Boulder May Propose Muni Broadband Network; Wary of Industry Opposition

"Comcast will fight this hard, but there is widespread support among residents and our business community,” said City Councilman Macon Cowles, after the council Tuesday voted to begin a public process to put a measure on the November ballot. The measure would ask for voter approval, as required by a 2005 Colorado law (http://bit.ly/1sr6FUB), for the city to create a network either on its own or through a public-private partnership.

The ability of opposition groups to throw large amounts of money into efforts to defeat local proposals is further argument to pre-empt laws like Colorado’s that impose conditions like a public vote, say muni broadband allies. Longmont’s proposal was defeated in 2009, after a group, No Blank Check, spent $192,227.98 opposing it, according to city campaign finance records. The Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association gave $224,500 to the group, according to the records. The measure did pass in 2011 (CD Nov 7/13 p5), despite the $419,629.63 spent by a group, Look Before We Leap, funded in large part by $385,000 from CCTA, campaign records said.

City officials said it was the largest amount ever spent by either side of a city ballot measure. Christopher Mitchell, director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, said the money paid for mailings and newspaper ads, as well as for hiring people to dress as firefighters and wave signs saying they'd be laid off were the measure to pass. Municipalities under state election law are not allowed to campaign for measures they put on the ballot other than to provide factual information. No organized campaign promoted either measure, according to campaign finance records. The city spent about $6,000 in 2009 and $15,000 in 2011 informing voters, a city spokeswoman said, roughly 3 percent of the opposition in both elections. CCTA Executive Director Jeff Weist declined to comment.

Earlier this year, a proposal to change Tennessee state law to allow existing municipal networks to serve adjacent areas upon their request was blocked in the legislature by industry opposition, said SB-2562 (http://1.usa.gov/UQWQ3C) sponsor, Sen. Janice Bowling, a Republican who serves seven rural counties. “AT&T, Comcast, and Charter [Communications] just lobbied intensely,” said Bowling in an interview. She withdrew the measure when it was clear it had the votes to pass in the Senate but not the House. Bowling said she'll propose a bill next year to eliminate the law, which bars municipal networks from expanding outside their boundaries. Pre-emption would take industry influence out of the equation, Mitchell said: “States are controlled by legislatures and legislatures are controlled by Comcast and AT&T.”

Telecom Spending

In 2012, the last year examined by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, telecom companies were significant players in Colorado, but hardly the biggest in the state, having contributed $288,876 (http://bit.ly/1yoOlvK) in state elections. The telecom industry was the 14th largest giver in Tennessee, contributing $437,000 (http://bit.ly/1srb7CS), the institute said. Despite the possibility of FCC intervention, “Boulder is not a Wait And See city,” Cowles said by email. “Local confidence in the FCC is not high, given how the agency has allowed consolidation of broadcast networks.” Cowles’ position is non-partisan. The FCC had no response. AT&T, Charter, Comcast and NCTA declined comment.

Industry representatives pointed to a study (http://bit.ly/1pnE3bf) Wednesday critical of municipal broadband by the Advanced Communications Law and Policy Institute at New York Law School. ACLP director and study co-author, Charles Davidson, declined comment. The study contests claims from municipalities they need their own networks because of gaps in the services offered by private providers. Challenges remain in adoption, the study said, but over the past 15 years, “consumers have been getting increasingly more value for their money; average speeds have increased and the number of service options has multiplied.” In response to a “minimalist” regulatory environment, the total number of high-speed Internet connections grew almost 14 times larger between 1999 and 2004.

Building municipal networks diverts funds and municipal borrowing authority from addressing “crumbling” basic public infrastructure “in need of trillions of dollars of investment,” the study said. “Municipal governments do not have a strong record of keeping pace with technological advances or in shaping policies that reflect rapidly evolving consumer preferences for new services,” it said. Examining some of the 135 municipal fiber-optic broadband networks in the nation, the study found problems with the network run by the Electric Power Board in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which would have been allowed to expand under the Tennessee bill. A number of aspects of EPB’s network “render it unique and may make it difficult for other municipalities to replicate,” including the $110 million federal stimulus grant it received to deploy its smart grid, the study said. Opponents including the National Conference of State Legislatures have opposed a preemption as an infringement of state authority.

Despite the advances in broadband, municipal broadband proponents in Boulder and Tennessee say they are acting to fill gaps left by the companies. An EPB spokeswoman declined comment on the study. The utility has been asked by a number of surrounding communities to join the network and “we'd love accommodate if it were legal [given the state law] and there was a business case for it,” she said. Bowling would “love” pre-emption, she said. “This isn’t about state sovereignty. This is about rural areas being connected.” Boulder has a growing high-technology business sector, said Carl Castillo, city policy adviser. “You need to have incredibly fast broadband to work from home, and if you don’t have it, people are going to be going to Chattanooga.” (kmurakami@warren-news.com)