FCC's Gigi Sohn to American Cities: Stop Waiting - Build Your Own Public Broadband Networks

[bananas]

http://stopthecap.com/2015/09/15/fccs-gigi-sohn-to-american-cities-stop-waiting-build-your-own-public-broadband-networks/

FCC’s Gigi Sohn to American Cities: Stop Waiting – Build Your Own Public Broadband Networks

Phillip Dampier September 15, 2015

A top counselor to Federal Communications Commission chairman Thomas Wheeler told a conference of city officials meeting in San Diego last week they should stop waiting around for the local phone or cable company to deliver the broadband service their communities need and build their own publicly owned broadband service instead.

Gigi Sohn was the keynote speaker at a luncheon held last week by the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisers (NATOA), a major professional association representing individuals and organizations that manage telecom policies and services in local governments across the country.

“Without question, the landscape is changing for local governments,” she said, as reported by Multichannel News. “Most significantly, the future is not in cable, but in broadband,” adding: “Even the cable operators acknowledge this…Rather than wait for incumbent ISPs to build the network your cities want and need, you can take control of your own broadband futures.”

The FCC under the leadership of Thomas Wheeler has targeted anti-municipal broadband laws in the states of North Carolina and Tennessee for federal pre-emption, effectively invalidating laws ghost-written by telecommunications industry lobbyists working for the states’ dominant telecom companies — Time Warner Cable in North Carolina and AT&T and Comcast in Tennessee. The laws are designed to restrict or discourage municipal broadband competition.

<snip>

[Downwinder]

1. Tell that to Austin, TX.

[marmar]

2. K/R