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NC governor will let Time Warner cable-backed bill restricting municipal broadband become law

Bev Perdue continues to be a most disappointing Democratic Governor here in North Carolina…

She’s will “neither sign nor veto” this horrible Time Warner Protection Bill …

Another bought and paid for politician?

I really hope she doesn’t run again and gets out of the way for a new Democratic choice.

She won’t though….

She will hand the Office of the Governor over to the GOP instead.

Thanks to my friend Gary for initially posting this on FaceBook…

We’ve repeatedly hammered Time Warner Cable (and its big-cable cronies) for crying to the North Carolina legislature about municipal broadband. TWC claims it can’t compete with taxpayer-backed ISPs such as Wilson, NC’s Greenlight — and that it shouldn’t have to. In fact, Greenlight and four other municipal providers came about specifically because corporate players refused to provide inexpensive, fast broadband. And now that local governments have proven they can provide it, the cable companies have cried foul, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into select political pockets all the while. That’s the drama so far, and now a bill restricting municipal broadband — mandating that providers pay taxes similar to private companies, for example — has landed on the desk of Governor Bev Perdue. She won’t veto the bill, meaning it will soon become a law; for whatever it’s worth (read: not much), she also refuses to sign it. The reason? Here it is from the horse’s mouth:

“I will neither sign nor veto this bill. Instead, I call on the General Assembly to revisit this issue and adopt rules that not only promote fairness but also allow for the greatest number of high quality and affordable broadband options for consumers.”

The legislation strikes a blow against public ISPs in a country that ranks ninth in the world for broadband adoption and download speeds. And that, apparently, is what “fair competition” looks like in the US.

via NC governor will let cable-backed bill restricting municipal broadband become law — Engadget.

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Telecom-Funded North Carolina House Votes To Gut Cheap And Fast Public Broadband

For those who think only the Federal Government is bought and paid for, here is more news from home.

Time-Warner owns the NC House in Raleigh…

From ThinkProgress.org:

The mantra of the modern conservative movement in the United States is that the government isn’t capable of doing anything as well as the private sector. This idea is constantly perpetuated among conservative intelligentsia and as a rallying cry by conservative politicians.

Yet conservative ideology can’t explain the success of Wilson, North Carolina’s, Greenlight fiber optic broadband service. In 2008, Wilson decided that all of its residents deserve access to affordable broadband service and shouldn’t have to put up with a private monopoly. So it established its own broadband service called Greenlight, which offered speeds more than twice as fast as private competitors for a similar price. Soon, Greenlight’s success spread, as several other municipalities in the state started their own public broadband services, giving residents a public option that was cheaper and more effective than the private monopolies.

But the state’s primarily broadband monopoly, Time Warner, decided that consumers shouldn’t have this option. It organized with the other telecoms, and the sector donated over $600,000 to politicians in the state over the last election cycle. And on Monday, every single Republican in the state house along with 15 Democrats voted for a bill that severely restricts the ability of municipalities to operate their own broadband networks, including a provision that disallows them from offering services at below cost — essentially eliminating their ability to provide affordable rates to residents:

via ThinkProgress » Telecom-Funded North Carolina House Votes To Gut Cheap And Fast Public Broadband.

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