Lawmakers abandon plan to block municipal broadband in Virginia

Virginia anti-municipal broadband bill replaced by minor record-keeping change.

The "Virginia Broadband Deployment Act" that would have made it far more difficult for municipalities to offer Internet service has been dramatically watered down after running into heavy opposition. Instead of preventing cities and towns from offering broadband, a new version of the bill passed by the Virginia House this week merely imposes new record-keeping requirements.

The original bill favored by cable lobbyists (and called the "Broadband death star bill" by one opponent) would have prohibited municipal broadband deployments except in very limited circumstances. If it had passed, localities wouldn't have been allowed to offer Internet service if an existing network already provided 10Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds to 90 percent of potential customers. The bill also would have made it difficult for localities to offer lower rates than private ISPs.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, last month promised to veto the bill if it was passed by the state legislature. The proposal also drew opposition from local governments, broadband advocacy groups, and companies such as Google and Netflix. The opposition was successful, as House Republicans replaced the bill with another called the "Virginia Wireless Services Act" and approved it Tuesday by a 72-24 vote. It has now gone to the Senate for consideration.

The Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority, which worried that the original proposal would halt an ongoing network project, declared victory after the vote.

"I affectionately called it the broadband death star bill, and we're glad that the delegate [bill sponsor Kathy Byron, a Republican lawmaker] has listened to us and to our concerns, and to other members of her constituents," Roanoke Valley Broadband Authority CEO Frank Smith said, according to a WDBJ7 report. While the original proposal "was extremely harmful to our efforts to provide municipal broadband," the bill that passed the House "actually restates and reinforces the laws as far as open books and open rates, which we do right now," he said.

The new version of the bill would add a paragraph to the "rates and charges" section of the existing Wireless Services Authorities Act, which gives cities and towns the power to create authorities that provide broadband and other communications services. The new paragraph says, "The authority shall maintain records demonstrating compliance with the requirements of this section concerning the fixing and revision of rates, fees, and charges that shall be made available for inspection and copying by the public pursuant to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act, notwithstanding any exemption in that Act or in this chapter."

“This bill ensures that when taxpayer dollars are used to underwrite municipal broadband systems, citizens have the ability to learn how their investment is being spent,” Byron said of the watered-down legislation, according to The Roanoke Times.