Quote :

"RALEIGH, N.C. — A revamped version of a long-running battle between telecommunications companies and North Carolina cities that have started their own broadband Internet offerings returns to the General Assembly. The House Finance Committee on Thursday considers a bill that would create new requirements for cities and towns to build their own broadband networks. Telecom businesses and some municipalities in North Carolina have argued in recent years over which have the right to sell high-speed Internet service. Cable and phone companies argue municipalities aren't subject to several taxes they pay and have other financial advantages. Towns and cities say telecom companies aren't extending super-fast Internet at reasonable prices, putting rural areas behind in the wired world of commerce. House Bill 129 would require all municipal telecom providers to follow the same local, state and federal regulations as private companies and to pay an amount equal to the taxes that a private telecom provide would pay. Existing municipal networks would be exempt from parts of the bill, and it would not apply to under-served areas. The finance committee adopted an amendment that loosened the definition of what an under-served area is. The new definition is pegged to Federal Communications Commission standards, which currently offer help to areas where 50 percent of households don't have access to high-speed Internet services. Six North Carolina municipalities – Wilson, Salisbury, Laurinburg, Morganton, Davidson and Mooresville – run their own local telecommunications networks. Wilson got $28 million in financing in 2007 to offer broadband Internet, phone and cable TV service to homes and businesses inside the city limits "

http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/story/9283189/
http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2011&BillID=H129


Nice to see TWC can still get bills written for them.

3/17/2011 11:11:22 AM

those municipals should fire back by refusing to provide electrical service to TWC and Centurylink. This is nothing more than a big fuck you to Wilson and a couple other eastern NC cities that were also contemplating installing FTTH.

3/17/2011 12:08:22 PM

munincipal telecoms are fine but they should be required to pay the same fees and taxes as other providers, be required to stay in the black, and be required to submit to the same regulations and laws surrounding deployment. (ex: no special treatment for pole access)

3/17/2011 12:30:33 PM

As long as municipal networks are subject to the same whole sale / resale laws that allow earthlink to do what they do with TWC, and such muni-networks do not generate political ties that make the building or extending of private networks difficult or illegal, I see no reason why municipalities shouldn't be able to build their own networks if TWC et al aren't providing enough service. That said, municipal networks should have to pay any taxes above them just like any other provider would. Wilson shouldn't get a free pass out of federal taxes on telecommunications simply because it's Wilson and not TWC building the network.

3/17/2011 12:36:11 PM

^^TWC is the one bullying special treatment on joint-use of poles. the municipals listed own the utility poles they attach their systems to, in addition to being forced to let TWC attach their cable and then backdoor them on the attachment rate through lobbying.

the "operating in the black" is a touchy subject. TWC is selling packages in Wilson for half of what they sell for in Raleigh, encouraging residents to stick with TWC and causing economic problems with the city due to lack of customers. why can't Wilson subsidize their cable with tax revenue to counteract TWC subsidizing their service in Wilson through their increasing rates in other cities?

I'd like some clarification on what regulations cities are supposedly exempt from. I'm wondering if they're talking about NEC exemption or something along the lines of financial reporting regulations.

3/17/2011 2:35:50 PM

Government outcompeting private industry??? Shocking!

3/17/2011 11:35:30 PM

munincipal telecoms are a bad idea and as all cities are chartered under the authority of the state, it is the state's responsibility to stop city government from implementing bad ideas.

3/18/2011 1:51:16 AM

<insert standard Libertarian answer here>

I mean, ^ there

3/18/2011 7:04:01 AM

I, too, do not agree with the government selling such services.

3/18/2011 9:12:22 AM

Quote :

"munincipal telecoms are a bad idea"

So, what's the municipal telecoms' official policy on download caps? No competition and private industry collusion are also bad ideas.

3/18/2011 10:39:01 AM

Quote :

"munincipal telecoms are a bad idea and as all cities are chartered under the authority of the state, it is the state's responsibility to stop city government from implementing bad ideas."

Better the municipalities build the network than the state or federal government impose a tax on the rest of us to get TWC to build it.

Obviously it would be best if we didn't have these local monopolies at all, but provided the muni network has the same reseller / wholesale requirements TWC has, and there's no special treatment of the muni network, muni networks could definitely be a good thing.

3/18/2011 12:27:24 PM

"munincipal telecoms are a bad good idea" ... It is to the city's (and citizen's) benefit to implement infrastructure that helps improve economic development - i.e. utilities. If it is the will of the citizens, and by virtue of the fact elected officials are doing it, it is, municipalities should be allowed do it. The General Assembly is pandering to the telcoms.

3/18/2011 9:58:41 PM

Oh yes, the age old rule of democracy. When an elected legislature does what you like, it is the will of the people; when you don't agree with it, they are just pandering to special interests.

Well, the city council is pandering to special interests, the state legislature is defending the people as tax payers.

3/19/2011 1:31:56 AM

I, too, hate civilization.

3/19/2011 3:06:16 AM

Quote :

"the state legislature is defending the people as tax payers."

Huh? I'm afraid I still can't figure that one out.

If the taxpayers of a city want to invest in cheap, city-wide wifi (and who wouldn't) why shouldn't they be able to? It's infrastructure. It's like saying there should be no public roads because it deprives the toll road companies of their ability to make a profit ....

3/19/2011 9:57:40 AM

If the voters of the state don't want to pay for cities that screw up their finances this way, why shouldn't they be able to stop it?

It's more like saying there should be no public roads because it deprives tax payers of their tax dollars which could be spent on other things such as police and fire protection. The difference is, we aren't talking about roads but internet, a service already being provided to those in question by private business. So a apt metaphor would be: cities should be prevented from building roads parallel to existing private roads because that is a waste of money that could be better spent either building roads where none exist, paying teachers, police officers, firemen, paying down debt, or simply lowering taxes.

[Edited on March 19, 2011 at 10:09 AM. Reason : .,.]

3/19/2011 10:06:34 AM

Are you saying that you think that by towns developing their internet infrastructure it is going drive them into bankruptcy? Please ... They do it because they think it creates a better economic climate. If they thought that the commercial companies were serving the needs of their citizens, they wouldn't be doing it. And, it is indeed like roads ... it is infrastructure. I think they have every right to do it.

3/19/2011 10:17:00 AM

Quote :

"They do it because they think it creates a better economic climate."

Whether it actually does is, of course, another matter. I don't mind that towns are doing this. If it works and is cost effective, then it'll probably spread to other towns. If it's not, then growth will end up being stifled. We'll see. I'll start getting worried when the state/federal government decides to get into the telecom business.

From the article:

Quote :

"Cable and phone companies argue municipalities aren't subject to several taxes they pay and have other financial advantages."

Pretty good point, there. Eliminate the taxes in question.

[Edited on March 19, 2011 at 10:36 AM. Reason : ]

3/19/2011 10:35:16 AM

Quote :

"If the voters of the state don't want to pay for cities that screw up their finances this way, why shouldn't they be able to stop it? "

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the municipals are setting this up and paying for this from their own taxes.

The voters of the state shouldn't have any say in the matter if their money isn't being used.

If the municipals can fund this without causing budget problems, why not? If the people want it and they are willing to pay for it, the municipal can fund it. What's the problem? The only people bitching are TWC because it cuts into their business.

3/19/2011 10:41:01 AM

Quote :

"The only people bitching are TWC because it cuts into their business."

Bingo! (And the Senators, because they are being paid to.) Damn with the citizens want!

3/19/2011 12:22:40 PM

Taxes aren’t what keeps TWC networks slow and expensive. They just don’t want people switching to netflix or hulu or torrents.

It’s blatantly obvious that it’s not economic reasons why the municipalities can offer better internet services. It’s sad the self-proclaimed libertarians let the corporations fool them into being on their side.

3/19/2011 12:31:12 PM

Quote :

"those municipals should fire back by refusing to provide electrical service to TWC and Centurylink. This is nothing more than a big fuck you to Wilson and a couple other eastern NC cities that were also contemplating installing FTTH."

3/19/2011 12:58:45 PM

Quote :

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like the municipals are setting this up and paying for this from their own taxes. The voters of the state shouldn't have any say in the matter if their money isn't being used."

The cities and counties of NC are chartered by the state. If they screw up their finances then it becomes the state's problem. As such, the state has every right to interfere with how cities are spending money.

Quote :

"It’s sad the self-proclaimed libertarians let the corporations fool them into being on their side."

Sure, because customers are always well served once their only legal supplier of a service is through a government monopoly. You can proclaim it is only competition until you are blue in the face, but the city owns the right of way, so what happens once the city has a vested interest in making TWC's life difficult or even impossible?

[Edited on March 20, 2011 at 2:28 AM. Reason : .,.]

3/20/2011 2:24:14 AM

Quote :

"The cities and counties of NC are chartered by the state. If they screw up their finances then it becomes the state's problem. As such, the state has every right to interfere with how cities are spending money. "

I can't say I'm familiar with how that works. Does the federal government have a right to step in when a state government overextends itself?

3/20/2011 12:54:26 PM

^^TWC is the one that currently has a monopoly, and the municipals are offering competition. These municipals are not funding their infrastructure buildouts through tax revenue either; they took massive loans out to build the infrastructure and are paying down the debt through the profits from charging customers that sign up for their service. The fact that what they are offering in Wilson is cheaper and better than anything I could possibly get from TWC, ATT, or any dish service in Raleigh proves just how off-base your complaints are.

Municipals willing to build out their own FTTH systems is the only thing that will push existing telecoms to make real improvements to their infrastructure and get us away from significantly capped upload speeds.

[Edited on March 20, 2011 at 1:56 PM. Reason : Raleigh is denser and would have a higher client base for high-speed internet than Wilson]

3/20/2011 1:53:02 PM

Quote :

"The cities and counties of NC are chartered by the state. If they screw up their finances then it becomes the state's problem. As such, the state has every right to interfere with how cities are spending money. "

If this is true, then the state should only have the right to interfere if the cities and counties have over-extended themselves financially. From my understanding, the counties and cities aren't screwing up their finances by offering this service, and if anything, in the future it could be a nice money maker after the debt is paid off.

The only reason for the state to interfere is to protect TWC's monopoly, which is flat out wrong.

But since people want this service and they are willing to pay for it, what is the problem again?

3/20/2011 2:57:30 PM

counties are state institutions, towns are not

3/20/2011 3:07:38 PM

Quote :

"Does the federal government have a right to step in when a state government overextends itself?"

The federal government can spend money however it sees fit. As such, it has the right to offer money to bail out states. However, it does not have the obligation to do so. Not so with cities and counties, which are wards of the state. Different states do it different ways. Sometimes cities/counties find themselves in bankruptcy court, sometimes they find themselves taken over by state appointed regulators, sometimes they are left alone to flounder as bankrupt (but not legally) enterprises.

Quote :

"^^TWC is the one that currently has a monopoly, and the municipals are offering competition"

Re-Post: "Sure, because customers are always well served once their only legal supplier of a service is through a government monopoly. You can proclaim it is only competition until you are blue in the face, but the city owns the right of way, so what happens once the city has a vested interest in making TWC's life difficult or even impossible? "

To sum the following, in the case of Right of Way, a monopoly cannot be avoided. The city owns the streets, so it has a monopoly on the only means of delivering wired/fiber data services. The current system is fine: the city has a monopoly on the right of way, sets the fees and grants access, and then any data service providers (cable, telephone, cell phone, fiber, etc) compete on a relatively level playing field. This will no longer be the case with municipal telecom: one provider will now own the right of way and set the fees charged to all its competitors. This is a recipe for disaster.

The city will borrow heavily to run fiber. Fewer people will sign up than projections and costs will far exceed projections, as with most government projects. As the deficits of the project grow, city regulators will toss around for ways to save their pet project. They will jack up the fees charged to TWC (and Cell Phone providers, which are now direct competitors with the city to provide telecom) for right of way in the city, driving up costs for these competitors, all of which immediately halt network expansion projects (no new cell towers, no new TWC node splits, no DSL upgrades, no new competitors, as the fees to do so are now exorbitant). As the quality of service from the city's competitors falls, customers will switch to the City service and restore revenue, maybe allowing the project to cover its costs. But at this point, the city is captured. If private providers try to offer better or cheaper service, the city will jack up the fees again to restore service equality and its own profitability.

3/20/2011 7:37:31 PM

Your only argument is that government will eventually fuck up everything, and your evidence for this argument is that TWC is such a competent company that there is no way a municipality could outperform them?

I don't know why you're talking about right-of-way; the state owns the land the major roads through these towns, and the existing utility easements that these towns have do not apply to anyone else that attaches to their poles. They do have joint use agreements with TWC and other telecom providers, but that only covers the actual cost of the pole space. TWC is still responsible for getting their own easement from the individual property owners. If you're talking about the municipals possibly dropping the joint-use agreement; they can't.

3/20/2011 8:29:08 PM

in nc, the local govt commission has to approve the issuance of municipal debt and has the authority to take over a town's finances to prevent insolvency. nc towns are some of the most fiscally responsible in the country; municipal debt service is not a valid concern

3/21/2011 1:13:02 AM

Passed through the house yesterday.

3/31/2011 8:27:57 AM

Quote :

"the city has a monopoly on the right of way, sets the fees and grants access"

Wrong

Quote :

"The city will borrow heavily to run fiber."

Anyone who builds the infrastructure will have to borrow. The city also borrowed to build telephone poles, pave streets, buy police cars, etc. What's your point?

You're clearly pulling this stuff out of your ass. Why don't you do some research instead of just thinking out loud.

3/31/2011 9:20:26 AM

So, Lumex, which is it? Did the city spend heavily to "build telephone poles, pave streets" or do they not own "the right of way, sets the fees and grants access"? You can't have it both ways. Either the city owns the streets and poles and therefore the right-of-way to lay fiber, or they don't. Perhaps you should do some research before outright contradicting yourself.

3/31/2011 11:44:36 AM

I want government to subsidize internet. It makes far more sense than the other stuff we subsidize.

3/31/2011 11:52:12 AM

Subsidies don't have the intended effect. They haven't made gas or corn cheaper. We pay people to produce less. It reduces competition. It causes prices to go up. If there's one thing you don't want to be subsidized, it's internet.

3/31/2011 11:59:36 AM

^^ If you insist of subsidization, then direct to user subsidies, such as through vouchers, rule out the possibility of it all ending in tears.

Having the city try to provide the service has a good chance of burning through the taxpayer subsidy while making internet cost the user more money out of pocket.

3/31/2011 12:07:01 PM

But the reason people ever wanted muni broadband is because it offer collective buying power to get a modern network. I understand the resistance and people screaming to make sure this isn't subsidized. I just don't believe the bill, I don't think it will do want it says, I think it will disadvantage muni broadband efforts that sufficiently pay for themselves.

The public option in the health care bills (that failed) was another example of collective bargaining through government. People watched the wording like hawks to make sure it would be revenue neutral, but they still dumped it. The reason is simple, the companies don't want it, they want an inefficient industry because profits can be made there.

People have every right to lobby for the government to act as an instrument to deliver a service.

3/31/2011 12:38:08 PM

Quote :

"You can't have it both ways. Either the city owns the streets and poles and therefore the right-of-way to lay fiber, or they don't. Perhaps you should do some research before outright contradicting yourself."

I'm not disputing a city's right to "lay fiber". I'm disputing your implication that a city can control infrastructure access with complete discretion. I just didn't want to quote your whole post.

3/31/2011 1:19:04 PM

Quote :

"But the reason people ever wanted muni broadband is because it offer collective buying power to get a modern network."

Collective bargaining power? We aren't talking about a drug under patent or doctors with medical degree membership to a cartel. The barrier to cheap fast broadband is not man made, the barrier is nature itself, paying human beings unskilled wages to bury fiber and maintain it. No amount of bargaining power is going to lower these wages.

Of course, there is a barrier to profiting off the network you build, as competitors can compete against you. In this sense, yes, collective bargaining is needed, as only the city, once given an incentive to do so, can prevent competitors from entering the market.

Quote :

"The reason is simple, the companies don't want it, they want an inefficient industry because profits can be made there."

As always, your side is serving the interests of the people while your opponents serve only special interests. Well, as your opponent, my side is serving the interests of the tax payers while your side is serving the special interests of corporations and local politicians eager to milk local taxpayers and local internet subscribers at a huge profit. After-all, who is going to run this muni-broadband service with a six figure salary? Where are they going to buy the equipment? Who is going to get contracted to lay the fiber? Why, the same political allies and businesses that lobbied the city to provide the service!

Quote :

"People have every right to lobby for the government to act as an instrument to deliver a service."

And people have every right to lobby for the government to stop delivering a service. We are all democrats (little 'd') here.

[Edited on March 31, 2011 at 1:35 PM. Reason : .,.]

3/31/2011 1:28:09 PM

if the government would get off it's lazy ass and regulate broadband like a real utility instead of claiming "competition", the rates would come down drastically and shit would actually get built. We built a fuckton of electric and telephone infrastructure in this country by utilizing federal REA funding, and that has worked really well for us. It's a shame that the rest of the world is going to surpass us before we do the same for high speed internet infrastructure.

3/31/2011 4:19:31 PM

The rest of the developed world already has surpassed us. TWC has gotten consistently worse. I hear even more complaints about AT&T in this area.

3/31/2011 4:21:17 PM

^^Yes

Why Broadband Service in the U.S. Is So Awful

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=competition-and-the-internet

Quote :

"Phone companies have to compete for your business. Even though there may be just one telephone jack in your home, you can purchase service from any one of a number of different long-distance providers. Not so for broadband Internet. Here consumers generally have just two choices: the cable company, which sends data through the same lines used to deliver television signals, and the phone company, which uses older telephone lines and hence can only offer slower service. The same is not true in Japan, Britain and the rest of the rich world. In such countries, the company that owns the physical infrastructure must sell access to independent providers on a wholesale market. Want high-speed Internet? You can choose from multiple companies, each of which has to compete on price and service. The only exceptions to this policy in the whole of the 32-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development are the U.S., Mexico and the Slovak Republic, although the Slovaks have recently begun to open up their lines."

3/31/2011 5:48:10 PM

Quote :

" The same is not true in Japan, Britain and the rest of the rich world. In such countries, the company that owns the physical infrastructure must sell access to independent providers on a wholesale market. "

I could be wrong but I was under the impression we did have such requirements which is how resellers like earthlink and speakeasy can operate.

3/31/2011 6:19:17 PM

eleusis, you regulate a real utility by having regulators impose a price ceiling. Take a look at message_topic.aspx?topic=606124 where TWC is rolling out their new wideband service with 30mbps. They are doing so in hopes that you will pay more for it than you are currently paying for regular Road Runner. A price ceiling would have outlawed such hopes, and most certainly TWC would not have bothered.

Lumex, broadband in the US merely price differentiates a different way from everyone else. We charge different prices based upon bandwidth, so most sign up for 1mbps unlimited DSL and call it a day. Meanwhile, our Canadian, British, and European cohorts get 24mbps DSL with a 15GB cap. Americans could pay more for a wider pipe, and foreigners can pay $5 per gigabyte of cap.

As for line sharing requirements, that is fake competition. Sure, you get to choose what letterhead appears on your bill. But the network you are connecting to is still wholly owned and operated by one company which gets to choose how much capacity to build. Sure, it operates under a regulated price ceiling imposed by the government, which is where the lower rates comes from, but everything else is window dressing. And thanks to that regulated price ceiling, the network owner chooses to never spend any money upgrading back-haul capacity, opting instead to impose ever lower monthly caps, which means significantly denser London is still using copper back-haul while comparatively rural Raleigh has Fiber to the Node for its DSL subscribers.

Quote :

"I could be wrong but I was under the impression we did have such requirements which is how resellers like earthlink and speakeasy can operate."

You are not wrong. Some cities imposed line-sharing requirements as terms of their franchise agreements. But North Carolina State law allows cable and telephone operators to opt out of such requirements if their region is declared "competitive" by the state regulator.

3/31/2011 7:01:37 PM

Quote :

"The only exceptions to this policy in the whole of the 32-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development are the U.S., Mexico and the Slovak Republic, although the Slovaks have recently begun to open up their lines.""

meanwhile, the richest person in the world is a Mexican telecommunications kingpin.

3/31/2011 7:01:53 PM

Quote :

"eleusis, you regulate a real utility by having regulators impose a price ceiling."

are you fucking retarded? utilities are regulated by profit margins, not some imaginary price point. If a customer wants more power or a more reliable level of power (redundancy), then they pay a premium for this service that is determined by the cost of the infrastructure and the cost of operations. Nothing about our current regulatory process would have impacted TWC being able to offer their new service, other than making the service cheaper.

3/31/2011 7:08:07 PM

What you are referring to is called "Cost-Plus Regulation", and they manipulate profit margins by fixing the price.

3/31/2011 11:41:48 PM

http://gigaom.com/broadband/how-it-feels-to-have-been-passed-over-by-google/
Mar. 31, 2011, 5:00am PT

Quote :

"Chip Rosenthal headed the grass roots effort to bring Google’s gigabit fiber network to Austin, and he says the Texas capital was on the short list of cities that received a site visit and were in the final rounds. Unfortunately for Austin (and me since I’d be happy to plug into a fiber-to-the-home network) Google passed over the city and chose Kansas City, Kan. instead. Rosenthal, who is one of seven commissioners on the City of Austin’s Technology and Telecommunications Commission (a strictly advisory body), thinks it’s because Texas is one of four states that forbids municipalities from getting involved in building networks. And North Carolina is in the middle of approving barriers to municipal broadband deployment this week."

4/1/2011 2:51:03 PM

Why do I somehow doubt that the "libertarians" here would be saying that the state should be able to put the screws to municipalities if it was, say, California requiring a city to recycle x percent of its trash?

You'd say "it is the state's city's responsibility to stop city state government from implementing bad ideas," charter or no.

[Edited on April 1, 2011 at 5:52 PM. Reason : ,]

4/1/2011 5:52:17 PM

Don't sell it then. Just make it free and raise city sales tax.

4/2/2011 11:34:44 AM