Eshoo, Booker Bill Would Kill Dumb, Monopoly-Backed State Bans On Community Broadband
from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept
We’ve noted for decades how telecom monopolies convinced corrupt state legislatures to pass counterproductive bans on creative community broadband networks. The bills are protectionist crap that are ghost written by telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast, and designed to protect their regional broadband monopolies from grass roots competitive disruption on a town by town level.
The harmful nature of such bills were highlighted during COVID, prompting several states (Arkansas and Washington) to roll them back. But 17 states still have such laws in the books, hampering the creation or expansion of cooperatives, city-owned utilities, municipalities, and public private partnerships and other creative attempts to expand access to faster, more affordable broadband.
Enter U.S. Reps. Anna G. Eshoo (CA), Jared Golden (ME) and U.S. Senator Cory Booker (NJ) who have reintroduced their Community Broadband Act, which would strip away state restrictions, allowing communities to decide for themselves whether to build their own broadband networks:
“The Community Broadband Act would empower cities, towns and villages in every state to choose for themselves whether and how to invest in locally-owned broadband infrastructure. Without this flexibility for communities, federal broadband grant programs will not be able to reach their full potential.” –National League of Cities
In short, the bill would amend the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to not only eliminate such protectionist bans already on the books, but also prohibit states from blocking communities from building their own broadband networks.
For decades U.S. telecom monopolies lobbied for such bills under the pretense they were simply looking to protect U.S. taxpayers from wasteful spending. In reality, the U.S. doles out untold billions of dollars to entrenched telecom monopolies that then routinely fail to deliver the next-generation networks (or jobs) they’ve long promised in exchange for a rotating crop of regulatory favors.
Booker and friends also introduced this bill several years ago, but it routinely struggles to gain any traction in a corrupt Congress slathered in Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and Charter campaign contributions. Said corruption is so extensive, most U.S. regulators and lawmakers lack the courage to even acknowledge telecom monopolies are real, much less that they cause very obvious consumer and market harm.
Instead, we generally enjoy throwing billions of dollars at companies like AT&T with a long history of taxpayer fraud, who then, time after time, fail to fully deploy the next-generation networks promised. As a result, local communities have been frustrated for decades by the lack of competition, high prices, spotty coverage, slow speeds, and terrible customer service that results.
But when communities decide to take action (often at direct voter behest), they often run face-first into hostile, captured state lawmakers or regulators, as well as a bevy of lawsuits from companies like Comcast very keen on protecting the very broken, but very profitable status quo.
Entrenched incumbent monopolies could have responded to these organic, grass roots efforts by providing better, faster, cheaper service to neglected areas, but quite often it’s simply much cheaper to effectively buy a state law or a state or federal lawmaker. As billions in new infrastructure bill broadband subsidies head to the states, the debate has taken on renewed importance.
Numerous studies have consistently shown that community broadband networks (which take on a wide variety of forms ranging from direct municipal builds to cooperatives) provide better, faster, cheaper broadband service. Our recent Copia study on America’s broadband problems outlines how embracing such alternatives are a great way to spur real competition in a very broken market.
Filed Under: anna eshoo, broadband, community broadband, competition, cory booker, fcc, gigabit, high speed internet, jared golden, monopoly, regulatory capture, telecom
Comments on “Eshoo, Booker Bill Would Kill Dumb, Monopoly-Backed State Bans On Community Broadband”
It won’t pass, but starting the conversation is a worthwhile goal in itself.
This won’t be the last step, but it’s a good first one.
Would love
To break every contract that was anti competitive, and exclusionary.
Personal and corporate.
Is community broadband the same as internet provided as a public utility?
I’d support this, if it allows for some mix of municipally owned (and even operated, with hesitations) internet service, or allows for existing municipal utilities (think California’s DWPs and SMUD) to go into the ISP business.
Re:
This is not utility regulation.
Community broadband is a broadband network built by a community. Management of that network might be the government, or a non-profit. The term is pretty broad. Some networks are open to other isps, or could be serviced entirely by private ISPs, or for some the network is closed and service is also managed solely by the network manager. it’s a catch-all term for a network not built by a for profit ISP.
Re: Re:
Clarification: Utility regulation is a different function than a community broadband and who provides and maintains the service.
In California’s case, the state-level Public Utilities Commission regulates private providers of electricity, water, gas, telecom and transportation services. It doesn’t regulate public power agencies, since by law they already have to comply with public meeting laws to impose rate hikes and the like and can self-regulate. Sacramento’s SMUD goes one further, the board is publicly elected (other municipals usually have a commission appointed by their city councils).
The public utilities already own the poles and pipes; why not have them build out the fiber optic network and either offer internet and landline phone service or have an airport model — own and maintain the fiber but allow private companies to provide their services for a per-user fee until the capacity is built out?
Best state to be a politician?
Those 17 states are the best place to be an elected official. Where else can you take the equivalent of a bribe nominally called a campaign contribution, have a lobbyist do your job, screw over your own voters, and get re-elected.