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Fast, affordable Internet access for all.
Read this Op Ed: Broadband would close NC’s digital divide; Big Telecom is blocking it
By
on
Paul Meyer, the Executive Director of the North Carolina League of Municipalities, has a new piece out outlining clearly and concisely what anyone living in or familiar with the state of broadband in North Carolina is thinking: the connectivity problems shown in such stark detail by the ongoing pandemic are nothing new, and the entities to blame are the huge out-of-state monopoly Internet Service Providers like Charter Spectrum and AT&T.
Both companies, and AT&T in particular, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the last ten years to reduce competition across the state so that they can extract as much profit from North Carolina's communities as possible. Since the passage of HB 129 in 2011, no new municipal networks have been built in the state.
Meyer outlines the consequences of this reality, with residents and businesses alike stuck on old, slow, expensive connections that service providers have no incentive to upgrade in a broken marketplace.
Read the whole piece here, but see some excerpts below:
It has simply become unacceptable and unconscionable that a handful of companies stand in the way of allowing this to happen almost a decade after banding together to block municipalities from building and operating their own systems, and proclaiming as they did so that they would address the digital divide in the state.
If allowing local governments to bring their assets to bear in addressing the critical infrastructure issue of our time was a no-brainer in December of 2019, it is even more of a no-brainer in December of 2020.
So, what’s the big deal? It is that these larger telecommunication companies don’t want competition, even in the places that they poorly serve and are potentially walking away from. For some — loaded down with debt and left with aging technology — they do not have the financial wherewithal to make the investments that are going to close the digital divide and bring reliable, fast [Internet access] to all of North Carolina.
The time has come to recognize this reality. Doing so, the North Carolina General Assembly should make its first priority upon meeting in January passage of legislation that incorporates the principles of the FIBER NC Act and takes another substantial step in closing our digital divide.
For more, listen to Episodes 412 and 413 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast below, and read about how different life is in Wilson, where the Greenlight network brings value, savings, and speed to those who live there.
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