Build Your Own Broadband Comes Under Attack

There's a regulatory battle heating up between local municipalities and utilities on one side and national broadband providers on the other, each side vying to deliver Internet access and services to underserved and rural areas.

Although Pew Research finds 70% of Americans believe local government should build their own broadband networks if commercial operators' services are too expensive or inadequate, several states are taking legislative steps to limit broadband participation to established players.

In a recent survey, only 27% of respondents say municipal broadband networks should not be allowed, according to the recent Pew Research survey.

But last week, Tennessee, for example, sent the Broadband Accessibility Act of 2017 to the governor's desk. The bill, which Gov. Bill Haslam is widely expected to sign, sends taxpayer funds to large service providers for basic infrastructure. The state's legislators defeated another bill that would have relied on the local electric utility to expand, at no cost to taxpayers, its existing gigabit fiber network using its own money or private loans; the company then would charge subscribers for Internet service.

Similar efforts cropped up in Virginia and Colorado, reported the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, "[formed] to create the policies needed to ensure telecommunications networks serve the community rather than a community serving the network."

"We believe that the decisions about how to expand and improve Internet access are best made by local governments, who are most informed about their communities' needs and challenges," said Christopher Mitchell, director of the Community Broadband Networks initiative at ILSR, in a statement.

In response to some individual states' moves to place broadband implementations solely in the hands of well-established providers such as AT&T and Comcast, a group of five senators -- including Cory Booker (D-NJ), Edward Markey (D-MA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Angus King (I-ME), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) -- in March introduced the Community Broadband Act of 2017. The bill is designed to empower cities to construct their own broadband networks.

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  — Alison Diana, Editor, UBB2020. Follow us on Twitter @UBB2020 or @alisoncdiana.