Serious question here. Is this law more or less stating that the business gets no revenue back from local or state government? I have no issue with the argument that internet service is a basic right but if that is the case, I would expect the government to either offer the service or pay a market/agreed price to cover the cost for low income users.
National retail ISPs should not exist. All Internet should be municipal broadband that should be subsidized or free by the state.<p>I welcome any ISP who is unhappy about this giving back the broadband infrastructure that governments have already subsidized and paid for as well as given legal monopolies to by, for example, banning municipal broadband.<p>I also welcome eminent domain to solve this problem.
Not accounting for government-produced inflation is interesting.<p>I wonder if city could sue Federal government for printing money and causing such consequences?<p>Reminder that deflation should be occurring with the benefits of automation technology, where the buying power of the dollar should be increasing.
Is this like everyone has the right for a bank account?<p>In Germany public libraries have free internet access, I rarely see people there though (and in libraries in general, they have the most expensive magazines to read for free!)
Serious question. Is there an example of price control that has worked for longer than a handful of years?<p>I’m not aware of any, but I’m also in a conservative bubble.
This seems... excessive. I'm all for cheaper internet, but why even bother with $15 at this point? Why not just make it free?<p>Both companies and consumers are going to be completely at the whim of regulators. If they start jiggering around with the means testing and or the completely arbitrary price point, I'm not confident the quality won't deteriorate or ISPs pull out of the state altogether.
It might be cheaper for all and easier for the ISPs to instead pay money in lieu of servicing customers into a city-/county-owned municipal co-op for $15/month.
> For consumers who qualify for means-tested government benefits, the state law requires ISPs to offer "broadband at no more than $15 per month for service of 25Mbps, or $20 per month for high-speed service of 200Mbps," the ruling noted. The law allows for price increases every few years and makes exemptions available to ISPs with fewer than 20,000 customers.<p>Okay, so they're either going to make the application process an extremely painful experience so nobody will want to go through it, or make a ton of shell companies where each one is dealing with less than 20k customers.