Court Upholds New York Law That Says ISPs Must Offer $15 Broadband (arstechnica.com) 47
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit overturned a prior district court decision, lifting the injunction that blocked New York's law mandating that ISPs offer $15 broadband plans to low-income families. Ars Technica reports: The ruling (PDF) is a loss for six trade groups that represent ISPs, although it isn't clear right now whether the law will be enforced. For consumers who qualify for means-tested government benefits, the state law requires ISPs to offer "broadband at no more than $15 per month for service of 25Mbps, or $20 per month for high-speed service of 200Mbps," the ruling noted. The law allows for price increases every few years and makes exemptions available to ISPs with fewer than 20,000 customers.
"First, the ABA is not field-preempted by the Communications Act of 1934 (as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996), because the Act does not establish a framework of rate regulation that is sufficiently comprehensive to imply that Congress intended to exclude the states from entering the field," a panel of appeals court judges stated in a 2-1 opinion. Trade groups claimed the state law is preempted by former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's repeal of net neutrality rules. Pai's repeal placed ISPs under the more forgiving Title I regulatory framework instead of the common-carrier framework in Title II of the Communications Act.
2nd Circuit judges did not find this argument convincing: "Second, the ABA is not conflict-preempted by the Federal Communications Commission's 2018 order classifying broadband as an information service. That order stripped the agency of its authority to regulate the rates charged for broadband Internet, and a federal agency cannot exclude states from regulating in an area where the agency itself lacks regulatory authority. Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and VACATE the permanent injunction."
"First, the ABA is not field-preempted by the Communications Act of 1934 (as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996), because the Act does not establish a framework of rate regulation that is sufficiently comprehensive to imply that Congress intended to exclude the states from entering the field," a panel of appeals court judges stated in a 2-1 opinion. Trade groups claimed the state law is preempted by former Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai's repeal of net neutrality rules. Pai's repeal placed ISPs under the more forgiving Title I regulatory framework instead of the common-carrier framework in Title II of the Communications Act.
2nd Circuit judges did not find this argument convincing: "Second, the ABA is not conflict-preempted by the Federal Communications Commission's 2018 order classifying broadband as an information service. That order stripped the agency of its authority to regulate the rates charged for broadband Internet, and a federal agency cannot exclude states from regulating in an area where the agency itself lacks regulatory authority. Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and VACATE the permanent injunction."
This is totally unfair (Score:2, Funny)
How dare the government regulate utility monopolies. The government should stick to its intended purpose. Which I don't know what that might be since I'm an ignoramus.
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Hi, Elon, you libertarian guiding light! That you?
I love how you, after all these years of grift, are still "bootstrapping" on tens of billions of dollars' worth of government help, while pretending to live in a tax haven! You sure stuck it to the libs!
I thought your plan was to retire on Mars, what happened to that?
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For consumers who qualify for means-tested government benefits, the state law requires ISPs to offer "broadband at no more than $15 per month for service of 25Mbps, or $20 per month for high-speed service of 200Mbps," the ruling noted
Why not just mandate a $15 and $20 plan available to everyone? It wouldn't be as controversial and I'm willing to bet there's still profit with those plans.
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Why not just mandate a $15 and $20 plan available to everyone?
Ask California and Florida what happened when they started to regulate home insurance pricing for everyone.
That's right, companies deciding that it's not worth it anymore.
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Another one for the Supreme Court (Score:1)
We need congress to turn the ISPs into common carriers and set rates.
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We need Congress to fuck off and stay out of it.
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We need Congress to fuck off and stay out of it.
Why do you hate human beings so much?
Does it bring you joy to watch people be kicked out of society, be denied possessing any money what so ever, and be forced to starve to death?
Are you next going to go after their clean water and electricity to avoid freezing to death?
It's not like the government is going to take that money from the poor and give it to you.
What other possible reason could you have except pure sadistic pleasure in seeing others suffer.
You should be fucking ashamed
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Congressmen are not people. They're scumbags, leeching off the rest of us.
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Yet 98% of you keep on reelecting them.. What's up with that?? Voters love playing this blame game, but they never look in the mirror when searching for the cause of all their problems. We need to conduct a study on this. Where do I apply for the grant?
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People are morons. This is why voting needs to be outlawed.
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+1 Funny...
are they allowed to cap it? (Score:3)
ok you can have your $15 Broadband but that only covers 1GB down and after it's $30-$40 for the next 1TB
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1GB? "We demand one gigabyte!" I think you've been in a time-freeze like Dr. Evil :)
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It's remarkable how scummy this is. The only people who qualify for this are those who have children in the school lunch program. Or at least that's how it used to be. I'm sure that's a fair number of people, but none of them have money to spare.
Sounds fine. (Score:2)
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I'd be plenty happy with a 25mbps down/up for $25. I have zero real need for 1gbps and certainly am not going to pay their $100 a month for it.
Now if only they would offer such a price point.
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>"Sounds fine to me. 512KBit/s up/down"
They are forcing 25Mbs minimum
>"for $15/month would be plenty in a pinch"
Might not sound fine to you if you were the utility company. Unless they are getting some other form of reimbursement in the deal. But 25Mbs is plenty fast enough to do just about anything normal. I make due with much slower at times.
>" ISP's shouldn't gatekeep the internet at 1Gbps for $100+ a month"
If they can't make any money with customers paying $15/month, they will have to raise
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In San Diego, cox is busy charging $50 for 100mbps. It's bullshit. I get by on a 5mbps connect and it's doable but game patches are downright frustrating. 20gb BG3 patches take me forever since my phone's unlimited hotspot is my only access.
I'd bite the bullet and pony up the $50 if I had any kind of roommate but can't really justify wasting the money otherwise. Of course, that's $50 before taxes and other "fees".
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>"I get by on a 5mbps connect and it's doable but game patches are downright frustrating"
Yeah, there are a few things that having a slow connection will cause some major inconvenience. Mostly thinks like large software updates. Fortunately, those are not that common and also can process whenever and are not holding things up. Other than that, even 5Mbs is surprisingly "doable" still.
I manage (among many other things), a large WiFi network with hundreds (sometimes over to 350) of guest clients. Unfort
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> Sure it sucks, but it isn't dire.
Dropping the kids off at McDonald's at 7am in a snowstorm is indeed dire.
These providers usually have enforced monopolies which always come with wealth redistribution.
Fix all of the above problems before dunking on poor families subject to these policies.
Subsidized (Score:3, Informative)
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This $15 internet is subsidized by those who pay $100 per month. When the govt forces something, the private company will just charge others until they cannot compete anymore
It seems entirely appropriate to me. We've seen time and time again where ISPs are given money to build out Internet and simply pocketed the cash. Time and time again they've fought to keep their nearly monopoly fiefdom free of real competition (big ISPs rarely move into other big ISP territories).
If they can't make money any more, they can sell their assets to the community they're suppose to be providing a service to instead of trying to extract every dime they can from them, while also taking governmen
Re: Subsidized (Score:1)
There are a lot more aspects. If you solely go by price, someone else will come along and compete on price. The grift here is that NYS produces an environment that promotes monopolies, which brings in lots of money in sales and other taxes then demands companies to drive up the price (and thus tax revenue) on middle class and businesses while pretending to care about the poor which it maintains poverty through granting companies monopolies, reducing available jobs.
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It's not just NYS; ISPing has huge barriers to entry, which leads to monopolies all by itself.
I don't miss modem speeds but I do really miss modem-based ISP competition.
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ISPing should not have huge barriers to entry, especially these days you can buy a relatively cheap radio online and provide access to your neighborhood. The problem is, as usual, government which grants licenses which are effectively granting monopolies on everything from opening up the ground, accessing the poles and the wireless spectrum.
If licensing these things were low cost and open to anyone, it would not cost as much, hence why many Asian and African rural markets have comparatively high speeds for
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When the govt forces something, the private company will just charge others until they cannot compete anymore
Nope. Companies will charge as much as average customers are willing to pay. It doesn't matter what their bottom line is. When you're a monopoly, all the price does is creep up with inflation as the costs to deliver services goes down. This is the exact reason why the FCC common carrier stuff came around for telephones in the early 1900s Telephones became a critical service to "live", controlled by a monopoly. The internet is unfortunately the same now.
Coming soon, "State's rights" (Score:2)
Translation: The federal government can't stop me, so the state government can't stop me.
With Biden attempting to shoehorn Net Neutrality onto the FCC again, these "trade groups" will soon be demanding "State's rights".
What about capitalism? (Score:3)
Where does this stop? (Score:3)
Next, they'll require McDonalds to sell Big Mac combo meals for $2.50 to qualified low income customers.
I've got no love for ISP's, but where does this stop?
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Why not $10/month? (Score:2)
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ISP should pay me to use their service.
Remote School (Score:1)
Some of these comments make no sense in the reality that remote schooling is now mandatary and enforced by law.
Kids in poor families who need to be on Zoom 6 hours a day do not have other options claimed here.
Unemployment meetings, seniors' telehealth, etc. all fit similar patterns. There is often no choice given.
Fix those maybe before claiming that a 1GB cap is plenty.
low income (Score:2)
Being low income is the greatest bonanza in the history of capitalism.