New Round of Municipal Broadband Fight Starts at Georgia Legislature
Georgia is the latest state to join the fight over municipal broadband. While the industry claimed the recently proposed Broadband Investment Equity Act (SB 313) would encourage private investment and level the playing field, opponents said the bill would overrule local decision-making authority in broadband.
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The bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R), seeks to make government entities adhere to the same rules that private companies follow when building communications networks, a statement from the Georgia Senate said. The proposal requires communities to issue a request for proposals that telecom providers could bid on before building a network, and have a special election so residents can vote for or against having a project moving forward. The bill also includes requirements for the public entity to pay the same taxes or the same cost of capital as the private providers.
About 15 cities in Georgia with community broadband networks would be affected by the bill, said a spokeswoman for the Georgia Municipal Association. Many of these systems require loans, so cities must provide business plans, she said. The legislation would totally change their business plans, she said. The proposal creates hurdles to make it nearly impossible for cities to get into the telecom business, she said. The legislation exempts the city of Lagrange from certain requirements because it’s already in the business, said Tom Hall, city manager. The city financed and constructed a fiber network in the 1990’s. The only reason local governments get into the business is that their communities aren’t being adequately served, he said. Municipalities are only “a grain of sand on a beach” in the broadband business, he said: “I don’t see us being a formidable threat to the telecom business in Georgia at all."
The bill would protect Georgia businesses by requiring the governments to have consumer votes, said Stephen Loftin, executive director with the Cable TV Association of Georgia. In many parts of the state, there are four to five providers competing already, he said. Companies in the state have made significant investments and those expenses are often underestimated, he said. Georgia isn’t lacking in broadband, said John Silk, executive vice president of the Georgia Telecom Association. A few cities have gotten into telecom, but many of them have gotten out of it due to things like technical and financial issues, he said. It’s the public tax money that’s being risked, Loftin said. Georgia consumers have plenty of service options, he said. Though a public-private partnership might make sense, “they should always go to the private sector first,” he said.
There are 50 fiber networks owned by U.S. communities and more than 70 cable networks run by communities, said Craig Settles, a community broadband consultant. He said there have been only a couple of failures. The only advantage is that public providers can wait to get a return on investments, but companies can’t, he said.