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It's no secret that private Internet service providers hate when cities and towns decide to enter the telecommunications business themselves. But with private ISPs facing little competition and offering slow speeds for high prices, municipalities occasionally get fed up and decide to build their own broadband networks.
To prevent this assault on their lucrative revenue streams, ISPs have teamed up with friends in state legislatures to pass laws that make it more difficult or impossible for cities and towns to offer broadband service.
Attorney James Baller of the Baller Herbst Law Group has been fighting attempts to restrict municipal broadband projects for years. He's catalogued restrictions placed upon public Internet service in 20 states, and that number could be much higher already if not for the efforts of consumer advocates.
Some state restrictions have been in place for decades. A new wave of state laws were passed in the years after the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, Baller told Ars. Another wave of proposals came after a US Supreme Court decision in 2004 that said the Telecommunications Act "allows states to prevent municipalities from providing telecommunications services."
Pennsylvania enacted a new law limiting municipal broadband later in 2004, but then the tide began to turn.
Read more here.
To prevent this assault on their lucrative revenue streams, ISPs have teamed up with friends in state legislatures to pass laws that make it more difficult or impossible for cities and towns to offer broadband service.
Attorney James Baller of the Baller Herbst Law Group has been fighting attempts to restrict municipal broadband projects for years. He's catalogued restrictions placed upon public Internet service in 20 states, and that number could be much higher already if not for the efforts of consumer advocates.
Some state restrictions have been in place for decades. A new wave of state laws were passed in the years after the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, Baller told Ars. Another wave of proposals came after a US Supreme Court decision in 2004 that said the Telecommunications Act "allows states to prevent municipalities from providing telecommunications services."
Pennsylvania enacted a new law limiting municipal broadband later in 2004, but then the tide began to turn.
Read more here.
Never happen in TX.
