How States Are Fighting to Keep Towns From Offering Their Own Broadband

[KamaAina]

http://www.propublica.org/article/how-states-are-fighting-to-keep-towns-from-offering-their-own-broadband

Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission voted to ease the way for cities to become Internet service providers. So-called municipal broadband is already a reality in a few towns, often providing Internet access and faster service to rural communities that cable companies don’t serve.

The cable and telecommunications industry have long lobbied against city-run broadband, arguing that taxpayer money should not fund potential competitors to private companies.

The telecom companies have what may seem like an unlikely ally: states. Roughly 20 states have restrictions against municipal broadband.

And the attorneys general in North Carolina and Tennessee have recently filed lawsuits in an attempt to overrule the FCC and block towns in these states from expanding publicly funded Internet service.

Gotta be ALEC.

[daleanime]

1. Yeahup.....

[Go Vols]

2. Its right down the road from me now

My sister and mother are on it.

https://www.tub.net/internet

[on point]

3. Corporate corruption at its best!

If a public utility can out perform the private ones, then let the private ones die off. Enough of this privatize everything 'because they are cheaper and better' - obviously not!

[RufusTFirefly]

4. The Internet is today's interstate. Our taxes should pay for universal access. n/t

[hunter]

6. Yep.

But that's the phone, cell phone, and cable television industries' worst nightmare.

Both industries as they are now structured are obsolete. But they will do anything, telling lies, and buying politicians with cash, hookers, and blow, to protect their "business model."

[Orrex]

5. Out of curiosity...

Is there anything that would legally prevent a town from offering broadband to its own residents and those in adjacent towns?

Could Pittsburgh, for instance, offer broadband to the surrounding towns in addition to residents of the city itself? Or would they be constrained by city limits, etc?

[GoneFishin]

7. "I don't want it, but you can't have it." Fuck them. A lot of small towns can't get service because

the telecoms won't invest the resources to connect them. Fuck them and the corrupt politicians they are bribing to vote for this.

[GreatGazoo]

8. So by that legalism towns could not offer trash pick-up, parking (on meters), police services,

jails, or anything else that "competes" with anything else that could ever be offered by private companies!

[KamaAina]

10. Rahmbo infamously privatized Chicago's parking meters.

[PowerToThePeople]

9. Greedy bastards. n/t

[GreatGazoo]

11. Service in many small cities is available from only 2, maybe 3 providers and they bundle

you with an extra $50+ for a basic cable TV package that you don't want anymore. In some places you can only get internet service if you also pay for a landline phone.

I think cities offering their own broadband is a great idea in part because such a move empowers a community to attract and retain high tech businesses and to allow all the businesses in their community to function with the best internet access.

If they do it wirelessly it reduces maintenance costs dramatically for the provider (eg the city) as well as home or office users who no longer need modems of their own. Also makes it easy for the town to offer broadband to homebound, seniors and low income residents at reduced rates or free of charge.