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from the broadband-blockade-benevolently-bypassed dept.
Boing Boing reports
After North Carolina Republicans banned cities selling internet, a town decided to give it away instead
North Carolina is one of many states in which telcoms lobbyists have gotten the state house to ban towns and cities from selling high-speed internet to the public--even in places where the cable/phone duopoly refuses to supply broadband.
FCC Chairman and decidedly non-dingo babysitter Tom Wheeler pushed through FCC rules invalidating these state laws, only to have Republican lawmakers and telcoms lobbyists use the courts to win back the right to force people to buy internet service from cable or phone companies, or do without if neither wish to supply internet to them.
The town of Wilson, North Carolina was one of the places whose municipal fiber ISP was threatened by the court decision, but after a close read of the rule, they've decided that since they're only banned from selling broadband, they can safely give it away for free. Wilson is offering free broadband to people outside the town limits, whose rural homes are not adequately served by Big Telco, and who were hammered hard by Hurricane Matthew.
The plan is to offer the service for free for six months and hope that during that time the state legislature--the same one that passed the awful, nonsensical "bathroom bill"--will come to its senses and strike down the ban on municipal internet service. Lotsa luck.
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(Score: 4, Informative) by TheGratefulNet on Monday October 31 2016, @01:51PM
you must not know what this is about.
in short, its a hate-bill that is designed to mobilize the christian extreme 'right' (I really hate that they own that word; nothing 'right' about christians when you look close enough) and to placate them.
there was never an issue but the deep (derp) south keeps wanting to fight issues that simply don't exist, just to show its 'faithful' that they have a friend in lawmakers.
the rest of the world and the US are laughing (and crying) about our derp south and how, time after time, they show that they really should have been allowed to leave the union. I do believe they should have left as, even 100+ years later, they still don't have the same goals and beliefs the rest of the country has.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."