
26 States Now Ban or Restrict Community Broadband - grecy
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/kzmana/report-26-states-now-ban-or-restrict-community-broadband
======
wilg
Here is the full list from the original study:

Bureaucratic Barriers To Municipal Broadband:

    
    
      Michigan 
      North Carolina 
      South Carolina 
      Tennessee 
      Virginia 
      Utah 
      Wisconsin 
      Montana 
      

Direct Sale Prohibitions On Municipal Broadband:

    
    
      Arkansas 
      Missouri 
      Nebraska 
      Pennsylvania 
      Texas 
      Washington 
      

Prohibitive Referendum Requirements On Municipal Broadband:

    
    
      Alabama 
      Colorado 
      Louisiana 
      Minnesota 
      Iowa 
      

Population Caps On Service Areas For Municipal Broadband Networks:

    
    
      Nevada 
      

Excessive Taxes On Municipal Broadband Services:

    
    
      Florida 
      

Other Tactics Used To Roadblock Municipal Broadband:

    
    
      California 
      Wyoming 
      Oregon 
      Massachusetts 
      Connecticut
    
    

(this was really annoying to format with HN's terrible formatting rules)

~~~
nixpulvis
As someone who voted for [https://bouldercolorado.gov/connect-boulder/boulder-
broadban...](https://bouldercolorado.gov/connect-boulder/boulder-broadband-
enhancement), I'm curious what the implications of Colorado's "Prohibitive
Referendum Requirements" are?

EDIT: If I'm reading this correctly, then this point is no longer true for CO.

> As of 2018, the state is moving forward with a new bill (HB-1099) that will
> remove this problem. This bill is expected to pass in the coming months, but
> is not official at the time of this writing.

[https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-
roadbloc...](https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-
roadblocks-2018/#colorado)

~~~
jbuzbee
I'm in Centennial Colorado - Several years ago we voted to allow commercial
companies to lease the city's fiber. As a result, I now have symmetric gigabit
fiber from a company named Ting running into the house for around $89 a month.

~~~
azinman2
Sonic in the Bay Area has symmetric gigabit fiber for $60/mo!!!

------
micah_chatt
A year ago I moved from Chattanooga, TN (mentioned in the article) to
Bellevue, Wa to work in “Cloud City” Seattle to take a job at AWS. It used to
cost me a total $59/mo for 100MB fiber up and down, no contract, with
_amazing_ customer service (I seriously have stories to tell about how great
EPB is).

My only real option at my new residence is Comcast at $79/mo which went up to
$94/mo after 1 year for a hypothetical 100down/5up, with frequent network
drops.

It was quite disappointing to find zero options for fiber, and this convinces
me that this kind of corruption by ISPs and legislators needs to be severely
curbed.

~~~
m463
I had a friend who worked for a cable company (several decades ago). He would
tell me that for cable customers, frequently the cost of infrastructure was
recovered during the install, if not within the first month or two.

When you look at the gross profit margin for ISPs and cellphone companies, it
is frequently > 60%

Being the only game in town really has some tangible benefits.

------
jf
I've worked for two ISPs during my career. One in California and another in
Rwanda. Those experiences have convinced me that providing internet service
just isn't a viable business: the margins are too thin, or non-existent.

Generally, I haven't seen private industry do a good job at providing
infrastructure over long periods of time.

(edit)

That said, when I see articles like this one I have to remind myself that the
landscape is going to completely change once Starlink and/or OneWeb become
active.

~~~
PaulHoule
Most reports are that major ISPs are highly profitable. Undercapitalized local
ISPs always seem to struggle, however -- as do companies like Google when they
aren't serious.

I am not that excited about the satellite model.

The LEO satellites are not going to be very big or high powered. The ground
terminal is probably going to be a phased-array job that costs $6000 or so.
The satellite is going to be a bent pipe to Verizon, AT&T or whatever rent
seeker is operating in your neighborhood. If people from NYC who can afford to
smoke dollar bills to spite the cable company are using it, they'll interfere
with people who don't have a choice 700+ miles away.

The LEO constellations might hark back to the pirate days of satellite when
the dish cost $6000 but there was no subscription. Unfortunately the people
who are behind them don't realize that normal folks aren't going to have money
for an expensive subscription after buying an expensive antenna.

~~~
rayiner
> Most reports are that major ISPs are highly profitable. Undercapitalized
> local ISPs always seem to struggle, however -- as do companies like Google
> when they aren't serious.

What reports? Verizon’s wireline division reports a 5% operating profit margin
in a good year. It’s been 15 years since Verizon started deploying FiOS, and
it’s not clear they’ve even recovered the initial capital cost yet. Charter,
the biggest pure cable company, reported massive annual losses in the years
leading up to the merger with TWC.

The idea that wireline broadband isn’t “highly profitable” doesn’t pass the
smell test. Everyone is trying to get out of wireline.

~~~
PaulHoule
If they were trying so hard to get out of wireline, then why are trying to
keep governments out of it?

~~~
rayiner
For the most part they’re really not. See my comment above—the article really
blows the restrictions in many states out of proportion. That aside, nobody
wants the government coming in and using tax dollars to drive them out of
business,[1] even if the business is a low-margin one they’re looking to get
out of.

[1] And that’s what will happen. Municipal broadband will kill any private
competitor, because you can’t compete with a tax-subsidized alternative. If
that happens, folks better pray that their municipal system doesn’t end up
like say the DC Metro or New York Subway (initially good, but neglected in the
long term and allowed to decay).

~~~
selimthegrim
What alternative does a community like Cleveland [2] have to municipal
broadband?

[2] [https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/03/att-a...](https://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2017/03/att-allegedly-discriminated-against-poor-people-in-
broadband-upgrades/)

I was shocked by one of the comments saying that the only reason those
neighborhoods have utilities like water and sewer now is that they didn’t used
to be poor.

~~~
rayiner
Let me turn that question around: how can a community like Cleveland afford to
run a municipal broadband network, if the reason AT&T won’t expand service
there is that people don’t have the money to pay?

Our approach to broadband in poor urban neighborhoods is completely screwed
up. We blame the telecom provider for not building in areas it’s not
profitable to service, or force them to do it to be allowed to service the
city at all (and as a result, nobody gets service).

Broadband access in poor neighborhoods is a matter for the general welfare
system and should be paid for with federal and state tax subsidies, just as we
do for say schools in poor urban neighborhoods. Then, we can make a reasoned
cost-benefit analysis about how to best use that tax money. (For example,
maybe wireless is a more cost-effective way of providing a safety-net level of
service than fiber.)

~~~
selimthegrim
You might be interested in the story of Dennis Kucinich and Muny Light. Years
later, it actually did turn out to be the right choice (and I’m no Kucinich
fan). Maybe something similar could be done with wireless and the utility
poles.

------
Aloha
I realize this is an unpopular opinion, The problem isn't just ISP's - the
only reason community broadband in an urban environment sounds like a good
idea, is because it can go around the permitting process. The permitting
process to install shit is why any tom, dick and harry can't get themselves
set up as a telco - yes, the big three/four/five as sleazy and slimy, but
local government has made it almost impossible to compete with them either.

To give you an idea, I was working on a cell site upgrade project in from
2013-2015 - it took the City of Seattle two years to approve permits to do a
simple no civil upgrade (swap equipment, move some above ground conduit),
whereas in a more rural area, we had that same permit in 2-45 days depending
on jurisdiction.

------
save_ferris
This is so gross.

Related, I work for a large, publicly-traded American software company and I'm
constantly amazed/frustrated by the internet connection in our office. We
constantly deal with connectivity issues and bandwidth restrictions, all while
the executive leadership cuts back on working from home/remotely. A multi-
billion dollar software company literally cannot buy consistent internet
access.

The bottom line is that we're completely at the mercy of Time Warner
Cable/Spectrum, and no amount of cajoling/threatening/pleading seems to
improve our internet service.

We're kidding ourselves as a society if we truly think that the established
private entities that rule the internet infrastructure are our best shot at a
faster, more reliable internet.

~~~
PaulHoule
An awful thing you will find is that the vc funded folks, google, and "big
tech" are not on our side. Somehow they think it is cool for China to break
the neoliberal consensus and invest in infrastructure, but no way should there
be competition for better internet or better airplanes here.

~~~
utopcell
Didn't Google try to disrupt the market with Fiber ?

~~~
kevingadd
If a billion-dollar company gives up after rolling out in that few cities,
they weren't really trying. Hard to know what their goals were initially since
it seems like it wasn't actually market disruption.

~~~
utopcell
I interpreted that failure as Google being powerless against big ISPs.

~~~
kevingadd
It's really hard for me to believe that a company with a billion dollars
couldn't buy their way to favorable laws. Everyone else does it.

~~~
rayiner
Google negotiated extremely favorable terms with Fiber cities, much more
favorable than the terms the incumbents received:
[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-
att-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/time-warner-att-want-
kansas-city-to-give-them-google-fiber-style-deal).

> As we’ve reported on in the past, Kansas City has rolled out the digital red
> carpet for Google: giving rights of way, prime office space, expedited
> permitting, fee waivers, and more. In a notable example, the city charged
> only $10 per pole for Google to string its cable on municipal utility
> poles—as opposed to the usual $18.95 per pole rate. But now, local
> incumbents Time Warner Cable and AT&T want to feel the love, too.

It wouldn’t be fair to accuse Google if “buying” anything—it’s modus operandi
was to approach second tier cities in low-cost states that would see fiber as
a differentiating factor to help boost their economy. (That’s why they refused
to deal with Boston, SF, or NYC.) Then Google gave them extremely aggressive
terms, such as waiver of build-out requirements (the obligation to serve the
whole city, even unprofitable areas) that are otherwise universal in such
deals. And Google still couldn’t make the numbers work!

------
orthecreedence
Municipal broadband is the only long-term solution to enforcing Net
Neutrality, and the only long-term solution to telecom monopolies.

If we value free speech a truly as we claim to as a nation, we should all be
clamoring for municipal broadband infrastructure.

~~~
PaulHoule
You know, I would sell out Net Neutrality in a second if Charter would do what
they said they would do, which is build out in New York State. Instead all
they do is "fight for the right to not serve customers".

------
jrobn
I think these states should turn their municipal water and sewer over to
private companies and then in a few years of having their toilet back up into
their living room while costing them thousands of dollars maybe they will
think broadband in the 21st century is a important utility that should be
available to all at an affordable price.

------
droithomme
Is community and municipal broadband the same thing? The article says these
states have banned community broadband, which I consider to be things like
rural areas and islands where farmers/locals took up a collection and invested
in a mesh network connected via microwave relay to the net at large. Whereas
"municipal" broadband is internet access sponsored by the local city, county,
or public utility company.

The two are significantly different things.

------
asah
NY is not one of those states, and NYC has a mesh network with a $20/mon
suggested donation.

map: [https://www.nycmesh.net/map](https://www.nycmesh.net/map)

(I'm not a member - applied and considering it... for work, I need high speed
and low latency... thoughts welcome!)

------
js2
Obstacles in both Democratic and Republican states alike. Pretty sad. Also
damn hypocritical of the states which regularly complain of Federal overreach
to go restricting their own local governments.

~~~
rayiner
> Also damn hypocritical of the states which regularly complain of Federal
> overreach to go restricting their own local governments.

Not at all. The federal government and state governments are separate
sovereigns. Municipal governments are mere appendages of the state governments
(and at the end of the day, the state governments are on the hook for anything
bad that happens as a result of municipal decisions, _e.g._ Flint Michigan.)

------
oneowl
One of the things that I find really encouraging is governments letting other
industires to become ISP

>In Tennessee, for example, state laws allow publicly-owned electric utilities
to provide broadband

I think this is the best way to solve last mile distribution. Electric
companies already have the capacity to manage door to door to installations.
Internet could become an additional source of revenue for them. They could
lease the line from big providers and increase their reach. Win Win.

------
ralph84
Regulating cities so they don't do something stupid is reasonable. Remember
muni wi-fi? That ended up being a massive wealth transfer from taxpayers to
consultants and vendors of gear that didn't work. After the networks were
built cities were left holding the bag and trying to decide whether to
continue to operate a system nobody used or throw in the towel and admit they
wasted millions.

~~~
darkpuma
> _Regulating cities so they don 't do something stupid is reasonable._

States should forbid cities from funding the creation of sports stadiums then.
They're almost always disastrous.

[https://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/30/stadium-economics-
noll-...](https://news.stanford.edu/2015/07/30/stadium-economics-noll-073015/)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/sport...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/11/sports-
stadiums-can-be-bad-cities/576334/)

(Of course that would run contrary to corporate interests, so don't hold your
breath. It's clear who these states are trying to protect, and it isn't the
cities.)

~~~
ralph84
Sure, cities shouldn't be involved in transferring wealth to billionaire
sports team owners either. But I bet if you gave voters a choice of a major
league sports team or incrementally faster internet, they'd choose the sports
team. You may not like it, but sports are still very popular.

------
kwhitefoot
How do Americans square things like this with their insistence that they value
freedom of the individual?

~~~
zentiggr
My anecdotal impression is that most Americans can't be bothered to think
about these topics at all, and if you try to bring them up it's brushed off
with a "I can't be bothered to think about anything that isn't day to day
getting by".

I wish anyone I knew outside of tech circles cared even 1% as much... but I've
given up trying to point out all the instances of corporations fucking over
the public.

------
DaniloDias
We should be indexing on more local competition.

Municipal broadband makes no sense if people think we need solutions like DNS
over SSL.

Do not give your local government this amount of access to your behavior. If
Facebook is bad for privacy, muni-broadband would be a disaster.

------
microcolonel
On the topic, I think there's a better middle ground. Local governments
already tend to manage roads, utility poles, etc. If they would manage conduit
space the same way, maybe some colo, you could give fair access to private
persons and companies, while preventing some of the ills of the way things
tend to work right now (specific approval required for buildout, companies
getting too familiar and working too closely with local government for there
to be any fairness).

Maybe they could lease dark fiber similarly, but that may not be necessary
with basic standards like those used for utility pole access in a decently
well run town or city.

------
usermac
I wonder is there some wavelength that is not regulated that can 'override'
legislation? Or another type of transmission. Mesh networks come to mind but
I'm thinking better.

------
cninja
Is there any resource from the other side that provides reasons why
restrictions should be placed on community broadband? The explanation "Evil
Monopoly wants all the money" seems too simple for the complex nuanced world
we live in.

~~~
stupidcar
The argument is that government, at any level, shouldn't be competing with the
private sector. It should regulate the market, but shouldn't participate in
it, because, on a practical level, it's often not too good at it, but also
because it can create perverse incentives. For example, say municipal
broadband became ubiquitous and popular enough that the income from it is now
an important source of revenue for the authorities in these towns. Then they
are incentivised to make things difficult for any commercial rival, even if
the commercial offering is cheaper and better. Given how dysfunctional and
kleptocratic municipal politics tends to be, almost everywhere, it's hard to
say such concerns aren't entirely unfounded.

Of course, there are plenty of decent counter-arguments, and counter-counter-
arguments. This is just one of those tensions that exists and is fundamentally
irresolvable in any capitalist democracy.

~~~
deogeo
Commercial ISPs are already doing all the things you worry public broadband
_might_ cause.

------
DEADBEEFC0FFEE
While is disapointing that paying a lawmaker us cheaper than competing, it
worth noting that laws written by industry is necessarily bad. The onus is on
the lawmakers to check what they pass.

------
GordonS
As someone from the UK who knows nothing about this, and just can't understand
why on earth politicians would make this happen - what reasons are given for
this?

~~~
NTDF9
Money, votes, influence in local businesses, college admission for their kids,
trust funds.

America is more corrupt than one thinks

------
mruts
I am a strong believer in the free market and neo-liberalism . But let’s be
clear: this isn’t capitalism, this is rent-seeking and corruption.

------
Razengan
Would a drone swarm that provides a mesh network for user devices to connect
through, get around these restrictions?

------
siffland
it is all about the benjamins...and big ISP have more of them. I have 2 ISP's
(Spectrum and AT&T), and both are really expensive. And i am in San Antonio,
how is this competition and how does this help me the consumer.

So very frustrating. lobbying pisses me off and now i am just venting.

------
mac01021
Pragmatically, the reason I would want municipal broadband is because it would
be less expensive than Comcast or whatever private provider, right?

But would it be? I've used various of the major cable internet providers over
the years and I can always get all the speed I want for $80 per month or less.

Or is this mostly about internet access for the poor, tax-funded?

------
kbos87
This is straight up shameful. People involved in these decisions should be
personally shamed in their day to day, dropping their kids off at school,
shopping at the grocery store, and picking up their mobile orders at
Starbucks.

------
rb808
TBH with 5G coming around the corner, I'd hate my city to plow 10s/100s of
millions into laying fiber that might not get used.

~~~
FireBeyond
Wireless data has actually got more expensive.

A little older now, but:

\- [https://brooksreview.net/2010/06/att-caps-phone-data-
usage-w...](https://brooksreview.net/2010/06/att-caps-phone-data-usage-w..).

\- [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-att-wireless-plan-caps-
phone...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-att-wireless-plan-caps-phone..).

2GB for $25/mo with AT&T, $10/GB overage.

Now?

\- [https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-
plans.html](https://www.att.com/shop/wireless/data-plans.html)

$30/mo for 2GB, with $15/GB overage.

Data prices do seem to have gotten better:

[http://about.att.com/story/att_offers_its_best_ever_pricing_...](http://about.att.com/story/att_offers_its_best_ever_pricing_..).

where they reduced the plan from $80 to $65 for voice+2GB data.

Indeed, last year to go from 2GB to 5GB cost $20, and now costs $25.

\- [http://www.att.com/att/planner/](http://www.att.com/att/planner/)

From the CBS article, "With that plan and voice service, a smart phone could
cost as little as $55 per month before taxes and add-on fees, down from $70
per month."

According to AT&T's planner, that means in SIX YEARS, costs haven't changed at
all, overall.

~~~
deelowe
5G is vastly different than previous generation cellular service. It's hard to
tell what will happen to prices once it's fully deployed.

------
aiisjustanif
What in the actual hell.

------
usermac
When I upvote this, I feel like I'm hitting the FB 'like' button and it does
nothing really to make it better.

------
mnm1
It seems like our free market is working exactly as intended. It sorted itself
out just like its proponents said it would. Sure most people have no broadband
or are locked in with a monopolistic provider, but it was left to its own
devices and now clearly provides the best service for everyone. This of
course, includes bribing--I mean lobbying--politicians. What an amazing
system.

~~~
colejohnson66
It’s not a free market if the barriers to entry are so high even Google has
trouble

~~~
ausbah
well is it a market that just naturally high barriers to entry so the market
will trend towards oligopoly or monopoly, or is it caused by senseless
regulations, protectionism, etc.?

