Apparently not being sufficiently warned off by Time Warner’s earlier statements that municipal broadband would be expensive and a pain for the community of Wilson to administer, they found some friendly legislators in state government and helped push a bill that would effectively hamper, if not terminate the Wilson community’s broadband initiative. In a well orchestrated lobbying effort, cable industry officials began claiming that taxpayer funds were being used to leverage the public sector’s broadband product at the expense of “the free market.” But as Wilson city officials explained, their Greenlight project is firewalled from using public tax revenue. The project was paid for by a bond offering and is expected to be self-sustaining through ongoing customer receipts.

Cable industry officials continued to attack municipal broadband projects as failures waiting to happen, pointing to earlier projects that often relied on wireless networks, wi-fi, or older technology. Many cities with these projects have been unable to scale them to grow with expected demand, or have had difficulty expanding their network into other areas of the community. Others outsourced them to be administered by private providers in return for public considerations, such as free/discounted access in certain areas.

Fiber optic broadband projects are new to most municipal broadband projects, and come as a result of a lack of comparable service from private providers unwilling to meet the needs of communities. So having not succeeded in dissuading municipal competition, they now seek to effectively kill it with handcrafted legislation passed into friendly hands.

WRAL continues its in-depth coverage on the challenges Wilson, NC faces in building their municipal fiber network.  Time Warner officials, among others, make some unproven accusations and statements in this report that go unchallenged, but overall it provides a balanced look at the growing controversy.