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Appeals Court Decision Kills North Carolina Town's Gigabit Internet (hothardware.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the rules-and-regulations dept.

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

10 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Bribery wins again by Dog-Cow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    At the very least, service should keep running until someone else provides service. It's not as if Comcast is going to provide service within anyone's lifetime just because Greenlight stops.

  2. Don't blame the courts. by Spazmania · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Blame North Carolina for passing a bad law. The courts did no more than affirm the states' right to regulate their municipalities.

    While you're at it, blame Wilson for overreaching. They could have made a case for installing basic infrastructure (fiber optic cable, no different than roads) and then leasing it by the strand to individuals and businesses to connect to the Internet provider of their choice. And invited providers to enter the market and compete, now with the ease-of-entry facilitated by last-mile infrastructure. Instead they made the same bad decision most municipalities make: run a municipal Internet service with no direct access to the cable for other purposes.

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    1. Re:Don't blame the courts. by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Good news it can now go to the supreme court. Then let's see if they find that "state's rights" trump the rights of local municipalities or not. State's rights is pure hypocrisy, whining that the feds have too much power while turning around and exerting undue power over it's own citizens, all for no rational legal purpose than to get campaign funds from donors, while the rights of the people are ignored. Libertarians are probably in a tizzy over this; support small government, or support their traditional allies the big corporations.

    2. Re: Don't blame the courts. by johnsmithperson123 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Basic fibre internet is the rural electrification of the 21st century.

    3. Re: Don't blame the courts. by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The entity that installed the infrastructure in the UK was the government, who then sold off the infrastructure to a private company.
      This private company has only upgraded the infrastructure in areas that would be profitable, or when the government has further subsidised the upgrades.
      Commercial entities have installed their own infrastructure too, but only in certain profitable areas, other areas are left in the dark.

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  3. Re:Work around? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, sell the fiber network to Pinetops for $1 and then they can hire Wilson to run the net.

  4. Re:Work around? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What I as a European don't understand is how it can be that the state can enforce an ISP monopoly. In the United States of Frothing Freemarketia no less.

  5. NC is Not in the 6th Circuit by JenovaSynthesis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This court decision is not binding on the state of North Carolina. The Sixth Circuit covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. North Carolina is in the Fourth Circuit. Decisions in other circuits are merely persuasive authority, not binding. Only the Supreme Court can do that.

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  6. Split the company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Each municipality should have an independent company that works in partnership with the other. With a minimal of overhead, they will be able to sidestep state law.

  7. Re:Right. by RatPh!nk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a doctor - MD type. I can't take a pen or a lunch without being accused of having a terrible bias and being "on the take" with "big Pharma" but politicians can literally take tens or even hundreds of thousands actual US dollars (maybe millions) then write (or have written for them) clearly bribed legislation and this is normal. Hmmmm.....

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