The Secret Savior of Net Neutrality?

The fight for municipal broadband has been a quiet drama unfolding across dozens of cities nationwide in recent years. In addition to Colorado, around 20 states have legislation on the books curtailing the construction of city-owned broadband networks, which threaten the dominance of corporate Internet service providers. But a growing number of communities like Fort Collins (CO) are pushing back against these laws. Their attempts could take on added urgency because of efforts at the federal level to rework how the internet is governed. The FCC voted to abolish its hard-line rules protecting network neutrality. The changes could help the internet’s corporate overlords get richer and stifle the ability of smaller internet companies to compete. But municipal networks, which operate without a profit motive and generally champion equitable service, could serve as a countermeasure to the growing corporate takeover of the internet. Ultimately, city-owned ISPs may be the only neutral networks we have left.