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Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

I am puzzled again by standards of American law making.

Why telecoms have rights to mount 4g equipment on public property, but not 5g (which is not even a standard yet?)

Senate Bill 649, which passed the California Legislature last month, would have restricted local governments' abilities to block antenna placement and would cap the rates that they could charge telecom companies for installations on public property, such as street lamps or traffic lights.

It feels like it’s more about telecom companies trying to restrict the rent local governments can charge that is a bigger deal here.

I am not a fan of telecoms but I can't oppose then on this one. Removing restrictions allows telecoms options which lets rent to go lower, no?

But this isn't removing restrictions, this is adding a new restriction, a positive type of restriction which FORCES local governments to rent. No one should be FORCED to rent their property.

Government owned property, public property has a duty to serve the public. Capping rates and allowing antennas in certain areas provides competition in the broadband market which serves the public interest.

Telecom consumers of public resources are not necessarily the local public. Proper veto by the governor; property rights over faster mobile connections and the expense of local sovereignty.

I do not think that local sovereignty exists in the US -- the states are the sovereign from which local authority stems IIUC.

Home rule is the term I should've used.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_rule_in_the_United_Stat...

"Capping rates and allowing antennas in certain areas provides competition in the broadband market..."

I don't believe I've seen an argument that market interference, "capping rates", is good for the free market recently.

You haven't been in many internet arguments about economics, then. There are a lot of us who think that various targeted types of regulation and government market participation can actually lead to better markets. I'm not sure it's the case this time, but the general sentiment is common.

It depends on how you define "free market", exactly. The definition that is popular nowadays originated with libertarians, and equates it with lack of government regulation, regardless of anything else. But the traditional definition also includes monopolies and other factors that stifle competition, and from that perspective, it's entirely possible for a market to be more free because of government intervention (e.g. monopoly busting).

Indeed, setting certain rules can unify a market and reduce transaction costs. Calling a city, negotiating for rights to use public property, etc.

Setting caps can also reduce a municipality desire to give a 'monopoly', an absolute monopoly where you can't get comparable service elsewhere, to one provider in exchange for generous royalty rates.

The public also benefit if municipalities can charge fair market prices and use the income to fund projects that more directly benefit residents, or lower taxes. Forcing local governments to charge below market rates is little more than corporate welfare for the telecom industry.

> Forcing local governments to charge below market rates is little more than corporate welfare for the telecom industry.

I am sorry I spoke without understanding the entire situation but I have sincerely zero sympathy for local governments in this case.

I concede I'm wrong though. The problem I see now is here is the fact that an incumbent will "rent" all the good spots for free, claim it is under development, or somehow basically starve competition.

I hadn't thought of that. I was trying to avoid the situation like when the first 3G iPhone came out and Cingular was saying things like they can't find anywhere to put network equipment in San Francisco.

Basically, my thought was this pits two categories of rent seekers against each other and was hoping that we could exert pricing controls on wireless carriers using this but I was clearly too optimistic.

For earlier generations, they put large towers, spread relatively far apart. For 5G, they'll need smaller antennas, spaced closer together, which means more cellular stations, over-all. In previous cases, I think that a lot of "next-gen" cell towers just upgraded the previous generation of tower, but stayed in the same place.

Argument for the bill: It streamlines the process for getting permits to put up new cellular antennas, and makes permit requests cheaper by putting a limit to the fees that a local government can charge. The process and costs should be limited to reasonable amounts, and standardized throughout the state.

Argument against the bill: Local governments should be able to manage local affairs; things that make sense in one city might not make sense in another, or might need to be done differently.

U.S. law is layered. Federal law specifies some things, and leaves everything else to the states. Then state law specifies some things, and leaves the rest to cities and counties, etc.

It's hard for me to think of any way antenna regulation needs to differ on a city-by-city basis.

National radio quiet zone? No, that's specified on a federal level...

Let's say the state says cities must grant rights to telcos to use street lights for cell antennas. But maybe one town has a historic downtown with old gas lamp street lights and adding cell equipment would look bad, or damage them. Or maybe installation in some towns would require cutting back heritage trees. There are reasons for cities to have different regulations. Not that this is specifically applicable to the actual vetoed bill, which I think was a good idea.

You misunderstood the nature of the bill that was vetoed. The bill didn't have much to do with 5G at all. It mandated a uniform state-wide permitting process for any company installing wireless equipment. It also set a maximum price that cities could charge companies who want to use city property (poles and whatnot) to mount their equipment. Every local jurisdiction in the United States has their own rules for getting permits. If you just want to add on to your house that's not a big deal, but if you want to build a lot of things in a lot of places then the extra cost adds up quickly.

For the same reason that people claim to have wifi allergies probably.

More probably and less cynically, 5g is a different wavelength and therefore the transceiver requires FCC assessment and approval.

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