In the 30 hours since we learned of a bill in Georgia to revoke local authority to decide for themselves if a broadband network is a wise investment, we have seen a big response! Some of that is detailed below, but what matters for now is that HB 282 was bumped from today to next week.
The committee roster is here, please keep spreading the word and making phone calls. If you have contacts in Georgia that want more detail, send them our way.
The Georgia Municipal Association Blog quickly explained why this bill limits the ability of towns to attract jobs to their communities.
The fundamental question is rather simple, does Georgia want local leaders to determine the economic and investment strategies for their communities or do we want those decisions to be made solely on the business plan of companies based outside of the state?
And they go on to quote the former City Manager of Adel:
After much deliberation and public demand, the City of Adel launched our wireless internet system, Southlink, in 2003. There were NO INCUMBENT, HIGH-SPEED PROVIDERS at that time with no indication of interest by anyone. The City of Adel did what no investor-owned company would consider, yet the citizens and businesses in Adel deserved the service just as much as those citizens of Atlanta, Macon, Augusta or Savannah. The business plan worked and we gained customers. Within four years of our launch, both Alltel and Mediacom launched true high-speed service to the area. With our original intent served, we then dismantled the wireless system in 2009 and 2010 and the citizens had service options.
We did not launch the service to compete with incumbent providers and we gave them every chance to provide the service. Did our positive action create the impetus for other providers to bring in their service? I will let you decide that.
And finally, the video below notes how the city of Thomasville benefited from building its own network.
Karl Bode, of DSL Reports, sounds off on this attempt to restrict competition:
As is usually the case, the industry argues that it’s simply unfair for them to have to compete with government, yet the reality is they’re using government to ensure they never have to compete with towns — or anybody else. If Windstream and AT&T were providing adequate service in Georgia, towns and cities in the state wouldn’t be attempting the very difficult task of trying to wire themselves.
We have seen these attempts before. Recall that Time Warner Cable, AT&T, and CenturyLink spent more than $1 million over many years in North Carolina to limit competition — something we documented in a recent report. Since passing that bill, North Carolina has seen its broadband prices rise and investment in rural areas remain stagnant.