City ISP Makes Broadband Free Because State Law Prohibits Selling Access (arstechnica.com) 54
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A municipal ISP that was on the verge of shutting off Internet service outside its city boundaries to comply with a state law has come up with a temporary fix: it will offer broadband for free. The free Internet service for existing customers outside Wilson, North Carolina, will be available for six months, giving users more time to switch to an alternative. But Wilson also hopes that six months will be enough time to convince elected officials to change the state law that prohibits the municipal ISP from selling Internet service to non-residents. As [Ars Technica] covered previously, the Federal Communications Commission voted in February 2015 to preempt laws in North Carolina and Tennessee that prevent municipal broadband providers from expanding outside their territories. Greenlight Community Broadband in Wilson subsequently began offering service outside of Wilson. But officials in both states sued the FCC and in August won reinstatement of their laws that protect private ISPs from municipal competitors. In mid-September, the Wilson City Council reluctantly voted to turn off the fiber Internet service it provides to customers outside Wilson city limits. But that decision was reversed in a City Council vote last week, The Wilson Times reported. (The news came to our attention today via DSLReports.) A Wilson Times editorial reported: "City leaders are walking a tightrope as they balance their desire to keep Vick Family Farms in rural Nash County and 200 customers in the Edgecombe County town of Pinetops connected to Greenlight with their obligation to obey a federal court ruling that blocks the municipal broadband service from branching out beyond county lines. The council agreed Thursday night to provide six months of free internet access and phone service to Greenlight customers outside Wilson County while Wilson lobbies the General Assembly for permission to keep the town connected on a permanent basis."
Re:But Republicans believe local... (Score:5, Interesting)
...government is best, right? Right? Nope, actually they just suck up to the Corporations a bit faster than Democrats, sadly. If only they had not screwed up by forcing Hillary on us as the non-Trump instead of Bernie. Sigh....
Now, now. If you keep talking like that, you're going to cause migraine-inducing cognitive dissonance amongst a certain portion of the population. Although I do have to laugh at the irony of the "free market" resulting in "socialism"* as an act of defiance/desperation.
Kudos to the local City Council for coming up with this remedy, even if it's only temporary. Hopefully the absurdity of the situation will draw enough attention to it that the corrupt state lawmakers are forced to do the right thing.
Imagining the reaction of the local broadband providers' executives when they first heard about this plan makes me chuckle.
* Yes, I am perfectly aware that the "internet access"-market is anything but a free market, and the City Council's response isn't socialism.
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Considering the local government is stepping in to provide a temporary solution to a problem caused by a more distant government, in this case at least, yes local government is best.
Hurrah For Wilson (Score:2)
no nothing important is mising from my comment (Score:2, Insightful)
I am pro municipal internet, but selling internet access outside your territories is something else entirely. And it is not needed. If the other municipality wants to provide its citizens with internet access as well they can decide to do it themselves.
However, at that stage they should be allowed to cooperate in order to work more efficiently and safe public money.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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If the other municipality is too small (or nonexistent, in rural areas some 'towns' are small enough that the only law enforcement is state police) why shouldn't they be able to contract to the neighboring municipality?
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Why introduce a new level of overhead just to make money for middlemen?
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I am pro municipal internet, but selling internet access outside your territories is something else entirely. And it is not needed.
Needed is different from desirable. Or advantageous. Not Needed is not even a reason to prohibit it. So tell us, what this else is entirely.
If the other municipality wants to provide its citizens with internet access as well they can decide to do it themselves.
What if there is no other municipality? Not every place is incorporated.
However, at that stage they should be allowed to cooperate in order to work more efficiently and safe public money.
What if the law doesn't allow that?
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EPB offers fiber because last-mile fiber was part of the new smart grid power system (and why not use all the extra bandwidth). The actual company offering the service is EPB Fiber Optics which leases the lines from EPB.
NOTHING keeps Comcast from leasing those same lines at the same rates (or even bringing a case to court that the cost is too high). They simply refuse and instead offer sub-par services with 300GB data caps (guaranteed to run huge overages if you
water or electrical service? (Score:2)
Re:water or electrical service? (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about utilities, but this regularly happens with public trains, across state lines nonetheless.
The "Massachusetts Bay Commuter Rail" serves several stops in Rhode Island, including connecting Providence to its airport. There have also been talks to expand service into New Hampshire.
The "Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority" serves several stops in Delaware.
These two are more operations inherited from predecessor private railroads, but including them for completeness' sake:
"New Jersey Transit" serves over 50 miles and about a dozen stops in upstate NY, inherited from the Erie-Lackawanna railroad.
New York's MTA serves most of the state of Connecticut in conjunction with the Connecticut Department of Transportation , inherited from the New Haven railroad.
Re:water or electrical service? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, in most places municipalities can sell water and electricity to anybody. Next question.
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We have police departments contracting services to nearby cities, and even leasing themselves out to a neighboring state. No laws stop them.
That will teach them (Score:4, Interesting)
Looks like the lobby that asked for an anti-competition law didn't do a good job.
I think we all know this one.... (Score:2)
My first business did something like this (Score:1)
A lot of people had problems selling games by mail (this is before civilian use of the Internet was widespread, and high school grads got typewriters as gifts if they were college bound) in Canada, due to the market.
But I looked at business law and taxes and realized you could set up a game business that didn't sell the actual game, it sold the service (kind of like microtransactions, where the game is free). This meant lower tax rates, higher tax deductions, and since it was a service and not a product no
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Except in this case the installation is already done and the banned part is selling it as a service.
brilliant! (Score:2)
While I'm certain this will not go uncontested, I hope more cities follow their example so that corporate puppets do not attempt to prohibit municipal ISPs.
Tax assessment (Score:5, Interesting)
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If it's being classified as a utility by the government, which it is, then operating it like a utility/public good should be acceptable.
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They are using tax dollars to undercut private services. "Utilities" are usually government or government-granted monopolies under the theory infrastructure is so expensive it is good to give it to a single provider.
No such pressure exists for Internet. Other laws already allow shared access to poles and so on. This is, loudly acknowledged, an attempt to cut costs by forcing everyone to pay whether they want it or not. Hence it is nothing of the sort.
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Don't sell it. Give it to them. Make maintenance a tax assessment, just like sewage, roads, etc.
The summary mentions multiple times, including in the very first sentance, that this applies to a municipality providing internet service to people outside its city boundaries. We don't let politicians levy taxes on people outside their jurisdictions, you may have previously heard this referred to as "no taxation without representation". People tend to feel rather strongly about it.
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So, how's that party of small gov't (Score:2)
Go Fund Me (Score:1)
how about complying with the law? (Score:2)
That is, either offer municipal broadband or offer for-profit broadband outside the city. What compelling reason is there for a single company to do both?
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Our local muni fiber considered running fiber outside of city limits even got a quote from the surrounding electric coop but they apparently wanted too much money for pole attachment as that never happened.
However they did get a wisp started that now sells service outside of the city their coverage even overlaps with the existing wisp in the area.
In one place they are even both using the same tower thats behind a hill from my house so I STILL can't get service at home.
it also resulted in some rather strange
I'm shocked, I tell you! (Score:2)
State governments in the pockets of corporations? Who knew?
What's that you say? Corporations own the Federal government too? I'll be damned.
It really seems that municipal governments are the last, (but admittedly shaky) bastions of functioning democracy in North America. Heaven help us when the corporate cancer swallows them entirely as well.
As Frank Zappa said, "The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive t
purest idiotism (Score:3)
Competition at its finest, right, when the priority is to protect [i.e., give undeserved priority and undeserved advantage to] companies from municipal "competitors". Protecting companies by denying the people/communities to spend their own money to create their own services for their own benefit (which is basically, although indirectly, being done here). Dream come true, nicely done.