7 Colorado communities just voted themselves the right to build their own broadband

Voters in seven cities and counties in Colorado voted to free their local governments to offer Internet service.

The votes marked a defeat for big, traditional Internet service providers such as Comcast that have successfully maneuvered to inject limits on municipal broadband into state regulations over the last decade. Now cities are figuring out ways to push back, including wiggling out from under laws the industry helped put in place.

In Boulder, locals voted on whether the city should be "authorized to provide high-speed Internet services (advanced services), telecommunications services, and/or cable television services to residents, businesses, schools, libraries, nonprofit entities and other users of such services." The city approved the measure with 84 percent of the vote. Similar overrides also passed by large margins in the towns of Yuma, Wray, Cherry Hills Village and Red Cliff and in Rio Blanco and Yuma counties