Maine Passes Muni Broadband Bill; North Carolina House Clears Electric Co-Op Bill
Maine lawmakers passed a broadband bill allowing municipalities to construct, maintain and operate infrastructure. The Senate concurred Tuesday with the House to pass HB-1063 (see 1905030038). North Carolina House members voted 115-1 that day to pass H-387 empowering electric cooperatives…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
to provide broadband. The House sent the bill to the Senate, which last week voted 49-0 to pass the similar S-310 (see 1905020050). Maine incumbent Consolidated Communications has "serious concerns with the use of public funds to overbuild existing broadband networks," wrote Vice President-Regulatory Mike Shultz about the Maine bill. "Collaborative arrangements between municipalities and existing service providers, like the public-private partnerships we recently announced in Chesterfield, N.H., and Brooklin, Maine, lessen the burden on taxpayers and ensure appropriate design and maintenance of the network." The Maine Municipal Association pushed for the bill and doesn't expect a veto since the bill won't cost the state and got unanimous support from legislators, emailed MMA Legislative Advocate Garrett Corbin.