More like fuck the politicians that are taking their money and doing their bidding.
Tell me what is similar about all the states that have banned municipal ISPs?
The 21 Laws States Use to Crush Broadband Competition
Total Ban
Arkansas
There is a law that states "a government entity may not provide, directly or indirectly, basic local exchange service."
Missouri
Missouri has one of the first anti-municipal broadband laws in the country. In fact, after a very complex and long legal proceeding, the Supreme Court ruled that the state did, in fact, have the right to ban broadband. That law, passed in 1997, bans public entities from owning and providing telecom services.
After the law was upheld by the Supreme Court, a flurry of other states (with ISP lobbying and input) rushed to pass many of the laws you see here.
Despite that fact, several local electric co-ops have managed, without the government, to create fiber networks.
Montana
A very short law reads: "An agency or political subdivision may not act as an internet services provider when providing advanced services that are not otherwise available from a private internet services provider within the jurisdiction served by the agency or political subdivision."
The reading of that is quite broad and suggests that any service whatsoever from a private ISP is enough to disqualify local government networks.
Nebraska
Cities are completely prohibited from selling broadband, telecom, or cable services.
Tennessee
Only municipalities that already own an electric utility may offer broadband services. It may not offer services outside of the area where it sells electricity, which is a barrier that Chattanooga's utility has run into—it's currently petitioning the FCC to preempt the law. Eight separate bills were written last year that would wholly or partially repeal these laws in the states, so things seem to be trending in the right direction.
Virginia
Similar to Tennessee's law,
cities without an existing public utility may not offer broadband services. Those that do own utilities may offer services but only with heavy restrictions, which has served as a full ban as no cities (from what I can tell) have tried to start fiber networks. An existing network in Bristol was grandfathered in.
