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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."
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.)
They'll get my encryption algorithm when they pry it from my cold, dead hard drive.
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?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
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.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
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'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.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
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).
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
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.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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."
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?