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posted by martyb on Monday October 31 2016, @06:55AM   Printer-friendly
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.

Previous:
Town Loses Gigabit Connections after FCC Municipal Broadband Court Loss
FCC Considering Action on Municipal Broadband State Laws


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @05:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @05:15PM (#420934)

    "The difference between tax-supported and not is about whether people have to opt in to receive the service. Not everybody will want internet, and allowing people to not pay for it allows private providers to compete for business."

    I got that bit. That's obvious. The question at the level of government is whether the facility in question is a sufficiently important or valuable element of infrastructure to provide social benefits of a sufficient order to justify the outlay. If it is that important, then making it tax supported is justifiable. If it's not that important, government probably has no business getting involved.

    Of course, the hidden subtext here is that different levels of government are in conflict with each other, with the feds creating a constrained market, with a de facto cartel running the availability of services, and the local government trying to undercut the cartel, but the logic of tax support as opposed to a fee based system remains valid. If it's not that important, then it's not worth the local government's time. If it is that important, it can be tax supported.

    As for the private providers not wanting to compete, I know that as well, and don't really care about what they want. If the local government provides basics as an essential service, they can step up their game and offer supplemental services - or not. They don't have to serve that market at all if they don't want to.

  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 31 2016, @05:32PM

    by bob_super (1357) on Monday October 31 2016, @05:32PM (#420941)

    There is no question that the government saves money if everyone has internet access, allowing them to use online government services and getting rid of evil lazy government workers which single-handedly suck the life out of the US economy.
    But that logic resulted in free internet access in public libraries, which have limited capacity and hours, instead of free ubiquitous wireless broadband and subsidized devices (can't give tech gadgets to the poor, that riles up the anger-prone)

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by meustrus on Monday October 31 2016, @06:35PM

    by meustrus (4961) on Monday October 31 2016, @06:35PM (#420962)

    Of course, the hidden subtext here is that different levels of government are in conflict with each other

    Absolutely. But in this case, it's not feds vs local; it's state vs. municipal. And the fact is that municipal governments (your local city hall) have very little tax base and very few instruments by which to raise taxes. If it was a federally-supported program, it would absolutely make sense to make it fully tax-supported because a relatively minor income tax hike could account for the difference. But it's not a federally-supported program. At least not until they figure out how to take federal subsidies for rural broadband (which I'd further guess they are categorically disallowed from doing as a government entity).

    --
    If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?