Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission voted to ease the way for cities to become Internet service providers. So-called municipal broadband is already a reality in a few towns, often providing Internet access and faster service to rural communities that cable companies don’t serve.
The cable and telecommunications industry have long lobbied against city-run broadband, arguing that taxpayer money should not fund potential competitors to private companies.
Private companies afraid of competition? Isn’t that what privatizing is all about?
The telecom companies have what may seem like an unlikely ally: states. Roughly 20 states have restrictions against municipal broadband.
And the attorneys general in North Carolina and Tennessee have recently filed lawsuits in an attempt to overrule the FCC and block towns in these states from expanding publicly funded Internet service…
As the New York Times detailed last year, state attorneys general have become a major target of corporate lobbyists and contributors including AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile…
And in the insurance industry, Unum, a corporation that is currently sleeping with the attorney general in Maine.
All Things Chronic 
As we all know, the free market can do everything better than big gummint, which is why me must protect it from competition. Meanwhile, in South Korea, they are rolling out 10gigabit per second broadband for $20 a month and many places have free 100 megabit per second broadband. My local internet monopoly features “blazing fast” 15 mbps crappy internet which is always losing the never higher than 7mbps connection with their encyclopedia-sized modem. All for the low price of $89 per month. What do those socialists in Korea know?
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I was just remembering how I got free AOL Online for six months with my first computer. And how, before digital, I didn’t have to pay for TV. Since I gave up cable TV, I realize how overpriced it was and how much I don’t miss it.
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