Tennessee legislators should abandon their proposed...
Tennessee legislators should abandon their proposed “broadband tax,” said Free State Foundation fellow Deborah Taylor Tate, a former FCC commissioner, of pending pole attachment legislation in a Free State email blast Friday. Her piece was first published as a Sunday…
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op-ed in The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/Z6Uysc). She praised the growth of broadband access in Tennessee. “None of this advanced infrastructure is possible without fair and reasonable access to essential facilities, including utility poles,” Tate said. “With some of the highest rates in the entire country -- more than double the national average -- some legislators want to allow further increases to these pole attachment rates on the backs of small and homegrown businesses as well as Tennessee consumers. This is completely out of step with our Southeastern neighbors and with high-tax states such as California and Massachusetts, which have rates 250 percent lower than Tennessee’s.” She attacked the Watson/Matlock bill (HB 1111/SB 1222), which has attracted controversy (CD March 7 p18) in Tennessee. The bill stands opposed to the alternate, telco-backed Freedom to Connect Act (HB 567/SB 1049). The Watson/Matlock legislation, despite some movement, has yet to receive a vote on the floor in either house of the Tennessee Legislature. Electric utilities have supported it. “Rather than erecting toll booths on the information superhighway in the form of a broadband tax, we should be putting out the low-tax welcome mat and encouraging more broadband innovation and investment throughout this great state,” Tate said. Phoenix Center President Lawrence Spiwak also opposed the legislation in a Wednesday Chattanooga Times Free Press op-ed (http://bit.ly/Y34bI4): “If the Tennessee Legislature is truly concerned about its economy and its constituents, then calls for higher pole attachment rates should be rejected, and existing rates should, at a minimum, be reduced to reflect national standards,” he said.