Holly Springs, a town of about 25,000 in the Triangle region of North Carolina, has built its own network to connect community anchor institutions and has an interest in using it to spur economic development and other community benefits but a 2011 law pushed by Time Warner Cable makes some of that more difficult.
http://fortune.com/2014/06/26/is-municipal-broadband-more-important-than-net-neutrality/
“I do think that if there were real competition in most of the country, then network neutrality may not be that important,” [Christopher] Mitchell [director of Community Broadband Networks at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance] says.
Lawmakers on the Hill, including some members with jurisdiction over telecommunications policy, like what they’re hearing from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler on municipal broadband.
http://www.fcc.gov/blog/removing-barriers-competitive-community-broadband
The Chair of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, made a powerful endorsement of community broadband evidenced in this article.
“Removing restrictions on community broadband can expand high-speed Internet access in underserved areas, spurring economic growth and improvements in government services, while enhancing competition. Giving the citizens of Chattanooga and leaders like Mayor Berke the power to make these decisions for themselves is not only the right thing to do; it’s the smart thing to do.”
http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/28/technology/security/hack-data-breach/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Hackers have exposed the personal information of 110 million Americans – roughly half of the nation’s adults — in the last 12 months alone.