North Carolina House passes bill banning community fiber infrastructure

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/North-Carolina-House-Passes-AntiCommunity-Fiber-Bill-113433

by bbatsell • 15 years ago

20 13 15 years ago

kwantam• 15 years ago

A full list of the people who voted against the measure is presented here:

http://stopthecap.com/2011/03/29/house-republicans-sell-out-...

If there is a concerted effort to fight this legislation to which people (including those of us outside the state) can donate, I haven't found it; if anyone does, please post!

mindcrime2• 15 years ago

Flagged due to misleading, flamebait title. The bill in question does not ban community fiber, it just sets some constraints on it, to ensure that a taxpayer subsidized service doesn't compete with - and undercut - a private business. This is a Good Thing.

Also note that there is a specific exclusion to even these constraints, when it comes to serving a currently unserved geographical area.

http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2011/Bills/House/HTML/H...

mukyu• 15 years ago

The telecom companies are already themselves subsidized.

mindcrime2• 15 years ago

Yes, and that's a separate problem that needs to be addressed, no doubt. There are a lot of places where the relationship between the telecomms and the State is corrupt and needs to be fixed.

emmett2• 15 years ago

Unfortunately the constraints it sets make community fiber projects much less attractive. Should communities be forbidden from building out water mains or roads, because they might compete with the private version?

It's not clear to me that I'd want fiber to be government owned and operated in general. But neither is it obvious that cheap government fiber is bad. Aren't local communities the perfect place to experiment?

anigbrowl• 15 years ago

It sets a lot of constraints. Any city considering building a fiber system must request proposals from every licensed communications service provider in its own or adjacent counties, giving 60 days notice; attempt to negotiate a contract with the company offering the best proposal for 60 days, then attempt to negotiate a contract with the company offering the second-best proposal for 60 days; then it can move to consider constructing its own service by holding at least 2 public hearings, with at least 45 days' notice each to potential commercial competitors; then get permission from a state commission to proceed (based on financial projections and various other criteria such as technological progress), and then hold a special election on whether to issue a bond that will pay for the construction - they're not allowed to use any existing revenue streams, or take advantage of any potential cost savings from other departments (like laying the fiber at the same time as scheduled work on other infrastructure), and the costs of any city provided service must be calculated as if they include all the revenue and property taxes at local, state, and federal level that a competitor would (hypothetically) pay. There is a provision for waiving some of these requirements in unserved areas, but it's very easy for private firms to challenge such a determination without making any commit to provide the service that they say they are making available.

That's 7 stages of procedural review which would take almost an entire year, which seems pretty onerous to me. Also, I can't help noticing that while it requires any city-owned network provide open access to other services (in a common carrier fashion), there is no such requirement imposed on the provision of network services by the private sector - in other words, commercial monopolies seem to be fine.

I'd like to agree with your basic idea, but this bill seems overly ideological - especially given that in almost every US market prices for broadband remain high and speeds slow by international standards, suggesting that the market is failing to clear properly.

JamieEi3• 15 years ago

It sounds pretty close to a ban to me. Certainly close enough than "banning" rather "severely restricting" is not flamebait.

ntalbott• 15 years ago

Reading the bill, I'm not seeing where it bans community fiber; rather it seems to require local government to not use tax monies to subsidize the access, and to not abuse their position to hamper private competition. Both seem pretty reasonable to me. What am I missing?

emmett2• 15 years ago

Effectively makes it illegal, as far as I can tell, for a community to decide that internet access is similar to roads or water infrastructure and make it broadly available at low rates.

It depends if you think internet access should be treated as an infrastructural good. I personally think that makes a lot of sense. While I wouldn't want to see anyone make a law against private internet connectivity, if a town wants to pool their money and pay to build out infrastructure that should be legal.

jonallanharper• 15 years ago

"if a town wants to pool their money and pay to build out infrastructure that should be legal"

If people want to pool their own money together, they can. The only thing this bill prevents is the government from forcing an individual to pay for something.

Even if every individual was morally obligated to pay for something that the town wants (which is not the case), providing services is not the proper role of government.

arch_hunter• 15 years ago

If you are in North Carolina you can call or email your Senators and encourage them to vote against the bill.

http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?...

JamieEi3• 15 years ago

Ars Technica article about the same bill: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/cable-backed...

North Carolina House passes bill banning community fiber infrastructure

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