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from the waiting-for-48-more-states-to-follow-suit dept.
The Montana governor's office has a message for the Federal Communications Commission and Internet service providers: the state can't be stopped from protecting net neutrality, and ISPs that don't like it don't have to do business with state agencies.
Governor Steve Bullock signed an executive order to protect net neutrality on Monday, as we reported at the time. But with questions raised about whether Bullock is exceeding his authority, the governor's legal office prepared a fact sheet that it's distributing to anyone curious about potential legal challenges to the executive order.
ISPs are free to violate net neutrality if they only serve non-government customers—they just can't do so and expect to receive state contracts. "Companies that don't like it don't have to do business with the State—nothing stops ISPs from selling dumpy Internet plans in Montana if they insist," the fact sheet says.
The FCC's repeal of net neutrality rules attempts to preempt states and localities from issuing their own similar rules. But Bullock's executive order doesn't directly require ISPs to follow net neutrality rules. Instead, ISPs that accept contracts to provide Internet service to any state agency must agree to abide by net neutrality principles throughout the state.
Source: Ars Technica
(Score: 3, Insightful) by insanumingenium on Monday January 29 2018, @09:53PM (19 children)
What makes them think that ISPs would play ball? They have every incentive to ignore this threat, as long as none of them comply, Montana government will appear foolish doing on thing and saying another.
It is almost inconceivable that Montana won't find that it isn't stuck with local monopolies as plague normal users in at least some areas.
That said, it might be profitable to become a mom and pop ISP, and sell Montana government inflated services which amount to a simply reselling connections to the ISPs that don't comply, and point out in all seriousness that you can't help peers actions.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 29 2018, @10:18PM
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by melikamp on Monday January 29 2018, @10:26PM (9 children)
If none of them comply, that's collusion, and is probably illegal. But there's no way they will collude, for two reasons: a single detractor willing to work with Montana will get to serve the entire state, while everyone else loses a chunk of market share, with nothing but red to show for it.
And in the highly unlikely event that ALL of them pick up the ball and go home, it would be pretty easy for Montana to roll out a public ISP, which is a nightmare scenario for the private ISPs Once that comes about, ALL of them will lose something like 90% percent of Montana forever.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday January 29 2018, @11:01PM (7 children)
The big net neutrality violators are probably Cellphone companies, with their free bandwidth for X if you buy from us.
Those are going to be pretty hard to get around, because access to towers would be taking.
Land line / Cable / Fiber providers are already occupying the public rights-of-ways along roads, etc. If Montana grabs those back, the big cable suddenly have no infrastructure any more.
Still I find it interesting that Montana only protects government.
.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday January 29 2018, @11:04PM
I suspect the cause stay in the lower chances of this being contested in court.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Insightful) by leftover on Monday January 29 2018, @11:06PM
Just guessing but it looks to me like they are being very careful to avoid overstepping state's rights. Smart, actually.
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday January 29 2018, @11:21PM
Isn't the "government only" bit to make sure they don't overstep State powers? They don't want the Feds overturning it.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Interesting) by melikamp on Monday January 29 2018, @11:21PM (2 children)
Spyphone companies are indeed very nasty and very entrenched, but they too will buckle once there's a political will to create a network accountable to the public. Imagine a municipality just starting to unroll its own towers in an urban setting, with free anonymous access to the Internet over 5G. If the sphyphone mafia can't sue them, they will be crawling to the negotiating table the very next day, on their knees, begging to go easy on them.
Imagine covering something like San Francisco or Manhattan. Even though residents may be keeping their old predatory spy-phones for a while, they can now take 95% of the bandwidth for free from the city. They can't make free legacy phone calls, but they get free videophone app connectivity to everyone in the same city and other places with a similar situation.
All of this is well-known to the monopolists, which is why the current push to legislate the consumer into servile obedience through stronger user-hostile copyrights, stronger user-hostile patents, criminal liabilities for reverse-engineering, weakening the net neutrality, and making the municipal networks illegal.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Spamalope on Tuesday January 30 2018, @12:22AM (1 child)
It's much cheaper to pay to elect someone friendly to the telcos. Just like they've been doing. You know, get all those billions for broadband then pocket most and spend a few tens of millions to insure there are no repercussions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @12:11PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @08:28AM
I would say they are even easier. For landlines, once the cables are the ground, there is no more interaction with the state. Where as with cell phones, there is a limited radio spectrum, and everyone who wants a part of it needs a contract with the state. Those contracts tend to put all kinds of conditions, including how many cell towers you are required to put up and in which areas. Don't like it? Don't sign the contract.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by insanumingenium on Monday January 29 2018, @11:03PM
The part that neither of us know, is what is the exact value of cooperation and defection. I would expect that the possibility exists to gather more fleece from the sheep than the shepherd.
More likely yet, given telcos long and storied history, some or all agree to Montanas demands and then act in bad faith.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday January 29 2018, @11:02PM (5 children)
So, what stops the state government in creating a public non-profit corporation to provide internet access?
It worked for ""Bridging the Golden Gate Association"/"Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District", which finished the project ahead of schedule and $1.3 million (in 1933 dollars) under budget.
Are works for the benefit of the public banned in United States?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by insanumingenium on Monday January 29 2018, @11:08PM (4 children)
Well many states explicitly don't permit this, I have no idea about Montana. Even ignoring that, starting a municipal internet project on a statewide scale is a huge step away from issuing a executive order saying you will only do business with vendors who promise net neutrality to all citizens of Montana. The last mile problem is far worse in rural and semi-rural areas. I would love to see a government provided internet infrastructure (presuming they are serious about net neutrality, China's situation isn't endearing to me), but I don't kid myself that it is likely.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 29 2018, @11:23PM (1 child)
If ISP colude to ignore Montana's local regulation, what else can the state do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Monday January 29 2018, @11:39PM
Noncooperation doesn't imply collusion. And that was my point, I personally expect they will likely end up just doing business with the noncooperative ISPs regardless of this grandstanding.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 30 2018, @08:30AM
Depends. Some may have written "the state is not allowed to provide internet access". But others will have it written as "the state is not allowed to compete with private ISPs" - in which case, if every ISP refuses to play, they are not competing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darnkitten on Tuesday January 30 2018, @05:31PM
From the Montana Code Annotated:
As interpreted, it generally prevents muni-wifi, etc.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday January 30 2018, @03:16AM (1 child)
Montana is already full of mom-and-pop ISPs selling fixed wireless, at very high prices, in the 80% or so of the state where CenturyLink DSL and your cellphone's access don't exist.
I think it's more likely that CenturyLink is trying to regain their former monopoly, especially since the real goal of the average mom-and-pop ISP is to get bought out by whoever is the nearest 800 pound gorilla.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darnkitten on Tuesday January 30 2018, @06:01PM
Our not-so-local co-op, while expensive, seems to do a reasonable job (for a fair-to-middling definition of "reasonable"), and has so far resisted selling out--with the exception of ridding itself of its cell division about a decade ago, when it turned out that in getting into the cell game early, it had adopted the wrong standards.
Anyway, it provides faster and more reliable internet access than the competing satellite and wireless internet companies, which started off competitive, but oversold their capacities and failed to upgrade to keep up with the co-op's advances.