"Fat Pipe Dreams in North Carolina"

[Ben West]

Did anyone happen to see this sad story playing out in NC?

http://www.innovationpolicy.org/fat-pipe-dreams-in-north-carolina

"There’s a big fight going on in North Carolina over rural broadband.
Representative Avila and Senator Apodaca have introduced bills that
would place some fairly light restrictions on the business practices
of municipal (government owned and operated) broadband networks that
have drawn the ire of network equipment vendors and out-of-state muni
broadband activists.

Charges and counter-charges are flying fast and furious.
Well-travelled muni broadband consultant Craig Settles says the
authors are in the pockets of Time-Warner Cable, and urges people
around the country to lobby NC legislators to kill the bills"

--
Ben West
http://benwest.name
m...@benwest.name
westb...@gmail.com

[Dan]

yes, another article about this today:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/cable-backed-anti-muni-broadband-bill-advances-in-north-carolina.ars

From the article:
'The law will "make it practically impossible" for cities to provide a
"fundamental service," he insisted. "Let's be clear about whose bill
this is. This is Time Warner's bill."'

Dan
St. Louis, MO

> westbyw...@gmail.com

[Ben West]

There is a thread about this on Hacker News (pretty influential, employees from Google, Oracle, etc often show up), inspired by the recent Ars Technica story.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387361
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/03/cable-backed-anti-muni-broadband-bill-advances-in-north-carolina.ars

--
Ben West
westb...@gmail.com