[TriLUG] OT: URGENT: H.129 to be heard in Thursday's Finance Committee!

[David Burton]

On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Michael Peters <mpeters at plusthree.com>wrote:


> On 03/15/2011 10:12 AM, David Burton wrote:
>
>
>> If you want to let cities abuse their authority to stomp out private
>> competition, then go ahead and oppose this bill. I don't. That's why I
>> support HB-129.
>>
>>
>
> To say that this will kill competition is unfair and not true. The majority
> of markets don't have any real competition, so there's nothing to kill :)
> This bill would make it harder for them to not only have competition, but
> even access to high-speed internet in some areas.
>
>


That's complete nonsense.
If there's no competition to kill, it doesn't apply.  *Read the bill*!  It
says:

 *(b) The provisions of G.S. 160A-340.1, 160A-340.4, and 160A-340.5 do not
apply to the provision of communications service in an unserved area. *

This bill does not prevent any city from offering Internet.  It doesn't even
prevent them from giving away internet for free, paid through taxes.

It just prevents them from offering fee-for-service internet in competition
with private providers, and engaging in anticompetitive, monopolistic
practices, like requring people to buy it, or denying competitors access to
the light poles, or subsidizing the service with tax money until all the
private competition has been driven out of business.



> But basically it comes down to this: Is it time for high-speed internet to
> become infrastructure like roads, water, power, gas, trash pickup, etc.?
>

Yes, that is the question. Some people don't see anything wrong with a city
taking over telecom services, so that citizens won't have a choice of
service providers.

Rep. Avila is not one of those people.

Nor am I.

Dave