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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: 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
(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.