Municipal Broadband a 'Terrible Idea,' O'Rielly Says
FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly compared government-owned broadband to Cuban socialism. “Having seen the fates of Cuba and many other socialistic efforts, it seems surprising that some would want to pursue the same outcome for the U.S. communications industry,” the Republican…
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said in an address Tuesday to the New England Ratepayers Association. Recent FCC efforts to promote municipal broadband rallied many communities to start projects, but government-owned broadband networks “are a terrible idea,” he said. “Unfortunately for their citizens, the reality has not lived up to the hype and ratepayers in communities across the country have been left holding the bag when these foolhardy experiments fail.” That’s why some states create laws restricting or limiting community networks, he said. Municipal broadband failures don’t surprise O’Rielly, he said. “Community networks have to attempt to recover high fixed costs over a small customer base, contend with shorter than expected upgrade cycles, and deal with larger than anticipated operating costs, including video program access fees. These problems are compounded when there’s another provider operating that continues to compete and hold market share.” Instead of building networks, localities should promote more private sector investment by easing rights of way, facilitating tower siting and cutting other red tape, he said. He also made some proposals for the incoming GOP-led FCC, as he did at an event in Washington Wednesday (see 1612070040).