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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
Don't blame the states, blame the big corporations and blame us for looking the other way while we got to the situation, where $2.6 billion of reported lobbying (bribery) donations are given to the House and Senate every year.
An European here cannot comprehend what's preventing creating a Pinetop Municipal Broadband Company which will provide the connection to locals and contractually buying bandwidth/network and other related services from the Wilson guys?
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.
Can we just call a spade a spade, and treat "lobbying" as a bribe? I'm getting sick of seeing this blatant corruption.
Is this basically the state saying to its people "fuck you, you can't have good internet because it's not sold by our buddies who would rip you off if they could be bothered, but they can't. So again, fuck you"?
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So you thini there's somehow a natural right for some private entity to be given access to infrastructure they did not build so they can make a profit because...I can't even make up a because here.
There is no right of privitization. Despite what conservatives think, capitalism is not enshrined in our Constitution and if we the people decide we want to provide something absent some fatcats making money off of it then that is our right.
I'll grant that shouldn't be done in haste, but no justification is needed. In this case there's plenty of justification. Cable and telecomm companies these days do nothing but engage in rent seeking behavior and holding back progress.
North Carolina is wrong and the court is wrong. In all the furor over states' rights everyone is forgetting peoples' rights.
Now, in a large screw you gesture to the vastly corrupt and totally owned by corporate interests North Carolina state government, what ought to happen here is that the people in these towns should form a non profit company in which they all own equal shares. They can elect a board to run it, get tax rebates and gifts from their governments for startup money just like billionaire sports team owners get who don't want to pay their own business expenses, and run the thing the way it's being run right now. Of course the company would have in its charter a prohibition on ever being sold to a for profit entity.
Based on that flawed logic, most of the rural US would still be lacking power and phone service. Rural communities using taxes to establish essential utilities is a long standing tradition in this nation and is a big part of what has made this country so strong.. Libertarians have some great ideas but usually take them too far.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Blame the politicians for taking bribes, or being influenced by deep pocket corporations. People can demand these monopoly laws be removed, the voting record of the state politicians is a matter of public record so you know who to blame. Politicians only get away with this corruption because the voters don't care. Also spin off the municipal broadband as a private corporation and they can keep it running.
I think it's because doctors don't approve laws for doctors, but politicians approve laws for politicians.