The FCC Is Moving To Preempt State Broadband Limits

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I think The Washington Post meant to say "the FCC is moving SLOWLY to preempt state broadband limits." :D

The Federal Communications Commission this week will begin considering a draft decision to intervene against state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that limit Internet access operated and sold by cities, according to a senior FCC official. The agency's chairman, Tom Wheeler, could circulate the draft to his fellow commissioners as early as Monday and the decision will be voted on in the FCC's public meeting on Feb. 26.
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flashoverride said:
So now we're going to have taxpayer supported government entities selling internet access, undercutting private development and investment.

Wonderful.

State ownership of the means of production always ends well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production
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Ok calm down Mr Hannity, your predetermined political bias is showing.

Yes, government bad, but so is mob styled corporate oligarchy.

The lack of private development and investment is precisely what has spurred this action. There are people who want this because existing situation is already run by anti capitalist, iron fisted tyrants who cringe at the mere mention of competition.
 
Ultima99 said:
Ok calm down Mr Hannity, your predetermined political bias is showing.

Yes, government bad, but so is mob styled corporate oligarchy.

The lack of private development and investment is precisely what has spurred this action. There are people who want this because existing situation is already run by anti capitalist, iron fisted tyrants who cringe at the mere mention of competition.
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Actually it's government granted monopolies that are a large part of the problem. Somehow I don't see how allowing the government to run an isp directly is going to fix that problem
 
nutzo said:
Actually it's government granted monopolies that are a large part of the problem. Somehow I don't see how allowing the government to run an isp directly is going to fix that problem
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All you have to is ask one question. Do the major ISPs support this or not?
 
flashoverride said:
So now we're going to have taxpayer supported government entities selling internet access, undercutting private development and investment.

Wonderful.

State ownership of the means of production always ends well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production
Click to expand...

Local government being able to provide essential services is one of the fundamental cornerstones of American Democracy.

The establishment of trustworthy fire brigades, water distribution, and trash handling were some of the most important factors in meaningful and lasting expansion in our country. Taking those away from what were historically predatory and geographically monopolistic opportunists only led to good things.

There's no reason to fear the government getting involved in the creation of consumer products where private industry makes its money.

This isn't a threat to Capitalism or anything.
 
heatlesssun said:
All you have to is ask one question. Do the major ISPs support this or not?
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Hehe... yeah, are these state laws that got "lobbied" into place by Comcast & AT&T so that they couldn't have any competition (except each other) at the city level, meanwhile plenty of cities with dark fiber as a baseline infrastructures that could potentially offer cheap and fast access.
 
InternationalHat said:
Local government being able to provide essential services is one of the fundamental cornerstones of American Democracy.
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What? What does that have to do with internet access? Maybe if these municipalities cut all the red tape bogus nonsense, companies would be more likely to invest.

InternationalHat said:
The establishment of trustworthy fire brigades, water distribution, and trash handling were some of the most important factors in meaningful and lasting expansion in our country. Taking those away from what were historically predatory and geographically monopolistic opportunists only led to good things.
Click to expand...

Almost all fire departments in the US are still volunteer affairs. Go ask California and Nevada all about water distribution. And trash handling? Cut it out. Modern sewage and waste systems didn't start until the late 19th century.

InternationalHat said:
There's no reason to fear the government getting involved in the creation of consumer products where private industry makes its money.

This isn't a threat to Capitalism or anything.
Click to expand...

You are quite literally insane. The government getting involved in the creation of consumer products is the definition of a threat to Capitalism.
 
heatlesssun said:
All you have to is ask one question. Do the major ISPs support this or not?
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iirc municipal broadband is effectively banned due to heavy lobbying by ISPs in states like texas, georgia, south carolina etc.

Because you know instead of improving service and prices just pay off legislators.
 
flashoverride said:
What? What does that have to do with internet access? Maybe if these municipalities cut all the red tape bogus nonsense, companies would be more likely to invest.
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The fact that internet access has quickly become an essential service to the population?

flashoverride said:
Almost all fire departments in the US are still volunteer affairs. Go ask California and Nevada all about water distribution. And trash handling? Cut it out. Modern sewage and waste systems didn't start until the late 19th century.
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Sure, the total number of fire departments, but the majority of the population is covered by professional firefighters. And your point about modern sewage systems in a non-sequitur.

From the National Fire Protection Association:

Most volunteer firefighters (95%) are in departments that protect fewer than 25,000 and more than half are located in small, rural departments that protect fewer than 2,500 people.
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flashoverride said:
You are quite literally insane. The government getting involved in the creation of consumer products is the definition of a threat to Capitalism.
Click to expand...

So the government being involved in roads and telephone lines is a threat to our capitalism? Come on with the massive overreaction.
 
flashoverride said:
What? What does that have to do with internet access? Maybe if these municipalities cut all the red tape bogus nonsense, companies would be more likely to invest.
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Right because the what 200 billion in federal money given to several ISPs to invest in upgrading to fiber was what? Oh yeah used to not invest in fiber. These companies aren't interested in investing in anything but political power, else they just are content with their non-compete consumer base which they gouge on prices.

Want a sector that could use a big of less red tape to get more competition. Try to medical suppliers especially medical prosthetics in the US are controlled by 3 companies all of which use proprietary mounting etc and are content with charging about the same price for the same kind of part.
 
TwistedAegis said:
So the government being involved in roads and telephone lines is a threat to our capitalism? Come on with the massive overreaction.
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Roads aren't a consumer product. As for telephone lines, since when did the government run those? Here in the US the only telephone lines the government runs belong to the military (and possibly some other departments, but by and large they lease telephone services from commercial providers). The government did grant one company a monopoly on those lines for a while, but it never ran them itself.
 
flashoverride said:
So now we're going to have taxpayer supported government entities selling internet access, undercutting private development and investment.

Wonderful.

State ownership of the means of production always ends well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production
Click to expand...

OK, well you just keep waiting for AT&T's deep packet sniffing Gb service or Papa Google to save the day. Meanwhile, Chattanooga had Gb Fiber before Austin. Lafayette LA has it now (though it's more expensive at this point) and their 80 Mb symmetric connection is what AT&T charges in Dallas for 24 Mb (and that's the introductory price). Municipal fiber also comes with Gb on network P2P for all subscribers and there are no caps. AT&T caps your ass at 250 MB. They force Cox to offer great deals and upgrade their network in ways that they never would have done had Cox/AT&T won the suit to stop municipal fiber.

I don't know why people think that the Cable and Telephone companies are the good guys. We've been sticking it to you for decades. We bill you to send you a bill. We charge you money if you pay us cash. We add administrative fees without telling you.

I can honestly say you are the ideal customer. God bless you, because you pay my bills, but either you have no self-interest or you don't understand those businesses.
 
nutzo said:
Actually it's government granted monopolies that are a large part of the problem. Somehow I don't see how allowing the government to run an isp directly is going to fix that problem
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You do realize that the main groups fighting this are the ISPs, right? When Municipal fiber moves in, the ISPs either have to up their game/lower their prices or quit. When LUS Fiber beat Cox/AT&T in court (many times over), Cox suddenly decided to deploy their first Docis network in the U.S. Now why would Cox do that in a city of 250k (give or take)? Could it be that cheap symmetric connections were coming within a year of the decision?

Why yes, I believe that's it. Cox has great introductory rates in Lafayette now. Why? Competition.

ISPs don't like this, because it increases competition, which pushes down prices. There's so much markup in internet service, it's insane.
 
Maybe we can start catching up to Europe with municipal broadband, what we got right now is a disgrace.

Here's hoping.
 
flashoverride said:
What? What does that have to do with internet access? Maybe if these municipalities cut all the red tape bogus nonsense, companies would be more likely to invest.
Click to expand...

Buzz. Wrong. Competition forces them to upgrade their infrastructure and/or lower prices.

You are quite literally insane. The government getting involved in the creation of consumer products is the definition of a threat to Capitalism.
Click to expand...

There's a balance between pure capitalism and pure socialism. We're not even close to the fulcrum. Capitalism will survive unscathed. Besides, if I want my city to offer internet and I'm willing to pay the bonds to build it out, then I, as an American and a citizen of whatever city I live in, ought to have the right to do it.

I suggest you look up voting patterns in Lafayette Parish (here, I'll help you). Not exactly a bastion of liberalism.
 
flashoverride said:
You are quite literally insane. The government getting involved in the creation of consumer products is the definition of a threat to Capitalism.
Click to expand...

So when government gets in the way of Comcast and Time Warner merging in that also a threat a capitalism, preventing the accumulation of capital?
 
flashoverride said:
What? What does that have to do with internet access? Maybe if these municipalities cut all the red tape bogus nonsense, companies would be more likely to invest.
Click to expand...
Ah, right, that red tape and all.
Mind you, the government did cut that red tape when providers said they would, all on their own, expand broadband throughout the lands. They took crazy amounts of incentives, too. And then, they just didn't what they were paid to do.

No, really, if you trust private companies just because they are not the government, you're just not paying attention to what happened the past 15 years.

Also this is not the federal government telling you what connection you can have or use. It is the federal government forbidding companies to force their will on communities.
 
flashoverride said:
Roads aren't a consumer product. As for telephone lines, since when did the government run those? Here in the US the only telephone lines the government runs belong to the military (and possibly some other departments, but by and large they lease telephone services from commercial providers). The government did grant one company a monopoly on those lines for a while, but it never ran them itself.
Click to expand...

Where I live in NC we didn't have telephone lines until the government subsidized it and made Bell install them along with 911 service. Until then we just had fire towers with an operator who's job was to look around and see if a house was on fire. When they noticed smoke, they would send the fire department to put it out. This usually took an hour or more for the entire mechanism to work because nobody knew exactly where the fire was due to a lack of a phone system. If the house was in the poor neighborhood and it was a Sunday, you might see them 5 or 6 hours later. Definitely not before church let out.

So the federal government made them install services for everyone. Nowadays the phone companies are refusing to install internet on the phone lines because of capitalism. Basically if they don't have enough houses down a road then they skip installing internet there. Cable companies are nonexistent in many sections of NC. So no relief from them.

Hell we didn't even get running water here until the late 1980's or early 1990's. And we still have a few outdoor toilets at some houses because there isn't a county sewage system. I damn near fell into a childhood friend's septic tank as a child. You have to check under the seat to make sure that a water snake such as a cottonmouth moccasin isn't going to bite you in the ass when you sit down to take a sh*t if you use an outdoor toilet. You should come see true capitalism at work in rural NC. It is truly amazing!
 
Do the Feds even have this power? I think the States have the power over anything that wasn't specifically granted to the Feds.
 
Scythe said:
Do the Feds even have this power? I think the States have the power over anything that wasn't specifically granted to the Feds.
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Given how the internet works, I'd imagine they could use interstate commerce laws. They already use them to monitor the stock market and exchanges, this wouldn't be much different... except for hopefully far better regulated than Wall Street.
 
flashoverride said:
So now we're going to have taxpayer supported government entities selling internet access, undercutting private development and investment.

Wonderful.

State ownership of the means of production always ends well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production
Click to expand...

Yeah I hate those damn public utilities, we need more companies like Enron controlling our infrastructure. That way we can use taxpayer funds to pad their profit instead of getting better service at a lower price.

/s
 
Wierdo said:
Maybe we can start catching up to Europe with municipal broadband, what we got right now is a disgrace.

Here's hoping.
Click to expand...

Europe actually has ISP competition in most markets. Also South Korea, the people who have the best average data rates in the world about 3x ours for less than what we pay.
 
InternationalHat said:
Local government being able to provide essential services is one of the fundamental cornerstones of American Democracy.

The establishment of trustworthy fire brigades, water distribution, and trash handling were some of the most important factors in meaningful and lasting expansion in our country. Taking those away from what were historically predatory and geographically monopolistic opportunists only led to good things.

There's no reason to fear the government getting involved in the creation of consumer products where private industry makes its money.

This isn't a threat to Capitalism or anything.
Click to expand...
Do you know what a subsidy is? Seems not.
 
nutzo said:
Actually it's government granted monopolies that are a large part of the problem. Somehow I don't see how allowing the government to run an isp directly is going to fix that problem
Click to expand...

Yes, because the corporate gangsters didn't pay off government officials to work shady deals. :rolleyes:
 
cageymaru said:
Where I live in NC we didn't have telephone lines until the government subsidized it and made Bell install them along with 911 service. Until then we just had fire towers with an operator who's job was to look around and see if a house was on fire. When they noticed smoke, they would send the fire department to put it out. This usually took an hour or more for the entire mechanism to work because nobody knew exactly where the fire was due to a lack of a phone system. If the house was in the poor neighborhood and it was a Sunday, you might see them 5 or 6 hours later. Definitely not before church let out.

So the federal government made them install services for everyone. Nowadays the phone companies are refusing to install internet on the phone lines because of capitalism. Basically if they don't have enough houses down a road then they skip installing internet there. Cable companies are nonexistent in many sections of NC. So no relief from them.

Hell we didn't even get running water here until the late 1980's or early 1990's. And we still have a few outdoor toilets at some houses because there isn't a county sewage system. I damn near fell into a childhood friend's septic tank as a child. You have to check under the seat to make sure that a water snake such as a cottonmouth moccasin isn't going to bite you in the ass when you sit down to take a sh*t if you use an outdoor toilet. You should come see true capitalism at work in rural NC. It is truly amazing!
Click to expand...

I live in rural Western North Carolina. There is a small branch that runs through my property that was the recipient of several people straight piping until just 4 or 5 years ago, lol! Our family has a cabin further out in the sticks that still has an outhouse :)

A town about 30 minutes east of me has had municipal broadband (and cable, phone, power, Nat gas) for years, albeit slow. Within 1-1/2 miles of my house are at least 6 separate company's fiber optic cables: Time Warner (former DukeNet from Duke Energy), Frontier (former Verizon), Charter, AT&T (old Bell South), RST , ERC ( connecting colleges and rural communities). Only ERC offers even business access to fiber. There have been rumblings that RST, a private fiber IP provider based in Shelby NC, is going to roll out residential connections on at least a limited basis. I suppose that is why Charter sent some mail out the other day saying I was eligible 100mb service. It is a shame all that fiber is so.close but so far away ;(
 
Even though the advertised speed of verizons slowest DSL is quite slow,quite often I don't even get that.There is nothing I can do about it. They don't care and there is no regulation to make them care. I should be paying accordiong to the speed I actually get,either individually or collectivly with other customers.As long as this sort of greed exists there will be calls for municipalities and other entities to be providers of the services now provided by corporations.I believe the owership of facilities and plant should be seperated from content providers and IP,as well as all other communications provideed to the public.
 
I may not be completely right, but I feel that on one hand, it wouldn't be bad if it were like power where any provider can lease the lines and provide service, which is great and all, but on the other...we're talking gov't getting involved...and with gov't comes more taxes and regulations and even easier gov't access to those lines. Don't forget that the working class will have to subsidize internet for the gimme class; so I'd expect costs to go up, not down.

A bit OT, but if cell service worked this way...users of all providers having access to all towers with no funky charges...JOY!!! :D
 
flashoverride said:
You are quite literally insane. The government getting involved in the creation of consumer products is the definition of a threat to Capitalism.
Click to expand...


No you misunderstood or I worded poorly. My point was that local government is never going to get involved in the creation of consumer goods. They're not going to make Soviet cars or anything. They're just going to attempt to provide essential services.

You're overreacting and making yourself mad for no reason.
 
jpm100 said:
Europe actually has ISP competition in most markets. Also South Korea, the people who have the best average data rates in the world about 3x ours for less than what we pay.
Click to expand...

The way they do it is through two things mostly:
1. Forced line sharing, kinda like what we had in the DSL days, that's why we had a ton of providers to choose from at the time.

2. Infrastructure was built by and owned by the state then leased to providers to compete for customers on a level playing field.

I doubt we can go back to the first system now and the second one is not the way things are done on this side of the pond, politically unrealistic. So municipal may need to be the poor man's number 1 approach for the time-being.
 
flashoverride said:
So now we're going to have taxpayer supported government entities selling internet access, undercutting private development and investment.

Wonderful.

State ownership of the means of production always ends well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production
Click to expand...

LOL. You are funny.

Firstly, no one is talking about a federal internet.

This is simply a blocking of a ban that the ISP's bought state politicians in order to put in place, so that communities who are undeserved can take matters into their own hands.

The reason we have this problem is A LACK OF COMPETITION, having cities and towns get in on the action increases competition and makes everything better.

In an ideal world, the ISP's would respond to the competition and make the community internet services no longer necessary, but we'll see if that happens. They ahve been so fat and slow for so long resting on their monopolies, that who knows if they are even able to compete anymore.

The funny part is that you extreme free market nut jobs usually say that the reason the private sector should do EVERYTHING is because government is inept. Well if they are so inept, then the ISP's have nothing to worry about, so I guess there is nothing to see here.
 
Municipal fiber is the only thing (well, a short commute also) that I miss about living in Salisbury, NC.

50x50 for $45 a month. You can get a gig for ~$105.

And they were limited to working just within the City limits with no expansion into the outside areas which were asking to be included. Now with the FCC ruling pretty much destroying NC's no-compete-laws they may very well do just that. And good for them!

If someone won't do it, find someone else who will. Let the consumer pick. If government has an advantage in a field by already having right of way, press the advantage for the benefit of the consumer.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041403140 said:
The funny part is that you extreme free market nut jobs usually say that the reason the private sector should do EVERYTHING is because government is inept. Well if they are so inept, then the ISP's have nothing to worry about, so I guess there is nothing to see here.
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I am a free market nut job.

Government is inept. Everything the government does takes away, by force, from productive citizens. Since when is internet access an essential government function?

I get my cable TV & internet from a company granted a monopoly status by the local government. There is no "free market capitalism" in this picture, just crony capitalism. Which is not real capitalism.
 
satsunada said:
Given how the internet works, I'd imagine they could use interstate commerce laws. They already use them to monitor the stock market and exchanges, this wouldn't be much different... except for hopefully far better regulated than Wall Street.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the interstate commerce clause in the 10th amendment of the constitution is vague enough that it can be used to justify almost any federal law or regulation...


Almost...
 
Zarathustra[H];1041410517 said:
Yeah, the interstate commerce clause in the 10th amendment of the constitution is vague enough that it can be used to justify almost any federal law or regulation...


Almost...
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Well considering forms of interstate commerce is done on the internet it's not a super stretch like it has been in the past.
 
Pocatello said:
I get my cable TV & internet from a company granted a monopoly status by the local government. There is no "free market capitalism" in this picture, just crony capitalism. Which is not real capitalism.
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I would agree with this.

The ideal situation would be to have a free market of companies competing against each other. It would lead to the best outcomes, the most rapid development, and the lowest prices, as market incentives drive improvement.

But we don't have that. We have local monopolies where ISP's have carved out turf where they don't compete with each other, both with and without municipal help in protecting their monopolies.

You could strike down the municipal monopoly statutes, and it still wouldn't fix the problem., because you can't force companies to compete with each other.

They ahve shown that they are much happier sitting on their own turf and using their monopoly powers to milk the consumer then they are to actually jump in and compete, and the infrastructure costs are so high that they provide a large enough barrier to entry to prevent essentially everyone except Google from jumping in and competing with them, but even they are only willing to do it one town at a time...

So then we have a dilemma. We need competition for market forces to work, but we have no way of getting competition. So what do we do?

We either shut up and live with the shitty situation of being abused by monopolies, or take some sort of legal or regulatory (read "government") action to change it.

Municipal internet service seems like the most innocuous way to accomplish this. Other options would be using monopoly laws to break up companies or seize infrastructure, but that likely won't go over well :p

In the grand scheme of things, to me:

Free market competition >> public sector control >> private monopolies.

I'd rather have inept government working FOR my interests than have extremely talented private industry working AGAINST my interests.

How about you?
 
All I know is that in Chattanooga they have one of the first public run fiber networks (which they had to fight against the ISP's to serve it to the people). Originally it was for helping provide a local power grid to reroute electricity around but they saw it as an opportunity to allow businesses/people to connect an dit ended up being a huge hit, it's like 70 bucks for 1gb internet.

Now they want to be able to expand it outside of the city but because of the laws they are not able to.

Of course the isp's have no intention of offering competition, even just 40 minutes away from there the best option is 80 bucks for 50mb's.
 
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