Colorado Voters Continue To Shoot Down Awful Comcast-Written Protectionist State Law
from the get-the-hell-out-of-the-way dept
For some time now we've noted how one of the biggest reasons the broadband market remains uncompetitive is protectionist state law written by and lobbied for by incumbent ISPs. These laws take various forms, but usually they prevent towns or cities from building their own networks -- or partnering with private companies -- even in instances where the incumbent ISP refuses to service them. Nineteen such laws have been passed, and an FCC attempt to pre-empt these laws on a federal level was recently scrapped by the courts as over-reach, leaving the issue as problematic and unresolved as ever.One ray of hope in an otherwise dismal and contentious election for technology comes out of Colorado, where numerous local Colorado communities voted to ignore SB 152, a 2005 state law lobbied for by Comcast and CenturyLink, which required communities jump through numerous, intentionally onerous hoops should they want to simply make decisions regarding their own, local infrastructure. Unlike most of these laws, SB 152 lets local communities issue a referendum to ask voters if they wish to reclaim the right to make these decisions.
As a result, each election season we've seen more and more local Colorado communities vote to tell incumbent ISPs they're tired of the dysfunctional broadband status quo. In this week's election, all 26 of the municipal broadband-related referendums on the ballot in Colorado communities, including Aspen, were approved by relatively wide margins:
"Results from ballot initiatives varied by modest degree but all left no doubt that the local electorate want out of SB 152. Breckenridge came in with 89 percent. Montezuma County, where local media expressed support of the opt out earlier this month, passed the measure with 70 percent of the vote. The community with the highest percentage of support for opting out of SB 152 was Black Hawk with 97 percent of votes cast. The lowest percentage of "yes" vote was Woodland Park in Teller County with 55 percent. The average "yes" vote was 76 percent.Historically, incumbent ISP lobbyists, think tankers, and other paid mouthpieces have tried to intentionally sow dissent by framing municipal broadband as a partisan issue. But time and time again we've noted how most of these city-owned networks are being built in Conservative markets, and being tired of shitty, uncompetitive broadband is certainly not a partisan concept. But ISPs have consistently been successful in having politicians claim they're only looking out for the taxpayer, while ignoring that letting giant, incumbent telecom operators write awful state law is a horrible idea.
...Before this election, 22 counties and 47 cities had already voted to shed themselves of SB 152. The majority of these communities did not gently reach out and pick up local authority - voters snatched it back with 70, 80, and 90 percent of votes cast. Clearly they want options beyond the national cable and DSL providers.
That said, Colorado is an outlier in that most laws of this type don't really let towns and cities vote to ignore the rules. As a result, most of the states that these laws have been passed in (like Tennessee) have become broadband backwaters, where broadband service is as slow -- and expensive -- as ever before.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: broadband, colorado, competition, municipal broadband
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
*remains* ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: *remains* ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: *remains* ?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Statewide Referendum
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Statewide Referendum
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Statewide Referendum
We've got to find a way to permanently make this a liberty issue however those deep deep pockets are presently aligned against it
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"The lowest percentage of "yes" vote was Woodland Park in Teller County with 55 percent."
That's probably because of a small, local ISP that services the area offering gigabit speeds.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sincerly,
Big ISP Company
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Obviously the only proper response to votes like this is to remove the ability of local voters to decide whether or not they should be bound by the law, such that the state government, who of course knows better in all matters will be able to better protect the people within their state from the dangerous 'alternatives' to the paragons known as Comcast, AT&T and similar.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This list can be extended to
Gene patents (ie: Monsanto)
Overreaching IP laws with insane lengths and insane retroactive extensions (that were only lobbied for by corporate interests. I do not remember ever seeing large groups of citizens protesting in favor of expanding and extending these laws though I do remember seeing large groups of citizens protesting against TPP and SOPA).
Limits on broadband and cable competition
Marijuana prohibition (not that I endorse using it unless there is a valid medicinal reason, but I also don't endorse the government prohibiting it if the citizens want it legalized)
among other things.
Why does government pass all these bad laws that the people obviously don't want and then we must be the ones to burden the expense of starting state petitions to shoot them down.
It gets worse on the federal level as there is no official petition process to change laws we don't like and we are essentially stuck with those laws.
This is supposed to be a democracy but it seems the only ones that get represented by politicians are corporate interests and if we want to change that we must go through the effort ourselves of starting petitions to maybe get the laws changed assuming they aren't federal laws.
This 'democracy' is a fake.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This is not a democracy. Once you can figure out the proper word to use, then learn its definition you might be able to figure out a few more things in life! As opposed to running around using the wrong words to bitch about a situation you do not understand!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]