[lpkmckenna]

The corporate war on municipal broadband has escalated. Yeah, that's my inflammatory title, sue me.

[The Final Dakar]

When asked why the cable company didn't offer more competitive throughput rates, its spokesperson told a technology newsletter back in 2009 that TWC didn't think anyone around there wanted faster service.

Same old song and dance. Notice they never say they can't provide it. They just plead ignorance and provide whatever the hell they want.

[The Final Dakar]

This bill really is a giant piece of shit. It gets better:

Interestingly, the law stipulates that new city ISPs must make it easy for private providers to use their ducts and conduit. The city service must provide "nondiscriminatory access to private communications service providers on a first-come, first-served basis to rights-of-way, poles, or conduits owned, leased, or operated by the city unless the facilities have insufficient capacity for the access and additional capacity cannot reasonably be added to the facilities."

Apparently intended to prevent unfair competition from tax-subsidized business, the rule would actually put public networks at a disadvantage; private networks have long been able to offer "loss leader" offers and intro pricing to get people to sign up, and the large ISPs can all use profits from one area to subsidize below-cost prices in another.

So if I'm reading this right, let's say Screwed, NC opens a muni network. Satanic Net is then legally entitled to access their fiber, and can then offer what I imagine are similar speeds and but sell them at a loss, which the city is not able to, effectively hanging the municipal network with it's own rope.

[Laminar]

Sounds about right.

[andi*pandi]

That's BS.

[The Final Dakar]

And it already passed in one of the state legislatures.

God, people are such scumasses, and the rest idiots.

[The Final Dakar]

Telcos win.
North Carolina governor refuses to block anti-muni broadband law

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Shouldn't you be out designing terribly named furniture or something?

That's Sweden, not Denmark.

[The Final Dakar]

Apologies, Sweden, I didn't mean to associate you with Oisin.

(Ribbing him is less fun when he's not around)

[olePigeon]

As if it wasn't obvious enough, Meredith Attwell Baker served one term as FCC Commissioner; just enough time to pass a bill Backed by Comcast. She then left the FCC to join Comcast as their head lobbyist.

It's like they're not even trying to hide the corruption anymore.

[Oisín]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Apologies, Sweden, I didn't mean to associate you with Oisin.

(Ribbing him is less fun when he's not around)

Don’t worry, I and my ribs are still here.

And we have terribly named furniture, too, I just (most likely undeservedly) gave you the benefit of the doubt and assumed you weren’t talking about IKEA, but something else.

[The Final Dakar]

You know, they should just make you Admin, because your sig would work better with the stars that way.

Or you could move to a country whose flag would better mesh with the aesthetics of you current position.

(Sweden? And then I get the IKEA jokes back! Win-win)

[Oisín]

… now that was far-fetched, even for you!

[The Final Dakar]

You becoming admin? Oh yeah, I know.

[BLAZE_MkIV]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

So if I'm reading this right, let's say Screwed, NC opens a muni network. Satanic Net is then legally entitled to access their fiber.

"rights-of-way, poles, or conduits" not the actually fiber itself. The electric utilities are subject to this as well. They have to let the cable / phone companies use their poles for a fair price.

[olePigeon]

The municipality could always pull a Comcast: funnel all traffic through a bottleneck, then claim there isn't enough bandwidth while still owning a huge, unused, high speed infrastructure.

If eligible voters weren't too stupid and/or lazy, they could also vote in a tax credit to offset the inevitably higher cost of the municipal fiber.