North Carolina's municipal broadband providers have won another victory over local service provider incumbents AT&T, Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink, which weren't able to get their anti-community fiber bill passed.
In the past year, North Carolina cities and towns such as Wilson (the operator of the Save NC Broadband Blog) and Salisbury, N.C. have built their own respective Fiber to the Home (FTTH) networks. And as reported in Broadband DSL Reports, the incumbent carriers have decided to litigate with the help of state Senator David Hoyle (D-Gaston) and block these build out of these networks, which offer symmetrical broadband speeds, instead of trying to offer similar speeds.
However, Hoyle's proposed bill (known as S1209) to put a moratorium on municipal broadband was killed by the NC House of Representatives early Saturday morning. This was the incumbent carrier's fourth attempt to ban municipalities from offering broadband services to North Carolina communities.
For more:
- Broadband DSL Reports has this post
- this Save NC Broadband blog post chronicles the vote
Related articles:
North Carolina fights anti-municipal broadband bill
North Carolina legislators seek to curtail municipal broadband efforts
North Carolinians learn that cable TV is an expensive do-it-yourself proposition
Salisbury, NC progresses with its municipal FTTH deployment