Anti municipal broadband model legislation

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () dandin com>
Date: December 20, 2004 6:38:00 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Anti municipal broadband model legislation
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com



[Note:  This item comes from Esme Vos of MuniWireless.com.  I'm posting 
the referenced entry from her weblog below.  This development was not 
unexpected, but gee whiz!  As I've said before, we're heading for 
something akin to thermonuclear war on this issue in this country.  
DLH]

> From: Esme Vos <esme () muniwireless com>
> Date: December 19, 2004 6:16:26 PM PST
> To: Dewayne Hendricks
> Subject: Anti municipal broadband model legislation
>
> Sorry to ruin a nice Sunday but...
>
> <http://www.muniwireless.com/archives/000528.html>
>
> Esme

Do-it-yourself anti-municipal broadband kit

To make it easier for state legislatures to pass anti-municipal 
broadband laws, the anti-municipal broadband movement is circulating a 
piece of DIY model legislation in various states. You can download the 
document entitled the "Municipal Telecommunications Private Industry 
Safeguards Act" from here (Word format) and fill in the blanks.

 This ridiculous piece of nonsense, masquerading as "model legislation" 
like the Uniform Commercial Code, is making the rounds of US state 
legislatures and if the original drafters of the document were really 
ambitious, they would translate it into 50 languages and send it to 
other countries' parliaments.

 All you have to do, as a legislator who is friendly to incumbent 
operators, is to insert the name of your state, introduce it as a bill 
and voila! You will ensure that your state will forever lag behind 
every other state (and country) in broadband deployment. You will, 
however, guarantee an endless supply of money from incumbent operators 
for your next political campaign.

The summary of the model legislation is a piece of political 
doublespeak (comments in italics are mine):
The Legislature recognizes the importance of the widespread provision 
of telecommunications (but not as important as getting money for our 
next political campaign) and advanced services and cable television 
services (we are very grateful for 256 Kbps and Big Brother/Who wants 
to marry a millionaire). For the vast majority of citizens these 
services are provided by private entities (to which we owe our 
allegiance).

 "In certain instances municipalities or their agents have sought to 
provide such services in competition with private providers (those 
darned munis are trying to bring cheap broadband to the masses, how 
un-American). This act limits the authority of municipalities to own 
and operate telecommunications and advanced service and cable 
television facilities and to provide public and advanced 
telecommunication and cable television services to a municipality’s 
inhabitants (we want to make sure once and for all that the incumbents 
face no competition - after all who is going to fund out next political 
campaign).

 When municipalities do provide such services this act provides 
safeguards to ensure that private providers with whom the municipality 
competes are not disadvantaged by the municipality in the exercise of 
its bonding and taxing authority, management of rights of way, 
assessment of fees or taxes, or in any other way (we want the ensure 
that our benefactors, the incumbent providers, continue to rip people 
off and get subsidies for it because that's what democracy is all 
about)."


 Don't you love stuff like this? Even the name of the model legislation 
- Private Industry Safeguards Act - sounds like "People's Republic of 
such-and-such" (always a brutal dictatorship that is anything but a 
government run for and by the people) or the former East Germany, 
officially known as the "German Democratic Republic" (which was 
anything but democratic).

Here's a tip. If your state legislator has proposed an anti-municipal 
broadband bill, compare it with the language in this model legislation 
and see whether the bill tracks this document word for word. If it 
does, you need to tell your legislator to stop opening spam messages 
and stop believing junk faxes such as this one.

 Note: will the drafter of this document please identify 
himself/herself?

The "model legislation" can be downloaded from:
<http://www.muniwireless.com/reports/docs/antimunicipalbroadband.doc>

Posted by Muniwireless December 20, 2004


Archives at: <http://Wireless.Com/Dewayne-Net>
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>

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