Wally Bowen, the Founder and Executive Director for the Mountain Area Information Network in Asheville, North Carolina, wrote the following op-ed with Tim Karr of Free Press. Wally gave us permission to reprint it here.

North Carolina has a long tradition of self-help and self-reliance, from founding the nation's first public university to building Research Triangle Park. Befitting the state's rural heritage, North Carolinians routinely take self-help measures to foster economic growth and provide essential local services such as drinking water and electric power.

Statesville built the state's first municipal power system in 1889, and over the years 50 North Carolina cities and towns followed suit. In 1936, the state's first rural electric cooperative was launched in Tarboro to serve Edgecombe and Martin counties. Today, 26 nonprofit electric networks serve more than 2.5 million North Carolinians in 93 counties.

Strangely, this self-help tradition is under attack. The General Assembly just passed a bill to restrict municipalities from building and operating broadband Internet systems to attract industry and create local jobs. Although pushed by the cable and telephone lobby, similar bills were defeated in previous legislative sessions. But the influx of freshmen legislators and new leadership in both houses created an opening for the dubiously titled "Level Playing Field" bill (HB 129).

No one disputes the importance of broadband access for economic growth and job creation. That's why five cities - Wilson, Salisbury, Morganton, Davidson and Mooresville - invoked their self-help traditions to build and operate broadband systems after years of neglect from for-profit providers, which focus their investments in more affluent and densely populated areas. Not coincidentally, all five cities own and operate their own power systems or have ties to nonprofit electric cooperatives.

(While the bill does not outlaw these five municipal networks, it restricts their expansion and requires them to make annual tax payments to the state as if they were for-profit companies.)

How does a state that values independence, self-reliance and economic prosperity allow absentee-owned corporations to pass a law essentially granting two industries - cable and telephone - the power to dictate North Carolina's broadband future? This question will be moot if Gov. Beverly Perdue exercises her veto power and sends this bill where it belongs: to the dustbin of history.

However, if the bill is signed into law, its passage could embolden the cable/telco lobby to take aim at the state's many independent, nonprofit broadband networks, primarily in the most rural areas. These networks, with little fanfare or publicity, have made real progress in addressing the rural broadband crisis over the last decade.

These nonprofits include traditional rural electric and telephone cooperatives as well as more recent start-ups such as Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN) and ERC Broadband, both based in Asheville. MAIN launched in 1996 to provide dial-up Internet access via a local call in some of the region's most remote communities. Prior to this, many mountain residents had to call long-distance to reach the Internet.

The catalyst for ERC Broadband's launch in 2003 was the possible loss of the National Climatic Data Center, which was looking to relocate to a community with more abundant and affordable broadband access. This homegrown fiber network helped keep NCDC and its high-paying jobs in Asheville. ERC's success helped spawn a second nonprofit fiber network, PANGAEA, serving Polk and Rutherford counties. Likewise, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee and a local software firm in Franklin joined forces to launch a third fiber network, BalsamWest, to serve the mountain counties west of Asheville.

This corporate assault on North Carolina's heritage of self-help and self-reliance is all the more bizarre because these out-of-state cable and telephone carriers have begun using the state's nonprofit networks, both rural and municipal, to supplement their network capacity and reduce their bandwidth costs. Common sense dictates that this corporate power-grab should end with a stroke of the governor's pen.

Though we certainly support the FCC's reclassification of broadband to ensure companies like Comcast do not interfere with the open Internet, we focus on policy at the community level. We fully support the efforts of organizations and people in DC to work at the federal level.

But for those who are utterly baffled at the questions being raised the the last 15 years of Internet policy, I strongly recommend a recent op-ed by Wally Bowen: "FCC needs to rethink broadband regulation."

The stakes are high. The Internet's explosive growth – and the spectacular innovation it spawned – were enabled by common-carrier rules that still govern the nation's dial-up telephone networks.

Before 2002, online users were at the center of the Internet and World Wide Web, free to choose among competing ISPs, and free to roam and innovate. With the removal of common-carrier rules, the cable and telephone companies occupied the center of a broadband-driven Web, free to pick winners and losers among innovators (e.g. AT&T's exclusive iPhone deal with Apple) – and free to dictate when and where broadband access will be deployed.

In short, the definitive battle for the future of the Internet is underway.

For some 12 hours last week, entire communities found themselves without access to telecommunications due to a fiber cut to a Qwest cable that services the entire region. This is not the first time such a cut has marooned everything from Homeland Security to long distance phone calls to businesses that can no longer accept credit card transactions -- but Qwest has refused to invest in a redundant cable, showing their disregard for those communities.

I wonder how many businesses were hurt by their sudden and unplanned isolation from clients, partners, and others. How many missed contracts or deadlines?

It shows the insanity of putting barriers before communities that are trying to build the very networks companies like Qwest promise but never deliver (barriers like the 65% referendum to offer telephone services for publicly owned networks). Both Lake and Cook Counties are waiting to hear the status of their applications for federal broadband stimulus funds, with which they will build broadband networks. Companies like Qwest and Mediacom have opposed new networks in an effort to protect their turf, even while refusing to invest in those areas because they do not generate sufficient profits.

These County initiatives have not been denied stimulus funding but have also not moved into the "due diligence" phase, placing them in limbo and forcing them to prepare additional applications for the second round of funding before they even know why their application was denied (if it is denied) in the first round. Somewhere, Joseph Heller is smiling.*

MPR provided good coverage of this fiber cut even though they did not air an explanation as to why Qwest finds it reasonable to keep these communities connected with a single cable.

Bank ATM's failed. No one could use their credit cards. But as bad as that was for business, the 12-hour-long outage knocked out what the federal government calls a "vital part of our nation's emergency response system."

The outage killed 911 emergency service in Cook County, Chief Deputy Leif Lunde said.

...

With no 911 service, county officials turned to volunteer firefighters to field emergency calls from normally un-staffed fire halls. Fire truck radios relayed the information back to Grand Marais. Ham radio operators provided a backup way for the Grand Marais hospital to consult with Duluth medical facilities.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers received help from their counterparts in Canada, according to Public Affairs Liaison Chris Misson.

Read, or listen to, the entire story - it is well worth it and a good reminder that these networks are essential infrastructure.

Update: Resident Jim Boyd has a great piece as well, describing the impact of this Internet dislocation:

County and state police officers lost the ability to check driver's licenses and vehicle plate numbers and to make warrant checks on people pulled over or behaving suspiciously.

...

Banks lost access to all of their online records and their ability to connect with other financial institutions. Business ground almost to a halt, save for the few simple transactions that required only a temporary paper record, such as cashing small checks or accepting deposits.

I won't quote more because you should read his entire analysis. The conclusion is impossible to dismiss: these networks are essential infrastructure and communities must have the option of building their own network to avoid these problems.

Many communities around the country have built their own networks to ensure redundancy to first responders and other vital entities. In New York and DC, the local government runs its own network because their public safety departments cannot be just another customer to the phone company. In North Carolina, the non-profit Mountain Area Information Network provided broadband access to ham radio operators to recover in the event of a natural disaster - the incumbent (a national company) is far less responsive to local needs.

Disruptive cuts to these networks are not infrequent around the country -- but they don't always make the news, unfortunately. 2 months ago, I got an email from an exasperated person in Nebraska who noted thousands had lost Internet for 12 hours at that point and they didn't know when it would end. Once again, it was caused by a cut to Qwest fiber. Googling it, I cannot find news of it anywhere except for some social media sites. Nebraska is one of the worst states when it comes to preempting communities from building their own networks -- they need to reconsider that decision to bring some competition to town.

*Author of Catch-22 for you non-literary types.

Photo by Jackanapes, used under creative commons license.