FCC thinks it can overturn state laws that restrict public broadband

[silicon_toad2000]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/02/fcc-thinks-it-can-overturn-state-laws-that-restrict-public-broadband/

ISP lobby groups have won restrictions on municipal broadband in 20 states, and they are trying to push through more such laws. Lobbyists and their lawmaker friends have been emboldened by a 2004 US Supreme Court decision that said the Telecommunications Act "allows states to prevent municipalities from providing telecommunications services," according to a summary of the case.

Judge Laurence Silberman dissented from his fellow judges in a 2-1 decision last month, arguing against the majority opinion that Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act gives the FCC authority to enforce net neutrality rules. (Separately, Silberman agreed with the majority opinion that the FCC had failed to justify common carriage rules.) However, Silberman wrote that the FCC does have authority to take "measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.” In a footnote, Silberman wrote that "[a]n example of a paradigmatic barrier to infrastructure investment would be state laws that prohibit municipalities from creating their own broadband infrastructure to compete against private companies."

Silberman's opinion raises the possibility that the commission could remove state-level legal restrictions that prohibit or limit the ability of cities and towns to offer competitive broadband service, according to a senior FCC official who is familiar with Wheeler's thinking.