Whether You’re Red or Blue, You Should Love the FCC’s Internet Plan: This Tea Party guy gets it. Why don’t DC Republicans? by Susan Crawford, BackChannel

He said (paraphrasing), “I want my freedom and I can’t stand the idea of government messing with our lives, and that’s why I like the Tea Party. But I also can’t stand that there’s a company that can tell me what kind of Internet access I can get — I can’t run my business from my home because I can’t buy the connection I need here.”

FCC Ruling

FCC order allows EPB to expand Gig service to outlying areas
Dave Flessner, Times Free Press

"We're glad that a growing number of state lawmakers are supporting proposed legislation that would remove the territorial restrictions that currently prevent municipal utilities from extending fiber services to neighboring areas," he said. "This Tennessee-driven approach is the best near-term option for serving more of the people across our state who are currently underserved or poorly served with broadband connectivity."

Here's The FCC's Ruling On Municipal Broadband
by Karl Bode

The FCC's taking aim at North Carolina and Tennessee protectionist laws first, with the hopes that other states and cities will petition the FCC for help down the line. While the FCC's net neutrality rules tries to protect consumers in the absence of competition, the municipal broadband ruling is an effort to actually create a little additional competition.

Local governments should make broadband choices
By Christopher Mitchell, Guest columnist

Outlets are continuing to pick up on the fact that the FCC's Community Broadband decision was a big one for the future of the Internet. 

Community Broadband

The Most Important Decision the FCC Made Last Week Wasn't on Net Neutrality... By David Dayen, The New Republic

…Telecoms have reacted to this wave of community broadband in ways you would expect from politically powerful, deep-pocketed corporations. First they sued the pants off any municipality trying to build their own network. Then they used their clout in state legislatures to restrict their reach. In Tennessee, only municipal electric companies can provide broadband, and only in the markets they serve. In North Carolina, community broadband networks cannot jump county lines. States like Missouri and Texas ban communities from building their own fiber-optic networks.

FCC Tests Its Authority Over States: Agency takes on laws keeping cities from running Internet service... by Drew Fitzgerald, The Wall Street Journal

Why the F.C.C.’s Municipal-Broadband Ruling Matters, Too... by Vauhini Vara, The New Yorker

This week, the FCC made an historic decision in favor of municipal networks in Chattanooga, TN and Wilson, NC. Chris was in Washington, DC to witness the vote, hear the testimony, and celebrate the hard work of several organizations.

As Brendan Sasso with the National Journal reported, "The issue is one of the most controversial that the FCC will vote on this year. But it was largely overshadowed Thursday by the even more explosive debate over net-neutrality regulations." We have full coverage of both decisions this week. 

Municipal Broadband Decision

Feds Nullify State Laws on City Internet: Net neutrality may get more attention, but the FCC is also making a major push for community Internet service—a priority for Obama. This by Brendan Sasso, National Journal

"The bottom line of these matters is that some states have created thickets of red tape to limit competition," Wheeler said Thursday. "What we're doing today is cutting away that red tape, consistent with Congress's instruction to 'encourage the development of broadband' and to 'promote competition.'"

By granting the petitions, the FCC struck down the laws in those two states, but other state restrictions remain in effect. Other cities looking to build or expand their own Internet projects may soon file petitions with the commission.

FCC Grants Petitions to Preempt State Laws Restricting Community Broadband in North Carolina & Tennessee

By Jim Baller, of Baller, Herbst, Stokes, & Lide, who deserves tremendous accolades for this result. Jim has worked for decades toward this goal. It is not possible to imagine these decisions without him. Thank you Jim.

"This is an important moment for communities in North Carolina, Tennessee, and other states that have barriers to local investments in advanced communications networks.

Next week the FCC will make a landmark decision that will affect the future of community networks. Here's a roundup of stories.

Hate Your Internet Service Provider? You Should Have Feb. 26 Circled on Your Calendar by Daniel B. Kline, Motley Fool

The state of city-run Internet by Allan Holmes, Center for Public Integrity

The Center and Reveal revisited Tullahoma, Tennessee and Fayetteville, North Carolina, where state laws restrict municipal broadband growth. 

How Will the Fight over Public ISPs and Net Neutrality Play Out? by Larry Greenemeier, Scientific American

In an effort to sort through these and other issues impacting how people will access and use the Internet for years to come, Scientific American spoke with Lev Gonick, CEO of OneCommunity, an ISP for Case Western Reserve University, University Hospitals and another 1,800 public-benefit organizations in northeastern Ohio. 

“The idea of local governments taking it upon themselves to improve community broadband speeds has caught on in recent years, particularly in towns and cities that host major universities craving greater network bandwidth.”

Idaho: 

Judge's ruling worsens Idaho's high school Internet headache by Bill Roberts, Idaho Statesman. We have long argued that throwing money at the biggest carriers is poor policy and a waste of taxpayer dollars.

A deadline for the loss of service looms as officials scramble for solutions.

Iowa:

The FCC’s decision to change the definition of broadband continues to make ripples in the muni broadband world. With the speed increased from 4 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, to 25 Mbps down, 3 Mbps up, 75% of the country is now classified as having either no service, or no choices for their Internet connection. The change also means more underserved communities may be able to access to grant money to build networks, it also highlights a more realistic view of the importance of Internet speed for economic development:

Shaming Cable Giants, FCC Demands Faster Internet Republicans complain that increasing the definition of "broadband" is meant to justify power grabs, by Brendan Sasso, National Journal.

DSL The New Dialup? by Bernie Arneson, Telecompetitor

Under New Definition, Comcast Claims 56% of All Broadband Users by Karl Bode, DSLReports

Getting up to speed on the Internet: An upcoming change in defining broadband is sparking debate by Julie Sherwood, Webster Post

Muni Regulatory Decisions

FCC on verge of killing state laws that harm municipal broadband: Chairman targets laws in Tennessee and North Carolina. 17 more states to go by Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica

FCC may kill state restrictions on municipal broadband, force ISP competition by Joel Hruska, Extreme Tech

We continue to see reverberations from President Obama's speaking out in favor of municipal networks. The presidential nod sparked state lawmakers to propose bills, news organizations to write editorials, and to give communities a better sense of how they can take action locally.

As Claire Cain Miller with the New York Times wrote in her article for “The Upshot”:

“The goal is not to replace the big companies with small, locally run Internet providers. It is to give people more than one or two options for buying Internet – and spur everyone, including the incumbents, to offer more competitive service and pricing.”

Jeff Ward-Bailey reported on Obama’s interest in tech issues in the State of the Union, specifically the laws limiting local deployment of networks.

“Obama has said that he wants to end these laws, and the White House’s new broadband plan includes a program, BroadbandUSA, that will encourage communities to deploy their own high-speed networks. BroadbandUSA will offer guidance on planning, financing, and building municipal broadband networks, and even includes funding for “in-person technical assistance to communities.”

The always-worth-reading Harold Feld explained the significance of President Obama's short mention of Internet access in his address:

Susan Crawford’s latest piece on municipal broadband discussed a real problem that mayors of communities can have a definite impact in helping resolve: the digital divide.

Think of that divide, now amplifying and entrenching existing social problems in your city, as similar to a failure to provide a functional street grid. You don’t have to provide retail services yourself, just as you don’t have to provide the cars and businesses that use your streets. Consider the case of Ammon, Idaho, a small conservative town that built a passive fiber (as opposed to fiber-optic) network over which a host of competing service providers can sell directly to residents. Only a city builds streets; similarly, no private company would have an incentive to serve everyone with basic infrastructure, but every private company will rejoice in having reasonably-priced, unlimited communications capacity as a basic input into everything it needs to do. For more evidence, look at Chattanooga, Tennessee.

In Massachusetts, WWLP’s Anthony Hill reported on the small city of Leyden, whose residents may finally be getting high speed Internet access. The city is supporting a $2 million project, which will be up for a vote by residents this coming spring. 

The Monroe Courier reported this week on how 25% of Connecticut towns could soon be a formidable force against big cable. The cities are joining together to demand better connectivity and to make the state the nation’s first Gigabit State. Our story on Connecticut here.

This was a big year for local governments and many year-end discussions have noted the role of cities in expanding high quality Internet access. Among them, The Free Press' Timothy Karr:

The rise of homegrown Internet infrastructure has prompted industry lobbyists to introduce state-level legislation to smother such efforts. There are at least 20 such statutes on the books. But in June, the FCC stepped in with a plan to preempt these state laws, giving communities the support they need to affordably connect more people.

and Broadband Breakfast's Drew Clark:

...viewed from the vantage point of the future, the far more significant development will be the emergence of opportunities outside of Washington for high-capacity broadband networks. It’s a world in which cities and municipalities are playing the leadership role...

The most direct crystallization of our municipal broadband moment is the new non-profit coalition dubbed Next Century Cities. Launched less than two months ago in Santa Monica, it now boasts membership from 50 cities, representing 25 states. From Los Angeles to communities along the Pacific Northwest, from Lafayette in Cajun country to Chattanooga, and from patrician Boston to a city that got its start as a cow town, Kansas City, each of these 50 cities have different motivations and approaches to Gigabit Networks.

Almost 60% of the United States has access to 100 Mbps Internet connections, but only 3% can get a gig. Ars Technica's Jon Brodkin and Anne L. Kim from Roll Call both take a look at a new report from the Department of Commerce this week. 

After successfully fighting a Kansas state law proposed in February that would have outlawed community networks entirely, the city of Chanute is being required to follow an outdated 1940s law that requires them to ask permission to move forward with a bond initiative that would fund a high speed Internet network to businesses and residents. And, AT&T is officially intervening in the city’s efforts. 

Our most favoritest headline of the week about this story comes from Brad Reed with BGR: “AT&T wants to know why a town is building a 1Gbps network when it already offers 6Mbps DSL." Yah, Chanute, what gives?!

Dion Lefler with the Wichita Eagle reported this week that the city has been ordered to follow a 1940 state law requiring it to get permission to sell bonds that would fund a project to provide the town’s 9,000 residents with high speed Internet. 

Chanute officials say the law requiring commission permission to expand is outdated, because it was written in the days when the telephone company was a monopoly… “AT&T is the incumbent telephone company and Cable One is the incumbent cable TV operator,” the city’s filing to the commission said. “Neither of those providers offers the level of service throughout Chanute’s utility service area that Chanute will be able to offer its citizens as a result of the investment planned for Chanute’s network. As such, there will not be a duplication of existing services, even if such a consideration were still relevant today.

Kate Cox with the Consumerist goes further:

AT&T has a long track record of very vocally opposing even the mere idea of municipal broadband projects. The company has worked hard and spent lots of money helping enact state laws that prohibit public broadband expansion.

They have also argued that not only should public fiber projects be banned any place that they (or anyone else) already serves, but that those projects should be banned anywhere they might choose to do business later on.

Tennessee officials are raising the “Gig City” rally cry. Last week, public and private sector leaders gathered in Chattanooga to make sure the FCC knows where they stand on removing restrictions to community broadband in the state. GovTech’s Brian Heaton covered the rally.

“What needs to [happen] is removing the restriction of the electronic footprint, so anybody who wants to provide accessible, high-speed broadband will not be encumbered by unnecessary regulations,” [Tennessee Sen. Janice] Bowling (R) said.

Public officials again stressed the need to increase connectivity beyond the city’s borders in order to develop the area’s economic future.

Longmont, Colorado is one of this week's darlings of community broadband. Trevor Hughes reported on USA Today about the city connecting residents to its fiber optic network. The public network highlights the problems communities face when private networks fail to provide service as promised.

“Longmont knows all about the failings of the private marketplace. Twice the city partnered with private companies to provide high-speed Internet to residents over the past 15 years, and twice the private companies failed. Now city workers are picking up where those private ventures failed, using low-cost government loans to help pay workers to bring the service from the network that "last mile" to peoples' homes.

"It was the private sector that failed here," Roiniotis said. "We tried. We reached out to the private sector to build this network. "If we had waited long enough, there's a chance a cable company would have eventually done this. We decided, no we don't want to wait."

In Madison, city leaders are recognizing the necessity of Internet access in helping to close the digital divide. The city is looking into expanding connections from city government centers to low income areas and the city's public schools.