On Thu, Feb 26, 2015 at 5:33 PM, Mitar <mitar(a)tnode.com> wrote:
Hi!
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/02/fcc-did-lot-more-just-approve…
"The Federal Communications Commission will allow some cities and towns
to set up and expand municipal Internet services, overruling state laws
that had been put in place to block such efforts."
But it is also interesting, that as a regulated utility service that
Internet now is, it means one can get also access to utility poles and
other essential infrastructure owned by utilities, do deploy the Internet?
As far as I understand this is already possible. I've heard the rate $1 per
pole per month quoted, but that was from a different U.S. city.
BTW, I think with classification of Internet as utility we got a
half-solution. It would be much better to not try to make Internet be
linked with old laws which were made before the Internet. They could
just pass something new, say simply "net neutrality" bill, instead of
trying to make Internet an utility. Because with utility there are also
pretty strict regulations, which do provide neutrality, but also other
requirements. So, not sure if this will then allow alternatives like
community networks to ever legally present them as ISPs, because it
would make them utilities and fall under all requirements, and paperwork.
Yes this might make things more difficult for us. We'll have to wait and
see.
--
marc/juul