Cable-backed anti-muni broadband bill advances in North Carolina

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/cable-backed-anti-muni-broadband-bill-advances-in-north-carolina.ars

by pieter • 15 years ago

68 30 15 years ago

mousa• 15 years ago

This 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• 15 years ago

The 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.

qeorge2• 15 years ago

I'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.

epaulson2• 15 years ago

See this blog:

http://savencbb.wordpress.com/

marze• 15 years ago

Why shouldn't a city be able to build out a network, if the citizens vote to do so?

jemka• 15 years ago

Logic rarely enters into these types of decisions. The short answer is, citizens don't have good enough lobbyists.

maxxxxx• 15 years ago

http://www.theonion.com/articles/american-people-hire-highpo...

ja302782• 15 years ago

   * having tax-subsidized government entities competing with private business doesn't exactly lead to a vibrant competitive marketplace

   * I'd rather not have any facet of government in an easy position to monitor my internet traffic.

raganwald• 15 years ago

By that argument, why is the government in the security business competing with the private sector to protect citizens against crime?

Up here in Socialist Canada, in addition to keeping its citizens healthy, the government actually provides the water I drink in direct competition with the private sector who sell water in nice little plastic bottles. Yum :-)

Also, the expression "tax-subsidized" is not correct. Funding an activity with taxes is one thing. Subsidizing an activity with taxes is something else, such as a program to give privately held corporations massive tax breaks in exchange for locating their businesses in a particular state or county. Which companies do, and somehow I never hear conservative pundits complain about the anti-competitive tax subsidizing going on.

gloob• 15 years ago

I'd rather not have any facet of government in an easy position to monitor my internet traffic.

In fairness, it's a bit late for that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsa#AT.26T_Internet_monitoring

api• 15 years ago

Telcos and cable companies often receive subsidies at the state level to bring broadband to out-of-the-way places, for speed improvements, etc. Not sure if this is the case in NC, but the situation nationwide is not that clear-cut.

JamieEi3• 15 years ago

Do you think that the current system has led to a vibrant competitive marketplace for consumer broadband in the US? The facts seem to be that many municipalities are able to provide much faster connections at a lower price than the local cable monopolies are either able or willing to do. If you put aside theoretical preconceptions about how economies ought to run, it's hard to see how anyone can argue the better service at a lower price is a bad thing.

OstiaAntica2• 15 years ago

Because 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.

JamieEi3• 15 years ago

Can 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.

megaman821• 15 years ago

Why 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• 15 years ago

Why 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.

delinka2• 15 years ago

So 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?

epaulson2• 15 years ago

It 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)

Cable-backed anti-muni broadband bill advances in North Carolina

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