North Carolina considers loosening municipal broadband regulations: In May, Gov. Roy Cooper announced $9.8 million for broadband expansion to rural areas as part of a $35 million initiative to improve internet access across the entire state. Municipal broadband, however, has a troubled history in North Carolina and beyond.The bill cleared the North Carolina House State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday and will move to the chamber’s Finance Committee for a second vote, but industry officials are opposed. Spectrum’s senior director of government relations, Brian Gregory, said the increased competition from public entities would backfire.
“It’s especially troubling for us because our employees and our companies are going to be taxed to have competition against us, and that competition on top of that is also our regulator,” Gregory told WRAL, the NBC affiliate in Raleigh.
The thing is, advanced telecom infrastructure is NOT a competitive market. In fact, it's arguably a failed market because so many people who want better landline connections to their homes and small businesses and are willing to pay for them aren't able to buy them. Investor owned telephone and cable companies must also deal with inherent limitations on what they can invest in modernizing their infrastructures to fiber to the premise. Investors naturally push back when it comes to sacrificing profits and dividends to capital expenditures.
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