Nearly Half of Colorado Counties Have Rejected a Comcast-Backed Law Restricting City-Run Internet (vice.com)

bumblebaetuna shares a report from Motherboard: In Tuesday's Coordinated Election, two Colorado counties voted on ballot measures to exempt themselves from a state law prohibiting city-run internet services. Both Eagle County and Boulder County voters approved the measures, bringing the total number of Colorado counties that have rejected the state law to 31 -- nearly half of the state's 64 counties. Senate Bill 152 -- which was lobbied for by Big Telecom -- became law in Colorado in 2005, and prohibits municipalities in the state from providing city-run broadband services.

Some cities prefer to build their own broadband network, which delivers internet like a utility to residents, and is maintained through subscription costs. But ever since SB 152 was enacted, Colorado communities have to first bring forward a ballot measure asking voters to exempt the area from the state law before they can even consider starting a municipal broadband service. So that's what many of them have done. In addition to the 31 counties that have voted to overrule the state restrictions, dozens of municipalities in the state have also passed similar ballot measures. Including cities, towns, and counties, more than 100 communities in Colorado have pushed back against the 12-year-old prohibition, according to the Institute for Local Self Reliance.

Comments

That's odd

[Anonymous Coward]

What could possibly motivate state legislators vote for a law that restricts the ability of communities to compete with companies?

Re:That's odd

[interkin3tic]

You're suggesting bribery, but I think a lot of state legislators are/were simply motivated by the religious belief that government cannot do anything useful beyond police and military. "Government no make jobs! GOVERNMENT NO MAKE JOBS!!!"

In some ways, that's worse. Bribery is at least logical, and can be outlawed. The cult of the free market on the other hand cannot be reasoned with, nor can you jail someone for it.

Re:That's odd

[WheezyJoe]

Bribery is at least logical, and can be outlawed. The cult of the free market on the other hand cannot be reasoned with, nor can you jail someone for it.

Bribery can be obfuscated, and the strongest "cult" is the one with the most money to build the biggest church on the most valuable piece of property. Politician say "GOVERNMENT NO MAKE JOBS!!!", corporation/fat-cat say "Good boy, now roll-over while Daddy pays Super-PAC to produce vicious attack-ads to run at all hours on all channels of his big cable network spanning every district."

Politician say "Big cable GOOD! Big cable GOOD!"

Re:That's odd

[alvinrod]

I think people who make this argument really misunderstand what is meant when people say that government cannot make jobs, though I suspect there are plenty of people who make the statement and support it without understanding it either.

From a plain language perspective, it's pretty obvious that government can make jobs. At a minimum any government official is holding a job position that wouldn't exist without the government. Those officials will likely create a lot of other government jobs as part of a bureaucracy in service of those initial jobs, much like a company has administrative assistants, HR departments, and plenty of other staff that don't have anything to do with the core business of the company. Similarly, the FBI, IRS, and other government agencies all need staff. The Department of Homeland Security certainly created a lot of jobs in order to fulfill the purposes it was created for.

But here's the funny thing. Government doesn't create jobs, but neither do companies. Sure a company can employee people for some task just like a government does, but the company can't just create any job at its whim. I could pay a few hundred people to create sculptures of 16th century philosophers fashioned entirely out of their own shit, but I could scarcely afford to for very long. It's consumer demand that ultimately creates jobs, and not any one person's particular whims about what kind of labor should be done. Unless you have customers willing to pay for your products, any job you might create is extremely temporary at best.

The notion that governments can't create jobs isn't about whether or not they can pay people to perform some activity. It's plainly obvious that they can. What is really meant by the phrase is that governments can't hope to direct the economy because they cannot possible imagine what it is that people actually want and value most. The Soviets and many others tried and failed miserably to direct economies no matter how much effort they devoted to central planning. That is also plainly obvious from history.

The difference is that a free market system allows for participants to see the kinds of jobs created that they're willing to pay to maintain rather than have them created by government decree. Furthermore, a government ban on municipal services is against free market principles. Also long as a city municipal internet company does not have any unfair competitive advantages by law, there's no reason why that option shouldn't exist. A free market cannot possibly exist if the government has legislated a monopoly.

If it seems that so many people who are in favor of free markets are against the government getting involved in markets its because a business in a free market is able to fail, freeing up the labor it used for other uses. Government jobs tend not to go away once created, even when most people wouldn't want to buy those services in any form. Look no further than the TSA for an example of where the government is forcing something down consumers throats when you'd be hard pressed to find people who would be willing to voluntarily purchase that kind of service.

Re:That's odd

[FudRucker]

lobbyists are just legalized bribery in Washington DC

Re:That's odd

[dgatwood]

Because the legal power to force you to pay for a service whether you want it or not is not competition? If a private concern did that, you'd rightfully howl.

Private concerns do it all the time. They get "redevelopment funds" to build out the infrastructure, but then it is privately owned. You, the taxpayer, end up paying for it whether you use it or not, but you don't get the benefit of the government continuing to own the infrastructure and getting to benefit by leasing it to ISPs. Private infrastructure is generally the worst of all possible options other than perhaps no infrastructure at all.

Are you going to exempt people who continue to buy the better private service? What? Nooo?

From the infrastructure buildout cost? No. That wouldn't be feasible. From the cost of operating it? Yes. Municipal ISPs work just like any other ISP. If you aren't using it, you don't pay for it.

That said, they are usually much cheaper and faster than the commercial ISPs, because they don't need to turn a profit. And often, multiple commercial ISPs spring up to lease access from the city and provide additional value-add services (e.g. cable-TV-over-fiber) at prices that are also much cheaper than the existing cable companies and ISPs, because the infrastructure cost (the expensive part) is run on a non-profit basis. So in the long term, most people will be using it....

To give you a hint of what's to come, Detroit Metro airport built a massive new parking structure, staffed it, and nobody came. Private shuttle services to lots a mile or more away were more than worth it. So the government passed a "government is inefficient" 30% tax on those lots, and still had problems.

They made the mistake of assuming they could charge ridiculously high prices to pay off the cost of the structure quickly. This probably means that either they didn't really need the parking structure or they didn't do sufficient financial planning to support it over the lifetime of the loan. It happens.

But experimentally, public fiber services have not had those sorts of problems. Quite the opposite. In the absence of unreasonable regulatory hurdles from incumbent ISPs, new fiber providers kick the living crap out of the incumbents cost-wise and service-wise, regardless of whether those fiber providers are governmental or commercial. But government-owned fiber has the advantage of being able to be leased non-preferentially, which allows for true competition that would otherwise be infeasible because of the cost of the infrastructure. That makes it by far the best approach to rolling out fiber, in the absence of laws preventing it.

Re: That's odd

[Obfuscant]

Users of competing broadband providers will not be taxed in any way to subsidize the city's program.

What happens when the fees don't cover the costs? And who is paying to install the infrastructure before there are any fees being collected to pay for it?

Taxpayers are always on the hook for city services. If any service doesn't collect enough fees to cover costs, taxpayers have to fill in the deficit.

[private communication from city manager's office]

Politicians are scum who lie every time they speak, unless they say something we like. Then they are speaking gospel truth. If you listen carefully to what he said, you will note that it does NOT say that the only source of money to pay for the system is this "enterprise fund". He said that the only thing the enterprise fund monies CAN pay for is "the specific purpose". If there aren't enough "enterprise fund" monies to cover the costs, the general fund is the next stop.

You've also forgotten, what is true today is not necessarily true tomorrow. Our Fair City has set up lots of "funds" that are intended for a special purpose, only to wind up with a change later that puts the money into the general fund for general spending, or even better, to change the "special purpose" that the fees are spent on. ("Temporary road use fee on the water bill to pay for repair of two sections of road the contractor screwed up" has morphed into "permanent general road repair fund so we can spend the general fund money on something else", for one example.)

Re: That's odd

[thestuckmud]

What happens when the fees don't cover the costs? And who is paying to install the infrastructure before there are any fees being collected to pay for it?

Taxpayers are always on the hook for city services. If any service doesn't collect enough fees to cover costs, taxpayers have to fill in the deficit.

First, let me say this. We won. You lost. Nana nana boo boo, stick your head in doo doo.

I know that was childish, but it actually does make me feel better and may well be the best way to address your misinformation and conspiracy theory.

OK. Here's the deal. Ft. Collins taxpayers have agreed, by vote in this election, to allow the city to issue bonds for the broadband enterprise fund, to be repaid by network subscribers. In doing so, we collectively agreed that the benefits outweigh the risks, and we implicitly accept that in the unlikely event of failure we will cover the bonds or face city bankruptcy.

Your objection has been noted, but you have been outvoted,.

If there aren't enough "enterprise fund" monies to cover the costs, the general fund is the next stop.

You are plainly wrong here. The new utility is an enterprise fund, which, in this case, has its finances separated from other city funding.

You've also forgotten, what is true today is not necessarily true tomorrow. Our Fair City has set up lots of "funds" that are intended for a special purpose, only to wind up with a change later that puts the money into the general fund for general spending, or even better, to change the "special purpose" that the fees are spent on. ("Temporary road use fee on the water bill to pay for repair of two sections of road the contractor screwed up" has morphed into "permanent general road repair fund so we can spend the general fund money on something else", for one example.)

Well... Taxation is constrained by TaBOR, so I would not be surprised to learn that some creative redirection has been enacted. But the point here is that you can choose to use other broadband providers, and if you do so you won't have to pay any of the fees charged by the Ft. Collins municipal internet.

Re: That's odd

[Darinbob]

Hmm, didn't GM dump its bankruptcy on the government?

Re: That's odd

[Darinbob]

Which is why the telecom lines should be treated as public infrastructure. This was true after the breakup of AT&T, all the competing new phone companies were allowed to make use of AT&Ts existing infrastructure, even those companies that were not originally a part of AT&T (ie, Sprint and such). The infrastructure created by monopolies like Time Warner and Comcast should be opened up to allow competition under the same rules as for telephone companies.

Re:That's odd

[jeff4747]

What is really meant by the phrase is that governments can't hope to direct the economy because they cannot possible imagine what it is that people actually want and value most.

When it comes to things like consumer goods, government is ill-suited to satisfy consumer demand. Tastes change, and innovation is critical. Both are better handled by private entities.

When it comes to basic utilities like water, power, and now Internet service, government does just fine. The product is absurdly simple and demand is more-or-less universal. And before the "must sell all public utilities" cult took over, government delivered those utilities at a lower cost than the now-private utility companies.

Re:How is it possible?

[CaptainDork]

Before you spend our time contemplating your assumptions, you could have taken 3.2 minutes (I timed it) to come up with this:

But ever since SB 152 was enacted, Colorado communities have to first bring forward a ballot measure asking voters to exempt the area from the state law before they can even consider starting a municipal broadband service. So that's what many of them have done.

Re:How is it possible?

[caladine]

The law has an "opt-out" provision, provided a referendum is approved to do so.

Re:Trump brand cronyism, brought to you by Comcast

[Calydor]

Yeah, how DARED Pai and Trump do this back in 2005!

Love-hate relationship with the irony

[istartedi]

The irony of this--Colorado rejects Federal drug laws and goes rogue because the "war on drugs" has become nothing but pork for the prison-industrial complex. Now their counties reject the state's law because it's just pork for the telecoms.

My love is that there's a fight back against these things. My hate is that we even got here in the first place.

Re:Love-hate relationship with the irony

[blindseer]

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

This discussion led me to go look up the Tenth Amendment Center website. They are certainly big on letting people shoot and smoke all they want. If you think that the "war on some drugs" is just something to prop up the prison industry then what do you think of the "war on some guns"? I believe that it's going to be hard to tell people that they can smoke what they can grow but not shoot what they can build. If you think it's silly for someone to go to prison for three years for growing a common weed then would it not also be silly to put someone in prison for playing in their garage with some scrap metal?

What is this "bump stock" that so many congresscritters want to ban now? It's a piece of plastic on a threaded pipe, that's about it. What's a "silencer"? According to the ATF it can be a piece of metal that's got male threads on one end and female threads on the other, as in it can fit a common oil filter to the end of a rifle barrel. What is a "machine gun"? According to the ATF it can be something as simple as a length of string with a loop on each end, people have actually got these "machine guns" registered with the ATF.

I believe that what we've been seeing happen with federal drug laws will soon also happen with federal gun laws. It appears I'm not the only one. I went to the Tenth Amendment Center website and found a couple interesting recent articles on this debate over federal control on guns and drugs. I know lots of Slashdot readers don't like Second Amendment advocacy groups like the NRA, but if you are not a fan of federal prohibitions on marijuana possession then you need to have a different attitude on the NRA. The legal constructs that prohibit marijuana possession are the same constructs that prohibit the possession of silencers. If one goes then so does the other.

Here's just one example explaining this connection between gun laws and drug laws, the connection is the Tenth Amendment.
http://tenthamendmentcenter.co...

There is one important distinction though between gun laws and drug laws, gun laws have an additional amendment in the US Constitution that makes them problematic while drug laws do not. If you believe that Colorado can "go rogue" on drug laws and expect a federal ban on bump stocks to hold up in court then I believe you will be disappointed in the long run.

Re:Love-hate relationship with the irony

[blindseer]

Everything you know about the NRA you must have learned from Whoopi Goldberg.

What's the argument for legalizing marijuana or any other drug? It will be something like the benefits outweigh the harms, states' rights, personal rights, federal government over reach, or so. All the same arguments apply for the right of self defense, or most all anyway.

What kind of restrictions are people expecting for marijuana possession? I mean even the marijuana legalization people aren't expecting a free for all. Largely the argument is that marijuana should be regulated like alcohol. Only adults can possess marijuana. If allowed for children (I emphasize *IF*) then it must be under adult supervision (parent, physician, other person responsible for the health of the child). Sellers must be registered, inspected, and trained. Buyers must present an ID. People in prison or a mental institution will not be allowed access with perhaps exceptions for medical need. All of these same restrictions are called for by the NRA and would at least be tolerated by most Second Amendment advocates, any medicinal claims excepted as I am unaware of any medicinal use of a firearm.

I recall a Second Amendment Foundation official that addressed a "gun show loophole" bill by proposing this alternative, everyone that entered a gun show must have a background check done at the door, no exceptions. This background check would be done through the same FBI database as used by licensed firearms dealers. The groups wanting to close the "gun show loophole" rejected this. Why? Because it didn't require the registration of the firearm transfers. This proves beyond a doubt that this is not about background checks, this was an attempt to create a database of all firearms and who owns them. Why would any government want a database of all firearms and who owns them? Ponder that, and look at what history taught us about previous firearm registries.

Whatever you can think of that would apply to removing restrictions on marijuana would also apply to firearms. You think I don't know that the government might ban bump stocks? Of course they are going to try, they might even be successful in passing that into law. Here's the thing, this will be just as successful as previous bans on marijuana, alcohol, and "assault weapons". If I wanted marijuana then I'm pretty sure I know I could get some by this weekend. I don't because I have respect for the law. Those that lost respect for the law have their drugs, and guns, and alcohol, and bump stocks, and silencers, or whatever else the government thinks that they can make disappear with a law. Marijuana is a weed, people will get it. A bump stock is a piece of plastic, people will make them. A silencer (at least according to the ATF) is a short piece of threaded pipe. A machine gun (again, according to the ATF) is a piece of string. These laws don't keep the criminals from having them. All they do is put good people in prison, because if a piece of string is a machine gun then the government can put anyone in prison.

Re:Love-hate relationship with the irony

[blindseer]

Good thing guns are dangerous to those around you, that's kind of the point, is it not?

Re:Love-hate relationship with the irony

[istartedi]

I'm wishing not for states rights; but for laws based on the will of the people as opposed to corruption.

Re:How is it possible?

[PopeRatzo]

How did it take you more than three minutes to read the summary, only to come up with a quote that does not explain HOW they can exempt themselves from the law?

The law itself has provisions allowing for exemption mechanisms.

Re:Did the communities actually build a network?

[PopeRatzo]

Did these communities that "rejected Comcast" actually build their own networks, or are they still using the service that they supposedly rejected?

The ballot initiatives that will allow the communities to build their own networks were only passed yesterday.

They're going to need more than 24 hours to build their municipal networks.

Re:How is it possible?

[Sique]

Maybe because a provision in the SB 05-152 law says that counties are extempt where a majority of the population voted to have municipal broadband? You could for instance read the law and find this section:

PART 2

CONDITIONS FOR PROVIDING SERVICES

29-27-201. Vote - referendum.

(1) Before a local government may engage or offer to engage in providing cable television service, telecommunications service, or advanced service, an election shall be called on wether or not the local government shall provide the proposed cable television service, telecommunications service or advanced service.

Re:Did the communities actually build a network?

[elistan]

It's one thing to huff and puff, it's another to take action. Did these communities that "rejected Comcast" actually build their own networks, or are they still using the service that they supposedly rejected?

The communities did not reject Comcast - they voted in favor of allowing the city to provide Internet access (alongside all existing providers.) It's now up to the city to put together a plan to fund and provide that access, and get approval for that plan. In Longmont COs case, once the city voted to exempt itself from the ban, the city proposed floating a bond to fund the build-out, which was approved by the city in yet another vote. The city then did in fact built out a gigabit fiber service. And it's awesome.

I support this

[ryanmc1]

As a conservative, free market supporter I also support this. I think you will find that most conservatives support states, counties, and cities doing this. What we don't want is the federal gov imposing these kinds of things on everyone. I would also support state single payer health care, and any other social program as long as it is done at the state, or lower, level where the people actually have a say in what is going on.

Re:Not super relevant after 2022

[PPH]

And we'll call it WiMax. And we'll sell it under a name, like Clearwire. And since it isn't encumbered by that nasty last mile problem, like it's FTTH competition offering 1G speeds, it will be great.

Fooled me once.