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January 05, 2006

Municipal wireless before legislature

Joe Berkemeier at Joe's Web Compound sent an email to IBR to give a heads up on legislation that could impact Indiana's municipalities and their wireless networks.  Hidden in a lengthy bill is a provision that some say could kill municipal efforts to provide broadband services.  There has been little coverage of this issue, report the telecom blogs.

Joe writes:

There's a lot of chat on municipal wireless blogs about a bill in the Indiana Senate (SB 245) that would prohibit Indiana towns from offering their own broadband services. 
Maybe linking to blogs such as http://muniwireless.com/municipal/watch/969 or http://www.wetmachine.com/totsf/item/406 would be best.  Neither are Indiana blogs per se, however, but the issue would seem to have Indiana relevance. 
An analysis of the bill (is available) from http://www.baller.com/pdfs/Baller_Proposed_State_Barriers.pdf 
To review: when last we left the state of Indiana, SBC had tried to use a pet Representative to introduce a stand alone bill effective barring muni broadband. To their surprise, it didn't get out of subcommittee, as lots of folks from rural areas and less desirable markets explained that if the law passed, they could not expect to see affordable broadband anytime soon. Without broadband, their economies stagnated and died. We closed with democracy triumphant. Repeat in 2005 in about a dozen other states.

But, like Jason, Chucky, or Jar-Jar Binks, the telco lobbyists and their wholly owned subsidiaries in the state legislature keep comming back for endless sequels. Once again, the forces of corporate welfare have learned from their previous mistakes and have unvieled their new tactic — trying to sneak these provisions through as part of larger telecom reform bills. SB 245 is over 100 pages long, with numerous complex provisions on hot button issues like pricing, redlining and local franchising. The few news stories about SB 245 have not even mentioned the anti-muni provisions.

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Comments

The bill doesn't prevent municipal networks. It requires cities to allow private networks to have first shot at providing service. If no private provider is interested, the city can do so after holding a public hearing.

Posted by: | January 05, 2006 at 11:06 PM

Joe

No, it doesn't prevent it. It just gives the local broadband providers veto power. And any "political subdivision" has to do far more than just hold a public hearing. From http://www.baller.com/pdfs/Baller_Proposed_State_Barriers.pdf

>> A municipality can initiate or extend the provision of “broadband service” after June 30, 2006, only if no other entity is then providing broadband service or intends to do so within 3 months, in the area in question. A municipality must go through an extensive process specified in the bill to determine whether one or more current or potential providers exists. If the municipality determines that no such provider exists, it must then engage in a cumbersome administrative process to determine whether to proceed, followed by judicial review that could effectively tie up a municipal project for years. The bill would also prohibit municipalities from charging any portion of the costs of a project to persons other than service recipients, and it would restrict funding to revenue bonds. <<

That's the way I'm reading the bill, too. Sounds like more than just a hearing.

Reading the bill, I don't see where the bill has language where any provider who "intends" to provide services actually has to deliver on their promise, nor any language about the costs, nor any language about the percentage of the "political subdivison" that must be covered. I guess that means those $800 a month T1 line prices that exist in small towns are now legally protected, and towns will have to pay them. The funny thing? Towns can't use those lines to offer WiFi to their citizens- doing so is prohibited in the contract.

As far as giving private companies the first shot, this is an economic development issue. Ask the folks in Auburn and Scottsburg why they needed to create their own broadband infrastructure in the first place - the local phone companies refused to wire them. Those towns had jobs walking out of town unless they wired themselves. With this new law, those towns would have to no reasonable option other than paying whatever prices the local broadband providers felt like charging them. This bill was a bad idea in 2005 when it was HB1148, and it's still a bad idea as SB245.

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