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A bill that would reduce state prohibitions on muni broadband deployments has moved out of committee and is headed for a vote by the U.S. SenateA bill that would reduce state prohibitions on muni broadband deployments has moved out of committee and is headed for a vote by the U.S. Senate.

The Community Broadband Act of 2007, which has broad bi-partisan support, aims to promote universal and affordable broadband access in the U.S. by prohibiting state legislatures from denying local governments the right to offer broadband municipal services to their citizens. Even as it assures local governments the right to deploy municipal broadband projects, it also protects private providers by forbidding munis from using governmental authority to discriminate against private competition.

Hopefully, theCommunity Broadband Act will be passed and will become law. State legislation forbidding local governments from enacting local initiatives to serve local residents flies in the face of everything we value about local control and small government.

It should never have required a proverbial “act of Congress” to insure that local government could make decisions aimed at lowering access rates and promoting economic development in their local communities. And yet, it did.

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