Ron Littlefield

[Commentary] Public broadband offers communities options to extend high-speed connectivity to un- or underserved constituents. At least it did.

But now the US Court of Appeals has put a speed bump squarely in the middle of the so-called information super highway with its ruling that the Federal Communications Commission cannot block states from setting limits on municipal broadband expansion. Cities in Tennessee and North Carolina had previously received backing from the FCC to expand their fiber optic networks beyond their traditional service boundaries. It's an odd situation, especially in Tennessee as Chattanooga has received international acclaim for providing its citizens with access to one of the fastest broadband systems in the world for the last five years – and it’s only getting faster. As of 2015, the city’s Electric Power Board (EPB) began offering the world’s first community-wide 10 Gbps internet service. Beyond bragging rights, Chattanooga’s commitment to connectivity is a successful business venture that has defied dire predictions by critics.

[Littlefield was mayor of Chattanooga when the city's municipally owned Electric Power Board built the fiber optic system to provide gigabit connectivity to an area covering more than 650 square miles]