The 2009 Stimulus" bill contained $7.2 billion for local government broadband - the federal government giving city county and municipal governments money to get into the Internet Service Provider (ISP) business.
Shocker - government broadband is a disaster. It already was for years before the 2009 Stimulus" - which just funded many many more disasters.
Everyone in Utah may be charged $20 a month to bail out UTOPIA - their woefully mis-named decade-long disaster government broadband project.
Provo Utah government broadband iProvo lost tens of millions - and then Google swooped in and purchased everything for one dollar.
Shocker - Google loves government broadband.
Government broadband is so terrible in fact that twenty states have passed laws limiting it.
Meanwhile these local governments have been just as awful as stewards for their residents when it comes to private broadband. You know the kind that actually works. You know the competitors to government broadband.
Local governments shakedown the living daylights out of any wired company that comes asking to provide service - making it nearly impossible for them to do so. Which has resulted in many areas suffering a dearth of hardline options.
Government is (yet again) the problem. The answer to government - isnt more government. Unfortunately no one has told this to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Tom Wheeler.
Decrying this government-created lack of options Wheeler has declared he will issue another Obama Administration fiat - steamrolling the laws of the twenty states and ramping up federal government spending on local government broadband.
Does the federal government have the authority to do this? Of course not.
And why not start with the thirty states that dont have these laws - you know be a little less dictatorial about it?
We answer all of this - and much more - in the video.
Youll find the answers…disquieting.