Pennsylvania May Block Philadelphia WiFi
from the not-so-surprising... dept
A number of states (at the urging of local cable companies and telcos) have been pushing laws that ban municipal broadband. The latest to do so is Pennsylvania, which would put quite a crimp in Philadelphia’s plans for citywide WiFi. The defense from the telcos supporting the law is basically: “this isn’t new, we’ve been planning this for ages.” That doesn’t exactly respond to the issue. This is just the latest in a long line of efforts by companies to stop municipal internet access. The thing is, if they just provided people with the internet access they wanted, none of this would be an issue. It’s their failure to do so that makes local governments interested in giving their residents what they want.
