Nestor Davidson and Olivier Sylvain wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal about broadband internet service and local governments.
Will the future of the Internet be determined by what happens in a small town in North Carolina? Perhaps. Wilson, N.C., once a hub for local tobacco growers, now styles itself the state’s Gigabit City. Wilson has a municipally owned broadband system called Greenlight that provides lightning-fast Internet services to the community. Greenlight has been such a success that businesses and residents in neighboring rural counties want to sign up.
So what’s the problem? North Carolina is one of 20 states with a law on the books that restricts or bars local governments from offering broadband service. In 2011 the Tar Heel State’s General Assembly passed substantial restrictions on municipal broadband, including limits on introductory prices and onerous tax requirements. Proponents claimed that competition from public networks could hamper private providers.
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Reliable, high-speed Internet access has become indispensable, but many major broadband service providers simply do not make infrastructure investments in rural and poor communities. The FCC estimated in 2012 that about 19 million Americans lack access to basic broadband sufficient to send and receive high-quality voice and video. Some communities have only one broadband provider, and almost half of Americans have a choice between just two. This lack of competition has raised concerns about high prices and poor service.
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Broadband providers have been instrumental in getting these state laws enacted, arguing that municipal entry would deter innovation and undermine investment in their networks. One irony is that Greenlight only exists because these providers declined to build state-of-the-art fiber networks for residents in Wilson. Greenlight simply stepped in to fill the gap.
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Federal courts have recognized the FCC’s authority to promote the availability of high-quality Internet access. In January, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals did so in FCC v. Verizon. VZ +0.44% The court rejected some FCC policies but affirmed the commission’s broad authority to promulgate network neutrality rules for the Internet. Support for community broadband initiatives are part of the agency’s focus on “competition, competition, competition,” as Mr. Wheeler put it in an April speech.
Whatever power the states have to supervise their local governments cannot override the imperative to build out the signature communications technology of our times. The federal government has in the past stepped in to limit parochial state restrictions on local governments when necessary to advance important national interests. The same is true for the Internet and the competitive, high-quality broadband service it requires.
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