WiFi Municipal Services

Internet and WiFi hot-spots have been popping-up everywhere lately, at a favorite coffee shop or maybe even in a local park. Sometimes these networks are provided by stores and shops. Other times the networks are provided by the city or a non-profit.

Many parts of America do not have broadband and go under-served by traditional Internet service providers, whether it’s because of limited resources or the provider believes there is a lack enough demand to make the investment. To address this problem, an increasing number of towns across the U.S. have decided that, as a public and commercial good, the municipality will blanket the town with WiFi, at little or no additional cost to its citizens. Basic Internet access benefits small businesses as well as consumers.

Unfortunately, in some states, Internet service providers have taken the viewpoint that if they cannot provide the locale Internet access, no one should. It’s an issue of competition, and these companies have stated that they do not want to compete with a governmental entity that provides Internet services (even though it’s is often not the municipality itself providing the service). These Internet service providers have lobbied in a number of states to keep towns from offering these municipal WiFi services. These are general prohibitions and do not provide any exceptions for municipalities that do not receive any Internet service, like cable or DSL, from a traditional service provider. This means that those cities where the market has failed to provide broadband Internet will be prohibited from developing a service on their own, and citizens and small businesses go unserved.

Analysis

The citizens or leadership of a municipality should have the ability to collectively decide to work out a system to provide the area with Internet access, and neither a state or local government should impede this progress on behalf of competitors that do not want to compete (or even provide their services) in the marketplace. Public Knowledge supports municipalities that offer free or low cost WiFi to the people that live there. Broadband access is critical to a city’s economy as it gives its citizens and businesses the opportunity to compete in the global knowledge economy. Most often, the business environment for broadband is a duopoly (one cable and one DSL operator) that decides which neighborhoods it wants to provide service to.

Timeline

State Action

November 30, 2004
Pennsylvania Governor Rendell signs PA bill H.B. 30 into law prohibiting government entities, or agencies and non-profits they set up, from providing broadband access for a fee.
February 2005
The City of Philadelphia fights back against proposed state legislation that would prevent cities in Pennsylvania from creating WiFi networks for its citizens.
February 2005
The New York Times notes a number of other states (Kansas, Ohio, Texas, Indiana, Iowa, and Oregon) where the same legislation to limit or prohibit municipal WiFi is being introduced.