Last Friday, FCC Chairman Genachowski issued a statement discouraging states from creating (or maintaining) barriers to community owned networks. This statement came just days after Georgia began considering a bill to limit local authority in deciding whether a network were a wise decision.
As we’ve recognized in law and policy for many years, public-private partnerships are also essential for driving broadband deployment. Public-private partnerships like the Connect America Fund, which drives universal broadband deployment, and municipal and public -private projects like those in Chattanooga, Tennessee and San Leandro, California are also vital components of our national broadband strategy. Our Gigabit City Challenge and the important work of Gig.U to drive ultra -fast broadband centers for innovation can also benefit from innovative local approaches to broadband infrastructure. That’s why the National Broadband Plan stated that, when private investment isn’t a feasible option for broadband deployment, local governments ‘have the right to move forward and build networks that serve their constituents as they deem appropriate.’
If a community can’t gain access to broadband services that meet its needs, then it should be able to serve its own residents directly. Proposals that would tie the hands of innovative communities that want to build their own high-speed networks will slow progress to our nation’s broadband goals and will hurt economic development and job creation in those areas. I urge state and local leaders to focus instead on proposals that incentivize investment in broadband infrastructure, remove barriers to broadband build-out, and ensure widespread access to high-speed networks.”
This is a welome development as the FCC has long opposed such barriers (thank you Commissioner Clyburn as well for long speaking out on this issue) but the Chairman himself has not been as direct as this.
The Chairman regularly uses Chattanooga as an example of a tremendously successful network and again noted that community in this statement. This provides some explanation for what it means when private investment isn’t a feasible option — as Chattanooga already had DSL and cable Internet access from its incumbent providers.
Georgia’s leaders need to pay attention to this fact because the ultimate question is not whether a community has DSL, cable, or wireless but whether its telecommunications services are meeting the needs of local businesses and residents.
That is the real test and can only be evaluated on a case-by-case basis by the community itself.