City of Greensboro Opposes HB1587

Last night the Greensboro City council passed a resolution opposing HB1587. That brings the count of communities opposing HB1587 to seven nine. The others are the City of Wilson, City of Fayetteville, City of Rocky Mount, Town of Carrboro, Town of Chapel Hill, Polk County, City of Monroe, and Rockingham County. There are also several [...]

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Google has a Public Policy Blog

Google Public Policy Blog: Google’s views on government, Policy, and Politics
This will be really interesting. Even for us folks in North Carolina. Why? Google just spoke out against HB1587, Google is building a HUGE facility in Lenoir, NC, Google bought a company called Skia in Chapel Hill which appears to be growing, etc.

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Google and Intel letters about HB1587

Check out these two letters. One from Google’s State Policy Council John Burchett [PDF] and one from Intel’s Director of Communications policy Peter K. Pitch [PDF]. Both are to Speaker of the House Joe Hackney, Gov. Easley, and other Committee Representatives. They both speak against HB1587!
Google strongly opposes HB1587 and Intel writes in support of [...]

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Why Muni Networks get Built

Local governments don’t spend millions of dollars and go through great hassle to create telecommunications monopolies. Most often they get into the business of providing infrastructure because the private sector won’t do it or can not do it at a high enough level. (DSL sucks and Cable modems are just enough)
The blog The Fiber [...]

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More Indy coverage of HB1587

Fiona Morgan writes another great article about HB1587. She covers the important parts of the last vote in the NC House Public Utilities Committee meeting well. I know because I was there.
Here is one part I didn’t know about. From Anti muni-broadband bill moves forward
There are still many questions about the bill’s impact. According [...]

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NC House Public Utilities Committee Vote on HB1587

On June 6, 2006, the NC House Public Utilities Committee voted to move forward on House Bill 1587. HB1587 places severe restrictions on NC cities that work to provide superior broadband Internet, cable TV and phone service. The city of Wilson has had an all-fiber optic network in place since March, 2006. Wilson is [...]

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Understanding A Bad Bill

LUX.ET.UMBRA has a blog post about the bad bill HB1587. I appreciate his post and a look at both sides who work for and against this bill. Please go read his post. Here is my response.
Right now many rural municipalities in North Carolina do not have high quality broadband. Despite several Cities and Towns [...]

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Town of Carrboro Opposes HB1587

Last night the Town of Carrboro passed a resolution opposing HB1587. They join the Cities of Wilson and Fayetteville plus the Town of Chapel Hill opposing hb1587 - The Local Government Fair Competition Act. Thank you Mayor and Alderman!
Town of Carrboro Resolution Opposing HB1587 PDF
Know any other counties or municipalities that have officially opposed [...]

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Town of Chapel Hill Opposes HB1587

The Town of Chapel Hill has passed a resolution to opposed NC House Bill 1587. (Memorandum about opposition) They join the Cities of Wilson and Fayetteville in sending a strong message to the NC House that the Local Government Fair Competition Act, HB 1587, is a bad idea. It is not fair to municipalities and [...]

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How hb1587 has changed

MuniWireless has a post called Stop the North Carolina anti-muni broadband bill that describes the changes just made to hb1587.
In short, HB 1587 is bad for the communities of North Carolina and bad for United States as a whole. It is particularly offensive because it is touted as being necessary to achieve a “level playing [...]

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