Substantial Majority of Americans Say Local Governments Should Be Able to Build Their Own Broadband

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Substantial Majority of Americans Say Local Governments Should Be Able to Build Their Own Broadband

By CircleID Reporter
April 11, 2017, 3:19 am PDT Views: 7,631 Comments: 1

A recent study conducted Pew Research Center in March 13-27, has found a substantial majority of the American public (70%) believes local governments should be able to build their own broadband networks if existing services in the area are either too expensive or not good enough. “As the Federal Communications Commission continues to address broadband infrastructure and access, Americans have mixed views on two policies designed to encourage broadband adoption ... A number of state laws currently prevent cities from building their own high-speed networks, and several U.S. senators recently introduced a bill that would ban these restrictions. ... Americans have different levels of support for broadband subsidies based on political affiliation. Six-in-ten Democrats and independents who lean Democratic say the government should help lower-income Americans purchase high-speed internet service, but that figure falls to just 24% among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents.”

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Its worth pointing out the restrictions came Charles Christopher – Apr 11, 2017 4:03 PM

Its worth pointing out the restrictions came into being because of previous attempts by local governments to do just that. Then the local telecoms and cable companies won the fight and got the laws they wanted to protect their businesses. Utah’s Utopia, where I live, is a great example of that corruption, and has greatly reduced the rate of deployment of fiber because of it.

So I am not aware of any time that Americans were not in favor of local government deployment of internet services, wifi of other. But the historical record is full of successful examples of telecoms and cable running campaigns against it.

Hurricane Katrina was a great case of cutting through this corruption as telecom and cable failed:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801773.html

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2006/10/8052/

And this statement say it all:

“Due to opposition from other ISPs and the telecoms, New Orleans’ free WiFi network had its speed capped at 512Kbps, and that was only while the city was still in an official state of emergency. Once that ended, the maximum speed was rolled back to a paltry 128Kbps in order to comply with Louisiana’s telecom-friendly broadband laws, which mandate speed caps on publicly-funded broadband networks.”

One of my favorite videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pejhtY1pMig

[02:40] “Millions and millions of dollars are spent on communications, but when it gets right down to it, we’re back to ham.”

Or expanding his comment a bit, we’re back to individuals with nobody (telecoms and cable) getting in their way. Its called freedom ....

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