Susan P Crawford, Columnist

How Cities Can Take On Big Cable

Democrats just made a new push in the fight over municipal fiber networks, asking the FCC to help cities compete against AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and the other cable companies.

June 27, 2014 at 5:07 PM UTC

By Susan P Crawford

Susan Crawford, the John A. Reilly visiting professor in intellectual property at Harvard Law School, is the author of "Captive Audience." Her book "The Responsive City," with co-author Stephen Goldsmith, will be published in September. In 2009, Susan Crawford served as special assistant to President Barack Obama for science, technology, and innovation policy. She is a former law partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now WilmerHale). She is the founder of OneWeb Day, a global Earth Day for the Internet held each Sept. 22. She earned a bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, and a law degree from Yale University.

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A group of Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission today, demanding it do everything in its power to let cities build competitive fiber networks. It's the next big fight in telecom policy -- and the FCC is going to need all the help it can get.

Laws have been passed in 20 states that make it difficult or impossible for cities to make this decision. For example, after Wilson, North Carolina, (population 49,000) decided to build its own fiber network, Time Warner Cable and AT&T lobbied to get a law passed in 2011 that amounts to a de facto ban on any future such networks in the state.