These state laws forbid towns from deploying their particular broadband — or frequently even hitting public/private partnerships — even in instances of clear market failure, and now exist in more than twenty states.

A suggestion that will have lately revoked this statewide limitation in Tennessee was shot down thanks to AT&T and Comcast lobbying.
Even a brand new compromise suggestion was shot down, after 27 broadband business lobbyists — most of whom belonging to AT&T and Comcast — struggled in unison to kill the proposition.

“We’ve a large number of requests which were signed in everybody s office. As well as the voice of the folks now wasn’t heard. And that is unlucky.”

This past year the FCC voted to dismantle protectionist bills that were broadband in both Tennessee and North Carolina, though those attempts stay bogged down in court. ISP-true lawmakers in the states have asserted that their states rights are violated by the FCC’s effort to shoot down these laws, though letting Comcast and AT&T write terrible state telecom law does not seem to create the same contempt.