View source for 2011-05-18 webmail to Governor Purdue

{{datecat|2011-05-18}}
[[category:letters/business]]
==Notes==
More information:
* '''2011-05-05''' [http://www.muninetworks.org/content/time-warner-cable-monopoly-protection-act-heads-north-carolina-governor Time Warner Cable Monopoly Protection Act Heads to North Carolina Governor]
* '''2011-05-16''' [http://rootstrikers.org/story/community-broadband/ Stop corporations from stopping community broadband]
* [http://www.governor.state.nc.us/contact/Contact.aspx contact Governor Bev Purdue]
==Text==
I'm writing to express my firm opposition to H129.

The big cable companies have been trying to get similar legislation passed for several years now, and it is only thanks to our new Tea Party majority that they have gotten this far.

This bill is bad for competition and the free market; it does not level the playing field, but rather excludes the only meaningful competition still on the field, commercial competition having been effectively neutralized long ago.

Municipal internet is not something that would be paid for with "our tax dollars", but rather the tax dollars of the people who would choose it and use it. They have every right to use the tool of government for this purpose, and H129 would be "bigger government" stepping in to interfere with community business.

Republicans supposedly favor competition in a fair marketplace, and are supposedly against "big government" interference. This bill works against both of those principles.

Perhaps you could remind them of this.

I will finish with a quote from Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig, a defender of our Constitutional freedoms: "All across America, communities suffer because the FCC has allowed competition in broadband networks to atrophy. The only way we can revive that competition is to empower new competitors�including small towns and communities�to build faster and cheaper networks. Companies like Time Warner Cable should be spending their money building better networks, not buying political influence to protect themselves from competition. Their victory in North Carolina will set a precedent, that none of us, anywhere can afford."

Thank you.