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Cable-backed anti-muni broadband bill advances in North Carolina
- mousa 16y agoThis bill is ridiculous. They ignored the small towns, the small towns got their own connections and very good ones at that, and now they want to be the only players. As an NC resident I think this is a bill most people left and right could agree is bad, but unfortunately the only party who cares enough about it and has clout is Time Warner Cable, so it'll get through.
- IgorPartola 16y agoThe TriLUG (Triangle area Linux Users Group) mailing list had a very long discussion about this bill, that very quickly turned into a shit storm (it lasted for over 100 lengthy e-mails). One thing I learned from it is that not everybody views this bill as negative, even in the tech sector. Basically, TWC just strong-armed a few congressmen/congresswomen into voting their way by contributing to their campaigns, and the opposition could not get organized in time.
- qeorge 16y agoI'm in Raleigh, hate this bill, and want to bring attention to it. I bet there's a lot of us. We should get organized. email is george@ill-k.com, anyone who likes can drop me a line.
- marze 16y agoWhy shouldn't a city be able to build out a network, if the citizens vote to do so?
- OstiaAntica 16y agoBecause these same cities have rigged the fiber business through cable franchise rules that essentially award local monopolies. That's why there's not enough competition currently.
- JamieEi 16y agoCan you point to a US city that does have a competitive broadband market? Surely they can't all have rigged the market as you suggest.
- OstiaAntica 16y agoAlmost without exception, local governments are corrupt on this matter. Federal and state law create the conditions for franchise quasi-monopolies, and as a result it is pay-to-play at the local level. The system used to be explicit monopolies (according to federal law) but there's a little more room for competition today, but the legacy monopoly system is in place. There are all sorts of kickbacks, taxes, free government channels, etc. you have to pay to get a cable franchise-- Verizon has spent billions on lawyers and "consultants" just to get local franchises for fios, let alone the cost of actually getting permits to lay fiber, which is a whole other local bureaucratic nightmare. There has been some movement at the state level to create state-wide cable franchises, allowing business to ignore locals. There's also the idea of a national franchise. Really it is insane to me that we require this business to be licensed at all. Newspapers don't need licenses, why should internet providers? You should have to get permits to lay cable, but not to be a provider. Interestingly, while Congress allows the cable operators to run wild over local communities, there is a strong federal preemption for satellite tv-- the locals have no say in it, and federal law even creates a federal right to have a dish on any residence (a lot of local governments tried to zone dishes out of existence to protect their cable buddies).
- megaman821 16y agoWhy can't cities build and maintain the lines and lease them out to ISPs? Then TW, Cox, Comcast can compete on add-ons and how much markup they have.
- dpatru 16y agoWhy can't private companies build duplicate lines and compete? It seems to me that what's keeping broadband prices high is government-enforced monopolies, usually awarded to a private company. Allowing government itself to have a monopoly won't fix the problem.
- delinka 16y agoSo ISP-One digs up your town and lays lines. A year later, Deux Tubes observes fabulous profits being earned by ISP-One and comes along to dig up your town again. See the problem?
- epaulson 16y agoIt looks like an ALEC-based bill. The article mentions weird-accounting rules for indirect subsidies, see section 13.5 of this, ALEC's model "Municipal Telecommunications Private Industry Safeguards Act": www.muniwireless.com/reports/docs/antimunicipalbroadband.doc (I don't know if this is the most recent model bill from ALEC)