From: John Cuccia 

On Thu, 2 Jun 2005 11:59:49 -0400, "Gary Britt"
 wrote:

>I think it depends on whether the local government operates the business as
>a for profit business or not.

So you favor a big-and-getting-bigger federal government intervening in
local affairs to make sure that local governments stay small?

Here in Lafayette, the local government will, if approved by the voters in
July,  issue bonds to pay for FTTH deployment and use revenues from the
services provided to pay off those bonds.  What business is it of the feds
if the citizenry decides that it is their interest to have the municipally
owned utility company enter the bandwidth delivery business?

It's none of their business, is what.  Sessions' proposed legislation is
simply a ploy to protect incumbent providers, including his former
employer.

>I do understand that it could be argued that broadband is a utility service
>just like sewer and water which is often handled by government.  The same
>argument could be made of telephone service however, and I don't think there
>are any people who would argue that local towns should use their taxing
>powers to operate local phone companies.

You'd be wrong about that last, bit.  Most of the municipal fiber projects
include provision of the so-called "triple play", which includes
internet access, telephone service, and cable television.

> I think upon total reflection one
>would have to agree that broadband is a lot more like telephone service than
>sewer and water service and therefore is not the proper province of the
>government tax base.

I think that broadband is more like eletric service, which is provided both
cheaply and reliably by my municipally-owned electric company.

The heart of the matter is this: if the local citizenry decides via
referendum that it is the "proper province of the local tax base"
then who are the Feds to say otherwise?

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