Tennessee is one of 20 states that have restrictions on municipal broadband networks, enacted to protect private Internet service providers from competition.

Now, though, there are four bills in the Tennessee House and Senate that would "un-do some of the restrictions previous legies put in place several years ago," broadband industry analyst Craig Settles wrote yesterday

"This kind of reversal is practically unheard of," he wrote. "What’s more surprising? Republicans lawmakers, typically the party that leads the charge against public-owned networks, are taking the lead on many of these bills in Tennessee!"

ISPs aren't happy about this, naturally. "We are particularly concerned about four bills that have been introduced this session," Tennessee Telecommunications Associations chief Levoy Knowles said in an announcement. The TTA claimed to be presenting "concerns of rural consumers" but are more worried about the potential of losing customers. "These bills would allow municipalities to expand beyond their current footprint and offer broadband in our service areas. If this were to happen, municipalities could cherry-pick our more populated areas, leaving the more remote, rural consumers to bear the high cost of delivering broadband to these less populated regions," Knowles said.

Existing Tennessee restrictions make it such that electric utilities may provide telecom services "only upon complying with various public disclosure, hearing, voting, and other requirements that a private provider would not have to meet. Municipalities that do not operate electric utilities can provide services only in 'historically unserved areas,' and only through joint ventures with the private sector."

The four new bills include two that focus on specific parts of the state and two that apply more generally. The bills would let the Clarksville municipal electric system provide fiber services outside its usual service area; let Trousdale County contract with rural electric cooperatives to provide broadband; let electric cooperatives that own dark fiber networks offer broadband to residents not already served by an existing telephone cooperative; and authorize municipal electric systems and other utilities to provide broadband outside their electric service areas.