Local governments have persuaded state legislators in North Carolina "to back off a proposal to limit the ability of municipalities to build and operate their own high-speed Internet networks," reports Michael Martinez of National Journal's Insider Update. About 15 states have such limits, passed at the behest of telecommunications firms, but few have passed lately because of growing concern about -- and news coverage of -- the lack of broadband in rural areas and small towns.
In the House Finance Committee, a bill to restrict local-government broadband became one that merely ordered a two-year study of municipal broadband networks' performance. Rob Thompson, a policy advocate for the North Carolina Public Interest Research Group, said the original bill would have been tough for localities to swallow, because the legislature last year "stripped localities of the authority to grant and receive revenue from video franchises," Martinez writes. "In North Carolina and more than a dozen other states, video service providers seeking to enter new markets can bypass local governments by applying for statewide franchises."
Thompson said he thought legislators were reluctant to limit municipal broadband "because they knew that companies had failed to provide the new competition they promised to get the statewide franchising law" for video. He remains wary of what may happen in 2009, because the main sponsor of the original broadband bill is slated to be one of the study panel's co-chairs. (Read more)
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