Metro may develop municipal Internet
Taking a cue from Philadelphia and San Francisco, two large cities that have decided to build city-owned, high-speed Internet networks, a Metro task force may soon work on getting one for Nashville.

Councilman-at-Large David Briley will ask the Metro Council at its Sept. 20 meeting to create a 12-member task force to spend six months evaluating the feasibility of a municipal network and propose ways to establish one.

Briley said such a network would “promote business development, create better access to the Internet for all people living here in Nashville and hopefully drive down the cost in the future of providing those services for people who live here.”

He said Nashville already has a lot of resources available that would allow the city to create a municipally-owned network or establish one in partnership with the private sector.

The nation’s larger telecom companies have generally opposed municipal networks, claiming taxpayer subsidization gives municipalities an unfair competitive advantage.

For example, when Philadelphia announced plans to provide citywide wireless Internet access, Verizon lobbied hard for a bill to prevent Pennsylvania cities from providing Internet service. A compromise was reached, however, and Philadelphia is proceeding with plans to spend between $7 million and $10 million to build the infrastructure.

Jerry Dunlap, president of ISDN-Net, Tennessee’s largest independent Internet service provider (ISP), supports the concept of a municipal Internet network.

“The FCC seems to be going the route of allowing the monopolies, Bell and cable, to own their networks exclusively, and so it really leaves the competitors with no place to go,” Dunlap said.

“It does not make sense for five or six fiber carriers to build fiber into every neighborhood. And so the city would have to take on that task …”

Comcast spokesman Reg Griffin said, “There is plenty of competition out there on all fronts, whether it’s the speed front or the price front,” such as with BellSouth’s DSL service. Still, he said Comcast did not want to take a position on municipal Internet in Nashville so early.

Kenny Blackburn, Bellsouth spokesman, said government “has a role to play in encouraging broadband,” and that BellSouth would work with the task force.

He added, however, “We think that it’s better to use private money as opposed to public money and for cities not to compete with private businesses.”