Glenn Fleishman writes “Lompoc is putting in Wi-Fi first and fiber next for municipally offered broadband and cable. Comcast would suffer, and the city believes they were behind a letter from the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Associates (SBCTA) to Lompoc residents. Comcast joined SBCTA after the letter went out.” This is not the first time we’ve seen cable or telecoms companies fighting municipal broadband. They have a long history of doing this, from Project UTOPIA in Utah (Qwest has filed a lawsuit there) to the Tri-Cities broadband initiative near Chicago. Read the article that appeared in Mother Jones magazine a few months ago about Comcast’s dirty war on muni broadband (see link below) and you’ll see what Lompoc may be up against.
Here are the previous Muniwireless articles about Lompoc, Tri-Cities and UTOPIA:
Lompoc launches citywide wireless broadband network
Comcast’s dirty war on municipal broadband
Harold Feld on competition in broadband (guest commentary)
Technorati Tags: citywide Wi-Fi, municipal wi-fi, municipal wireless
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