WASHINGTON-A bill sponsored by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) banning municipal telecommunications, including Wi-Fi, has brought to the national stage a fierce battle already playing out in the states, pitting wireline and cable carriers against cities, consumer advocates and the high-tech sector anxious to exploit wireless broadband.
Sessions introduced his bill days before the Texas legislature ended its session last month without agreeing to a telephone and cable-backed measure to ban municipal-broadband networks. In Maine, the governor recently signed a bill that would allow municipalities to offer telecommunications.
Bell and cable operators fared better in Florida and Nebraska, where bills banning municipal telecommunications were passed.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Jeb Bush signed into law legislation requiring local governments to approach incumbent telecom and cable companies before pursuing large-scale Wi-Fi deployments like those planned by Philadelphia; San Francisco; Corpus Christi, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; Spokane, Wash.; and many smaller communities. The Florida legislation is similar to a Pennsylvania law that went into effect soon after Philadelphia announced its plans to build a municipal Wi-Fi system. The law allowed Philadelphia’s project to go forward but other Quaker state communities will have to wait for established players to offer broadband before considering municipal systems.
The Sessions bill, which has been referred to the House Commerce Committee, would not impact municipal Wi-Fi systems that are already operating.
“With H.R. 2726, Congressman Sessions’ goal is to encourage greater rollout of telecom services to consumers. In the event of market failure, local governments would be free to fill the void,” said Gina Vaughan, press secretary to Sessions. “Granbury, Texas, is a great example. About four-fifths of the city is covered by private high-speed Internet providers, but about one-fifth of the city did not have a high-speed Internet provider, so the city stepped in to fill the void.”
Though apparently not as active as wireline and cable operators in the states, mobile-phone carriers-several owned by regional Bell operating companies-oppose cities treading on their turf. They argue municipalities are ill-equipped to offer broadband service and actually could hinder uptake of high-speed Internet access in communities if citizens have unpleasant experiences with municipal Wi-Fi service or other telecom offerings.
“I cannot believe he [Sessions] woke up one day and decided municipal broadband is bad,” said Alan Shark, executive director of Public Technology Institute. PTI promotes high technology as a valuable tool of local governments. PTI opposes bans on municipal telecommunications.
So does Dianah Neff, chief information officer for the city of Philadelphia, who said the bill is too prohibitive. “If you took it to the farthest extent, it could prohibit cities from having their own fiber networks for their own use. … Obviously we are not in support of it. It was not well conceived.”
Sessions is a former manager at SBC Communications Inc., and his wife works in the SBC customer care and billing department in Texas. He has received $52,600 in Bell campaign contributions during the past three election cycles. He also holds thousands of dollars in SBC and Verizon Communications Inc. stock, according to his most recent House financial disclosure statement available.
“The bill is consistent with how he views the world,” said SBC spokesman Michael Balmoris. “It is not as if he had been an advocate (of municipal telecommunications), and he had flipped.”
Municipal Wi-Fi proponents argue cities and communities are well positioned to offer broadband services to poor and underserved communities.
“The Sessions bill would be a major step in the wrong direction for America,” said James Baller, a lawyer involved in a Missouri municipal-broadband lawsuit decided by the U.S. Supreme Court last year. “A century ago, when the private sector was not moving fast enough to electrify America, particularly in rural areas, thousands of communities stepped forward to create their own electric utilities. As a result, millions of Americans obtained the vast benefits of the electricity decades faster then they would have if they had waited for the private sector to get around to them. Now, the same thing is happening in the broadband area.”
The high court ruled that a provision of the Telecommunication Act of 1996 forbidding states from barring “any entity” from providing telecom services does not include local governments. At the same time, the Supreme Court decision did not prohibit municipalities from providing Wi-Fi and other broadband services, but rather gave states the last word on the matter.
Sessions is not a member of the House Commerce Committee so it is unclear whether his bill will be considered as that panel debates the end of the digital TV transition and broader telecommunications reform.
