Colorado Finally Kills Dumb 2005 Comcast-Backed State Law Banning Community Broadband Networks

U.S. telecom monopolies like AT&T and Comcast spent millions of dollars and several decades quite literally buying shitty, protectionist laws in around twenty states that either banned or heavily hamstrung towns and cities from building their own broadband networks. Even in instances and areas where AT&T and Comcast have repeatedly failed to upgrade or expand their broadband networks.

This dance of dysfunction was particularly interesting in Colorado. While lobbyists for Comcast and CenturyLink managed to convince state leaders to pass such a law (SB 152) in 2005, the legislation contained a provision that let individual Colorado towns and cities ignore the measure with a simple referendum. So they’ve been doing exactly that, en masse, for years.

This week, Colorado state leaders finally passed a law eliminating the restrictions entirely, eighteen years after they were first introduced:

“Today, the state took a big step in establishing a competitive economy for generations to come. SB23-183 removes the biggest obstacle to achieving the Governor’s goal to connect 99% of Colorado households by the end of 2027,” said Colorado Broadband Office Executive Director Brandy Reitter. “Each local government is in a unique position or different phase of connecting residents to high-speed internet, and this bill allows them to establish broadband plans that meet the needs of their communities.”

That leaves sixteen states with laws banning community broadband, after both Arkansas and Washington state eliminated their restrictions in 2021. Such laws are almost always ghost written by heavily taxpayer subsidized telecom monopolies, which have routinely tried to portray grass roots annoyance at monopolization and market failure as some form of vile socialist boondoggle.

It’s a scenario where giant telecoms get to have their cake and eat it too; often refusing to upgrade their networks in under-served or minority areas (particularly true among telcos offering DSL), while simultaneously ghost writing shitty laws preventing these underserved towns from doing anything about it — even if local voters, long struggling to gain access to broadband, vote in favor of it.

These communities wouldn’t be building broadband networks if they weren’t annoyed by decades of market failure. Or decades of federal regulators too captured to embrace policies that competitively challenge the nation’s biggest telecom monopolies.

Telecom monopolies could have responded to this by providing better, cheaper service, but given the nature of widespread U.S. corruption, it was simply easier to buy terrible state laws.

The home schooling and telecommuting boom of peak COVID put the counterproductive stupidity of these bills in very stark relief. As has the $42 billion in looming broadband funds made possible by the recent passing of the infrastructure bill. If that money is to be spent effectively, eliminating pointless, monopoly-backed restrictions on creative broadband alternatives is a good first step.