Some Tennessee Residents Lack Broadband. Could the TN Valley Authority Become Their New ISP?

Former Gov Phil Bredesen (D-TN) — and his Republican rival for the US Senate, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) — have both been talking up plans to expand broadband access in rural places. But they're pitching two very different solutions. Bredesen's idea is proposing legislation that would allow the Tennessee Valley Authority to get rural residents hooked up. Today, the federal agency is primarily known as a power company, but it initially had a societal mission as well: Its dams were meant to control floodwaters and generate electric power for struggling communities across the Southeast. Bredesen says it could provide internet infrastructure as well. "TVA seemed, to me, to be the perfect vehicle to do that. It's in its DNA. It started out as a rural development agency in the 1930s." Chairman Blackburn is not in favor of the TVA idea. In a statement, she opposed the idea of broadband being treated as a utility. She called it an anticompetitive solution that will create a government monopoly and raise taxes. She says she's focused on free-market solutions, with the government helping private companies.