Қаңтарлық интернет: жергілікті биліктердің қызметі

Internet service from local governments

Municipal broadband is broadband Internet access offered by public entities. Services are often provided either fully or partially by local governments to residents within certain areas or jurisdictions. Common connection technologies include unlicensed wireless (Wi Fi, wireless mesh networks), licensed wireless (such as WiMAX), and fiber optic cable. Many cities that previously deployed Wi Fi based solutions, like Comcast and Charter Spectrum, are switching to municipal broadband. Municipal fiber to the home networks are becoming more prominent because of increased demand for modern audio and video applications, which are increasing bandwidth requirements by 40% per year. The purpose of municipal broadband is to provide internet access to those who cannot afford internet from internet service providers and local governments are increasingly investing in said services for their communities.

In Stockholm, the city owned Stokab provides network infrastructure through dark fiber to several hundred service providers who provide various alternative services to end users. Reggefiber in the Netherlands performs a similar role. The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency provides service at one network layer higher through a fiber network. This system's capacity is wholesaled to fifteen service providers who in turn provide retail services to the market. A final model is a provision of all layers of service, such as in Chaska, Minnesota, where the city has built and operated a Wi Fi Internet network that provides email and web hosting applications. These different models involve different public private partnership arrangements, and varying levels of opportunity for private sector competition. Some municipalities face the struggle of acting as host sites for broadband infrastructure, but not having access themselves to the services it provides. For example, Mendocino County, California, has acted as a cable landing site that connects the United States to Japan ever since the Cold War period, when the site was moved to the remote area from San Francisco for security purposes. Since ISPs do not prioritize areas like Mendocino Country which are not highly profitable for them, the area’s proximity to necessary cable infrastructure has historically had little to no impact on the quality and availability of service in the area, which is still largely underserved to this day.

Supporters and opponents often assess municipal networks based on the supposed impact that the network will have on the local economy. Because of significant financial interests on either side of the issue, there is a variety of academic literature that supports and rejects the feasibility of a municipal network from an economic perspective. Because municipal networks are publicly managed, they often lack the same profit incentive that private providers do. Proponents use this fact to argue that municipal broadband offers better prices, more equitable service, and increased competition in the broadband marketplace, in part because it is treated like a utility. Opponents argue that municipally run networks violate free speech rights outlined in the United States Bill of Rights.

Proponents of municipal broadband describe how such networks can provide high speed internet at lower rates than incumbent private internet service providers, with some municipalities even offering service for free at the point of connection. Opponents argue however that such networks are not actually cheaper to consumers when costs like the higher costs of construction, higher cost of maintenance, and tax subsidization that occurs with publicly managed utilities are factored in.

Proponents of municipal broadband also argue that the entrance of a public provider into a local market increases the competition which reduces prices and improves the quality of service. Opponents argue that the publicly funded networks have an unfair financial advantage that actually crowds out private investment and leads to long term reduction in competition and problems associated with monopolization.

Because of the different incentives and financing mechanisms that public providers have, municipal broadband has been marketed as a way of closing the digital divide by building more internet infrastructure in rural and low income areas that private providers have historically avoided. Opponents argue that there is no evidence that municipal broadband increases adoption of the Internet. They also argue that the funding spent on operating a public provider results in serious levels of waste that would have been better otherwise spent on subsidizing experienced private providers to offer service in rural and low income areas.

In a 2004 White House report, President George W. Bush called for "universal, affordable access for broadband technology by the year 2007" and "plenty of technology choices when it comes to purchasing broadband". In 2000, the Federal Communications Commission endorsed municipal broadband as a "best practice" for bringing broadband to underserved communities. The city of Philadelphia had the nonprofit Wireless Philadelphia accept bid from Earthlink to set up a network in 2004. "Philadelphia’s expectations were high; the city was eager, optimistic and, by the end of the decade, altogether too quick to chalk Wireless Philadelphia up as a failure. Still, the project was critical in laying the groundwork for future endeavors. Some of the hardware is still in use for an emergency communications network." In an op ed, Larry Irving stated that "private sector ownership generally is more effective and efficient, promotes innovation, and helps assure freedom of speech and open networks". Trump administration FCC commissioner Michael O'Rielly argued that governments were infringing on their residents' First Amendment rights via prohibitions on "hateful" or "threatening" speech in the acceptable usage policies for their broadband networks—even though these restrictions are general, boilerplate terms also used by commercial ISPs. Lobbying efforts are often conducted by existing commercial ISPs,—that seek to frustrate the deployment or expansion of municipal broadband networks. instituting regulatory burdens on the approval process or their operations (including requiring competing bids from private entities), restricting municipal broadband providers from expanding outside of their jurisdiction, restricting them to only being a wholesale provider for private entrants, prohibiting municipal broadband in cities above a certain population, and restricting access to utility poles (thus requiring underground digging, which can be costlier), among others. This pattern of state resistance to municipal broadband networks is support by the 2016 Circuit Court precedent Tennessee v. FCC. The successful campaign to hold a referendum on municipal broadband in Fort Collins, Colorado was opposed by the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association (which included incumbent Comcast), who spent nearly $1 million on lobbying efforts, and the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, which was backed by CenturyLink and Comcast. and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, have also been involved in lobbying efforts against municipal broadband projects. As of 2023, 16 states currently have laws that restrict or frustrate the establishment of municipal broadband networks. In May 2023, Colorado passed a bill to lift a law requiring referendums for municipal broadband networks; the bill received bipartisan support. On February 17, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed in an effort to build the economy, assist in job creation and retention, and improve U. S. infrastructure. The Act allocated $4.7 billion to establish a Broadband Technology Opportunities Program as part of the National Telecommunications and Information Agency State Broadband Data and Development Grant Program. A portion of funding awards were allocated to extending and developing broadband services to reach rural and "underserved areas," as well as improving broadband access for public safety agencies. In July 2010. the District of Columbia was awarded $17.4 million in federal funds for its DC Community Access Network. In 2010, the NTIA awarded a $126.3 million grant to West Virginia in order to improve the state's broadband infrastructure. The grant was particularly intended for public facilities such as hospitals, libraries, and schools. However, a report from West Virginia's legislative auditor suggested that the state had misused the stimulus money, and wasted an estimated $7.9–15 million on purchasing high capacity Cisco routers that were often installed in smaller facilities which did not require such extensive network capacity. Governor Earl Ray Tomblin established a task force to investigate the overspending. In January 2014, the NTIA rejected a proposal by the State to use the remaining $2.5 million (plus other funding, including credits from Cisco for returning the oversized routers) to fund a middle mile network, for not reaching "programmatic requirements" and missing a deadline for its use.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has addressed the question of whether a municipality was an "entity" under the Telecommunications Act which mandates that "No State or local statute or regulation, or other State or local legal requirement, may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications service." 47 USC 253(a). The legal question revolved around whether a state could prevent a municipality, as its subordinate government body, from entering the telecommunication market. In the case of Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League (2004), the U. S. Supreme Court concluded that a municipality was not an entity under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and that a state could determine what authority its own subordinate jurisdictions had. In February 2015, the FCC voted to assert this jurisdiction to challenge municipal broadband laws in North Carolina and Tennessee, citing authority under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to encourage the expansion of broadband by using "measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment." The FCC declined to appeal.