FCC Just Overruled State Laws That Were Blocking Municipal Broadband

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The Federal Communications Commission says that municipal broadband networks can no longer be blocked by state legislatures.

In a 3-2 vote, the Federal Communications Commission just voted to overrule laws limiting municipal broadband growth in two states. Similar laws blocking cities from building out their own broadband networks exist in 19 other states, and the FCC just set an important precedent.
 
I hope this opens the way for other municipalities to see how successful this can be. Any type of competitiveness against the ISP's is a win in my book.
 
Regulatory victory over lobbyist pigs.

There was much rejoicing.

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

...but regulations started this in the first place.
 
Lawsuit for violating the 10th amendment in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ;)

I actually think this is a good thing but the States would be fools not to take this up to SCOTUS to sort out the federal jurisdiction here
 
wonder how many years it will be (if ever) that competition actually moves in. our local government tried to keep any other providers out until Verizon sued and won.
 
a 3-2 vote... who were the 2 that voted against this? I also got more excited than was warranted. This should have been a blanket overruling in all states. But yes, an important precedent indeed!
 
So what can now stop municipalities from blocking private competitors from their localities after they enacted their own broadband?
 
I hope this stands, but I do question whether the FCC has the authority to do this.
 
So what can now stop municipalities from blocking private competitors from their localities after they enacted their own broadband?

Yes, I could see this. "In order to provide quality service and competitive rates for our residents, the city now prohibits using any media services other than the city media services".
 
So what can now stop municipalities from blocking private competitors from their localities after they enacted their own broadband?

Nothing.

There are some here who think that's a great thing. Always good to have the local mayor, sherriff, and DA have access to your wireline datastream.
 
Yes, I could see this. "In order to provide quality service and competitive rates for our residents, the city now prohibits using any media services other than the city media services".

Most of these municipalities would be happy to have a broadband provider in their town.

The motivation behind doing this is that no one is coming to town, or at least, no one other than mediocre DSL.
 
The two Republicans on the panel, who else?

:mad:

Damn those republicans for supporting states rights. Lets give all power to Washington.

Let me know when the feds tell Colorado that selling and possessing weed is still a federal crime.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041451120 said:
Most of these municipalities would be happy to have a broadband provider in their town.

The motivation behind doing this is that no one is coming to town, or at least, no one other than mediocre DSL.

My city has last-mile fiber to every home courtesy of the electric company. All that fiber was made dark by a TWC-bought law that makes it illegal for a public utility to operate in the same market as a private corporation.

And needless to say...TWC has no one to have to worry about competing with, until now.

Hopefully the city gets the fiber on quick, before Comcrap buys out TimeWarnerShit. TWC is bad and their rates terrible, but Comcrap will do worse.
 
Huge overreach of power. This is going to get sued into oblivion, rightfully so.
 
:mad:

Damn those republicans for supporting states rights. Lets give all power to Washington.

Let me know when the feds tell Colorado that selling and possessing weed is still a federal crime.

Afuckingmen.
 
[QUOTE='Zarathustra[H]
I'd love to hear the anti-regulation fetishists argument against this one...[/QUOTE]
Doesn't matter what the outcome, they won't be happy that the feds are trumping state "power"
 
You know what is worse than Comcast?

The fucking government controlling the internet.

Because that isn't what is going on now, and has been the norm since ARPAnet?

If you're going to troll...put some brains into it. Otherwise you just look stupid.
 
Doesn't matter what the outcome, they won't be happy that the feds are trumping state "power"

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

You can always tell who has no fucking clue about history or current events
 
Define Irony.

People complaining about the government suddenly controlling the internet...which it has always done since Day 1 of ARPANet. Same class of trolling as people complaining about Government being involved in their Medicare or SS checks.


Would you rather have the government doing it, which you have legal recourse to challenge...or Comcast suits limiting your access to free speech with paywalls? Because those are the options we're at.
 
People complaining about the government suddenly controlling the internet...which it has always done since Day 1 of ARPANet. Same class of trolling as people complaining about Government being involved in their Medicare or SS checks.


Would you rather have the government doing it, which you have legal recourse to challenge...or Comcast suits limiting your access to free speech with paywalls? Because those are the options we're at.

I trust Comcast with motives of profit with actual competitors for me to go to than I do our criminally corrupt government.

You are a mental midget if you think Government is the answer to anything. I guess the dems have to make a living off of somebody.

There were lots of ways to help the industry but blanket taking over the internet by allowing municipalities to push out for profit companies was not one of them.
 
What is funny is that is the same 3-2 for the FCC to approve the Net Neutrality rules that were approved just a little bit ago.

Those two people really just want to fuck people over and support Comcast.
 
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...

Why do you describe the law as a fetish? It seems like you have a rather bizarre thought process.
 
And that right there means you're either a troll or brain damaged. Welcome to my ignore list.

What do you know, they can still have competition even when they pay the town not to let them. you have the option of Comcast, xfinity, and a tin can. ;)
 
People complaining about the government suddenly controlling the internet...which it has always done since Day 1 of ARPANet. Same class of trolling as people complaining about Government being involved in their Medicare or SS checks.


Would you rather have the government doing it, which you have legal recourse to challenge...or Comcast suits limiting your access to free speech with paywalls? Because those are the options we're at.

Fucking this.

I've said before, as long as these monopoly holding corporations are so blatantly consumer-aggressive, we, the consumers, have no recourse other than stiffer regulation. In this case, there is a solution other than stiffer regulation, but everyone is still going to bitch over it because "federal intervention."

When Comcast/Time Warner etc get their act together and are willing to be reasonable, or we have some way of stimulating competition, then I feel the government should back off, but right now backing off the heat would have a dramatic negative impact upon the internet as we know it.
 
As a Tennessee resident, this should be great news. TN is one of the leaders in fiber deployment with Chattanooga, Clarksville, Tullahoma,and Mt. Juliet all providing high speed internet to their citizens. The big problem was that these deployments were limited to their own city/county borders.

With Google Fiber coming to Nashville soon, this should allow Google to expand to the surrounding counties as well.

Both AT&T and Comcast are going to try to have Gigabit speeds in Nashville at some point as well, which gives me a lot of choice in determining an ISP.
 
And that right there means you're either a troll or brain damaged. Welcome to my ignore list.

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 fact that you even tried to bring up the word competition when talking about ISP's in the US just shows that you really don't know what you are talking about. I am certain that you, as most of the people bemoaning this state, where not even alive when the feds had to break Bell last time. Please stop posting in this forum you are making the rest of us dumber by your responses.
 
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.

You have got to be trolling, you got me. Because anyone that would say competition when talking about ISP's or blame the US Postal Service for the faults that were placed on it by Congress obviously is trolling. Or you are LD either way please stop posting.
 
I trust Comcast with motives of profit with actual competitors for me to go to than I do our criminally corrupt government.

You are a mental midget if you think Government is the answer to anything. I guess the dems have to make a living off of somebody.

There were lots of ways to help the industry but blanket taking over the internet by allowing municipalities to push out for profit companies was not one of them.

Last I checked, municipalities aren't forcing anyone to only use them. Its yet another option.

If you want to continue paying Comcast, go right ahead.

I live about 30 miles from an area with municipality owned fiber service. For the same service you pay a decent amount less, yet there are still a great many people paying Cox and AT&T for their services.

The long and the short of it is the municipality is yet another player and is increasing the very same competition you're fond of.
 
I trust Comcast with motives of profit with actual competitors for me to go to than I do our criminally corrupt government.

You are a mental midget if you think Government is the answer to anything. I guess the dems have to make a living off of somebody.

There were lots of ways to help the industry but blanket taking over the internet by allowing municipalities to push out for profit companies was not one of them.

I would agree with you if there were actually competition, which there isn't.

The ISP's operate as cartels, and carve out areas for themselves, only very rarely crossing into the others territory, so in most cases they have monopoly power, as they aren't actually competing with each other.

When there is competition, organizations have incentive to improve service or risk losing their customers. When there isn't competition, customers have no choice, nowhere to go, and in this situation the business incentive is to not invest in their products or service, and generally abuse their customer base as much as possible.


Sure, I distrust government, but I distrust cartels with monopoly powers more.

I'd rather have incompetent government working on my behalf, than highly competent private industry working against my interests.

Besides, the government WILL NOT be running the internet under current or future FCC rules. They will simply have a set of rules telling the ISP's what they can and can't do to abuse their customers, in order to combat the failure of capitalism that results from the lack of competition.

The whole argument that OMG the Government is taking over the Internet is plain stupid. They will be "taking over" the Internet in about the same way they "took over" the mobile phone industry in the 90's and to a lesser extent than they "took over" the telephone network...

It's an intentional misrepresentation of what is actually proposed to try to scare ignorant idiots into opposing it, so the paid for politicians keep their lobbyists happy. Good job on drinking the cool-aid.
 
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