AT&T, Comcast don't want community broadband

AT&T and Comcast don’t want local governments creating Internet networks for their taxpayers. Such networks are “poorly run and ultimately bankrupt,” Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen said.

Testifying at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on video competition, Cohen and AT&T Senior Executive Vice President John Stankey pushed back on pressure to let local governments create Internet networks, despite state laws that often ban them.

When pressed by community-broadband supporter Sen Ed Markey (D-MA), Cohen said that local governments should be allowed to create Internet networks, but Comcast “will advocate at the municipal government level that we think this is a mistake.”