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
Related Stories
The Register has a story about a court ruling that possibly puts one nail in the coffin of the attempt by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) to prevent states from banning municipal ISPs.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals said on Wednesday [PDF] that the American regulator lacks the authority to overrule state laws that prevent cities from operating their own ISPs.
Last year, the watchdog declared it was unfair of North Carolina and Tennessee to block community-run broadband. Now an appeals court has said the FCC overstepped the mark by trying to undo that block with a preemptive order. In other words, in this case, the US states can't be pushed around and overruled by the communications regulator as it lacks the clear authority to do so.
"This preemption by the FCC of the allocation of power between a state and its subdivisions requires at least a clear statement in the authorizing federal legislation," the judges noted.
"The FCC relies upon S706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 for the authority to preempt in this case, but that statute falls far short of such a clear statement. The preemption order must accordingly be reversed."
We obviously have not seen the last of this, especially since the amateur lawyer in me believes the court decision was in error.
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
(Score: 5, Touché) by bob_super on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:05PM
"Dear State assessor, courtesy of the bad publicity surrounding the loss of our broadband internet, please note that house prices are down 50% across the whole town. Kindly adjust property taxes accordingly. Love++"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:53PM
You're joking, but that might actually work.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday September 20 2016, @09:19PM
It doesn't work that way. AFAIK, in every state, property tax assessment is done at the local level, not the state level, and you pay your property taxes to your local government.
So if you do get your assessor to drop your property taxes, he and your local government will bitch and complain about it, but it doesn't matter because they're not the state government, and the state government doesn't answer to them. The state government would only care if it somehow affected state tax revenues, but this only affects a small minority of the state so it won't. It'll make NC look stupid again, but that doesn't matter; the whole bathroom bill flap made them look stupid too, and didn't affect their behavior. The state is run by corrupt morons. Unfortunately, there's nothing that can be done about that, because those corrupt morons are elected by moronic voters across the state. Some smart voters in some cities here and there are outvoted by all the idiots elsewhere.
Honestly, I can't think of a lot of states that are well-run really, though if I think about it I can think of some that don't come to mind as having anything particularly stupid going on at the state level. OR and WA come to mind here, though there is that dumb law in OR about pumping gas, but no one's perfect. Perhaps ME, VT, and RI too, but maybe people who live in these states will have a different view since out-of-staters don't usually pay too much attention to what happens in other states unless they live very nearby or the state does such stupid stuff that it makes the news like this, but there are plenty of such states.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Tuesday September 20 2016, @09:51PM
If everyone shorted their properties together, and then recorded those sales, government would have no choice but to alter property taxes.
It was enormously successful in Las Vegas (claims for adjustment). Property prices tanked by over 50%, and instead of paying the thousands of dollars in taxes on some properties, the owners simply sued the city. Properties were re-appraised, and indeed, the city had no choice but to lower the property taxes.
If property taxes are in any way associated with the last selling price, that is quite easily to manipulate.
They should have a multi-pronged approach including demanding re-appraisals, funding progressive candidates, and basically making life pure fucking hell for the government officials there.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday September 21 2016, @03:20PM
That's all nice and well, but the state-level politicians who are in the pockets of Comcast aren't going to give a shit. They have nothing to do with local property taxes, and the state budget has nothing to do with local property taxes.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:24PM
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?
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:34PM
I totally agree. This is all the union's fault.
And while we are at it let's blame the rest of them leftie pinko commie scum as well.
Iama tellin ya. They come fer ma guns and there will be trouble.
*spit*
Aint no dirty hippies gonna stop me from doin what I want. This is merica! Home of the free and the brave an shit.
#Trump2016
(Score: 5, Informative) by JNCF on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:11PM
I totally agree. This is all the union's fault.
And while we are at it let's blame the rest of them leftie pinko commie scum as well.
I'm pretty sure that GungnirSniper meant the Union as in the federal government, not the union as in an organized group of workers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @02:06AM
My response and parody does not change regardless...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:47PM
I was hoping some of our more steadfast republican leaning membership is able to provide convincing discussion as to why the outcome of this is good for people. It is clearly good for the cable business, but I dunno about how the little person is effectively assisted by being released from the tyranny of government municpal internet connectivity providing a service otherwise unavailable via the invisible hand.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tibman on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:44PM
I don't think this is good for the people but just skimming the article the reason is pretty good. A state passed a law. The FCC shouldn't be able to override that law (unless it affects people outside that state maybe). The people should get that law fixed and everything would get better. The FCC doesn't need to even be involved in that.
So the party line division is over small government vs big government. Can locals pass laws for themselves or not? If the government wants to they could pass a national law that then restricts what states could do. But using the FCC to overturn state laws (that are legal) doesn't seem like the legally correct thing. Even if in this case it is the morally correct thing. That stupid state law never should have been passed.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:31PM
That is the best reply I could have asked for.
I think the issue, then, is that the people with the money are able to afford to lobby their interests more effectively than the people that just want to buy service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:11PM
Why should the FCC or FAA have any rights to airspace/waves within a state? Or the federal government with agriculture commerce inside the state?
I will note there is case law stating that both are true. If so, then why does the FCC not have jursidiction in this particular case?
I personally do agree with the local government management and having state agencies handle everything that doesn't cross state lines, but that is not the way the Union has reacted for almost 150 years, and perhaps hasn't acted since its foundation (although obviously the enforcement was much more lax in the early days.)
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 21 2016, @06:29AM
So the party line division is over small government vs big government. Can locals pass laws for themselves or not? If the government wants to they could pass a national law that then restricts what states could do. But using the FCC to overturn state laws (that are legal) doesn't seem like the legally correct thing. Even if in this case it is the morally correct thing. That stupid state law never should have been passed.
And if the state law is a result of the corrupting influence of cartelists/monopolists on state legislatures, quis custodiet ipsos custodes [wikipedia.org]?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:48PM
There is actually another solution in the works, which you might write your congressman about:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/community-broadband-bill-us-congress-eshoo [vice.com]
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/09/lawmaker-seeks-to-overturn-state-bans-on-municipal-broadband/ [arstechnica.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @04:51AM
The headline on that one might reflect reality a bit more closely.
This Bill Could Stop Protectionist State Broadband Laws, But ISP Control Over Congress Means It Won't Pass [techdirt.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:53PM
It's a shame a Union strongman removed the rightful remedy from every State
I assume by "Union strongman" you mean that scumbag Abraham Lincoln. Too bad Booth didn't shoot his sorry ass in 1861, huh?
Stars and Bars forever! The South Will Rise Again!!!!
Trump/Pence 2016
#MAGA
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:00PM
But that only solves things if cities and counties are allowed to succeed from the state. And that introduces its own problems, which are only solved if houses or neighborhoods are allowed to succeed from the cities. And that introduces other problems...
I will agree that the design of the constitution is flawed when the federal government is strong WRT the state governments. This doesn't mean I claim to know what the correct answer is.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:17PM
But that only solves things if cities and counties are allowed to succeed from the state. And that introduces its own problems, which are only solved if houses or neighborhoods are allowed to succeed from the cities. And that introduces other problems...
I get that you're not claiming to know what the correct answer is, but do you have a preference for how big governments should be? Does the current size of the federal government in the US seem reasonable to you? If not do you want it to be bigger, or smaller?
I like the idea of city states, personally.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:23AM
I like the *idea* of city states, but they don't work well in a civilization that has rapid transportation and communication.
A possible idea would be to have multiple levels of government from somewhere below city sized to national, and for each level to only be able to regulate the two or three levels immediately below it. But this needs to be combined with some maximum length for any law, and some maximum number of laws per level of government, and some sort of test for decidability in each law (as well as a test of intelligibility).
Say no level of government should be able to regulate more than 512 instances of government (with people counting as a basic level of government. And each level of government having its composition determined by choices from the level immediately below it. So a nation would be limited to 512 regions (but if it's got that many regions, the national government cant's control any sub-region governments). And the region would be limited to 512 states, and the state to 512 counties, and the counties to 512 districts, and the districts to 512 cities, and the cities to 512 boroughs. But if a level of government instead of having 512 sub-governmental units, had 256, then it could have (half the limit on the number of laws) laws pertaining to the sub-level.
I dunno. That's not quite right, but it shows promise if it were worked on a bit. Perhaps each level should be able to impose n laws on it's immediate sub-governments, and sqrt(n) laws on their sub governments, and n^-3 laws on the sub-sub governments, and n^-4 on the sub-sub-sub-gov...etc.
The real bone in the matter, though, is how to hold the people with power responsible for their exercise of that power.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday September 21 2016, @01:09AM
I like the *idea* of city states, but they don't work well in a civilization that has rapid transportation and communication.
I don't see why not. If anything I'd expect those factors to make it easier for non-monolithic entities to interact with each other. Rightly or wrongly, I model the rise of large governments as being a matter of military might.
A possible idea would be to have multiple levels of government from somewhere below city sized to national, and for each level to only be able to regulate the two or three levels immediately below it.
To me this sentence and the details that follow it seem to argue for how a government ought to be structured, but not how big the overall structure should be. Are you imagining that the highest level of this fractal government would be a one world government, or are you thinking of dividing existing federal governments into this structure, or perhaps establishing a maximum depth that a tree of governments can reach before splitting entirely?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @05:26AM
Singapore
Possession of chewing gum is a crime there.
...and $DEITY help you if you get caught in possession of a firearm or ammunition--even if that's part of an inert piece of jewelry.
google.com/search?q=intitle:Singapore+"a.single.bullet.in.your.luggage" [1] [archive.li]
[1] The S/N comments engine is still NEEDLESSLY stripping %22 out of hyperlinks.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:28PM
But that only solves things if cities and counties are allowed to succeed from the state. And that introduces its own problems, which are only solved if houses or neighborhoods are allowed to succeed from the cities. And that introduces other problems...
I will agree that the design of the constitution is flawed when the federal government is strong WRT the state governments. This doesn't mean I claim to know what the correct answer is.
No one is allowed to succeed! Failure is the only option. Deal with it. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:23PM
The Articles of Confederation were replaced with the Constitution after the Constitutional Congress as a direct result of each state trying to pull one over on other members of the Confederacy. They were all broke or indebted states. Some printed far more scrip than their economies could repay/support, many would not take the currency of their neighboring communities, etc.
Now the question to be made could be how many of the 'average citizens' were involved in that, rather than the merchants, political elite, and other wealthy or privileged individuals, but in the end the result is the same: Looser control failed because the US had indebted itself heavily to win its revolution, and did not collectively do what was necessary to un-indebt the whole or enrich the impoverished masses (many revolutionary veterans debts were unpaid up to 10 years after the war. Many were required to repay interest incurred during the course of their service in the revolutionary war. The merchants did the same then that they just did in 2008. Had the masses pay for their own overexpenditures while returning little to the indebted masses.
The true irony is that while the centralization eventually helped improve the economy by regaining trade with europe, the majority of what improved the industry was industrial espionage and lack of respect for foreign intellectual property laws (see the cotton gin, and a variety of steam engine and other technology stolen from britain and other european countries in order to elevate the expanding colonial us as a whole.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:29PM
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...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @09:18PM
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
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
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
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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:29PM
Internet helps incubate antisocial deviant shut-ins. Good Internet does it faster. God forbid if one of those customers were to kill everyone involved at the state level.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @06:47PM
So we have one presidential candidate who has legal problems, may have health problems, and may have a high likelihood of getting impeached, and another candidate who has legal problems, may have health problems, and may have a high likelihood of getting impeached.
Yet one candidate is clearly the better choice because that one candidate isn't going to launch nuclear missiles at Mexico for being told he has short fingers.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:01PM
Well let's see. I might suggest fiber is not the only option. I might suggest mobile broadband.
But no. I won't do that. You idiots believe fiber is the only option.
Because I would face an impossible argument to convince your stupid stupid minds otherwise, I'll just say this.
Fuck you all.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:14PM
Actually, no, I won't consider mobile broadband. Really, I won't. I have a snowball's chance in hell of seeing fiber in my area, but the fiber offerings I see around the country are affordable. If there are any caps, they are reasonable. The offerings from mobile broadband? I can't justify the cost, and I most certainly can't justify the caps. I hope all of the CEO's and boardmembers of wireless providers die painful, lingering deaths.
Let us not forget that congress long ago paid incentives for that elusive "last mile" so that Americans could get broadband service. The sons of bitches in this story are actively working against congress' stated goal of getting broadband service into Backwoods, Nowhere. They took congress' money, but they fight congress' intent.
Let them all die in pain.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:35PM
You forgot to mention MAH DUMB PIPES bro.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:10PM
There's also the problem of frequency congestion. Cell system based wireless is doable, but expensive to implement except where populations are very dense. Mesh networks don't scale well. Etc.
UUHF narrowcast transmissions can give everyone all the bandwidth they want, at a huge cost. (Nothing is mobile, and each site needs custom installation.)
Fiber is the best generally available solution for most cases. And it's becoming more commonly available...though I don't know how fast it's spreading to low population areas. For those narrowcast might be better, which frequency chosen based on the necessary coverage. E.g., if you just need to cover a few hundred people in a valley, microwave might be the best choice, essentially turning the entire valley into one high powered cell tower cell. (But the mobile transceivers are likely to need more transmit power than a default system could provide.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:13PM
>all
All? Really? You now have the podium, please educate us. It started well, a but tongue in cheek... but then you acted like we weren't listening and ended it. Dummy! We're listening- no need to attack, share what you know.
*Consider this a social exercise, where you can teach us and tell your psychiatrist that you're learning to like people again instead of hating them. He will give you a nice cookie.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bucc5062 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:07PM
I've still not gotten a solid answer to the question (or idea) of why someone in the town does not start an ISP, private company. Then then get a VC in the form of the Muni. The company could then contract the muni ISP to run the service, build out the fiber, but all billing is handled by the private company. Sure, it is a front for the Muni ISP, but if the sticking point is the Munis can't directly operate an ISP because they are a local government entity, certainly Muni ISP can invest their money, expand the portfolio to increase their liquidity for their own upgrades. People pay the local private ISP, the lISP then pays the muni ISP for contract work and services rendered. Ownership of the fiber is never in the Muni's hands.
What am I missing?
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:15PM
Digging for fiber is capital intensive, with long ROI, especially with small-fry costs.
Some shill working for one of the telcos would see his name used to sue, to prevent his town from investing into what's clearly a short-term loss.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bucc5062 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:27PM
I'm not sure I understand. In the summary, Green light had decided to make the investment into Pinetops to they were ready to lay out the Capital and did. What I was postulating was that a resident of Pinetops creates a private corporation (LLC) with the purpose of starting a privately owned ISP. They then approach greenlight with a proposal that asks Greenlight to invest in the local ISP. The local ISP then hires sub-contractors to run the fiber and provide the service to the homes. Amazingly enough, the money invested is about the same as what Greenlight would have to put out in capital. Just in another column.
If we are worried that the newly minted CEO would pull a grab and dash, a co-op is formed to run an ISP which again is not a municipality or utility.
Short of voting out the fuckers that keep blocking this stuff, a smart republican could do a good thing, make some change on the side and help a lot of people. Democrats would just be happy yo have the utility do the job, but then we're practical that way.
The more things change, the more they look the same
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday September 20 2016, @08:52PM
Why doesn't the municipality just form their own company then?
As far as I know, corporations (cities) are allowed to own other corporations.
(Score: 2) by unitron on Tuesday September 20 2016, @09:13PM
"Why doesn't the municipality just form their own company then?"
Wilson, NC, did that.
Then the cable companies bribed the state legislators to pass a law to keep any other NC municipalities from doing the same thing.
So Greenlight, in Wilson, can't serve Pinetops, and Pinetops can't start their own little Greenlight, but Time-Warner Cable can serve both communities out of the same local office and from the same headend if there's enough profit to make it worth their while, which means they get to cherry pick the parts of that service area they want and ignore the rest of it while preventing anyone else from serving it, except maybe the phone company over copper that was probably run the better part of 100 years ago.
something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday September 20 2016, @07:50PM
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
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @07:14AM
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
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
"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
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Jiro on Tuesday September 20 2016, @11:15PM
Of course soylentils are likely to want cheap broadband, but imagine an analogy: You want to open a pizzeria in some town. However, the town has a habit of offering $1 pizza pies to everyone who wants one, and the difference between $1 and the price you would have to charge to make a profit is paid for by by taxes. If I was the one planning to open that pizzeria, I'd be pretty pissed at that town.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 21 2016, @08:05AM
I disagree. Take for example the city from the article. They went to both AT&T and TW and both said 'yeah right when we feel like doing it'. So the city said fine we will do it ourselves. They had 0 plans to do anything other than tell the cities 'pay us money and tax breaks' and we might add it to our build out and give you way less than what you paid for anyway.
In your example there it is like pizza hut saying we might maybe possibly might maybe put a pizza hut in your town but probably wont unless you give us huge sums of cash and tax breaks. So you make your own gov grown pizza place and then pizza hut comes along and says 'no fair'. No fair to WHAT? You were not going to do jack shit anyway. You are literally out nothing. You do not even have a loss in opportunity cost.
These small ass towns do not *want* to be in the broadband business. It honestly is a major pain to do and does not always work. They want to do other things. Instead the 4 companies that could have done it said 'no thanks' then got pissed when someone said 'fuck it we will do it ourselves'. Now these small towns have even more work to do. Just for the major ISPs to do exactly nothing more than obstruct people getting decent internet. Dont think so? They hire people to do exactly that.
These companies are not competing with each other in any reasonable way. They are all local monopolies or at best oligopolies. For example if I want landline service to my home. I can get it from exactly one place. Cable tv? Same thing. Now those two sort of compete as an ISP. But they pretty much just pace each other with pricing. Oligopolies do that as 'that is what the market will bear'.
Wireless is a joke with the shit caps they put on everything at crazy high costs per GB.
When I first moved to NC I had a choice of about 40 ISPs. All the way from free advert driven to OC3 lines run to my house. I now have 4. 2 pure wireless, 1 phone company and 1 cable company. All start their pricing at 80 dollars and it goes up from there. Competition is non existent. I literally have fiber optic running through my front yard for 20 years. Yet AT&T basically took the whole bellsouth network and said 'yeah whatever you get 1.5mb DSL'. Which can not even be installed anyway because 'you are not in the system'.
I have 0 sympathy for these companies. They have had *years* to do this. They have created excuse after excuse and law after law to do anything BUT PROVIDE service...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:41PM
In your example there it is like pizza hut saying we might maybe possibly might maybe put a pizza hut in your town but probably wont unless you give us huge sums of cash and tax breaks. So you make your own gov grown pizza place and then pizza hut comes along and says 'no fair'. No fair to WHAT? You were not going to do jack shit anyway. You are literally out nothing. You do not even have a loss in opportunity cost.
These small ass towns do not *want* to be in the broadband business. It honestly is a major pain to do and does not always work. They want to do other things. Instead the 4 companies that could have done it said 'no thanks' then got pissed when someone said 'fuck it we will do it ourselves'. Now these small towns have even more work to do. Just for the major ISPs to do exactly nothing more than obstruct people getting decent internet. Dont think so? They hire people to do exactly that.
This isn't just small towns either. You'd think that in city as large as NYC, the city would have some leverage, especially after handing out tax breaks and a cable franchise. What do you know, the evil ones fucked them over too [arstechnica.com].
If even NYC has a hard time reining this in, and the big communications companies own the state legislatures in places like North Carolina and Tennessee, what's a small town to do? Wilson, NC [wikipedia.org] has ~48,000 residents and a city budget of around US$250,000,000.00 [wilsonnc.org].
Even if the court case mentioned in TFA just addresses Tennessee and North Carolina laws, this is a nationwide problem. I imagine that many folks think that the FCC should mind its own beeswax, and maybe it should. Perhaps the U.S. Congress should get involved, but they seem to be too busy trying to dismantle Dodd-Frank and investigating people, rather than acting in the public interest and passing a budget, or maybe providing funding to the CDC for the Zika epidemic, or any number of other things that the people have an interest in, but their owners [wikipedia.org] wouldn't like that, would they?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @01:00AM
NYC has no doubt has that exact same issue. They also have a serious aging infrastructure problem. They have a horrible problem under their streets. They basically can not work on some sort of infrastructure without screwing up some secondary service. With 150+ years of wires and pipes all intertwined.
(Score: 2) by snufu on Wednesday September 21 2016, @05:26PM
As odious as both candidates are, this is another example of how the justices appointed by the next president matter.