Jim Baller is back again for the second show in our series on the history of municipal broadband networks. He is the President of the Baller Herbst Law Group in Washington, DC, and a long time advocate for both community owned networks specifically and better access to the Internet for all more generally.
We kicked this history series off on Episode 57 where we talked about some of the early community cable networks and how federal law came to allow states to preempt local authority.
In this episode, we talk about the early FTTH networks in Chelan, Washingon; Bristol, Virginia; Kutztown, Pennsylvania; and Dalton, Georgia. We also talk about how the states began restricting local investments, particularly in Pennsylvania under pressure from Verizon.
We will continue the series in subsequent episodes. We want your feedback and suggestions for the show – please e-mail us or leave a comment below. Also, feel free to suggest other guests, topics, or questions you want us to address.
This show is 18 minutes long and can be played below on this page or subscribe via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.
Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.
Thanks to Break the Bans for the music, licensed using Creative Commons.