<div dir="ltr"><div>Apologies for the not-entirely-relevant post.<br><br>ALEC is an American lobbying group with a long history of promoting (among other things) state-level legislation that explicitly bans any government or municipal participation/investment in broadband infrastructure. I.e. to favor large, corporate Telcos. Looks like they want to get such a bill passed in Kansas.<br>
<br><a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/who-wants-competition-big-cable-tries-outlawing-municipal-broadband-in-kansas/">http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/who-wants-competition-big-cable-tries-outlawing-municipal-broadband-in-kansas/</a><br>
<br>"Legislation introduced in the Kansas state legislature by a lobby for
cable companies would make it almost impossible for cities and towns to
offer broadband services to residents and would perhaps even outlaw
public-private partnerships like the one that brought Google Fiber to
Kansas City.<br><br><a href="http://kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/sb304_00_0000.pdf">The Senate bill</a> doesn't
list any lawmaker as its sponsor, and there's a reason—a Senate
employee told us it was submitted by John Federico on behalf of the
Kansas Cable Telecommunications Association, of which he is president."<br><br></div>And a follow-up story, as the cable lobby is trying to tweak the bill to seem less restrictive ...<br><div><div><div><br clear="all">
<div><a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/cable-lobby-will-tweak-bill-banning-municipal-broadband-in-kansas/">http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/cable-lobby-will-tweak-bill-banning-municipal-broadband-in-kansas/</a><br>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Ben West<div><a href="http://gowasabi.net" target="_blank">http://gowasabi.net</a><br><a href="mailto:ben@gowasabi.net" target="_blank">ben@gowasabi.net</a><br>314-246-9434<br></div>
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