The telecom bill that has Colorado carriers and technology firms on edge

More than 50 companies and organizations, including the state’s largest telecom and cable-TV providers, are banding together to fight a last-minute measure that they say could have a “chilling effect” on innovation in Colorado.

Sponsors of Senate Bill 287, introduced Monday and passed out of committee Wednesday, are trumpeting the measure as a bipartisan effort to “connect rural Colorado to broadband Internet service.” “Rural Colorado is in desperate need of broadband,” Senate President John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, said in announcing the introduction of the measure. “Businesses and communities suffer when they can’t access what the 21st Century has to offer to the rest of the state. The time has come to make the commitment to bring broadband to our entire state.” The bill proposes to divert a portion of the ratepayer-funded High Cost Support Mechanism – which collects more than $50 million annually to subsidize phone service in rural areas – toward broadband expansion in unserved and underserved communities.