| Now, municipalities and public entities are not only prohibited from offering high-speed Internet service directly to customers, they are even prohibited from leasing such service to private companies at wholesale rates. Nebraska cities have had their hands tied to the point that they can hardly even experiment in efforts to provide a low-cost broadband alternative to their neediest citizens. They are also limited in their ability to compete with the many cities across the country using such lures as incentives for small businesses and young professionals to spur economic progress.
Breaking with logic and tradition, Nebraska's one-of-a-kind system of public power has been left one of the worst lost opportunities our state has ever seen. This existing infrastructure offers a world of untapped potential for bridging the digital divide that could prove unlimited in its ability to level the economic playing field for our rural communities. In fact, with the ease and universality of access possible, Nebraska might well be forsaking its single greatest strength in the economy of the 21st century - a technological advantage we would be fools to neglect for even one more day.
With that in mind, I couldn't be happier to report that the people of Nebraska might finally have a voice on this issue - hopefully, on the 2008 ballot. The Lincoln Journal-Star reports:
A petition drive that would allow Nebraska cities and public utility companies to provide high-speed Internet service to residents has begun.
According to Jack Gould, issues chairman for Common Cause Nebraska and a supporter of the petition drive, the petition route is the only way the public is going to be able to get access to potentially lower-cost high-speed Internet....
Petition supporters have started gathering signatures through volunteers and later will consider using paid circulators....They'll need to gather signatures from about 90,000 Nebraska voters by early July to get the proposal on the November 2008 ballot.
If this petition is going to succeed, it will take all the help (and quite a bit of the luck) its supporters can get. The telecommunications lobby is a powerful force with plenty of cash and a lot at stake in protecting their price-gouging practices and padded bottom lines. They will wrap their greed in the flag of good old-fashioned American capitalism at every chance they get although their monopolistic behavior and cross-corporation collusion have rendered the public sphere the last remaining hope for any true competition.
If this ends up being an issue of ideology, it's never going to make it to the ballot. And, if this is an issue about which technology is best and whether statewide Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) is feasible or desirable, the initiative won't win a vote even if it gets enough signatures. Make no mistake about it - the interests with the big money and the sleek campaign ads are going to line up against this petition. The odds don't favor its success. Its one hope lies in its message of expanded opportunity and restoring the flexibility to our communities to answer the needs of their citizens as they see fit.
For this petition to succeed, public broadband has to be about people. We are the ones who are hurting from the failures of the current system - paying too much, without wide enough access, with too few choices. It is also our futures at stake. Betrayed once by our own government, this is our opportunity to take the fate of Nebraska's economy into own own hands.
Let's hope this is an opportunity we will not pass up. Stay tuned, and best have that signature pen ready to go. If you really care, you might want to bring a clip board as well. After all, there's work to be done, and somebody has to do it. |
