How the Telecom Lobby is Killing Municipal Broadband

The city of Longmont (CO) built its own 17-mile, million dollar fiber-optic loop in the mid-1990s. The infrastructure was paid for by the local city-owned electric utility, though it offered promise for bringing broadband to local businesses, government offices and residents, too. For years, though, the network has been sitting largely unused.

In 2005, Colorado passed a state law preventing local governments from essentially building and operating their own telecommunications infrastructure. Behind the law was, not surprisingly, the telecom lobby, which has approached the threat of municipal broadband all across the country with deep suspicion and even deeper pockets. Companies like Comcast understandably want to protect their corner on the market from competition with city-run non-profits. What’s less understandable is the route their interests have taken: Residents and state legislators from Colorado to North Carolina have been voting away the rights of cities to build their own broadband, with their own money, for the benefit of their own communities. This battle has largely pitted well-organized corporations against people who aren’t quite sure what they’re voting on. Such measures have now passed in 19 states. And in 2009, when Longmont put a referendum to the people asking to lift the state restrictions and return the city’s authority over its existing fiber loop, 56 percent of them said "no."