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Theoretically, yes. In fact, Senate Bill 152, passed in 2005, already outlaws municipal broadband. From the article: Colorado has a state law requiring municip
by peterjmag 9y ago
Theoretically, yes. In fact, Senate Bill 152, passed in 2005, already outlaws municipal broadband. From the article:
Colorado has a state law requiring municipalities to hold referendums before they can provide cable, telecom, or broadband service. Yesterday, voters in Eagle County and Boulder County authorized their local governments to build broadband networks, "bringing the total number of Colorado counties that have rejected the state law to 31—nearly half of the state's 64 counties," Motherboard wrote today.
As far as I know, there have been attempts to make it impossible for a community to opt-out, but nothing's been successful yet. In fact, most recently, it looks like the tide has been turning in favor of repealing the ban state-wide (which wouldn't be surprising considering the 31 counties that have already opted out). Here's a bit more info:
https://co-wa.org/2017/01/26/senate-bill-152-primer/ https://co-wa.org/2017/01/26/senate-bill-152-primer/
- gigatexal 9y agoWhat a sad, sad world we live in where a corporation can come in and use legislation to be obviously anti-competitive. What would the world do if comcast or a group of content owners tried to sue netflix out of existence because their business model threatened the incumbents? There'd be pandemonium.
- Florin_Andrei 9y agoIt's almost as if money in politics is the death of ethics. Almost.
- jdavis703 9y ago> What a sad, sad world we live in where a corporation can come in and use legislation to be obviously anti-competitive This is always a risk with any government. The problem is voters keep voting for these same people passing these laws (or worse yet, don't even vote claiming "nothing will change anyways."
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- averagewall 9y agoYes. It's the voters' fault so I don't have sympathy for them. If they did their research instead of being so sure that their favourite party is better than the evil enemy party then they could make intelligent decisions that benefit themselves.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago> What a sad, sad world we live in where a corporation can come in and use legislation to be obviously anti-competitive. If we actually had reasonable competition among local broadband (e.g. everyone in the country had a choice of at least 2-3 reasonable options, and DSL does not count as "reasonable" anymore), then I'd actually call the introduction of a government-backed option "anti-competitive", because how can any private ISP compete with that? A government-run ISP gives itself inherent anti-competitive boosts that it doesn't give anyone else. However, in the world we have, where many people don't have enough reasonable choices to allow for actual competition among ISPs, municipal broadband seems like a perfectly reasonable response. In which case, rather than attempting to quash it, I'd rather see communities lay the fiber and then allow private ISPs to be the ones to light it up and provide bandwidth from the nearest meet-me room.
- subroutine 9y ago> how can any private ISP compete with that? Offer faster speeds and more reliable connections (compared what might be a very congested public network), at reasonable prices.
- rayiner 9y agoThat assumes there are enough people who care about quality of service over price to make a private alternative tenable. There is a reason why there is no private competition to municipal bus systems, even really terrible ones.
- subroutine 9y agoSure there is competition for the municipal bus system - taxis and ride share services. It's almost the perfect metaphor. For those who want faster service they look for options that offer these things at a reasonable price, and for those who don't care about fast speeds or cannot otherwise afford or justify the cost use the lowest common denominator, which is the public provided system. However, with internet service, there is no fallback.
- 9y ago
- StreamBright 9y agoYou mean country. This sort of out of control capitalism does not happen everywhere.
- gigatexal 9y agoTo that end they didn’t sue Netflix out of existence they created HULU.
- agumonkey 9y agofree market much ...
- linsomniac 9y agoThe situation is that the free market has said "We're going to pass on doing this". So the free market has left the door wide open for the government to do it. The free market spending a half million dollars trying to keep the government from even coming up with a plan for what municipal broadband would look like, after not doing it themselves, is hilarious.
- agumonkey 9y agoof all the mottos the only one that should remain is "lobby free"
- dfee 9y agoWhile I understand your sentiment, "free market" folk generally exclude "government-provided" from that notion. This is because those services are often coupled with sector-wide regulations that are counter to laissez faire principles, the government is able to subsidize operational costs against its tax base (unfair competition that distorts the market), and other such complexities.
- muninet 9y agoAh yes, because corporations obviously don’t do any of those things (all of which are enabled by governments anyway).
- dfee 9y agoI think you nailed it with “government enablement”. Free market folks probably aren’t so different from you. Unless we’re talking about wolves in sheeps clothing, they oughta be vehemently against those actions you allude to. It’s the folk in the middle (on both the govt and corp sides) that benefit from the foul play. Both sides might call these “defensive actions”, but it’s often just tit-for-tat greed.
- leesalminen 9y agoIIRC, Longmont (a small city in Colorado) already offers municipal internet and city wide WiFi.
- rayiner 9y agoThat’s weird framing. It’s not a “ban” and the public voting to build networks isn’t “rejecting the law”—it’s explicitly contemplated by the law.
- peterjmag 9y agoYep, fair point — I should have probably called them "restrictions" instead of using "ban" and "outlawed".
- daveheq 9y agoGood, let the people have their choice, and accept their choice when they make it.