Google, others oppose telecom bill

It would limit cities' own networks

In the last week, four network and Internet technology companies, including Google, have publicly opposed a General Assembly bill that would sharply limit local governments' ability to create their own telecommunications network.

The Local Government Fair Competition Act (HB 1587), introduced in the N.C. House with bipartisan partnership in April, would not allow local governments to use tax revenue to fund any kind of telecommunications utility.

In a letter dated Monday to N.C. House Speaker Joe Hackney, a Google representative said the bill would prevent cities and towns from partnering with private telecom providers to establish broadband networks.

"HB 1587 threatens to undermine the establishment of such partnerships, particularly in rural and high-cost urban areas of North Carolina in which the state's incumbent providers are either serving poorly or not at all," read the letter signed by Google's state policy counsel, John Burchett.

Intel's letter called erecting barriers to public-sector Internet networks a mistake.

The two companies were joined by Alcatel-Lucent, a networking company in Raleigh, and Tropos Networks, a California-based company that provides wireless networks to cities and towns including Philadelphia and Wrightsville Beach.

Proponents of the bill say that allowing local governments to use taxes to create their own information utilities gives towns and cities an unfair advantage over private companies

The opposition was led by the N.C. Cable Telecommunications Association, a group representing the state telephone and cable industries.

"You can't collect tax revenues and use it to subsidize [municipal] commercial enterprise," said Wade Hargrove, an attorney representing the group.

Andy Romanet, general counsel with the N.C. League of Municipalities, said the bill would make funding for town or city networks difficult.

"It would make it virtually impossible to do one of these projects," Romanet said. "I call it the 'No Competition' act."

Most towns and cities in the state are moving to block the bill.

If the bill passes it could jeopardize an $18 million-network being built in Wilson. The former tobacco town is creating a blazing-quick fiber-optic network as a draw for businesses to replace an economy based on farming.

The network would also serve as a telephone, television and Internet public utility for its residents, said Brian Bowman, a spokesman for the city.

Bowman said the city began its own network after it couldn't get the local telecom to install fiber-optic cable.

Mark Chilton, mayor of Carrboro, one of the first towns in the nation with free wireless Internet, said the bill would hurt expansion of that system, and would prevent rural and poorer citizens from getting online.

"It's clear that this is just an industry ploy that everyone and everywhere should have to pay somebody on Wall Street to get on the Internet," Chilton said.