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Appeals Court Decision Kills North Carolina Town's Gigabit Internet (hothardware.com)
MojoKid writes: In early August, the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the FCC had no authority to prevent states from imposing restrictions on municipal internet. This was a result of the FCC stepping in last year in an effort to "remove barriers to broadband investment and competition." However, the courts sided with the states, which said that the FCC's order impeded on state rights. In the end, this ruling clearly favored firmly entrenched big brand operators like Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and ATT, which lobbied hard to keep competition at bay. The federal ruling specifically barred municipal internet providers from offering service outside of their city limits, denying them from providing service to under-served communities. The fallout from the federal court's rejection of the FCC order to extend a lifeline to municipal internet providers has claimed another victim. The small community of Pinetops, North Carolina -- population 1,300 -- will soon have its gigabit internet connection shut off. Pinetops has been the recipient of Greenlight internet service, which is provided by the neighboring town of Wilson. The town of Wilson has been providing electric power to Pinetops for the past 40 years, and had already deployed fiber through the town in order to bolster its smart grid initiative. What's infuriating to the Wilson City Council and to the Pinetop residents that will lose their high-speed service is that the connections are already in place. There's no logical reason why they should be cut off, but state laws and the lobbyists supporting those laws have deemed what Greenlight is doing illegal. Provide power to a neighboring town -- sure that's OK. Provide better internet to a neighboring town -- lawsuit
Because that too would be disallowed under state law. The locals have no political power. None of this has anything to do with any legal theory or ideal regarding state's rights, it's all about campaign donations. Oh sure, there's some frantic handwaving about how all government is evil and so a municipal government can't tax citizens to provide basic services, even if the citizens voted for it, so therefore there must be an even bigger government to stop that with an iron fist. But no one seriously believes that without being a wearer of tin foil hats. Pure and simple it's all about getting re-elected, which means getting big companies to give you money, and only picking on people that the average voter won't know or care about.
Leaving aside the "OH NOES! TAXES!" BS, the statement you quote never suggests that supplying Internet access is "charitable" or "unprofitable". It says "the majority of the area does not present enough profitability to attract the private-sector investment", not "the majority of the area does not present profit to attract the private-sector investment".
The private sector generally doesn't invest in projects to make small amounts of profit, especially if they're expensive. There are many, many, examples of projects that would more than pay for themselves that you'll never see the private sector take an interest in, because the promise of a 10% return here for a medium risk is unattractive compared to the promise of 100% there, for little or no risk.
As for taxes, I personally like paying taxes. As a wise man once said, in return I get civilization.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Blame "us" why? You say to blame "us" like we could do something about it. What would you have "us" do other than read news articles and say how bad it is? There is literally nothing "the People" can do about this kind of injustice. American democracy is a sick joke.
Precisely why the overwhelming public perception right now is that the only fix to vote for an outsider candidate and blow it the hell up.
Blame us- Wrong. The corruption of politics is so complete that if you believe your vote counts for anything then you are delusional.
Your influence in government is increased the more local that government is. Your vote may not count much (if at all) at a federal level, but it does at the state level.