[CWN-Summit] Stevens Bill on Community Broadband

[Harold Feld]

One of the few bright spots in last week's fight over the 
Communications Opportunity Enhancement Act of 2006 (COPE) was the 
pro-munibroadband provision.  The provision would both prohibit 
states from preventing municipalities from deploying broadband 
systems and repeal such laws in states where they exist.  This 
provision survived an effort to eliminate it and an effort to 
grandfather existing prohibitions.

The "Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act 
of 2006," introduced yesterday by Commerce Committee Chair Senator 
Stevens, and co-sponsored by Inoue, the ranking Democrat,  also 
addresses munibroadband systems.  Unfortunately, it does serious 
damage to the ability of local governments to offer broadband 
services directly.  Title V, "Municipal Broadband," mirrors the House 
language, but only with regard to "public-private partnerships" 
(Philadelphia would fall into this catagory).  With respect to purely 
public provided services, such as those offered by St. Cloud, the 
bill would require local governments to publish a notice of intent 
and give private sector providers a right of first refusal (similar 
to the existing law in Pennsylvania).

This presents a big problem for a large number of reasons, not least 
of which because a local government may chose to provide such 
services for the purpose of competing with a local monopoly provider 
or duopoly.

Harold