[IS4CWN] Upcoming ALEC-sponsored bill against municipal broadband investment in Kansas City

[Ben West]

Apologies for the not-entirely-relevant post.

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.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/who-wants-competition-big-cable-tries-outlawing-municipal-broadband-in-kansas/

"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.

The Senate bill<http://kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/sb304_00_0000.pdf>
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."

And a follow-up story, as the cable lobby is trying to tweak the bill to
seem less restrictive ...

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/01/cable-lobby-will-tweak-bill-banning-municipal-broadband-in-kansas/


-- 
Ben West
http://gowasabi.net
ben at gowasabi.net
314-246-9434
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