« Common Content | Main | Joi Ito on Hiroshima and Nagasaki » eweek on muni broadbandeweek has a good piece by Chris Nolan about the various legislative battles over municipal wireless, including the one that's shaping up at the federal level, where U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions from Texas,a former SBC employee, has proposed legislation to ban muni wireless projects nationwide. Sessions bill is the opposite fo the McCain-Lautenberg Community Broadband Act of 2005, which would allow muni networks. Unfortunately Nolan gets it wrong about the recent battle within the Texas legislature against a municipal broadband prohibition in a telecom bill sponsored by Representative Phil King. She suggests that the broadband prohibition defeated by Austin Wireless City, a nonprofit that uses volunteers to set up wifi in various venues around Austin. Austin Wireless City is part of Austin Wireless, an organization that also include the Austin Wireless Group (this gets complicated, especially considering that there's also an Austin Wireless Alliance... but I digress). Austin Wireless had a minor role in the effort, but the real work of challenging the legislation was orchestrated through the Save Muni Wireless coalition, with a few players doing much of the work, including Adina Levin, Tim Morstad, Chip Rosenthal, Wayne Caswell, Gene Crick, and others, including folks who are already planning or working on various muni broadband projects around the state. jon posted this at 12:41 AM |
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