Here we go again. Just when we thought the Grinch (or Scrooge) this Christmas would be the Pennsylvania state legislature and Governor Rendell for passing House Bill 30, it appears that a legislator in Ohio is competing for that much desired role. Here we go again. Just when we thought the Grinch (or Scrooge) this Christmas would be the Pennsylvania state legislature and Governor Rendell for passing House Bill 30, it appears that a legislator in Ohio is competing for that much desired role.
Representative Thom Collier (Republican) has introduced a bill in the Ohio state legislature that would restrict municipalities from offering telecommunications services (the definition is broad enough to include wired or wireless broadband service) to residents and businesses.
House Bill 591 amends existing Ohio cable competition law by restricting political subdivisions from providing “telecommunications service using telecommunications equipment”. Ohio cable competition law already restricts municipalities from offering cable service. Curious to see who Representative Thom Collier is? You can view his profile, telephone number and email address here.
What does this do to the Dayton, Ohio citywide Wi-Fi project and other wired or wireless municipal broadband projects in Ohio? Which companies are really behind this proposed amendment?
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The full text of House Bill 591 is at:
http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=125_HB_591
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I encourage Dayton and all other Ohio municipalities to get their stakeholders writing and calling the representative and the governor. Make the fight public. Let the citizens know that telecommunications companies are getting huge incentives at their expense.
Telcos do not like to have the public beware of this type of legislation. Verizon would have been very happy if Philadelphia had not found out the the legislation had moved out of subcommittee for vote. Although the governor did sign the bill, Philadelphia was able to get Verizon to waive their right of first refusal because we got over two thousand people to call and write to the governor about the importance of citywide, low cost, high speed broadband access. Don’t forget to include your schools, minority chambers, marketing and tourism groups, nonprofits and emerging wifi and wimax vendors as well as citizens and businesses. They all will be impacted.
My advise is municipalities is to act fast, make your argument public and get your lobbyist involved.