A proposed law in Kansas that would have prevented the expansion of publicly-owned fiber broadband networks in the state is very thoroughly dead, according to one of the bill’s biggest opponents.
The protectionist bill, created by cable lobbyists, sought to prevent the expansion of publicly-owned or -maintained broadband networks–like, say, the Google Fiber already in place in the Kansas City area.
As Ars Technica reports, the bill is on hold for the time being and may not ever surface again. It was scheduled for a hearing in a state Senate committee, but the hearing was canceled and, as a state senator put it, it has “lost its momentum at this time.”
The president of the Kansas Cable Telecommunications Association told Ars Technica that it is now “highly unlikely” that the KCTA will continue to pursue the bill this session.
Joshua Montgomery, owner of a small ISP in Kansas and one of the bill’s chief opponents, had a more colorful take, Ars reports: “We stabbed it and shot it and hanged it and dissolved it in hydrofluoric acid, and flushed it down the toilet. It’s dead,” Montgomery told Ars. “We are on top of it. We are not going to let it come back up. I think we did really kill the entire issue for at least a year.”
At the very least, then, Kansas gets to table the issue for a while. Hopefully, though, the issue really is as much of an ex-bill as Montgomery claims.
“It’s dead”: Kansas municipal Internet ban was “stabbed, shot, and hanged” [Ars Technica, via DSL Reports]
by Kate Cox via Consumerist
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