Abstract
In the latest battle over municipal broadband networks, voters of Lafayette, Louisiana, approved a bond issue to fund the development of a network that will serve the city's nearly 120,000 residents. As in other localities, the phone and cable companies that serve the area objected to the proposed network, arguing that the city has no business offering a service that competes with those offered by the private sector. City officials argued that they can provide cheaper service to more residents than the cable and phone companies, whom they accused of spending more effort lobbying politicians than offering services the city needs. The issues facing Lafayette are being taken up by a number of other municipalities across the United States, and 14 states have already passed legislation that outlaws or limits cities and towns from providing Internet services that compete with those offered by local companies. At the national level, competing bills have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, one to explicitly allow municipal networks and the other to ban them.