Explaining the FCC Muni Order Removing State Barriers – Community Broadband Bits Episode 143

After anticipating this moment for many months, we have a ruling from the FCC that has restored local authority to build and expand networks in North Carolina and Tennessee. Though we have already pulled out the key passages for readers, we wanted to discuss the decision with Jim Baller of Baller, Herbst, Stokes, & Lide.

Jim worked with Wilson and Chattanooga in crafting their petitions and sat down with me last week at the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities Broadband Conference in Des Moines last week.

We went over the key issues in the ruling, including why the FCC had authority to take action, how the state laws limited investment in advanced Internet networks, the impact of the ruling, and what comes next.

See our other podcasts with Jim as well as articles that we tagged him in here. Read the FCC's Memorandum and Order here [pdf].

Read the transcript from our conversation here.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show – please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played below on this page or via iTunes or via the tool of your choice using this feed.

Listen to previous episodes here. You can can download this Mp3 file directly from here.

Find more episodes in our podcast index.

Thanks to Persson for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is “Blues walk.”