Broadband Access: Local Government Roles

Telephone and cable television utilities are offering DSL and cable modem services in response to this demand, but many rural and smaller communities do not have service, and the high-speed, or broadband, services needed by larger businesses are expensive. This report describes what local governments can do to improve high-speed access: acting as catalysts to encourage private sector entities to provide improved service; enabling service improvement by sharing government resources with private sector providers; investing in advanced telecommunications infrastructure such as fiber optics; and even serving as service retailers, using government-owned infrastructure to provide Internet access and other telecommunications services.