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Communities around the world believe that affordable, high-speed internet access for everyone is a utility as necessary as electricity to compete in the high-tech, global marketplace and to erase the "digital divide. Municipalities as diverse as Philadelphia and Muncie are taking the lead in providing those services.
The solutions are varied: free wireless broadband in heavily populated areas, partnerships with network companies to provide a seamless, low cost wireless mesh throughout the city, or contracts with phone companies to extend high capacity fiber optic lines to all homes. Industry is fighting back with huge ad campaigns against local referenda and state and federal legislation to prevent or curtail municipal and community broadband. Such a bill in the Indiana House died in committee earlier this year. However, at the recent Indiana Technology Summit which showed Indiana ranking 34th in broadband infrastructure in the country, Governor Mitch Daniels, was quoted in the Indianapolis Star as saying that Indiana will not compete with private business in providing broadband. This article is part of a series on 2005/2006 telecommunications legislative reform from the November/December 2005 issue of The Right of Way newsletter. Additional Resources: Community Internet: Broadband as a Public Service (pdf), Free Press, May 2005 "How Can Indiana Plug Into the Tech Economy?" Indianapolis Star, November 2, 2005 Free Press reports, "Broadband Reality Check" (pdf) and "Community Internet: Broadband as a Public Service" (pdf), and Community Internet action page "Where No Broadband Has Gone Before," by Rural Policy Research Institute "Unlicensed Wireless Broadband Profiles: Community, Municipal & Commercial Success Stories," (pdf), New America Foundation Municipal Broadband and Wireless Projects Map, C/Net "Are We Really A Nation Online? Ethnic and Racial Disparities in Access to Technology and Their Consequences," (pdf) by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, September 2005 |
