Colorado Residents Wake Up, Vote To Bypass Protectionist State Broadband Laws
from the build-it-and-they-will-come dept
As we've noticed in the past, if there's a place to start fixing U.S. broadband competition, it's the nearly two-dozen state protectionist broadband laws written and passed by the nation's incumbent ISPs. Said laws either hinder or outright ban towns and cities from building and/or improving their own broadband networks, even in cases where local private companies refuse to. In several instances, the laws even prohibit government collaboration with private companies in any way.The laws are usually passed under the pretense of protecting communities from their own financial missteps, with assorted industry mouthpieces like Marsha Blackburn playing up the failures of a few select municipal broadband projects. Of course, like any business plan, these ventures can be built on solid or rotten frames, and several have been quite successful. In contrast, these protectionist laws take local choice away entirely, replacing it with mechanisms that do little more than insulate the nation's lumbering broadband mono/duopoly from competition of any kind.
Fortunately, in the last year or so, these laws have started to see some renewed public attention as projects like Google Fiber have people clamoring for faster, cheaper broadband service.
Colorado's 2005 state law hindering community broadband bills was pushed for by local incumbents CenturyLink (formerly Qwest) and Comcast, which, like AT&T, have a long and quite sleazy history of passing awful laws, trying to sue such operations out of existence, or engaging in misleading disinformation campaigns (like telling locals their taxpayer money will go toward subsidizing porn). In Colorado's case, the 2005 law fortunately included provisions allowing locals to build networks if they call for an election. Last week, Boulder and six other communities voted to move forward with the idea of building their own networks.
Comcast is busy in Washington trying to maintain a clean facade in order to get regulatory approval of its $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable, so it didn't challenge the efforts, something that helps explain the campaign's success:
"How were they able to secure such a big victory? There might be some factors at work that are bigger than even Colorado. Comcast, the state's largest cable provider, did not fight the referendum, perhaps because it is focused on getting its proposed merger with Time Warner Cable approved in Washington. (Comcast declined to comment for this report.)"Like so many technology issues (net neutrality springs to mind), this issue of community broadband has somehow been caught in the partisan politics team cheerleading wormhole, even though letting a giant corporation write your state laws and erode local authority simply to protect its mono/duopoly revenues isn't something either Conservatives or Progressives would support in a sane world. Refreshingly, a lot of the community revolt against these laws currently occurring in places like Colorado, North Carolina and Tennessee is being championed by Republicans and Democrats alike, who collectively (though belatedly) seem to have realized that better, cheaper broadband ultimately benefits everybody.
Earlier this year, FCC boss Tom Wheeler stated he'd be using the FCC's authority to ensure "timely" broadband deployment to dismantle portions of some of these laws, though the net neutrality debate appears to have put the issue on the back burner. That's a shame, since we've long pointed out that net neutrality issues are only a symptom of the deeper issue: a lack of competition. Dismantling idiotic laws purchased by ISPs to maintain that status quo is the very first place we need to look if that problem is ever going to be seriously addressed.
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Filed Under: broadband, colorado, community broadband, competition, muni-broadband, protectionism, votes
Companies: comcast
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I'm not sure where you live, but in CT, if fiber cables were maintained as well as our roads we would have widespread outages daily and they wouldn't be able to support the traffic requirements even when they worked.
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If people stopped this bizarre schizophrenic thinking about how we pay for essential services, there would be no problem with the government maintaining either roads or broadband infrastructure.
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Gas prices are still going down because of tax cuts?
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The one interesting aspect of the whole "solar freaking roadways" meme that happened earlier this year (?) was the power conduit that would have to be part of the infrastructure. Solar roadways are unrealistic and the idea seems to have mercifully fallen by the wayside, however the enclosed trench for power distribution could surely be adapted and used for municipal fiber distribution. Possibly even used for both, so the major electric providers wouldn't be able to overcharge for delivery of electricity, which is certainly part of what is keeping renewable-energy sourced electric providers from being able to get into the game. That way ISPs and Power Conglomerates would all have to pay the same rate to municipalities to use the distribution network, instead of overcharging customers for totally made up (and never divulged) delivery costs.
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Comcast isn't a stranger to people being pushed off roofs, under trains and cars and committing suicide without reason, explanation or suicide note.....
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FCC boss Tom Wheeler
Wikipedia: Tom Wheeler
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Re: FCC boss Tom Wheeler
Supreme Court stated in Red Lion v. FCC in 1969: “It is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market, whether it be by the Government itself or a private licensee. It is the right of the public to receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral, and other ideas and experiences which is crucial here. That right may not constitutionally be abridged either by Congress or by the FCC.”
None of this is lawful here in America, but it is done because WE allow it to go on.
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Short attention spans
Priorities, priorities...
“FCC to take more time on net neutrality following Obama's position”, by Matt Hamblen, Computerworld, Nov 10, 2014
People have short attention spans. What's going to be on the front burner in 2015? How many burners are there in the back?
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Re: Short attention spans
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If they paid for the hyper-speed lane, they could do two things at the same time.
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Like getting inducted into both Baseball Hall of Fame and the Football Hall of Fame? If you've got a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball, how fast can you pitch the pigskin?
Maybe that example doesn't really work: It comes down to only one thing.
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Roads
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Colorado Residents Wake Up
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