Citizens from around Texas wanted to testify yesterday against a provision of a new telecommunications bill that would prohibit towns and cities from offering network services. Though many showed up well ahead of paid lobbyists from telecom corporations like SBC and Verizon, they weren’t allowed to speak, and had to drive home unheard. Blogging at the Texas site Save Muni Wireless, Chip Rosenthal notes that corporate testimony didn’t address the provision prohibiting municipal services, though it was supposedly added to prevent “unfair” competition by cities. In a backgrounder, David Deans asks

Will the Texas legislature knowingly pass a bill that may harm their constituents’ ongoing participation in the Global Networked Economy, and negatively impact the future competitiveness of every business within the state?

According to Deans, “There is a clear precedent that government has always exercised the right to invest public money in infrastructure projects for ‘the public good.’” Part of the problem may be that legislators in Texas and elsewhere see information services, not as a public good, but as a business. They don’t recognize that these services stimulate economic and educational development – that, in fact, rural Texas, a significant part of the state, will be locked out of the global economy if broadband services aren’t available. At the hearing you could hear lobbyists saying that they are providing services to much of rural Texas, but they clearly aren’t providing advanced broadband services, and may never do so, going instead for the low-hanging fruit of urban centers like Houston, Austin, Dallas, Ft. Worth, and San Antonio. In a recent meeting, a member of Austin Wireless said that he had to move into Austin from a smaller suburban community because he couldn’t get the services he needed there, less than thirty miles from the state’s most heavily networked metropolis. So far the Texas legislature doesn’t have a clear perception of the problem – and they won’t, if they hear only what SBC and Verizon want them to hear.

Citizens from around Texas wanted to testify yesterday against a provision of a new telecommunications bill that would prohibit towns and cities from offering network services. Though many showed up well ahead of paid lobbyists from telecom corporations like SBC and Verizon, they weren’t allowed to speak, and had to drive home unheard. Blogging at [...]