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posted by martyb on Tuesday September 20 2016, @05:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the mama-don't-allow-no-competition-'round-here dept.

TechDirt reports

Wilson, North Carolina's Greenlight [publicly-owned ISP], has had to disconnect one neighboring town or face violating state law. With state leaders tone deaf to the problem of letting incumbent ISPs write such laws, and the FCC flummoxed [by a federal court] in its attempt to help, about 200 home Internet customers in [the town of] Pinetops will thus lose access to gigabit broadband service as of October 28

[...] Greenlight's fiber network provides speeds of 40Mbps to 1Gbps at prices ranging from $40 to $100 a month, service that's unheard of from any of the regional incumbent providers (AT&T, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable) that lobbied for the protectionist law. Previously, the community of Pinetops only had access to sluggish DSL Service from CenturyLink.

Related:
Muni ISP forced to shut off fiber-to-the-home Internet after court ruling (Ars Technica)

Previous: Appeals Court Rules the FCC Cannot Override State Laws Banning Municipal ISPs


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  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:50PM

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:50PM (#404435) Homepage Journal

    Read the law as passed by the legislature [state.nc.us].

    Read the analysis by opponents of the law [muninetworks.org].

    I was going to post links to amicus briefs [wikipedia.org] to the Sixth Circuit court case, but I could only find those against the NC (and Tennessee) law. As such, I'm including a link to the reply brief from Tennesse [muninetworks.org] and the joint amicus brief [commoncause.org] from Benton Foundation, Common Cause, New America's Open Technology Institute, Public Knowledge and SHLB Coalition.

    I find it interesting that some folks who would normally be screaming about "states rights" and over-regulation by the Federal government don't support *state* laws limiting municipal broadband. Is it possible that the Federal government has a role in protecting citizens from the corrupt activities of state legislatures?

    Gub'mint bad! Bad gub'mint!

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @07:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @07:14AM (#404688)

    You are talking about getting the different gov entities to fight each other when it suits your purposes?

    You say it like it's a bad thing. ;)

    • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 21 2016, @09:03AM

      by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Wednesday September 21 2016, @09:03AM (#404709) Homepage Journal

      No. It's just that sometimes you need to roll up a newspaper and punish one or more levels of gub'mint.

      Bad gub'mint! Bad dog! Don't do that again! THWACK!

      Besides, what's a few dead Narns? Ten? A Hundred? A thousand? They're Narns!

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:35PM (#405144)

    "Is it possible that the Federal government has a role in protecting citizens from the corrupt activities of state legislatures?"

    no, chip eating, tv watchers in states need to hold their state gov responsible. the big state gov is already the problem. a bigger, more out of touch gov is not going to help in the long run, even assuming the best of intentions.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:59PM (#405146)

      Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?