!

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[mi]

Darling, even when evidence is not to your little heart's liking, it is still evidence.

it sure looks like you hate black people, hate universities, hate Obama, hate towns that start their own broadband, and yeah, really hate black people!

Dats right mah man, mi be da racist for sure... Your grammar as wanting, though — in the context like this, the preposition "on" is mandatory: "hate on towns", "hate on Black people!", et cætera.

This is what you mean by hating!

No, actually, it is primarily the name-calling and the ad hominem arguments, that dywolf and yourself are so fond of (for lack of anything else), that I consider hateful.

BTW, given the diligent attention you pay to my posts, are you sure, you don't wish to subscribe to my newsletter?

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[bouldin]

Darling, even when evidence is not to your little heart's liking, it is still evidence.

That is true, but irrelevant. You haven't presented facts that indicate your claims are true. That's what evidence is.

That the Big Education discriminates against Asians and Whites has long been very well known.

They simply must discriminate against the more successful races, because otherwise they will have disproportionately many Asians and too few Blacks.

Dats right mah man, mi be da racist for sure...

Yes, you sure are racist. You clearly believe black people are inferior. Believing some races are superior than others is literally the definition of racist.

it sure looks like you hate black people, hate universities, hate Obama, hate towns that start their own broadband, and yeah, really hate black people!

Your grammar as wanting, though â" in the context like this, the preposition "on" is mandatory: "hate on towns", "hate on Black people!", et cætera.

Well, no, you clearly hate black people, hate Obama, hate universities, and hate all forms of government. You openly, passionately dislike all these things. That is what hate means. Don't take my word for it, just google "define hate."

I think I get it! This is what you mean by hating!

No, actually, it is primarily the name-calling and the ad hominem arguments, that dywolf and yourself are so fond of (for lack of anything else), that I consider hateful.

Oh, so you are re-defining what "hate" means. You don't get the play the hate-victim here. I've argued against your claims in 3 threads using fact and reason, and you haven't been able to support anything you've said. That just means you aren't good at debating.

BTW, given the diligent attention you pay to my posts, are you sure, you don't wish to subscribe to my newsletter?

Yes, please! I want to read the most highly biased, poorly researched newsletter on the planet. It amuses me to watch you flounder.

As an aside, you might not do as well in a true meritocracy as you seem to think. Your argumentation is so poor, you could not survive in an academic setting.

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[mi]

You clearly believe black people are inferior.

Citation needed. Or would've been needed, if this article was about my (deeply flawed) person. It is not, so shove your little impotent vendetta where the sun don't shine and leave me alone. If you can...

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[bouldin]

You clearly believe black people are inferior.

Citation needed.

Well, here is one from the post you just responded to:

That the Big Education discriminates against Asians and Whites has long been very well known. [...] They simply must discriminate against the more successful races, because otherwise they will have disproportionately many Asians and too few Blacks.

You say asians and whites are "more successful races" than blacks. Are you saying they are more successful because blacks are inferior, or are you saying they are more successful for some other reason?

Or would've been needed, if this article was about my (deeply flawed) person.

Correct! Now, care to respond to my other post asking you for your economic qualifications? You asserted that "market-failure is an anti-capitalist lie," and defended it by saying anyone who doesn't subscribe to the Austrian economic theories is a dishonest Marxist, but couldn't muster support for that dichotomy.

It is not, so shove your little impotent vendetta where the sun don't shine and leave me alone. If you can...

Too much fun!

I see you only responded to my assertion "you clearly believe black people are inferior," but you don't bother challenging that you haven't supported your claims, hate a wide swath of groups, and are attempting to martyr yourself as a hate victim when you just can't defend your own, bigoted beliefs. So you must be conceding those things.

See why I said you wouldn't survive in an academic setting?

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[Anonymous Coward]

We can see why you didn't survive against apk here http://it.slashdot.org/comment...

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[Anonymous Coward]

It's certain you hated having apk blow you away here http://it.slashdot.org/comment...

Re:"Market-failure" is an anti-Capitalist lie

[Anonymous Coward]

You're qualified to prove apk made you eat your words http://it.slashdot.org/comment...

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the market failure is caused by the government in the first place? The "one cable provider / one phone provider" laws are largely born out of this idea that the government needed to protect the people from having thousands of hundreds of competing cables and wires strewn across the town. That somehow having 3 or 4 different cables all providing the same service to your house was a bad thing. You can't really call it a "market failure" when the government steps in an guarantees the monopoly legal protection from competition.

I can sometimes buy the idea of a single public utility infrastructure with multiple utility providers, but the law of unintended consequences says that there will always be tradeoffs to doing this and those tradeoffs will likely inhibit future developments.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[youngatheart]

It's different because you can be called to court and/or have your property confiscated if you don't pay for municipal broadband and not even Comcast can do that.

I'm in favor of municipal broadband, and in one of the places where the state decided not to allow it, so I have strong feelings about the stupidity and blatant disregard for the good of the public that has been evidenced by my so called representatives.

Despite my preferences and irritation the difference between government and private enterprise is blindingly obvious.

• Can Comcast representatives arrest you?
• Can Verizon seize your property if you don't want to pay for their service?

The idea that

the government entity receives no unfair treatment and has to play by the same rules as every other company

has no basis in reality. Government has rights to force you to do things and private enterprise doesn't. That's what government is.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Anonymous Coward]

No one is stepping up, largely I suspect because mail delivery is a losing proposition. As you note, the USPS is losing money and pretty much only continues to exist because of paper spam.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[I_Lost_My_Puppy]

Not all politicians are amoral, self-serving scumbags.
On the federal level the 37 who aren't are drowning in the 500 who are.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[bouldin]

Very simply, if the town has expertise to run an ISP, why wouldn't not those people form a private company to do it?

Ignoring your double negative, it's because the town doesn't want to pay obscene 90+% profit margins that leave the town and don't help its economy. They want to pay the upfront costs using a bond, then run the broadband service at cost.

Private companies know they can't compete with a service run at cost, and that's why they lobby to ban them outright.

because, infamously, you can not fight city hall

The people of the town can elect or depose the leaders of city hall.

And if they don't, their establishing a governmental ISP anyway will preclude anybody with a clue from ever setting up shop...

What do you mean?

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[mister_playboy]

USPS has given all sorts of indication it cannot get along with UPS/FedEx.

UPS and FexEx drop off truckloads of packages at local post offices for final delivery by USPS every single day. The terms used for this service are SurePost and SmartPost, respectively.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not extreme. Actually it is at the core of US political legitimacy. The founders of our government were well aware that politicians were not slavish servants of the public. They said so and they attempted to structure government to make abuses by self interested politicians less likely. The balance of powers was one mechanism to do this. So not radical, indeed the opposite. It is an original idea present and influential at our nation's conception.

    It is also not an assumption. People act in self interested ways. This has been observed and noted for a very long time. When someone accuses a politician of being self interested they are not declaring politicians different than others, they are noting that politicians are people and that politicians are motivated the same way as everyone else.

Everything in this world is not polar opposites surrounding a rational center. If one asserts the sky is blue while another says yellow, both aren't assumptions and green is not the rational synthesis of two extremes. That people are self interested is not radical. That they are usually not self interested is radical. That politicians are motivated in completely different ways than normal humans is radical. That politicians are motivated just like other humans is not radical.

    That everything is a matter of polar extreme opposites surrounding a rational center is radical and unsupportable.

   

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[acoustix]

I really don't understand it either. If the government entity receives no unfair treatment and has to play by the same rules as every other company, there's no reason why a local municipality shouldn't be able to collectively decide that they want to take a crack at creating something better.

And this is where the problem is. The local government is playing by different rules. They can make the tax payers pay for the capital costs the service and not have it pay it back. That's different from the private sector, which has to take out loans to build the infrastructure and then pay it back. So right off the bat there's a huge difference in public vs private.

It seems that some people are more anti-government than they are pro-market or have become so accustomed to making the same argument that they're not even bothering to look at the issue at hand.

It has more to do with a level playing field than anti-government sentiment.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[JaredOfEuropa]

That's market failure caused by government failure. Why do you think those laws to limit competition were put in place?

OWS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you some leftover troll from OWS?

Really, take your bullshit and spew it on the DailKOS or MoronUnderground.

And take a fucking shower already.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[mi]

it's because the town doesn't want to pay obscene 90+% profit margins

The "obscene" profit margin would, presumably, have been to some kind of Comcast. My question was, why — if people capable of running an ISP live in or near the own — would they not form a private ISP of their own, enjoy the modest 45% profit margin and the adoration of neighbors?

The people of the town can elect or depose the leaders of city hall.

Yes. Same applies to the State legislature.

What do you mean?

What I meant is that if the town does not have people capable of running an ISP, but creates one anyway, the service will be horrible and yet, because of governmental monopoly, nobody else would offer competing service either. The townfolk will be settled with that bond (or, more likely, a tax-hike) and shitty service. Congratulations.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[randallman]

"if local government is using public funds to run fiber, allow other telcos the use of that fiber at cost"

That's the best solution. The item that it naturally scarce is owned by the people, serviced by contractors every few years. Then we can have a real competitive market by leasing access to the network.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Areyoukiddingme]

<snip>
  Also, small businesses like Comcast could not compete with big government like the council of a town with a population of 1,000 people.

Have you got a license to use that much sarcasm in one post? That exceeded the unlicensed sarcasm allowance. You'll need to file a form and pay a fee. The queue forms on the left. The office is open on alternate Tuesdays if the previous Wednesday was a full moon.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Nemyst]

All that will cause is for a few puppet ISPs to come up, offer token plans to reach the magical number (be it 3 or something else), and then continue as per usual.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[shutdown -p now]

Who cares? The government is in the business of ensuring that its constituents get a reasonable level of service, not in the business of enabling some private companies' business model. If municipal broadband is good enough that most customers flock to it (regardless of any "unfair advantage" it might have), what's the problem? OTOH, if it's fundamentally broken, so long as it's not a protected monopoly, private entities can still compete by offering a better service - just like UPS and FedEx do vs USPS.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[bouldin]

My question was, why -- if people capable of running an ISP live in or near the own -- would they not form a private ISP of their own, enjoy the modest 45% profit margin and the adoration of neighbors?

Well, 45% isn't necessarily a modest margin, depending on the business model and whether you're talking net or gross, but I take it you are offering this as a workaround to the state law banning municipalities from running broadband service.

The most immediate problem would be getting the business loan. Rolling out these services takes a lot of up-front capital, which is one of the reasons why these towns don't have broadband from Comcast/Time Warner/whoever. Those companies didn't think it was worth their investment. A town can secure a bond because it has the backing of a municipality.. It might be very difficult for a fledgling business to get such a large loan.

Maybe you're asking about the townspeoples' motivation? Or suggesting that, since they don't work at an ISP, they won't have the skills to run a small provider? These questions are too abstract to answer. But, if they aren't hurting anybody, I don't see why the state government should ban the behavior.

because, infamously, you can not fight city hall

The people of the town can elect or depose the leaders of city hall.

Yes. Same applies to the State legislature.

Not really relevant - more of a non sequitur.

What I meant is that if the town does not have people capable of running an ISP, but creates one anyway, the service will be horrible and yet, because of governmental monopoly, nobody else would offer competing service either. The townfolk will be settled with that bond (or, more likely, a tax-hike) and shitty service. Congratulations.

I think you're getting too far into conjecture here. You seem to be assuming the town will fail at their service. You're also assuming the government will enforce a monopoly. Can you make the argument that municipalities are inherently unable to run a service? Even if you can, do you have the right to take away their right to try?

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Darinbob]

Problem is, the private industry is NOT providing the service in many cases. And where the service is poor to non-existent these states are forbidding the municipalities from fixing it. Yup, Texas and North Carolina, home of big government.

Sometimes...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes I'm embarrassed to admit I live in North Carolina.
 
Anonymous

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Darinbob]

So, keep the proven evil company in power which the voters of the town have zero chance of affecting, versus the locally elected politicians who grew up with those same voters who can vote them out of the office on a regular basis? Do you think that there is no level of local that is small enough to allow a legitimate government and that we should relinquish all control to the corporations as the only legitimate authority?

I could understand your argument if you were talking about remote and distant federal or state governments being unaccountable to the people. But city council? If the voters can't affect city council then the democracy experiment is at an end (good thing we have a running start on our new feudal system).

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Darinbob]

Do you believe that the corporations (namely, Comcast and TWC) are not a bunch of amoral self serving scumbags, only with the ability to misserve a much larger constituency than the local governments?

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Darinbob]

If a politician, *especially* a local politician, wants to keep the job then the self-interest motivation says to listen to those local voters who live within walking distance. Thus I would trust the motivations of the local politician here over that of the distant and impersonal broadband corporation. It does not seem clear that the local politicians are opposing Comcast and TWC merely because of huge profits to be made, but instead they want their own local broadband because this is what the voters have been asking for (not 100% of them of course).

I could be wrong of course, but I suspect that the needs of the cable and broadband users in those munipalities are of absolutely no interest to Comcast, or any customer anywhere in the world for that matter. But the needs of the local cable and broadband users matter to the local politicians, to some amount greater than or equal to zero.

At the very very least, let the free market sort if out. Oh wait, we have a monopoly here so there is no free market, and state laws forbidding the creation of competition from local boards.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Darinbob]

Comcast and TWC are already monopolies in these communities. Sure it's strictly unfair for municipalities to have some extra bonuses when competing. But currently with de-facto monopolies in place there is no fair competition in those communities and extremely low probablility of fair competition arising on its own without government intervention. This is not a problem fixed by the application of laissez-faire free markets. These monopolies are not even providing the service that the citizens want, but they are preventing others from entering the market anyway. Worse, the state government has passed laws cementing this system into place.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Anonymous Coward]

"You people"? Who are you calling "you people"?

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[dywolf]

there are these things, called elections, where you can correct politicians who you dont like.
you can even hold special ones to impeach or recall if it's serious enough.

Re:Another good reason to not live in North Caroli

[Darinbob]

It is a very nice area of Tennessee too, not just for broadband.

An idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an idea. The state can hire my company to act as an ISP in their stead. I will provide no consultation nor demand either control or even communication from them. I ask for no compensation beyond a basic yearly salary. All they have to do is install the lines themselves (if not already done), construct a control center where they can hire additional contractors to manage communications, handle payroll and other accounting procedures, pay any applicable taxes, and manage the overall systems.

After all, it doesn't matter that I'm in Canada and the only employee and don't actually have a company set up yet (although I'll definitely set one up for this deal). As long as I'm an outside company that isn't part of the municipal government it should all be fine, right?

depends on the mix

[paul mafinga]

Is it really the government's job to "create"? Portions of the US Constitution were intended to restrict government and to enhance freedom and liberty.

Too many cities have water bills that started out with just water 60-100 years ago, and now have 15-20 line items for a number of services, not involving water.

I have one electrical service to my home, but a choice of three private sector management companies. At least if one does something foolish, I can switch.

It's all in the mix and how things are done -- I would never want a bill from the "Internet Department" of a local government shop, loaded with public union employees, appointed by the supporters of the most recently elected mayor. It's a disgusting practice and it's all over the country.

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[captainpanic]

Worldwide, politicians will listen just enough to the public to not get kicked out in the next elections. And they will screw you over as much as they want the rest of the time, serving either their own agenda, but far more likely the some religious or corporate agenda.

The problem in the USA is that there is so little choice that politicians can practically ignore the public altogether, because you only have a choice between two parties, both of which play the same rigged game. I am not saying it is much better where I live in the Netherlands, but at least I can choose between 10 cable/internet companies, and at least 15 parties for parlementary elections. If you wanna play democracy and/or capitalist, at least you need to have something to choose.

Congress is no more

[ULTROS]

FCC is out of control. Congress gave them a blank check rendering themselves irrelevant. to all the ABC's

over ruled by who?

[micahraleigh]

How can unelected beaurocrats in the FCC overrule the states?

If the federal government didn't pass a law about it, the states don't have to do it.

As hominem, off-topic, and stalking

[mi]

Are you saying they are more successful because blacks are inferior, or are you saying they are more successful for some other reason?

Just like you, I do not know the reasons. But I can see, that Asian Americans are more successful than White Americans, and White Americans — more successful than Black ones. It is evidenced in disproportional college admittance, arrest-records and other measures.

Whatever the reasons, the results are indisputable. Calling me "racist" over this is as stupid as blaming someone for stating, Blacks have more melanin in their skin...

I see you only responded to my assertion

Once again, my person is not the topic of this — nor any other forum on /. Not yet, anyway. Turning the conversation onto the person of your opponent is, by definition, an ad hominem attack. You automatically lose whatever the debate was about...

See why I said you wouldn't survive in an academic setting?

Darling, I handed your sorry ass back to you so many times already, I'm surprised, it is not yet falling off on its own. Or maybe it does? That would explain a thing or two...

Seek help — your obsession with my person, however illustrious, has already lead you to stalking — it is not healthy...

I certainly will not encourage you any more.

Re:As hominem, off-topic, and stalking

[bouldin]

Just like you, I do not know the reasons. But I can see, that Asian Americans are more successful than White Americans, and White Americans â" more successful than Black ones. It is evidenced in disproportional college admittance, arrest-records and other measures.

While these things may be your personal beliefs, you actually have not presented any evidence supporting any of it.

Whatever the reasons, the results are indisputable. Calling me "racist" over this is as stupid as blaming someone for stating, Blacks have more melanin in their skin...

The "results" may or may not be true, but you haven't presented any evidence.

I see you only responded to my assertion "you clearly believe black people are inferior," but you don't bother challenging that you haven't supported your claims [...]

Once again, my person is not the topic of this â" nor any other forum on /. Not yet, anyway.

Nice attempt at redirection, but you still haven't addressed your inability to support your claims on the three threads I linked.

Turning the conversation onto the person of your opponent is, by definition, an ad hominem attack. You automatically lose whatever the debate was about...

I see you still do not understand what an ad hominem attack is. If I said "mi is racist, therefore he is wrong about everything," that is an ad hominem attack. Instead, I have debated your claims by researching the topics and building arguments that refute your claims. It wasn't hard, because you have shown yourself to be a poor researcher.

I have also attacked your character, which you have also made easy. I've seen you frequently attack others, and show clear patterns of hate, so you deserve it.

See why I said you wouldn't survive in an academic setting?

Darling, I handed your sorry ass back to you so many times already, I'm surprised, it is not yet falling off on its own. Or maybe it does? That would explain a thing or two...

Actually, you have lost every debate we've had. Linking to opinion pieces may be emotionally satisfying for you, but you have yet to prove a single claim. Most of the time, you haven't even tried; you've clearly just pasted links to articles where the summary agrees with your opinions, but you haven't actually read the articles.

Seek help â" your obsession with my person, however illustrious, has already lead you to stalking â" it is not healthy...

Ha, no, you are posting hate speech in a public forum, so you should expect a strong response. There are young people trying to form opinions here, so I feel obliged to refute you.

You do make specious arguments, but they are exactly that: specious. They do not hold up to a serious inquiry.

Re:As hominem, off-topic, and stalking

[Anonymous Coward]

Evidence APK splattered you here is enough http://it.slashdot.org/comment...

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Anonymous Coward]

No argument that apk splattered you http://it.slashdot.org/comment...

Re:Obsessed with keeping government out of busines

[Anonymous Coward]

We can't ignore apk made you eat your words http://it.slashdot.org/comment...