

North Carolina House passes bill banning community fiber infrastructure - bbatsell
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/North-Carolina-House-Passes-AntiCommunity-Fiber-Bill-113433

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kwantam
A full list of the people who voted against the measure is presented here:

[http://stopthecap.com/2011/03/29/house-republicans-sell-
out-...](http://stopthecap.com/2011/03/29/house-republicans-sell-out-north-
carolina-broadband-future-to-big-telecom/)

If there is a concerted effort to fight this legislation to which people
(including those of us outside the state) can donate, I haven't found it; if
anyone does, please post!

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mindcrime
Flagged due to misleading, flamebait title. The bill in question does not ban
community fiber, it just sets some constraints on it, to ensure that a
taxpayer subsidized service doesn't compete with - and undercut - a private
business. This is a Good Thing.

Also note that there is a specific exclusion to even these constraints, when
it comes to serving a currently unserved geographical area.

[http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2011/Bills/House/HTML/H...](http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2011/Bills/House/HTML/H129v3.html)

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mukyu
The telecom companies are already themselves subsidized.

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mindcrime
Yes, and that's a separate problem that needs to be addressed, no doubt. There
are a lot of places where the relationship between the telecomms and the State
is corrupt and needs to be fixed.

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arch_hunter
If you are in North Carolina you can call or email your Senators and encourage
them to vote against the bill.

[http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?...](http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChamber=Senate)

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JamieEi
Ars Technica article about the same bill: [http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2011/03/cable-backed...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-
policy/news/2011/03/cable-backed-anti-muni-broadband-bill-advances-in-north-
carolina.ars)

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ntalbott
Reading the bill, I'm not seeing where it bans community fiber; rather it
seems to require local government to not use tax monies to subsidize the
access, and to not abuse their position to hamper private competition. Both
seem pretty reasonable to me. What am I missing?

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emmett
Effectively makes it illegal, as far as I can tell, for a community to decide
that internet access is similar to roads or water infrastructure and make it
broadly available at low rates.

It depends if you think internet access should be treated as an
infrastructural good. I personally think that makes a lot of sense. While I
wouldn't want to see anyone make a law against private internet connectivity,
if a town wants to pool their money and pay to build out infrastructure that
should be legal.

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jonallanharper
"if a town wants to pool their money and pay to build out infrastructure that
should be legal"

If people want to pool their own money together, they can. The only thing this
bill prevents is the government from forcing an individual to pay for
something.

Even if every individual was morally obligated to pay for something that the
town wants (which is not the case), providing services is not the proper role
of government.

~~~
JamieEi
Does that apply to police and firefighting as well?

