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The Internet Government Network The Almighty Buck United States

26 States Now Ban Or Restrict Community Broadband, Report Finds (vice.com) 202

Posted by BeauHD from the thanks-Big-Telecom dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A new report has found that 26 states now either restrict or outright prohibit towns and cities from building their own broadband networks. Quite often the laws are directly written by the telecom sector, and in some instances ban towns and cities from building their own broadband networks -- even if the local ISP refuses to provide service. The full report by BroadbandNow, a consumer-focused company that tracks US broadband availability, indicates the total number of state restrictions on community broadband has jumped from 20 such restrictions since the group's last report in 2018.

BroadbandNow's report looks at each state's restrictions individually, and found that while some states simply banned community broadband outright (a notable assault on voters' democratic rights), others impose clever but onerous restrictions on precisely how a local network can be funded, who they can partner with, or how quickly (and where) they're allowed to grow. In Tennessee, for example, state laws allow publicly-owned electric utilities to provide broadband, "but limits that service provision to within their electric service areas." Such restrictions have made it hard for EPB -- the highest rated ISP in America last year according to Consumer Reports -- to expand service into new areas.
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26 States Now Ban Or Restrict Community Broadband, Report Finds More

26 States Now Ban Or Restrict Community Broadband, Report Finds

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  • Land of the free (Score:4, Funny)

    by redback ( 15527 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @09:11AM (#58463506)

    Land of the free, where the government doesn't mess with your lives too much.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You are free,
      to have corporate monopoly!

    • Where if it can be collected, it will be.

    • Re:Land of the free (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 20, 2019 @09:42AM (#58463568)

      This is just one of the many proofs that in spite of what the right-wing loves to promote, the USA is not, and never has been, a free market economy. Pure capitalism is just as infeasible and mythical as pure communism as both of them are built around making assumptions about humans as a species that simply do not apply.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrKaos ( 858439 )

        This is just one of the many proofs that in spite of what the right-wing loves to promote, the USA is not, and never has been, a free market economy. Pure capitalism is just as infeasible and mythical as pure communism as both of them are built around making assumptions about humans as a species that simply do not apply.

        Creating implied opportunities to build in corruption that stymies the ability for the society to evolve systems that keep it stable. Freedom of speech, free association are the mechanisms that provide the adaptations in manageable pieces so that change isn't too painful.

        Maybe people forget why those freedoms are so important because of how small they are?

        • pure Capitalism

          You seem to be confusing Capitalism and Feudalism.

          The underlying premise of Capitalism is that business owners are (rightfully, correctly) greedy. This leads to entrenched interests harming the market for personal benefit. If a neutral third party (aka Government) peeks over the shoulders of business, and regulates the market to ensure a level playing field for new or small market participants, then a "Free Market" can arise.

          The idea that removing restrictions on entrenched business is somehow "pure capit

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrKaos ( 858439 )

            pure Capitalism

            You seem to be confusing Capitalism and Feudalism.

            Absolutely not!

            Pure capitalism is terrifying. Feudalism is the stagnant comfort of fiefdoms and communism is a means to convert capitalism into feudalism. No economic system is perfect so freedom of speech and association are tools against the corruptions that seep into them from the accumulated imperfection of human nature.

            After all, we're only human.

            The idea that removing restrictions on entrenched business is somehow "pure capitalism" is about the stupidest shit you could possibly say about economics.

            So where did I say that?

            Maybe people forget why those freedoms are so important because of how small they are?

            Q: How many people will even learn what their freedoms are, or what any of the words mean?

            The ones who don't want to be slaves.

    • Just because slashdot posts an article that is full or horse-shit level lies, that doesn't imply anything happened to your freedum.

      For example they list Oregon, where not only is municipal broadband legal, legit, and unrestricted! Why? They don't say, they just list "other reasons." Oh, "other reasons," gee.

      Not only can communities do their own internet here, without any interference or restriction from the State, anybody can; we have good, clear laws for accessing utility poles. The poles themselves are ge

    • refuse to vote for any politician who accepts corporate PAC money. Then make sure you vote in your primary. Most don't, so your primary vote has a lot more weight. Politicians don't fear losing in the general. They know they can buy name recognition and win with older voters who are just voting because their bored. But those voters tend to skip the primary. Drag your friends along too.

      Oh, and listen to what politicians say and ask yourself, was there any policy in that speech, or was it just flowery lan

      • You bring up a good point about PAC money!

        We need stop this hiding of PAC money. The way to minimize corrupting is for Citizens to demand a open and transparent system so we can see who is attempting to buy who off. If someone or some company donates money to a single political party, then it SHOULD be SHARED equally amongst all of the remaining parties to prevent "out marketing" your opposition simply by "buying off" the public.

        Until this happens, corruption in government will remain unchecked.

        We also ne

    • If this is the best government money can buy, then we are not getting our money's worth.

  • This is far more important. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @09:40AM (#58463560) Journal
    Dems worry about net neutrality. Right here is real problem. Dems should be passing a bill that prohibits state gov from preventing this.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mysidia ( 191772 )

      I would go one step further... Dems should be passing a bill that prohibits state gov from preventing this AND levy a 5 to 10% Tax on profits/sales from for-profit broadband providers and using the tax moneys to Offer grants and funding available solely for non-profit community broadband organizations and County and Municipal governments to build and expand high-capacity municipal broadband networks to include households that currently only have options that either cost them more than $30 a month or m

      • It is one thing for the feds to say that a state gov can not prohibit this, but quite another for the feds to push this. Let local communities decide when to do this. Just have to stop state govs from being bought.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          Let local communities decide when to do this. Just have to stop state govs from being bought.

          I am in favor of communities deciding this; However, there is a problem of getting money for this -- in that for-profit providers have gotten into the industry first and tend to suck up the most profitable customers in the densest of areas and leave others completely unserved, therefore user fees are not
          a great option for funding such projects.

          The best feature of municipal broadband is they can seek to s

    • Dems worry about net neutrality. Right here is real problem. Dems should be passing a bill that prohibits state gov from preventing this.

      That is exactly the opposite what the founding documents of the US allow. The Federal government has NO authority to determine what states can do within their borders. Of course, much of that is completely ignored these days and has been for a long time.

      • Re:This is far more important. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Antique Geekmeister ( 740220 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @10:41AM (#58463696)

        > The Federal government has NO authority to determine what states can do within their borders.

        I'm afraid that this has _never_ been completely true. The US Confederacy started a civil war, and lost it, over just such states' rights. Violations of civil rights by states have repeatedly been resolved through the Supreme Court, as they were for black rights and the rights to gay marriage, and the amendments regarding prohibition were passed and enforced over the objections of many individual states.

        Balancing state and local authority against federal laws always requires a balance. But please, do not pretend that there is "NO authority". History, modern law, and the Union Army have proven this claim mistaken.

        • Balancing state and local authority against federal laws always requires a balance. But please, do not pretend that there is "NO authority". History, modern law, and the Union Army have proven this claim mistaken.

          It has nothing to do with the Union Army. Might does not make right. It also has nothing to do with 'modern law': the government is not allowed to violate the Bill of Rights, the highest law in the land - any law or precedent to the contrary is illegal, no matter how old or how modern it may be (and creating or upholding such a law is a violation of numerous rights, including the right to ethical practice of law).

          We have to find another reason to justify the actions of the Federal government. Fortunately

          • The southern states, the members of the Confederacy, had a perceived legal right to secede from the Union. The Union begged to differ with them, considering federal unity more important than that state right. The Confederacy then lost the war, and the successful conquest by the Union Armary overruled local legal precedents. Losing a civil war means the local laws are overwhelmed by force of arms, which is always a compelling legal argument.

            It was one of the most classic conflicts between state authority and

            • Losing a civil war means the local laws are overwhelmed by force of arms, which is always a compelling legal argument.

              No. Might does not make right. There is nothing logically compelling about a legal argument based on force of arms - and law is supposed to be based on logic. Resort to force of arms means one has given up winning on the basis of logic or reason - it's government by a warlord, not government by consent of the governed.

              The Southern States were violating fundamental rights of many people through the implementation of slavery

              Not according to their state law, the precedents of federal law, and the legal history of mankind since the oldest religious writings.

              George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and many others disagreed with you: they viewed the long term continuation of slavery as fundamentally inconsistent with the concept of th

              • I acknowledge your point about the cotton gin: I misremembered that, and appreciate the correction. The history is worth review on some other more relevant occasion.

                > No. Might does not make right.

                But it makes law. The enforceable rights are those decided by law, whether they exist in some abstract vision of the order of society. It's very difficult to protect rights without the courts and without legal enforcement in civil or criminal law. And these laws have been altered by superior force on numerous o

                • But it makes law. The enforceable rights are those decided by law, whether they exist in some abstract vision of the order of society. It's very difficult to protect rights without the courts and without legal enforcement in civil or criminal law. And these laws have been altered by superior force on numerous occasions in avery nation's history that I've ever heard of. Current examples in US law include the federal immigration law and drug sentencing laws, objected to by various states and objected to by my more liberal local politicians. Others include educational mandates, Title iX, abortion rights, and gay marriage, objected to by various more conservative local politicians.

                  All of these involve rights, including states rights versus federal law. All involve federal interference in local courts, businesses, economies, churches, and family lives. All have involved armed personnel ensuring enforcement of the rights of different people, over the objections of others, and on occasion they have used force. When the local officials lost those contests of force, they were forced to change their laws or their practice of the law.

                  Might does not make law. It especially can not be used as the basis for law in the USA, a nation founded by Enlightenment thinkers, a people whose thinking was shaped by the Age of Reason. The logic, or the justification, must come first - the might only comes second, and is only legitimate if the justification itself was legitimate. Otherwise one violates universal and inalienable rights, which no legitimate government can do. This concept in embodied in the Declaration of Independence, which clearly s

                  • > Might does not make law.

                    Then I suggest you re-examine the polotical geography of Western Europe and of Israel, and the history of the American Civil War, WWI, and WWII, of Afghanistan and Iraq more recently.

                    > Hence, we are back to the original issue: the justification for the Union taking action against the Confederacy was based upon slavery - and the federal government was given authority by the Bill of Rights to so ac

                    It's conveniently self-righteous, today, to believe that was the only issue. The

      • The Interstate Commerce Clause appears to be written to solve this problem.

        • The Interstate Commerce Clause appears to be written to solve this problem.

          No, not how its written. Only how its badly interpreted to cover everything both interstate and intrastate.

      • Oh, I see. So Federal Laws only apply in parts of the country that aren't within a state then. Makes perfect sense! (You fucking idiot)

      • Since everything is in a state border, this would mean that the fed has no authority whatsoever. Yeah, right!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mea2214 ( 935585 )
      Telecoms spread the wealth among Rs and Ds equally so neither will support ending their monopolies. The fight over the net neutrality band aid legislation is just red meat to fire up their respective base supporters.

    • Dems should be passing a bill that prohibits state gov from preventing this.

      And bite the hand that feeds? I don't think so! Homey don't do that! [gq.com]

    • The state and local governments are the ones who gave the cable companies their monopolies in the first place. They're not natural monopolies - they're government-granted. Why the hell do you think the politicians would support community broadband and upset those monopolies? The politicians grant cable monopolies, the cable companies (ab)use the monopolies to extract more money from their customers than the market would normally allow. And they kick back some of that money to the politicians who gave th

  • Corporations HATE the free market. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    When they say they want a "free" market, they only mean their freedom to take other people's freedoms (and rights).

    In an actually free market, people could and would also organize and make their own corporation, to balance the market. E.g. their own community's telecom. Or their own union.

    They also LOVE regulation.
    When they say "small government", they mean that they should be the only ones to write regulation that gives them an unfair advantage. And the power of *others*, especially the people, should be s

  • or example, state laws allow publicly-owned electric utilities to provide broadband, "but limits that service provision to within their electric service areas."

    How is preventing a utility from owning another utility a limitation of community broadband? Why would this not be a good thing?

    • or example, state laws allow publicly-owned electric utilities to provide broadband, "but limits that service provision to within their electric service areas."

      How is preventing a utility from owning another utility a limitation of community broadband? Why would this not be a good thing?

      I don't think that is what that line is saying. I think what it does is limit them to where they are already providing electric service. So if they grow out their electric service they can then provide broadband to those places where they have grown their electric service. The problem with this restriction is that electric utilities are basically limited to where they can provide electric services so they their broadband service footprint will basically be capped.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        Isn't that a good thing though? If they want to provide broadband, then start another company to do that. I wouldn't want the two utilities under one corporation anyway. I don't want the electric company, telephone company, and water utility to all be one company.

  • How many states ban community rescue of industries (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @10:29AM (#58463668)
    Like how we rescued the financial industry with trillions of taxpayer-funded bailouts and taxpayer-funded backstops? Not so many. Socialized risks, privatized profits.

    • Most people are being fooled (Score:4, Insightful)

      by bussdriver ( 620565 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @01:01PM (#58464106)

      Modern propaganda has been slowly destroying democracies around the world and it didn't begin with Italy and end with Germany. It's a terminal cancer that despite a majority recognizing tumors like Trump fail to remove them quick enough and far worse, they do not recognize the underlying cancer when they do.

      Today you could not build a national highway system anymore than you can build a national information highway. START THINKING FOR YOURSELVES and stop just emotionally latching onto the BS. Democracy is a form of socialism and that is just for starters...

      The price civilization is taxes. The higher the density and the more technology the greater the difficulty in maintaining civil society = more civilization. Regulations (aka laws) are a essential and fundamental tool; a double-edge sword that is wielded best by a democracy because it benefits the many at the expense of the few (which is the essence of socialism... the very same socialist argument used to justify capitalism; that is, for those who are not blind witless followers of the brand.)

      If you are even thinking of countering by bringing up direct democracy, then you are too juvenile, grow up. You've been adding to our problems with your ignorance. We need to bring back civics and government education, it's truly getting warped into nothing but empty tribal slurs. Despotism is so close... people are beginning to see it (but only because we're boiling the frog too quickly.)

    • Re:How many states ban community rescue of industr (Score:5, Informative)

      by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @02:44PM (#58464428)
      The government [propublica.org] actually made money [thebalance.com] from the bailouts [politifact.com]. I was skeptical too when the bailouts were first proposed, but it turns out it was the right thing to do.

  • Let me first be clear:
    - I understand the meme on /. is about how evil this is, how government is interfering in something that ostensibly can bring good to many.
    - I too would love to have cheap, city provided broadband.

    HOWEVER, and this is a genuine question, not an 'opinion statement hidden in a question': How far do we want/let government go in providing services to the community that could be provided by commercial entities? I mean, we all need haircuts occasionally, why not make haircutting a governme

    • Re:Genuine question (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PPH ( 736903 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @11:26AM (#58463814)

      The cable companies by & large operate GOVERNMENT-MANDATED monopolies.

      I think you really need to do some research on this. Utility monopolies exist in spite of, or due to special exemptions in anti trust law. I can't think of any government that went out of their way to discourage or ban a competitor from their jurisdiction. It's usually the economics which make multiple players in one market less attractive. Or out and out price fixing and collusion to divide up a market between suppliers.

      Usually, once a single provider becomes dominant in a region, local and state laws kick in to place restrictions on their practices to prevent monopolistic market abuses.

    • Re:Genuine question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @03:20PM (#58464528)

      How far do we want/let government go in providing services to the community that could be provided by commercial entities?

      For utilities? All the way. Your lights working, your internet running, and your toilet not flowing backwards shouldn't be part of someone's profit/loss balance sheet.

  • Remember, kids (Score:3)

    by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @11:28AM (#58463824) Homepage Journal

    Community has seven letters the same as communism and only two different. It's literally almost 80% evil!

  • These so-called 'laws' are a bald-faced gift to the telecom industry and as such should be abolished. We could all survive and thrive without Internet just fine, but (at least for the moment) it enhances our lives (that may change by the way) and as such there should not be any government-sponsored monopoly on it. If States, counties, cities, or towns want to have their own 'municipal' broadband internet, then they should damned well be able to do that, and money-grubbing, price-gouging ISPs be damned.

  • Municipal broadband would be coercive socialism if and only if private networks were forbidden to compete with it, as with medallion cab companies. But if people in a community want to band together to install broadband that Comcast won't, shouldn't this be a protected right?

  • Running fiber to everybody's house or apartment costs a fortune. Since 99.999999999% of customers do not need anything near a 1 Gb connection it seems rather obvious that this would be overkill. It makes sense in greenfield environments where there is no existing wiring but upgrading everywhere is a gigantic waste.

    Take the example provider given - EPB. A quick look on their website shows that the price for an Internet only hookup is $78. That may not be too much for most people on this board but for worki

  • What competition really means (Score:3)

    by HuskyDog ( 143220 ) on Saturday April 20, 2019 @06:49PM (#58465072) Homepage
    I was always taught that consumers got the best deal when a number of independent supplies competed for their custom on the basis of both price and product features.

    Here in the UK I have a choice of at least 40 different ISPs via DSL (actually its ADSL here) and one via cable. I use one of the DSL ISPs (aaisp.net) and get 80Mb down/20 Mb up. My key point is that with many suppliers in the market, there is room for both big companies offering standard packages for Joe Shmoe and small ISPs offering specialist options for smaller markets. I went for a smaller supplier who officially supports Linux, has first line tech support staff who know much more about networking than me and a strong commitment to internet freedoms. My mother uses a different ISP which provides the sort of simpler package which she needs. That is what choice in a market place means.

    Now, how did we get the plethora of choices? Unfortunately, via the communist ideal of government control! The government forces the owners of the telephone lines (British Telecom) to give other companies access under the same terms as their own ISP division. The idea of having a "choice" of only one or two big corporate ISPs offering much the same vanilla packages sounds ghastly, but perhaps it is a price worth paying to avoid the red spectre of government interference!
    • What you are describing works only with DSL or POTS connections. Cable based networks which are used in the US share the downstream and upstream bandwidth so you cannot have 40 different companies using the cable at the same time.

      I agree that DSL is fine for most people but over here the tech companies and their political allies have worked to eliminate DSL as a viable option. The current FCC definition of bandwidth states that it is a minimum of 25 Mbps downstream. This figure was chosen because at that

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by catprog ( 849688 )

        Can you not hook into the box at the exchange?

        So 1 'company' is on the lines but as soon as you get off the lines in the exchange you have options.

        • No, it doesn't work that way. All the boxes are sharing the forward and reverse paths. They receive a time slice of the reverse frequency to talk back and all of the forward traffic is aggregated and sent over shared frequencies.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by catprog ( 849688 )

            My understanding is their is a box at the exchange where the cable connection terminates.

            At that point is where you hook the different ISPs to their customers.

            • Your understanding is incorrect.. The box at the exchange where the connection terminates is the connection to the entire service group, not a single box. You cannot hook in a different ISP for a single box.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by catprog ( 849688 )

      How are you getting 80/20 on ADSL?

  • In New Hampshire, municipalities may only use public funds (e.g., float a bond) to build out service in "unserved/underserved" parts of the town. So an incumbent ISP gets all the profitable parts of the area, and lets the town government pay for the expensive parts. Pretty crafty, eh?

  • Clicking through a couple of the links most of the states with the restrictions are on the coasts and the open states are more in the middle.

    New York is the exception. They seem to be community broad band.

    Not surprising.
  • Coincidentally, the FCC just voted to give Comcast & Verizon over $20 billion more dollars, to do what we ***already paid*** those companies to do (and they took the money but didn't do it): https://www.apnews.com/402d7c2... [apnews.com]

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