North Carolina has been an ongoing battleground for municipal broadband, with towns such as Wilson, N.C., trying to build municipal networks, and private broadband service providers fighting these efforts every step of the way. The latest piece of state legislation looking to thwart municipality efforts is House Bill 129, which appears to harness the potential of municipal networks.
North Carolina’s News & Observer.com has this from a guest editorial opposing the new bill:
“House Bill 129, the so-called the Level Playing Field bill, piles a regulatory burden on municipally owned networks that the private providers are not subject to. Financing on municipal systems would be subject to unreasonable (and some say unconstitutional) restrictions, advertising would be strictly limited and limitations put on service areas, along with other drastic measures. In short, any municipal Internet enterprise would collapse under the weight of this government red tape, leaving our rural communities once again in the dark.”
Do service provider giants really need a more level playing field to compete with tiny rural municipalities? These are the kinds of towns that telco and cable TV companies have had no interest in before any ideas about building muni-broadband networks surfaced. After at least 10 years of fighting these kinds of projects, the telecom industry incumbents need to finally let them move ahead—unless of course, they want to upgrade or expand their own broadband services in these long-neglected markets.
Um, David. Does this bill “harness the potential of municipal networks”?
You probably want to fix that sentence as it’s surely the opposite of gist of the article.
If it were just about small municipal governments providing broadband networks within their boundaries, that would be one thing. Or if it were limited to just those areas that didn’t have broadband available. But what happens when these municipal networks want to go elsewhere, building large middle mile networks with taxpayer money? Because we all know the middle mile is where the real money is, not the local loop. Or what if they use that taxpayer money to overbuild a small independent telco and drive them out of business, again using taxpayer money? With USF teetering on the brink and most rural telcos already in financial straits, this is a real possibility.
There’s always more than one point of view to these issues. Private companies cannot possibly afford to compete with government, ala the health care industry. And most small rural communities don’t have adequate broadband services today because of one thing; it cannot be financially supported in today’s environment. So why further burden taxpayers with another financial albatross?
Let’s fix the problem, not put another band aid on it. Get Congress and the FCC to formulate and pass some meaningful Broadband USF legislation. This is a proven method of providing service to those communities. But keep the municipalities doing what they do (best?) and out of the telecommunications services business.
John,
I fail to see the problem with a government sponsored utility crowding out a private firm, if it can provide better service at a comparable or lower rate. You seem to have forgotten that we view capitalism as a good thing only so far as it provides choices and improvements for consumers; it is not a good thing unto itself nor are private companies automatically better than public options. You claim that broadband in rural communities \"cannot be financially supported in today\’s environment\" but this is not necessarily true: just because for-profit companies see too much risk or too little margin in providing a service doesn\’t mean the service itself is too expensive to break even.
You should look up the case of Monticello, MN. Monticello actually asked the cable and phone companies to build out the service they wanted, and said companies refused. When Monticello built it\’s own network, the cable company sued to stop the town from turning it on and built the network the city had asked for in the first place while the lawsuit dragged out! If there was no money to be made in Monticello, why did the cable company sue? Why did they build a network anyway? If the threat of public competition improves service from the private sector, how is that contrary to the goal of capitalism?
Most cases of municipal telecoms involve towns that wanted service and could not get decent service from anyone. Your complaints of unfair competition amount to supporting the telecoms who are effectively saying \"You\’ll get decent service when we\’re damn good and ready, now shut up and wait!\"
Furthermore, it\’s not just cities competing with private broadband firms. There are also non-profit, private entities out there running wireless ISP\’s in areas the telephone companies refuse to serve.
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