With the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the persistent “digital divide” between low-income and rural Americans and the rest of the country, Congress is poised to allocate significant funding for broadband expansion.
How it does so, however, will have a big effect on consumers and taxpayers.
One strategy is to encourage municipalities to build and operate their own networks, rather than relying on investment from the private sector. Advocates argue that government-owned networks stimulate competition, drive down prices for consumers, and provide service to remote areas where private companies cannot operate profitably.
Both theoretically and empirically, however, these claims have serious flaws.
You can read this entire op-ed in Inside Sources.