City-run Internet services still in limbo after FCC vote
After the nation’s top Internet regulator moved to allow two cities to offer broadband service to their residents, don’t expect a lot of other cities to follow. Expect lawsuits.
The Federal Communications Commission voted last week to preempt laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that make it all but impossible for municipalities to expand Internet service. Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Wilson, N.C., had asked the FCC to act so that they could extend their networks to nearby towns that wanted it.
About 18 other states have laws that restrict cities from building or expanding government operated local broadband networks. The laws are a result of heavy lobbying and spending over the years by large telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The FCC’s favorable ruling may be viewed as opening the door to towns in those states to file similar petitions.
But that’s not likely to happen soon, said city officials overseeing networks and broadband experts. First, cities are waiting for the FCC to release their final ruling, probably later this month, on preempting the Tennessee and North Carolina laws. The details may affect how other towns view their chances of getting a favorable FCC decision.
Second, it is likely the FCC’s ruling will be challenged in court, and cities want to wait for the judges to weigh in before paying lawyers to petition the FCC. Any suit will have a chilling effect on cities.
None of the big five telecoms — Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon or CenturyLink — issued a statement about municipal broadband immediately after the vote. Comcast and AT&T didn’t respond to requests for comment. The National Conference of State Legislatures, a group that promotes the interests of states in Congress, threatened last year to sue the FCC when agency Chairman Tom Wheeler signaled the FCC would likely vote to preempt the state broadband laws. NCSL repeated the threat after the vote.
“NCSL takes the pre-emption of states very seriously and will continue to pursue our options to ensure that any action taken by the FCC on municipal broadband networks is overturned by the courts,” according to a statement posted last week on its website.
Related: How big telecom smothers city-run broadband
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
