5 ms·

Who wants to bankroll me if I go create a rural ISP somewhere (probably Nevada/Utah/Arizona, where regulation is lax), become a local hero for providing broadba

by wtracy 6y ago

Who wants to bankroll me if I go create a rural ISP somewhere (probably Nevada/Utah/Arizona, where regulation is lax), become a local hero for providing broadband communication where the incumbents won't, then throttle/censor Fox/Breitbart (maybe requiring a "premium subscription" for access) and tell everyone who complains, "Hey, it's legal!" Think maybe we could actually get the Republicans on board with net neutrality?

kitteh 6y ago
The problem is that the laws in some places will make it hard for you to become the ISP in some of those spots due to the incumbents. There are folks on the left who aren't on board with net neutrality. I'd say the common ground between left and right is about having viable competition, which we don't have. But we kinda tried that with the 1996 telecom act and that failed. I'd rather municipalities get in the broadband access game as a utility and be transparent about costs and utilization and provide interconnection to an ISP upstream at standard tariffed rates.
supernova87a 6y ago
You might enjoy listening to this podcast episode, on a town that tried to do exactly that: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-big-internet https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-bi...
- pas 6y ago
  tl;dr: The North Carolina legislature passed a law in 2011 prohibiting municipal telecommunication services, but the city of Wilson was able to carve out an exemption, because Greenlight (owned by Wilson) was already providing such services. Then the FCC tried to intervene, but Federal courts, on appeal it found that the 1996 Telecommunications Act is not giving this specific power to the FCC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlight_(Internet_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlight_(Internet_service)
- wool_gather 6y ago
  A similar play in Tennessee: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/tennessee-kills-muni-broadband-expansion-bill-after-att-opposition/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/tennessee-kills-... Attempts to expand broadband service run by municipalities forcefully opposed by AT&T and Comcast.
epistasis 6y ago
Current Republican ideology is not about a set of principles, it's about power and partisanship. For example, when in power, change budgets to cause massive deficit spending, when out of power, complain about the deficit being bad. No Republicans there will even understand the point your trying to make, or at best they will think you are foolish. After 40 years of demonization of political opponents, it's all about "with us or against us."
- dimgl 6y ago
  This sounds an awful lot like projection and not at all how Republicans think...
  - epistasis 6y ago
    Sure, not all Republicans, many Republicans have principles beyond the lust for more power or the desire to own the libs. But it's definitely the case for the power structure, and for a majority the rank and file random-Joe-Republican in small towns. There's also a significant number of leftists who feel the same way about liberals, though this is a tiny chunk of them that speaks far louder than their numbers are, and who do not hold power in proportion to their loudness.
    - kevin_b_er 6y ago
      And the rest vote for this to happen. The Republicans platforms on their evil, and they get the votes upon that platform.
  - Dirlewanger 6y ago
    But it's how the Republican Party operates every day in Congress. If a registered Republican voter doesn't agree with it, they can either shut up and deal or register as something else.
- shmerl 6y ago
  Those who repealed net neutrality are consistently pro-monopoly and corporate corruption. It might be not ideological, but does it make it any better if they do it for money? The result is still awful.
erulabs 6y ago
No, you'd get hypocrites and idiots (of which there are plenty in congress). Suggesting that a private company have control and authority over the electronic signals it sends isn't to do with media companies being censored - it's to do with constitutional law. Enforcing what protocols are delivered and how is step 1 of 2 - the second being actively worked on by most of the pro-net-neutrality legislators: controlling or outlawing encryption. I am anti-net-neutrality for the same reasons I'm for de-funding the police: there are smarter ways than direct remote control for solving certain issues. Starlink (for example) does tenfold more for a neutral internet than any FCC ever has. A neutral internet does not require the California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act.
- shmerl 6y ago
  > Tere are smarter ways Smarter ways that don't work don't help. There might be smarter ways to prevent monopoly abuse than anti-trust laws (and net neutrality is idea of the same category like other competition laws), but monopolists have a lot of power to counteract those ways once they are already entrenched. They never play fair. Google tried with Fiber. It went so well because of fair entrenched incumbents, didn't it?
tzs 6y ago
Polls consistently show 70-80% support for net neutrality among Republicans (about 10% higher among Democrats), so the users of your proposed ISP would probably already be on board regardless of party. The big hold up is that Trump is against it, and very few Republican office holders are willing to go against him regardless of how far his position is from what their constituents want. Ideally, picking the President over your own constituents on too many issues would lead to your constituents electing someone else at the next opportunity, but the Republican Senate leadership is able to block any bills from the House on those issues so that they don't even come up for a Senate vote thus saving Republican Senators from having to cast votes that would either annoy Trump or their constituents. Maybe if you build your ISP in Kentucky, and explicitly tell anyone who complains that "thanks to Mitch McConnell keeping net neutrality from a Senate vote, it is legal" it might help.
grahamburger 6y ago
> if I go create a rural ISP somewhere (probably Nevada/Utah/Arizona As someone who has done this in these states I think you should do it, or at least try! If you can get enough customers to matter then we should definitely talk. It's harder than it sounds.

by wtracy 6y ago

kitteh 6y ago

The problem is that the laws in some places will make it hard for you to become the ISP in some of those spots due to the incumbents. There are folks on the left who aren't on board with net neutrality. I'd say the common ground between left and right is about having viable competition, which we don't have. But we kinda tried that with the 1996 telecom act and that failed. I'd rather municipalities get in the broadband access game as a utility and be transparent about costs and utilization and provide interconnection to an ISP upstream at standard tariffed rates.

supernova87a 6y ago

You might enjoy listening to this podcast episode, on a town that tried to do exactly that: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-big-internet https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-bi...

pas 6y ago
tl;dr: The North Carolina legislature passed a law in 2011 prohibiting municipal telecommunication services, but the city of Wilson was able to carve out an exemption, because Greenlight (owned by Wilson) was already providing such services. Then the FCC tried to intervene, but Federal courts, on appeal it found that the 1996 Telecommunications Act is not giving this specific power to the FCC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlight_(Internet_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenlight_(Internet_service)
wool_gather 6y ago
A similar play in Tennessee: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/tennessee-kills-muni-broadband-expansion-bill-after-att-opposition/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/tennessee-kills-... Attempts to expand broadband service run by municipalities forcefully opposed by AT&T and Comcast.

epistasis 6y ago

Current Republican ideology is not about a set of principles, it's about power and partisanship. For example, when in power, change budgets to cause massive deficit spending, when out of power, complain about the deficit being bad. No Republicans there will even understand the point your trying to make, or at best they will think you are foolish. After 40 years of demonization of political opponents, it's all about "with us or against us."

dimgl 6y ago
This sounds an awful lot like projection and not at all how Republicans think...
- epistasis 6y ago
  Sure, not all Republicans, many Republicans have principles beyond the lust for more power or the desire to own the libs. But it's definitely the case for the power structure, and for a majority the rank and file random-Joe-Republican in small towns. There's also a significant number of leftists who feel the same way about liberals, though this is a tiny chunk of them that speaks far louder than their numbers are, and who do not hold power in proportion to their loudness.
  - kevin_b_er 6y ago
    And the rest vote for this to happen. The Republicans platforms on their evil, and they get the votes upon that platform.
- Dirlewanger 6y ago
  But it's how the Republican Party operates every day in Congress. If a registered Republican voter doesn't agree with it, they can either shut up and deal or register as something else.
shmerl 6y ago
Those who repealed net neutrality are consistently pro-monopoly and corporate corruption. It might be not ideological, but does it make it any better if they do it for money? The result is still awful.

erulabs 6y ago

No, you'd get hypocrites and idiots (of which there are plenty in congress). Suggesting that a private company have control and authority over the electronic signals it sends isn't to do with media companies being censored - it's to do with constitutional law. Enforcing what protocols are delivered and how is step 1 of 2 - the second being actively worked on by most of the pro-net-neutrality legislators: controlling or outlawing encryption. I am anti-net-neutrality for the same reasons I'm for de-funding the police: there are smarter ways than direct remote control for solving certain issues. Starlink (for example) does tenfold more for a neutral internet than any FCC ever has. A neutral internet does not require the California Internet Consumer Protection and Net Neutrality Act.

shmerl 6y ago
> Tere are smarter ways Smarter ways that don't work don't help. There might be smarter ways to prevent monopoly abuse than anti-trust laws (and net neutrality is idea of the same category like other competition laws), but monopolists have a lot of power to counteract those ways once they are already entrenched. They never play fair. Google tried with Fiber. It went so well because of fair entrenched incumbents, didn't it?

tzs 6y ago

Polls consistently show 70-80% support for net neutrality among Republicans (about 10% higher among Democrats), so the users of your proposed ISP would probably already be on board regardless of party. The big hold up is that Trump is against it, and very few Republican office holders are willing to go against him regardless of how far his position is from what their constituents want. Ideally, picking the President over your own constituents on too many issues would lead to your constituents electing someone else at the next opportunity, but the Republican Senate leadership is able to block any bills from the House on those issues so that they don't even come up for a Senate vote thus saving Republican Senators from having to cast votes that would either annoy Trump or their constituents. Maybe if you build your ISP in Kentucky, and explicitly tell anyone who complains that "thanks to Mitch McConnell keeping net neutrality from a Senate vote, it is legal" it might help.

grahamburger 6y ago

> if I go create a rural ISP somewhere (probably Nevada/Utah/Arizona As someone who has done this in these states I think you should do it, or at least try! If you can get enough customers to matter then we should definitely talk. It's harder than it sounds.