Big ISPs Spent $1 Million Attacking Colorado Community Broadband

Big ISPs Spent $1 Million Attacking Colorado Community Broadband ISPs like Comcast and CenturyLink spent nearly $1 million dollars trying to prevent one Colorado community from even discussing creative, community-driven solutions to the broadband competition problem. The spending comes courtesy of new ISP financial disclosures our of Fort Collins, where locals recently ignored ISP concerns and voted to begin discussing possible local, community-driven solutions. The vote arrived after years of frustration over substandard broadband connectivity and high prices thanks to limited industry competition.

Colorado is one of more than twenty states where incumbent broadband ISPs have quite literally written and purchased state protectionist laws prohibiting towns and cities from getting into the broadband business, even in instances where the private sector has failed to deliver. But Colorado is unique in that town and cities in the state have been able to vote locally on whether to overturn this ISP-lobbying-for- law, SB 152. And guess what? They keep voting to exempt themselves from the law, usually overwhelmingly. Dozens of cities and towns continue to opt out of the restrictive state measure during local elections. More than 100 have done it so far, which should tell you plenty about how locals feel about their local broadband options. Fort Collins was only the latest, 57.15% of local voters voting yes on a ballot option that, again, only opened the door to discussing possible future community-driven connectivity options. That vote came despite much of this money being spent on an ISP proxy group by the name of "Priorities First Fort Collins," which produced several misleading local ads in an attempt to confuse local voters. Said ads tried to suggest that were voters to approve even having a conversation about community broadband, that the end result would be roads not getting paved and the city falling into disrepair. ISPs like AT&T, Centurylink and Comcast consistently refuse to comment on the record regarding these kinds of efforts. They'll also refuse to comment on their twenty-year history of buying state laws that hamstring voter authority over their own, local infrastructure and communities. That silence, and recent Colorado voting history, should speak volumes in terms of these ISPs understanding just how popular their ham-fisted attempts to protect the status quo are. »twitter.com/bikerglen/st ··· 39858944

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Sparks, NV XxDjHeXeRxX Premium Member You would think... If they took that 901k and invested it into their infrastructure, they wouldn’t need to be a need for muni broadband... sims

join:2013-04-06 sims Member It would be trivial for them to stop it. All they would have to do would be to bring service out there to everyone and support for the community broadband would evaporate.

However they don't want to do that they just want to ensure they are the only ones that can because they think they might want to do that at some point in the future.

It's like when people download content they have no legal avenues to get and the companies claim millions in losses from potential profits even though they had no intention of ever making it available.

Those people are pirating the internet!!

Community broadband is killing ISP monopolies.

You wouldn't use google instead of the company provided comcrap™ search engine. You wouldn't use an ad blocker. You wouldn't mute video ads. You wouldn't use a streaming service like netflix.

Using community broadband is stealing! Stealing is against the law!

/s obviously but those really would all be illegal if they could. b10010011

Bellingham, WA b10010011 Member Where are all the "States Rights" Conservatives in this one? Oh yeah, they do not exist unless the POTUS is a Democrat. Ostracus

Henderson, KY Ostracus Member Feet to fire. quote: ISPs like AT&T, Centurylink and Comcast consistently refuse to comment on the record regarding these kinds of efforts. They'll also refuse to comment on their twenty-year history of buying state laws that hamstring voter authority over their own, local infrastructure and communities. That silence, and recent Colorado voting history, should speak volumes in terms of these ISPs understanding just how popular their ham-fisted attempts to protect the status quo are. Kind of the job of media and watchdogs to hold their feet to the fire. Kind of the job of media and watchdogs to hold their feet to the fire.

@2604:2000.x Anon8277f Anon You have to love local politics You have to love local politics. At the federal level, $900,000 could have bought them 10 senators. Here it made almost no difference.