To Save the Internet We Need To Own the Networks

[Commentary] The only sure fire strategy to regain control of this vital underpinning of modern economies is for us to own the broadband networks themselves. Only then will we able make the rules that serve the public interest. Decisions about caps and rates and access, about the digital divide and net neutrality and privacy can and should be debated and made at the local level, not in some distant boardroom or in even more distant federal agencies and federal courts. Our focus right now and for the foreseeable future must be on promoting democratic broadband networks guided by the needs of their customers and their communities. Which means doubling, tripling, increasing ten fold the number of communities that own their fiber Internet networks.

[David Morris is the Director of the Public Good Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance]