State Government Florida Trade Group Seeks to Prevent Municipalities from Providing Internet

BRADENTON – A Florida trade group calling itself the Florida Coalition for the New Economy is lobbying against municipalities having the right to provide high-speed internet, because they say it wastefully duplicates Internet access efforts, pitting government in ”head to head competition with private industry."

”When government enters the market as an Internet service provider, it has a distinct advantage over private providers,“ said Bill Herrle, Executive Director of National Federation of Independent Business in a release. ”Government entities don’t pay the same taxes or abide by the same regulations. Unfortunately, this has the effect of stifling private investment in broadband, hurting the private sector’s, especially small businesses’ ability to create jobs and expand economic opportunity for the whole state.“

But advocates of Internet access expansion point out how far America lags behind other countries in terms of access to fiber-optic internet. Only 8 percent of Americans have access to fiber, while half of South Koreans do and about 40 percent in Japan – both of whom regularly rank ahead of the United States in educational performance. The cost for access is also much higher in the United States, further reducing Americans' ability to utilize the resource.

A bill is currently working its way through the Georgia legislature that would limit the ability of municipalities to provide internet services, while North Carolina, Nebraska, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee already have them in place.