Kansas is not the only place where the cable and telecom lobbies are attacking publicly owned networks. Jesse Harris from FreeUtopia.org reports that State Rep. Curt Webb has introduced HB60, aimed at UTOPIA. From the story:
As the bill is currently written, UTOPIA wouldn’t just be prevented from building to people willing to pay for it. They could also be required to shut down any existing services and be prohibited from maintaining their backbone that links cities together. It would effectively be a death sentence on any network that isn’t entirely within member cities AND can connect to an exchange point to reach ISPs and the rest of the Internet.
FreeUtopia also reports that the bill does not affect cable, DSL, wireless, or any other technology. Harris writes:
Naturally, I had to follow the money and it explains a lot. Rep. Webb has taken contributions from CenturyLink and the Utah Rural Telecom Association.
As an observation, I take issue with the state’s fiscal note on HB60. It reports that enactment of the bill “likely will not result in direct, measurable costs for local governments.” The fiscal note also concludes that “enactment of this bill likely will not result in direct, measurable expenditures by Utah residents or businesses.”
If this bill ends UTOPIA in certain areas, affected government, residential, and business customers will lose the competitive rates they now enjoy – direct and measurable! See Pete Ashdown’s comment on Jesse’s story – he runs XMission, a beloved local ISP that uses UTOPIA to connect to some subscribers.
This bill is another example of how cable and telephone company lobbyists are not just trying to shut down municipal networks, but any possible public private partnerships. This is emphatically not about tax dollars, as Jesse rightly notes:
These extensions help lessen the burden on taxpayers as a whole by shifting more of the costs onto subscribers, but it doesn’t cost any city a red cent.