Network management Toolkit

Broadband and the city

Marguerite Reardon CNET News.com

Published: 16 Apr 2004 10:35 BST

Jim Baller is no friend of the large cable companies or the Baby Bells that dominate local telecommunications markets around the country.

As a principal attorney for the Baller Herbst Law Group, he has fought these interests on behalf of local governments and utilities for the right to build and operate new telecommunication networks.

Baller's clients include the American Public Power Association, the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors, and individual local governments and public power utilities in more than 35 states. Over the past decade, he has been involved in many of the leading community broadband projects in the United States and in most of the legislative and court battles over state barriers to municipal entry.

In particular, he was lead counsel in cases that struck down barriers to entry in Missouri and Virginia. Baller was also counsel of record when the case in Missouri went before the US Supreme Court.

As Americans thirst for more advanced technology, such as high-speed Internet access, some municipalities and government-owned utilities are building their own fibre-based or advanced wireless networks. Most of these networks so far have been built in rural regions where large phone companies and cable companies are reluctant to build out infrastructure. But the movement is also spreading into more densely populated areas as communities look for ways to attract new businesses.

The increased competition has struck a nerve with local phone and cable providers, who argue that municipalities have an unfair advantage because they have access to tax money to build and maintain these networks. They also argue that municipalities are often the ones regulating and approving the construction of such networks.

ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com recently spoke to Baller, who is considered one of the most knowledgeable lawyers in this field, on two separate occasions from his office in Washington, D.C., about the growth of municipally owned networks, competing with the Baby Bells and the cable companies, and losing the Missouri case in the Supreme Court.

Q: What's driving the growth of municipal broadband?
A: Local governments across the United States have come to view affordable access to advanced telecommunication services and capabilities as being vital to economic development and educational and occupational opportunity. They also see it as a key component to competing regionally and globally, revitalising urban areas, modernising health care, reducing traffic and environmental harms, and a variety of things that go into contributing to a high quality of life for the community.

At the same time, local governments are increasingly frustrated by constantly rising cable rates, poor customer service, (and) the sense that the large and increasingly growing cable companies and telephone companies do not seem to care much about local concerns.