FCC Outlines Plan To Crush Awful State Protectionist Broadband Laws: from the it's-about-time dept by Karl Bode, Tech Dirt

While net neutrality rules are designed to protect consumers from a lack of last-mile competition, the agency's moves on municipal broadband are intended to actually strike at the issue of limited competition at the root. As we've noted a few times, ISPs (with ALEC's help) have passed laws in twenty states preventing those towns and cities from deciding their own infrastructure needs for themselves. 

It's pure, unabashed protectionism: the bills do little more than protect regional duopolies from change while hamstringing local communities desperate for better service. Usually the laws are passed under the auspices of protecting taxpayers from themselves, ignoring that the bills' sole purpose is to protect duopoly revenues. 

TV and Internet Service Providers Deliver the Worst Customer Experience: Fifth Annual Temkin Experience Ratings Evaluates 293 Companies Across 20 Industries

The poster child for poor customer experience in these industries - Comcast - was not only the lowest-scoring TV service and Internet service provider, but it was also one of the lowest-scoring companies in the entire Ratings. It ranked 289th overall out of 293 companies for its Internet service and ranked 291st overall for its TV service.

Of the 17 companies that received "very poor" ratings (below 50%) across the 193 companies, five of them were from these two industries: Comcast for TV (43%), Comcast for Internet (45%), Time Warner Cable for Internet (47%), Charter Communications for TV (48%), and Time Warner Cable for TV (48%).

"Internet and TV service providers are awful to consumers. The lack of competition continues to fuel this bad experience epidemic," states Bruce Temkin, managing partner of Temkin Group.

California

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Outlets are continuing to pick up on the fact that the FCC's Community Broadband decision was a big one for the future of the Internet. 

Community Broadband

The Most Important Decision the FCC Made Last Week Wasn't on Net Neutrality... By David Dayen, The New Republic

…Telecoms have reacted to this wave of community broadband in ways you would expect from politically powerful, deep-pocketed corporations. First they sued the pants off any municipality trying to build their own network. Then they used their clout in state legislatures to restrict their reach. In Tennessee, only municipal electric companies can provide broadband, and only in the markets they serve. In North Carolina, community broadband networks cannot jump county lines. States like Missouri and Texas ban communities from building their own fiber-optic networks.

FCC Tests Its Authority Over States: Agency takes on laws keeping cities from running Internet service... by Drew Fitzgerald, The Wall Street Journal

Why the F.C.C.’s Municipal-Broadband Ruling Matters, Too... by Vauhini Vara, The New Yorker

To those who support the growth of municipal broadband, the decision seemed eminently just. Some of the areas around Chattanooga and Wilson don’t have broadband Internet access at all, or else it exists only at low speeds; parents report driving their children to local churches or to McDonald’s so they can get online and finish homework assignments. Such efforts, proponents argue, demonstrate that, although the Internet may once have been a luxury, these days it’s a form of infrastructure, not dissimilar to water pipes or roads—and that towns lacking reliable access to it risk falling behind. “Why should it be the decision of Comcast or any company that the infrastructure that they happen to own in a community is good enough?” Joanne Hovis, the C.E.O. of the Coalition for Local Internet Choice, a group of businesses, cities, and others, told me. “Why shouldn’t a...

Next week the FCC will make a landmark decision that will affect the future of community networks. Here's a roundup of stories.

Hate Your Internet Service Provider? You Should Have Feb. 26 Circled on Your Calendar by Daniel B. Kline, Motley Fool

The state of city-run Internet by Allan Holmes, Center for Public Integrity

The Center and Reveal revisited Tullahoma, Tennessee and Fayetteville, North Carolina, where state laws restrict municipal broadband growth. 

How Will the Fight over Public ISPs and Net Neutrality Play Out? by Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American

In an effort to sort through these and other issues impacting how people will access and use the Internet for years to come, Scientific American spoke with Lev Gonick, CEO of OneCommunity, an ISP for Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals and another 1,800 public-benefit organizations in northeastern Ohio. 

“The idea of local governments taking it upon themselves to improve community broadband speeds has caught on in recent years, particularly in towns and cities that host major universities craving greater network bandwidth.”

Idaho: 

Judge's ruling worsens Idaho's high school Internet headache by Bill Roberts, Idaho Statesman. We have long argued that throwing money at the biggest carriers is poor policy and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

A deadline for the loss of service looms as officials scramble for solutions.

Iowa:

Providers: Iowa's broadband expansion will take time, money by Barbara Rodriguez, News Tribune

Illinois:

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We continue to see reverberations from President Obama's speaking out in favor of municipal networks. The presidential nod sparked state lawmakers to propose bills, news organizations to write editorials, and to give communities a better sense of how they can take action locally.

As Claire Cain Miller with the New York Times wrote in her article for “The Upshot”:

“The goal is not to replace the big companies with small, locally run Internet providers. It is to give people more than one or two options for buying Internet – and spur everyone, including the incumbents, to offer more competitive service and pricing.”

Jeff Ward-Bailey reported on Obama’s interest in tech issues in the State of the Union, specifically the laws limiting local deployment of networks.

“Obama has said that he wants to end these laws, and the White House’s new broadband plan includes a program, BroadbandUSA, that will encourage communities to deploy their own high-speed networks. BroadbandUSA will offer guidance on planning, financing, and building municipal broadband networks, and even includes funding for “in-person technical assistance to communities.”

The always-worth-reading Harold Feld explained the significance of President Obama's short mention of Internet access in his address:

“Which brings me to the last point. Yes, the President is clearly signalling that Dems need to see investment in broadband infrastructure (including by local governments) and protecting the open Internet not as isolated issues or peripheral techie issues, but as part of a comprehensive plan to ensure that the United States has a robust 21st infrastructure necessary to support a prosperous nation with opportunity for all. At the same time, Republicans should stop thinking of this as “regulation of the Internet” and think of it...