
North Carolina cities mobilize against anti-muni broadband bill - evo_9
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/04/north-carolina-cities-mobilize-against-anti-muni-broadband-bill.ars
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_delirium
One of the more active previous discussions of this controversy, fwiw:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2328116>

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joe_the_user
Good to see opposition to this mount.

Today, it seems like there is a plague of (fake) "libertarian" arguments for
protecting essentially government-sponsored enterprises from ... the
government.

IE, the oligopolies which currently control broadband are protected from
private competition by regulation (control of right-of-ways in the case of
broadband) and from government competition by "libertarianism"/"free-market"
arguments/ideology.

We can also see this in health care, intellectual property, etc, etc.

Someone should coin an evocative term for these entities-outside-either-
markets-or-serious-regulation.

(Notice the quotes to distinguish this from real libertarian arguments)

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api
That is a _huge_ blind spot in libertarian thinking: the failure to realize
that a lot of "private" industry is not actually private.

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fourspace
I don't consider myself a libertarian by any stretch, but isn't their argument
in favor of a completely free market? If so, any government regulations that
protect these de facto monopolies would not be supported either, as they are
by definition creating a regulated market.

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jimrandomh
Wired broadband companies can't exist without government support, because they
need right of way to run wires across many peoples' property. The problem is
that governments tend to give permission to do that to only one or two
companies.

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dereg
Which is what libertarians hate. The argument against government is that
government unscrupulously uses eminent domain to seize land at below-market
prices, which is then handed over to the ISP. Government's intervention a la
eminent domain takings favors the most-favored-ISP. So what they're doing now
in NC is have government step in to solve government problems, which doesn't
solve the cause of the problem.

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IgorPartola
What land in NC has been siezed by the givernment and handed to an ISP?

Look, just like phone, water and electricity, broadband is a natural monopoly,
at least until peer-to-peer access becomes a reality. Not many people complain
about the city running water servives because often it is just more effecient.
Broadband is no different. The only" scary" thing is that thecity might screw
it up. And while that is a possibility, at least you as a citizen can directly
participate in how the tech is rolled out and indirectly participate by
voting. OTOH, good luck convincing your cable provider that last mile fiber is
a good idea.

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stuff4ben
As a North Carolinian, I am all for more competition. Just today I found out I
can order Wideband Internet from Time Warner Cable (50Mbps down) for only $99.
This is after languishing for over a decade at 5-7Mbps. I'm theorizing that
the muni-backed broadband initiatives are spurring the existing monopolies to
"step their game up" so to speak.

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pstuart
It doesn't always work out well. My city's entry into broadband was a colossal
disaster that ended up losing millions of dollars:
[http://www.eastbayexpress.com/eastbay/the-other-shoe-in-
alam...](http://www.eastbayexpress.com/eastbay/the-other-shoe-in-
alameda/Content?oid=1093197)

