New Hampshire’s enormous legislature generations hundreds of bills, and while most of them go nowhere there can be some interesting ideas that get lost in the shuffle. Here’s one, highlighted by Bob Sanders of NH Business Review:

House Bill 1578 would require internet providers to reimburse consumers when the power is out more than four hours. (Deerfield Rep. Terry) Roy introduced the measure, he said, because of a “troubling trend” he has seen from his internet provider – “really, really bad reliability of internet.”

There are good reasons why this probably won’t work, such as the fact that internet outages can be caused by many things which aren’t the providers’ doing, and I will be very surprised if this bill doesn’t get deep-sixed in a committee somewhere. But its mere existence reflects the importance of connectivity these days. If you’re not online, you’re nowhere.