At the Federal Communications Commission Thursday, the Klieg light of public attention beamed on the net neutrality vote. But there was an earlier vote on another matter, and that was the one that held Harold DePriest’s attention.
Mr. DePriest is the chief executive of the Electric Power Board, a community supplier of ultrahigh-speed Internet service in Chattanooga, Tenn. E.P.B. and the city of Wilson, N.C., another municipal broadband provider, last year petitioned the F.C.C. to preempt state laws that limit the build-out of community broadband services. The commission voted 3-2, along political party lines, in favor of using its federal power to override the restrictive laws in those two states.
In the Tennessee case, the result of the restriction, Mr. DePriest said, is that “a tenth of a mile from where my fiber system ends are people who have no Internet service.” He wants to extend his fiber-optic cable network to those nearby rural neighborhoods, but the state legal restraints had prevented him.
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