Whether it is Comcast, Charter, CenturyLink, Verizon, Frontier, etc. their business plan is all about creating and maintaining a monopoly, and then extracting rents with over-priced and under-performing internet.

It’s why US internet costs are among the highest in the developed world while having the lowest performance.

The response of the incumbent providers has been to lobby to maintain their monopolies, doing things like forbidding municipal broadband.

Well, it appears that their lobbying is losing its effectiveness, even in Republican dominated states like North Carolina:

Broadband expansion legislation that stalled earlier this year after strong opposition from cable and telecommunications providers cleared a key N.C. House committee Thursday, but only after a long debate on the role of government in providing internet access.

House Bill 431, the FIBER NC Act, would eliminate existing state restrictions on local government investments in broadband infrastructure and put in place a system that would allow counties and municipalities to build out the infrastructure and then lease it to a private provider.

Members of the State and Local Government Committee debated for an hour and half before approving the bill in a 13-9 vote.

The majority, a mix of the committee’s Democrats and a handful of Republican legislators from rural districts, also defeated an amendment to require a local referendum on public broadband investment by the same margin.

The bill was introduced early in the session but has been opposed by the state’s main internet providers, who say it is government encroachment into private enterprise.

North Carolina might not be the last place where I would expect to see such a bill progressing, but it’s the second or third to last place where I would expect to see it.

People are getting sick and tired of the looting.