The Colorado legislature has passed several new broadband bills that should aid affordable broadband deployment in the state. According to a state announcement, the new bills do everything from expanding the leeway the state has in spending broadband funding, to providing some tax breaks to providers heavily invested in rural deployment.

Colorado has been a key player in the municipal broadband space, and is home to several major municipal broadband deployments (from Longmont’s Nextlight to Fort Collins’ Connexion) that have been proven inspirational to municipalities across the country.

Several of the new laws should prove helpful to municipal broadband operations and private sector ISPs alike.

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HB 24-1334, for example, dictates that a multi-dwelling unit (MDU) building owner can’t deny a broadband provider access to the property to install broadband infrastructure. Muni operations in places like Dryden, New York have told ILSR repeatedly that they often face difficulty accessing MDU properties.

In March, Charter Communications tried (and failed) to include a poison bill in New York State’s budget bill that would have hamstrung community broadband. In stark contrast, a New York legislator this month introduced new legislation he says would make it easier than ever for New York state municipal broadband projects to thrive.

State Senator Jeremy Cooney of Rochester has introduced the Broadband Deployment Assistance Act of 2024 (S9134), which would streamline the permitting process for municipal broadband projects by "amending the general municipal law, in relation to requiring substantially similar permits for broadband deployment to be processed together at the same time and on an expedited basis."

“With a quicker timeline and more efficient process for local governments, we can create affordable options for New Yorkers that empower them to take control of their digital destiny,” Cooney wrote in an editorial published at Syracuse.com.

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Cooney says he was motivated by a lack of broadband competition in New York State. New York is dominated by Charter Communications, which was almost kicked out of the state in 2019 for poor service and  misleading regulators about broadband deployment conditions affixed to its 2016 purchase of Time Warner Cable.

*In partnership with Broadband Breakfast, we occasionally republish each other's content. The following story by Broadband Breakfast Reporter Jericho Casper was originally published here.

In a setback to efforts aimed at enhancing broadband access across Wisconsin, the state Senate dealt a blow to three key bills aimed at improving various aspects of broadband provision Monday.

The first bill in question, AB 1180, aimed to give local governments more autonomy by allowing them to apply for broadband grants directly, rather than requiring them to partner with a telecommunications utility or a for-profit organization, as is required under current (state) law.

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The bill also proposed expanding the permissible uses of grants beyond infrastructure construction and would have eliminated a requirement for a city, village, or town to prepare a feasibility report before constructing or operating facilities for public telecommunications, cable TV or broadband services.

Presently, Wisconsin law necessitates a public hearing before a local government can pass an ordinance or resolution to provision such facilities. Additionally, at least 30 days before this hearing, these entities must furnish a comprehensive report to the public, detailing the facility's costs, revenues, and a cost-benefit analysis spanning three years. AB 1180 would have waived the need for this report preparation.

Manding Internet Service Providers Deliver Advertised Speeds

A looming new bill by Republican Kentucky State Senator Gex Williams could undermine decades of broadband progress made in the state’s capital city by a popular locally-owned utility, Frankfort Plant Board (FPB).

Home to 28,000 Kentuckians, local residents and utility officials in Frankfort are incensed at the bill, which they believe will unnecessarily result in higher rates, fewer jobs, and less broadband competition overall.

Williams is circulating a bill in the Kentucky state legislature that, if passed, would force FPB to sell its broadband division to a private-sector company and subject it to more stringent oversight requirements. In guest editorials circulated in the local press, Williams insists his goal is to “rein in” the FPB, which he deems part of a “runaway” government that lacks accountability.

But there’s no evidence for Williams’ allegations of limited accountability, and locals and activists alike believe that the legislator is simply running interference for regional broadband monopolies upset by the added competition created by the popular, publicly-owned utility.

Another Community-Owned Solution Addressing Market Failure

Like many local U.S. communities, Frankfort sees a notable dearth of meaningful broadband competition, resulting in patchy broadband coverage, slow speeds, high prices, and abysmal customer service. Enter the Frankfort Plant Board, which has been deploying affordable fiber access across the community under the NEXTBAND brand.

A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers continues to make slow but steady progress on legislation that would make federal broadband grants tax exempt, providing significant relief for big and small companies alike trying to bridge America’s stubborn digital divide.

U.S. Representatives Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) and Mike Kelly (R-PA) and Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) recently reintroduced the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act (BGTTA) in both the House and Senate. The bill would amend IRS code to ensure that funding for broadband deployment from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) will not be considered taxable income.

“We have made significant strides to ensure that access to high-speed internet is available to more Americans than ever,” Senator Warner said in a statement. “But taxing broadband investment awards diminishes our efforts. This legislation ensures that individuals and businesses are able to reap the benefits of every dollar set aside for broadband expansion and deployment so that we can accomplish our goal of bringing reliable broadband to every corner of Virginia.”

The exemptions included in the bill would also apply retroactively to any qualified grant amounts received in 2021 and 2022.

Hoping to ensure it can actually spend its share of historic broadband funding, Montana lawmakers have tweaked the state’s restrictions on community broadband. However, experts say most of the state law’s pointless restrictions remain intact, undermining state efforts to bring affordable, next-generation broadband access to Montana residents.

Montana’s one of seventeen states that have passed laws banning or restricting municipal broadband networks. The bills are usually ghost written by telecom monopoly lawyers, and in many states either outright prohibit community-owned broadband networks, or are designed to make funding and expanding such networks untenable.

Montana’s specific law, Mon. Code Ann. § 2-17-603, only allow municipalities to build and deliver broadband alternatives if there are no other private companies offering broadband within the municipality’s jurisdiction, or if the municipality can offer “advanced services” that are not available from incumbents.

Covid home schooling and telecommuting needs highlighted the counterproductive nature of such restrictions, driving some states—such as Arkansas and Washington—to dramatically roll back their restrictions.

Earlier this month, a new Colorado bill was introduced that, if passed, would rid the state of a law designed to protect monopoly Internet service providers (ISPs) from competition.

SB-183, titled “Local Government Provision Of Communications Services,” seeks to gut a law Big Telecom pushed state lawmakers to pass in 2005. That law, known as SB-152, prevented any of Colorado’s 272 municipalities from building and operating their own telecommunication infrastructure unless local voters first passed a referendum to “opt out.”

End of ‘the Qwest Law’?

Known also as “the Qwest law,” Qwest (now Lumen but more recently CenturyLink), with the help of Comcast, leaned on legislative allies to pass SB-152 to protect their monopoly profits. On our Community Broadband Bits podcast, Ken Fellman and Jeff Wilson, prominent telecom attorneys, recount how lobbyists for the monopoly ISPs were instrumental in pushing two false, but effective, narratives we’ve seen many times before: that SB-152 only sought to “level the playing field” so that private companies could compete with municipally run networks, and that SB-152 “protected” Coloradoans from irresponsible local governments, as if there were no such things as local elections.

But, if passed, the new proposed legislation (SB-183) – co-sponsored by a bipartisan-ish group of state legislators (10 Democrats and 2 Republicans) – would neuter SB-152 and allow local communities to decide for themselves if they wanted to pursue municipal broadband without needing special permission from the state.

Freshly proposed legislation in Missouri would prohibit towns and cities from using federal funds to improve broadband access in areas telecom monopolies already claim to serve. It’s just the latest attempt by incumbent telecom giants to ensure that an historic wave of federal broadband funding won’t harm their revenues by boosting local broadband competition.

Missouri SB 1074 - Sponsored by Sen. Dan Hegeman (R., District 12), proclaims that “no federal funds received by the state, political subdivision, city, town, or village shall be expended for the construction of retail broadband internet infrastructure unless the project to be constructed is located in an unserved area or underserved area.” It passed the Senate Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy and the Environment Committee on April 13th.

According to the bill, the Missouri Office of Broadband Infrastructure would certify the project prior to a political subdivision receiving authorization. Before being authorized, the office would be mandated to check with incumbent broadband providers to ensure that they don’t offer service in the specified area. 

The bill prohibits federal funding for any projects in areas where a single provider already receives funding to deliver 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) download speeds. If it passes, it also allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to submit written challenges to grant applicants within 45 days. The Department of Economic Development would then be tasked with determining the truthfulness of each challenge. 

Only if applicants can prove they’re servicing an “unserved” or “underserved” area (which again is defined by flawed FCC Form 477 data that routinely overstates existing coverage and speeds using broadband definitions set at ankle height) will the applications be deemed valid. 

But the bill gives incumbent monopolies even greater leverage in the challenge process, by letting them challenge a deployment if an incumbent ISP has “taken affirmative steps to begin the process of construction to provide broadband,” or “has been designated funding through federal programs to support the deployment of broadband” in the targeted areas.