Community Internet's Future in Illinois At Stake with 2005 Legislative Fight
Author
Chicago Indymedia - MS
Date Created
27 Feb 2005
Date Edited
27 Feb 2005 11:28:23 AM
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Current rating: 0
The costs of establishing high-speed internet networks has decreased considerably. And in the wake of a 2004 Supreme Court decision involving municipal rights at the state level, there has arisen a nationwide state-by-state struggle for establishing high-speed community internet at the municipal level.
One main question is: who controls the future of high-speed internet -- municipalities and communities which can work to make the internet an affordable public service, or big telecommunications companies like SBC and Comcast which would redline communities and inflate prices in the name of profit maximization?
That struggle has come to Illinois, with the hopes of averting the fate in fourteen states which have seen Big Telecom shut out municipal internet rights. The Illinois General Assembly will take up the question of Illinois' digital future with a 2005 rewrite of the main state law involving the internet -- The Illinois Telecommunications Act. One bill, Senate Bill 499 which would have killed municipal internet rights, has fortunately been delayed for the moment, though further Illinois anti-muni efforts are likely coming. Read more.