Colorado Kills A Crappy, Anti-Competitive Law Bought by Comcast

For two decades now we've noted how more than 21 states have passed laws, quite literally written by giant ISP lobbyists, preventing towns and cities from building their own broadband networks. In many instances these laws even ban towns and cities from striking public private partnerships with companies like Ting or Google Fiber, often the only way many of these areas are able to get better, cheaper, and faster broadband.

Writing and buying awful state laws is often cheaper for ISPs thanso cities won't head down this road in the first place.

While Centurylink and Comcast convinced Colorado lawmakers to pass one such law (SB 152) back in 2005, they were forced to include a provision letting individual towns and cities ignore the law if they vote in a referendum. They've likely regretted allowing it ever since.

Time and time again, local Colorado residents tired of substandard broadband have voted overwhelmingly in favor of ignoring the Comcast-bought SB 152.

This week, six more Colorado towns and cities were given the option of opting out of SB 152, and the results weren't even close. Local municipal broadband activists like Glen Akins tell DSLReports.com that the towns of Firestone (1568 to 347), Frisco (634 to 69), Lake City (222 to 18), Limon (347 to 92) Severence (621 to 118) and Lyons (526 to 139) all voted overwhelmingly to invalidate SB 152, showing (again) how community broadband tends to have strong, bipartisan support among a public tired of substandard monopolies.

Locals tell the Denver Post (warning, adblock blocker) that many locals were "spooked" by the FCC's repeal of net neutrality last December, making the idea of a locally-owned and operated community ISP that respects privacy and net neutrality more appealing than ever.

With this week's yes votes, 93 cities and towns and more than 30 counties have already overturned Comcast and CenturyLink's abysmal law. Though it's worth noting that the lion's share of the other 20 state protectionist measures don't include this kind of loophole. To eliminate them, voters are going to need to vote out state politicians that prioritize monopoly revenues over the public welfare.

Again, if Comcast doesn't want towns and cities getting into the broadband business, there's a very simple solution: offer better, cheaper and faster service. Towns and cities aren't getting into the broadband business, they're doing so because they're at their wits end with hidden fees , unnecessary usage caps and overage fees , and what's technically the worst customer service in any industry in America.