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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: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:29PM (#404461)

    There are few easy solutions to this issue.

    It's a shame a Union strongman removed the rightful remedy from every State, ensuring that the only fix for this problem will be another strongman. Why should NC be chained to ISPs headquartered in NY, PA, or elsewhere?

    Wait, what?

    So let me get this straight. You have a State (North Carolina) suppressing the ability of a City's (Wilson) ability to set up a locally run ISP. The Federal Government (FCC) tries to assist them, but is unable to. And somehow the solution is the State to succeed, if only the oppressive Federal Government wasn't around to stop it?

    Isn't that exactly backwards? In this case, the State is the bad actor. It's the weakness of the Federal Government (or the weakness of the local government) which is the problem. So if anything, you should be saying that it's a shame the Confederacy's legacy still lives on...

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @09:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @09:18PM (#404494)

    The Confederacy didn't come up with the idea of state's rights; that was set up by the Constitution, even explicitly. The federal government only has the powers granted to it by the Constitution. Not that that always brings about the best result, but that's how it is.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @10:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @10:53PM (#404531)

      Remember during the civil war. The confederates were the ones backing the constitution. The union tried to take power that was not there. Only after winning did the rewrite start.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:30PM (#404554)

        They stated that the states rights as enshrined in the AoC had not been overturned by the signing of the Constitution.

        Much like the moonshiners before them, they discovered that the law is whatever those with guns tell you it is, and the papers are only used to provide justification when it fits the narrative. Not unlike 'all men are created equal', except if you add 'wo' to them, or they are descended from niggers or injuns.

        Also as has been pointed out before, the Union allowed slavery in 'conforming' states to continue until all the previous slaveowners had died out.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @02:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @02:40AM (#404632)

    See, the key is that states are allowed to secede from the country, counties are allowed to secede from states, townships are allowed to secede from counties and property owners are allowed to secede from townships. It's free market government.