Municipal Networks Offer Reachable Challenge of Serving the Unserved

At Freedom to Connect, one session probed the status and conditions of broadband quality and access in municipal America. Tim Nulty of East Central Vermont Fiber said that there might, finally, be a consensus on "a reasonable model" for municipal telecom in the United States right now. Nulty castigated those dismissing the need to develop and deploy broadband infrastructure in unserved and underserved areas, saying their rationale was intellectually dishonest. The idea that broadband for such areas was "infeasible" was mistaken, he said. It would be easier and cheaper to deploy fiber networks for the new technology much in the same was as it was to deploy copper lines for electricity countrywide. Nulty said opposition to broadband development was coming from incumbent telecommunications companies with so much financially invested in the status quo.