NCLM Southern City Volume 71, Issue 2, 2021

NCLM.ORG 21 JACK CASSIDY NCLM Communications Associate continues on page 23 The City of Washington has an expansive fiber network with the capacity to provide high-speed internet to each of its citizens. Yet, it sits mostly dormant, unused for that purpose. It exists for communication needs: police, emergency response, street lights and other public goods. Those uses, though, make up only a percentage of the fiber’s bandwidth. The remaining capacity is unlit. It’s a prohibited solution to a far-reaching problem. Across the state, communities that lack reliable access to high-speed inter- net often reside atop the already-built infrastructure that could provide it. Other states have encouraged arrangements that tap into that resource. Virginia, for example, allows cities to operate “open access” models, where private internet service providers can partner with the municipality to use its infrastructure, rather than building out their own. Arkansas also recently passed legislation that would allow for similar public-private partnerships, and it passed unanimously. In North Carolina, though, those partnerships are blocked. Legislation, often referred to as “The Level the Playing Field Act,” passed in 2011 following the implementation of the City of Wilson’s municipal-run Greenlight internet, and introduced a web of restrictions that had the effect of prohibiting any additional municipal-run systems or the expansion of existing ones. It also restricted less intensive measures, including public-private partnerships in which cities would not actually run retail inter- net service, but rather build and lease infrastructure to private providers. As a consequence, the broadband market is near-impossible to tap. One potential new service provider is discovering this conun- drum in Washington now. ˘˘˘ What’s important to remember is that broadband and internet service in North Carolina is a private good with profit motives. It is not regulated as a public utility. Typically, fiber or wireline technology that provides homes with internet access is owned and operated by a private company, and the monthly bills paid by customers provide their revenue. And though this seems like an obvious point, it’s necessary to reiterate because in this privately- run model, the only entities that can improve internet access are the companies. The motives are profit, not public service. In a well-functioning market, the citizens would have the power of choice. One service is poor, so they’ll go to another. One service is cheaper, one has better customer service, one is more reliable— that option gets selected. This is how competition yields positive results for consumers. In the internet market in many areas of North Carolina, this check does not exist. There is no choice, because the barrier to entry is too high for any competing company. What’s left is one or two providers with no incentive to improve service, and a community of people with nowhere else to turn. In Washington, customer dissatisfaction reached a point where Mayor Donald Sadler wrote to N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein regarding the issue. “The City of Washington receives constant complaints regarding poor service from this provider,” wrote Mayor Sadler on January 4, 2021, then listing the range of issues raised by customers: “Esca- lating costs, lack of access to service, excessively long outages, poor communications and response to outages, failure to keep equipment in good working condition, temporary fixes resulting in unburied/low handing lines for extended period of time, internet speeds substantially slower than advertised, etc.” Washington’s problem is by no means unique. In writing that letter, Mayor Sadler joined New Bern and Tarboro and, later, nine other Under current legislation, almost nothing—not even hopeful new providers or already-built infrastructure—can resolve the internet problem in North Carolina. The City of Washington is now finding that out firsthand. The Broadband Market Failure