America's states try to restart net neutrality – with very mixed results Efforts to impose net neutrality protections before federal rules are repealed are taking place across the US, but are currently very hit-and-miss as the big ISPs swing lobbying dollars against them. Earlier this week, an effort by the Colorado state legislature to introduce restrictions on what broadband providers are allowed …
The states are one step ahead of you. It you look at the bills, they concern what the state will, or will not, subsidize. They can spend their money as they please; SCOTUS can not change that.
States can NOT say 'Thou shalt not..." if SCOTUS rules the Feds control it, but states CAN say, "I shall NOT pay subsidies if thou does...".
That's the same tactic the feds use on the states if they want the states to do something the feds can not demand (e.g., if you want matching Fed funds for state highways, the speed limit can not be over...)
I still think the Feds could step in if they were really evil and overrule the states even there by say using the ICC to cite some compelling federal interest in Internet traffic, meaning even subsidy activity can be countered.
As for speed limits, Texas speed limits can be as high as 80 (probably spurred by having so much rural highway like over one-third of I-10) and Montana once had soft limits but withdrew on its own rather than under federal pressure. I think the biggest push at once time was to make the drinking age no higher than 21.
"Big Cable is fiercely opposed but claiming it will follow net neutrality rules regardless and so there is no need for a new law"
Because Big Cable can be trusted to follow rules it doesn't like. Yeah. Bridge, anyone ?
If they're ready to follow the rules, they should welcome a law that states explicitely how they should follow it.
Pleading against a new law is simply saying "please leave us wiggle room to screw you without you being able to retaliate".
Actually, this is exactly what was intended when the US was established. Each state is free, with specific exceptions, to do their own thing. Whatever solution that works the best for a specific state would eventually be adopted by other similar states. The problem with a one-size-fits-all solution is that in many cases the solution will not fit every state, and, Washington being as it is, sometimes the solution fits NO state. Then you have a cluster-fuck on a national basis, instead of a few misguided states.
The big problem is the effective monopolies that the ISPs have at the local level. This has to do with the sweetheart deals at that level. Eliminate them, and you can get competition amongst the ISPs. Of course, if you do that, then the big content providers will run over the ISPs.
Google only came out in support of net neutrality because the employees demanded it of management. I saw it live--I was an employee at the time.
"The big problem is the effective monopolies that the ISPs have at the local level. This has to do with the sweetheart deals at that level. Eliminate them, and you can get competition amongst the ISPs."
OR you could have NONE of them taking it up because it becomes a money sink. The problem is, the sweetheart deals are about the ONLY reason rural America has Internet in the first place. High infrastructure costs (an INflexible cost owing to geography) combined with generally low incomes in the boonies generally mean something else is needed to tempt people to build all the way out there; otherwise, they'll walk away for fear of not enough RoI to please the investors.
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