Update: Once, again, the committee has pushed the bill back... now to Wednesday afternoon. One wonders how normal people with jobs are supposed to follow legislation live when they have no certainty when a specific subject will be discussed. End Update.
After a short-lived victory last week, Time Warner's bill (to prevent communities from building broadband networks that would compete with them) will apparently be considered today. Once again, we refer you to Jay Ovittore at Stop the Cap! for more direct information on who you can contact in the state to register opposition to this monopoly protection act.
There is a new development though, Save NC Broadband suggests there is a new bill to specifically allow Caswell County to build a broadband network.
This sort of monopoly protectionist legislation is extremely frustrating because Time Warner and other similar companies have the funds and power to push it over and over again. We cannot win by simply rising up once and putting it down; we know it will come up time and time again. Each time, they will make more campaign contributions and hire more lobbyists because those expenses are small compared to what they would lose if communities gain a real choice between broadband networks.
Language added to a New York State budget bill is threatening to undermine a municipal broadband grant program established by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office earlier this year. Buried near the bottom of the Assembly budget proposal is a Trojan horse legislative sources say is being pushed by lobbyists representing Charter Spectrum, the regional cable monopoly and 2nd largest cable company in the U.S. that was nearly kicked out of New York by state officials in 2018 for atrocious service.
Four different Alabama electric cooperatives receive nearly $35 million in grant funding to expand fiber access to more than 11,092 rural Alabama homes and businesses. Meanwhile, the big incumbents operating in the state, Charter and Mediacom rake in lion's share of the rest of the state's federal Capital Projects Fund.
A looming new bill by Republican Kentucky State Senator Gex Williams could undermine decades of broadband progress made in the state’s capital city by a popular locally-owned utility, Frankfort Plant Board (FPB). Home to 28,000 Kentuckians, locals and utility officials are incensed at the bill, which they believe will unnecessarily result in higher rates, fewer jobs, and less broadband competition overall. Williams is circulating a bill in the Kentucky state legislature that, if passed, would force FPB to sell its broadband division to a private-sector company and subject it to more stringent oversight requirements.
The Knoxville Utility Board (KUB) says it has completed the first phase of what will be the nation's largest municipal broadband deployment, bringing affordable fiber access to more than 50,000 premises in this city of 192,000 – many for the very first time. All told, the $702 million project aims to deliver affordable fiber to 210,000 households across KUB’s 688-square-mile service area, taking between seven and ten years to complete.
The Center for Digital Equity has published a new fact sheet for digital navigators that explains commonly used words related to Internet access that are not so familiar to those outside of the tech industry.
Lancaster, Pennsylvania has revitalized the city’s long percolating plan for a municipal broadband network, this time via a public-private partnership (PPP) with Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (Shentel). The city’s quest for more affordable, reliable broadband is a quest that’s taken the better part of a decade to finally come to fruition.