FCC Just Overruled State Laws That Were Blocking Municipal Broadband

Once again [H] commenters show their true intelligence and ability to be rational and reasonable. Ugh, this place is disgusting sometimes. Take it Soap Box so your respective groups can have a circle jerk.

Sadly, I still have to pay comcast $70 for 20/1 because the only other option I have is a cellular hotspot. Across the street from me (literally 30 feet) Comcast offers 50/5 for $40, because WOW and Uverse have utility access there.
 
LOL... What a sheep. You don't see how motives of profit helps an industry. The fucking post office is a model of efficiency and loses billions a year. Yet you think the government can do things better.

I am not even a Comcast customer WHY? because their competitor in my area earned my business. If it was the city (like my water) then they could literally shit on my fucking bed and there is nothing I could do about it.

You liberals are truly brain damaged and have soaked up the victim mentality that Obama and Pelosi have fed you.

Government control is not the answer. If you want a taste of that move to China, there are things they can't even see on their internet. It is block because the government (who runs the internet) blocked it.


Except when you don't fear losing profit (lack of competition), what is your motivation to improve or do anything for the consumer? If you have no fear of customers leaving, you can screw your customers/provide shitty service/whatever, all while laughing your way to the bank. So yes, invalidating all the local/state laws blocking competition, paid for by these big corporations is the best news I've heard yet.
 
I am still waiting for someone to call this a communist or socialist move....

3, 2, 1.....
 
You can always tell who has never taken the time to understand the constitution and how it was written to work.


antitrust
doesn't matter if it's a person, company, or state
federal regulators are allowed to police
power was granted by congress
not a constitutionality issue at all.
 
So what can now stop municipalities from blocking private competitors from their localities after they enacted their own broadband?

Which is exactly the problem.

We'll have municipalities putting up their own ISP's, giving it away to the poor for free, and raising local taxes to pay for it.

I can see it now, a $20 tax on all private internet connections to raise money to give free WiFi to the poor.
 
Except when you don't fear losing profit (lack of competition), what is your motivation to improve or do anything for the consumer? If you have no fear of customers leaving, you can screw your customers/provide shitty service/whatever, all while laughing your way to the bank. So yes, invalidating all the local/state laws blocking competition, paid for by these big corporations is the best news I've heard yet.

Every major market has competition. Yes you can find pockets or the straight sticks that do not but now one forced you to live anywhere. Internet is not a right.

As to your comment. Imagine trying to run a business when your competitor does not have to turn a profit and can just add taxes to other "things" to generate revenue.

The issues people see aren't going to happen tomorrow. It will be farther down the line with this as the catalyst for these events. Anyone ever had to be a member of an electrical CO-OP? Yeah that is an ass raping. When de-regulation for electricity came to my market there was a whole savings for the region across the board.

Again there were a multiple of things that could have been done to fix the issues, but trumping states rights was not one of them.
 
Which is exactly the problem.

We'll have municipalities putting up their own ISP's, giving it away to the poor for free, and raising local taxes to pay for it.

I can see it now, a $20 tax on all private internet connections to raise money to give free WiFi to the poor.

Good lord some one finally gets it.
 
Once again [H] commenters show their true intelligence and ability to be rational and reasonable. Ugh, this place is disgusting sometimes. Take it Soap Box so your respective groups can have a circle jerk.

Sadly, I still have to pay comcast $70 for 20/1 because the only other option I have is a cellular hotspot. Across the street from me (literally 30 feet) Comcast offers 50/5 for $40, because WOW and Uverse have utility access there.

Holy crap!, and yep that is what 'real' competition would do (drive those prices down down).. I wonder if the FCC can allow for more completion in the internet.
I mean they just did with this, but we need more!
My 'exclusive' cable provider is 99$ for a very high speed, but 99$ is insane and they only offer that, I do have the Uverse option that is now @ 54 or so for 20mbps or so. But that is it, I am sure a 3rd option would make those prices plummet and speed go up.
 
Which is exactly the problem.

We'll have municipalities putting up their own ISP's, giving it away to the poor for free, and raising local taxes to pay for it.

I can see it now, a $20 tax on all private internet connections to raise money to give free WiFi to the poor.

I don't think the FCC allows internet taxes.
Free internet to poor people, I think I am for it.
 
This is the one part of this whole internet campaign that I truly want. Laws that make sure cities can't restrict broadband companies.
 
Holy crap!, and yep that is what 'real' competition would do (drive those prices down down).. I wonder if the FCC can allow for more completion in the internet.
I mean they just did with this, but we need more!
My 'exclusive' cable provider is 99$ for a very high speed, but 99$ is insane and they only offer that, I do have the Uverse option that is now @ 54 or so for 20mbps or so. But that is it, I am sure a 3rd option would make those prices plummet and speed go up.

The problem I have is that someone granted exclusive rights to the utility poles which were there in the 1950's and are technically public land. I can buy electricity from two different companies and I can buy natural gas from 2 different companies. When it comes to telecom, nope. It's frustrating, but no one at the city counsel cares.
 
Every major market has competition. Yes you can find pockets or the straight sticks that do not but now one forced you to live anywhere. Internet is not a right.

As to your comment. Imagine trying to run a business when your competitor does not have to turn a profit and can just add taxes to other "things" to generate revenue.

The issues people see aren't going to happen tomorrow. It will be farther down the line with this as the catalyst for these events. Anyone ever had to be a member of an electrical CO-OP? Yeah that is an ass raping. When de-regulation for electricity came to my market there was a whole savings for the region across the board.

Again there were a multiple of things that could have been done to fix the issues, but trumping states rights was not one of them.

You blew it when you went straight to the Obama and Pelosi stuff. Trying to turn this into a liberal slander thread makes you look.... like a troll. I echo other forum members statements that you go away and find another forum of like minded individuals who are interested in your boring rhetoric.

The fact is that the ISP market has very little competition and that allowing a municipality to offer the service is a win for the consumer. Companies like Comcast are aggressively lobbying Washington to prevent other companies from entering those markets because they enjoy monopoly status. The more options for ISP services the better!
 
You know what is worse than Comcast?

Not having the ability to change providers because my state is a bunch of fuckwits/bribe takers, and banned anyone else from rolling out a new service to compete.

FTFY.
 
LOL... What a sheep. You don't see how motives of profit helps an industry. The fucking post office is a model of efficiency and loses billions a year. Yet you think the government can do things better.

I am not even a Comcast customer WHY? because their competitor in my area earned my business. If it was the city (like my water) then they could literally shit on my fucking bed and there is nothing I could do about it.

You liberals are truly brain damaged and have soaked up the victim mentality that Obama and Pelosi have fed you.

Government control is not the answer. If you want a taste of that move to China, there are things they can't even see on their internet. It is block because the government (who runs the internet) blocked it.

Thank you for bitch slapping that Skripa or w/e idiot from this thread.

He starts verbal threats against you because he has no idea what the hell he is talking about. His opinion obviously trumps over your facts every time.

Good day to you sir.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041451062 said:
Regulatory victory over lobbyist pigs.

There was much rejoicing.

I'd love to hear the anti-regulation fetishists argument against this one...

Token concession. How many cities have their own broadband that isn't federally subsidized?

And the alternative to hyper-regulation is let the government run it? Ok.... so much better....
 
Zarathustra[H];1041451062 said:
Regulatory victory over lobbyist pigs.

There was much rejoicing.

I'd love to hear the anti-regulation fetishists argument against this one...

Oh how gullible you are.
 
You blew it when you went straight to the Obama and Pelosi stuff. Trying to turn this into a liberal slander thread makes you look.... like a troll. I echo other forum members statements that you go away and find another forum of like minded individuals who are interested in your boring rhetoric.

The fact is that the ISP market has very little competition and that allowing a municipality to offer the service is a win for the consumer. Companies like Comcast are aggressively lobbying Washington to prevent other companies from entering those markets because they enjoy monopoly status. The more options for ISP services the better!

That's all well and good until you end up with one provider again (the local municipality) because corporations cannot compete with a local municipality who's cost are subsidized by tax dollars.
 
That's all well and good until you end up with one provider again (the local municipality) because corporations cannot compete with a local municipality who's cost are subsidized by tax dollars.

Because I'm sure Time Warner cannot compete with a public utility when they presently have 97% profit margin on their current ISP services.
 
Because I'm sure Time Warner cannot compete with a public utility when they presently have 97% profit margin on their current ISP services.

That 97% number is absolute nonsense, and does not take into consideration the astronomical costs of building and maintaining huge OSP networks.

I am not saying providing high speed data is not profitable, it is, but the 97% profit margin talking point is cherry picked bullshit.
 
I don't think the FCC allows internet taxes.
Free internet to poor people, I think I am for it.
Indeed. There's something seriously wrong with a person who would characterize "free Internet for the poor" as something to be avoided. $20/month would be ridiculous, of course, but I'd happily pay $2-5 extra per month if it meant Internet access for everyone (throttled, of course; I don't think we need to fund free 24/7 high-definition YouTube)...it's the proverbial price of a cup of coffee!

Any kid who grows up having to go outside the home to access the Internet is at an incredible disadvantage, and that's reason enough to subsidize free Internet. More generally, people don't have to pay an extra fee to have a mailbox to which the USPS can deliver; that should apply to e-mail addresses (and the ability to access that e-mail) as well.
 
YES YES YES, I live just about 40 min away from Chattanooga with their municipal internet and they've been wanting to go outside the city for a while now, really hope it comes this way.
 
Small progress, but great to hear nonetheless. I hope this encourages municipal fiber buildouts in more areas.
 
Thank you for bitch slapping that Skripa or w/e idiot from this thread.

He starts verbal threats against you because he has no idea what the hell he is talking about. His opinion obviously trumps over your facts every time.

Good day to you sir.

you are just as much of an idiot as is the person you are agreeing with.

Not everyone has equal choses for internet service.

Some areas is it because the town / city won't let anyone else in because they have deals with local providers (Comcast, time warner, AT&T...) and in other areas it is because there is no way for another company to be profitable.

So trying to claim that everyone has a huge number of companies to go with is crazy. I work in this industry and would never say that people have an equal selection for high speed form multiple companies. You want 1.5 - 5 Mbps, you can get that from about 7 companies around me. You want 5 - 50, depending on where you live you have 1 - 4 choices, which 2 of those being cellular service. You want over 50, you are down to 0 - 2 depending on where live.

A lot of areas your choice is ILEC, the local cable company, maybe a few WISP, and cellular. You might have a few CLECs in the area but not at higher speeds as they won't waste the money since they can't get it back very fast. Spending $30,000 per customer isn't a very good way to run a business.
 
That's all well and good until you end up with one provider again (the local municipality) because corporations cannot compete with a local municipality who's cost are subsidized by tax dollars.

Strawman argument. A municipal internet provider, as with a corporation, is also driven to maximize shareholder value, the difference is who the share holders are and how that value is maximized.

Corporate shareholders are overwhelmingly the 1% and shareholder value is maximized by using the system to minimize real competition and minimizing costs by minimizing customer service and maximizing customer costs.

Municipal shareholders are the customers and their shareholder value is maximized by maximizing customer service and minimizing customer costs.

Corporations have minimal accountability to their municipal and rural customers.

Municipal and county governments have maximum accountability to their customers.
 
And now it will be regulated and controlled in the same way and by the same people as other public utilities... doesn't sound like much of a victory, sounds like a loophole to me.
 
Yeah when have any US figures ever used government authority for any good.
I mean, I am sure that history would not provide ample evidence of many of these situations...
Oh wait it does.
 
Strawman argument. A municipal internet provider, as with a corporation, is also driven to maximize shareholder value, the difference is who the share holders are and how that value is maximized.

Corporate shareholders are overwhelmingly the 1% and shareholder value is maximized by using the system to minimize real competition and minimizing costs by minimizing customer service and maximizing customer costs.

Municipal shareholders are the customers and their shareholder value is maximized by maximizing customer service and minimizing customer costs.

Corporations have minimal accountability to their municipal and rural customers.

Municipal and county governments have maximum accountability to their customers.

I'm not arguing whether each of them want to provide value to their customers or shareholders, of course they do. That being said there is distinct difference on how each of the entities would handle losses.

What happens if a private companies revenues cannot cover the costs of deployment and operation? They go out of business, stop deployment, sell the facilities etc (See FIOS)

What happens if a municipal provider's revenues cannot cover the costs of deployment and operation? Losses are covered by tax dollars.
 
LOL... What a sheep. You don't see how motives of profit helps an industry. The fucking post office is a model of efficiency and loses billions a year. Yet you think the government can do things better.

I am not even a Comcast customer WHY? because their competitor in my area earned my business. If it was the city (like my water) then they could literally shit on my fucking bed and there is nothing I could do about it.

You liberals are truly brain damaged and have soaked up the victim mentality that Obama and Pelosi have fed you.

Government control is not the answer. If you want a taste of that move to China, there are things they can't even see on their internet. It is block because the government (who runs the internet) blocked it.
The post office is private money government control. It was completely profitable until republicans passed the paying of retirement benefits way in advance to the government making the profitable post office super unprofitable overnight. No business would pay retirement benefits like the post office is being forced.

Seeking profit != seeking what is good for the consumer. Seeking profit is why ISPs love franchisement and lobby for it because it eliminates competition and increases their bottom line.
 
If this is paves the way for anything like Chatanooga and the other handful of fiber cities, bring it on. woohoo!
 
I'm not arguing whether each of them want to provide value to their customers or shareholders, of course they do. That being said there is distinct difference on how each of the entities would handle losses.

What happens if a private companies revenues cannot cover the costs of deployment and operation? They go out of business, stop deployment, sell the facilities etc (See FIOS)

What happens if a municipal provider's revenues cannot cover the costs of deployment and operation? Losses are covered by tax dollars.

What happens if? .. ?? Have you evidence of this ever happening? A municipal provider would simply raise rates to cover costs. I happen to live in a location where both my phone company and electricity provider are co-ops. These came into existence when the big providers of the day decided there were insufficient profits in this largely rural area. 40 years on the area's population centers have grown considerably and the private companies that spurned providing service in the early 2000's tried to get the co-ops outlawed and privatized by law accompanied by a sizable advertising/lobbying effort. The vast majority of members were far too savvy to vote to sell their sweet situation to a 'private' entity which would promptly raise rates and lower service.
 
Why is the FCC even bothering with this? Allowing city run broadband isn't the answer. If they're going to vote on something which overrides state's wishes, then why not override any existing agreements prohibiting any other vendors?
 
Municipal and county governments have maximum accountability to their customers.

And what color are the unicorns in your universe?

Municipal and county governments are mainly run by people with political agendas. Where the fiber gets run, who gets the contracts, how much profit does the contractor make, etc, is all determined by who you know and who is giving out donations.

Corruption in government is always worse than in private companies. If a private becomes too greedy and corrupt, they generally end out going out of business unless they buy off enough regulator and politicians.

Corrupt governments just raise taxes and fees, and cover up the corruption. If it gets too obvious and someone manages to actually do a story on the corruption, then they find a fall person to take the blame, and the corruption starts back up a few months.
 
Corruption in government is always worse than in private companies. If a private becomes too greedy and corrupt, they generally end out going out of business unless they buy off enough regulator and politicians.

I like how you stick in "unless"...as though corrupt businesses go out of businesses even half of the time.

Say rather, "If a private becomes too greedy and corrupt, they generally end up being outrageously successful in business unless they manage to squander it"

One only need to look at Bernie Madoff. Hell look at Donald Trump, the man can't even run a casino in a profitable manner and is always consulted on matters of business on Fox News.
 
Back
Top