The Reason Foundation attacked the idea of municipally...
The Reason Foundation attacked the idea of municipally owned broadband networks, as part of the foundation’s 2013 annual privatization report Monday (http://bit.ly/13mbyhW). The free-market think tank judged there’s been resurgence in support of such networks: “Goosed by federal stimulus funds,…
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a number of municipal broadband networks around the country were able to meet short-term construction and service goals, even as they face long-term financial questions,” wrote Policy Analyst Steven Titch. “The shift in policy attitudes toward more interventionist government programs, typified in books like Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age by former Obama White House Telecommunications Advisor Susan Crawford, has a number of municipalities considering the launch of competitive phone, cable TV and high-speed broadband ventures.” Titch criticized the “dire financial reckoning” that such projects will bring, and pointed to attempts in Tennessee, Utah and the state of Washington as examples of what he sees as problematic. “Municipal broadband is a bad investment, largely prone to failure, and, in the best case, a costly method for delivering local economic benefits that could be realized at much less taxpayer risk,” he said. As seen in this year’s legislative fight in Georgia (CD March 11 p7), however, municipal networks have also attracted many defenders, arguing for communities’ freedom to build their own networks.