Minnesota eliminated two laws that made it harder for localities to build their own broadband networks. The state-imposed restrictions were repealed in a commerce policy bill signed last week by Governor Tim Walz. The repeal ensures local governments can participate in the upcoming $42.45 billion BEAD grant program, according to Broadband Breakfast.
Minnesota was previously one of about 20 states that imposed significant restrictions on municipal broadband for the benefit of private ISPs. The number can differ depending on disagreements over what counts as a significant restriction. But the list has gotten smaller in recent years as states, including Arkansas, Colorado, and Washington, repealed laws that hindered municipal broadband.
The Minnesota bill that was enacted struck down a requirement that municipal telecom networks be approved in an election with 65 percent of the vote. The law is over a century old, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Network Initiative. “Though intended to regulate telephone service, the way the law had been interpreted after the invention of the internet was to lump broadband in with telephone service, thereby imposing that super-majority threshold to the building of broadband networks,” the broadband advocacy group said.
Minnesota also changed a law that let municipalities build broadband networks, but only if no private providers offer service or will offer service “in the reasonably foreseeable future.” That restriction had been in effect since at least 2000, notes Ars Technica.
The caveat that prevented municipalities from competing against private providers was eliminated. As a result, now, cities and towns can “improve, construct, extend, and maintain facilities for internet access and other communications purposes” even if private ISPs already offer service.
The measure also added language intended to keep government-operated and private networks on a level playing field. The new language says cities and towns may “not discriminate in favor of the municipality’s own communications facilities by granting the municipality more favorable or less burdensome terms and conditions than a non municipal service provider” with respect to the use of public Rights-of-Way, publicly owned equipment, and permitting fees, according to Ars Technica.
With Minnesota having repealed its anti-municipal broadband laws, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance says 16 states still restrict the building of municipal networks.
The Minnesota change “is a significant win for the people of Minnesota and highlights a positive trend—states are dropping misguided barriers to deploying public broadband as examples of successful community-owned networks proliferate across the country,” said Gigi Sohn, former FCC Commissioner candidate who’s now executive director of the American Association for Public Broadband. The group represents community owned broadband networks and co-ops.
There are about 650 public broadband networks in the U.S., Sohn said. “We’re confident the number of states [that restrict the building of municipal networks] will continue to decrease as more communities demand the freedom to choose the network that best serves their residents,” she explained.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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