NC Muni Broadband Chiller gets thawed

For the record, I think municipal broadband should be the Third Pipe of last resort, but in a duopoly world it’s a necessary evil.

The broadband duopoly exists only with the help of government - local state and federal. By locking down right of ways, the telco and cable giants have been able to maintain a low investment enterprise with declining costs while routinely raising prices to consumers. When municipalities try to use their right of ways to provide better service, the duopoly always invests in lobbying rather than trying to compete.

There are plentiful pols who are all too willing to carry the duopoly’s water. Fortunately, one case to thwart  muni alternatives in North Caraolina has been defeated:

Indeed it has. North Carolina Senator David Hoyle’s (D-GA) now-defeated amendment (S-1209) was cosmetically titled “An Act to Ensure That A Local Government That Competes with Private Companies in Providing Communication Services Has The Support Of Its Citizens.” But advocates of city/county backed high speed Internet projects just knew it as the Municipal-Broadband Must Die Die Die bill.

Hoyle’s proposal would have banned any Tar Heel state city or county from contracting to “purchase, or finance or refinance” any kind of property to set up an “external communications system.” The law defined the latter as anything that “provides broadband service or other Internet access service, cable service, telecommunications service, video programming service, or a combination of these services.” (Ars Technica)

I hope NC voters will have enough common sense to send Senator Hoyle on permanent vacation from his law making duties when his term expires.

With the lack of will in Washington and most state houses to open the market for competitive broadband, the time for muni networks is here. These networks should not be the last alternative, but hopefully the one that will beak the duopoly strangle hold.  Around the world broadband is moving from copper to fiber at break neck speed at falling prices. World Class Broadband isn’t delivered in electrons any more, it comes in photons. It’s time to join the race and leap ahead or stand on the sidelines with our duopoly and watch the rest of the world race by.