Many cities that previously deployed Wi-Fi based solutions, like Comcast and Charter Spectrum, are switching to municipal broadband.
Mesh networks provide reliable user connections and are also faster to build and less expensive to run than the hub and spoke configurations.
A final model is a provision of all layers of service, such as in Chaska, Minnesota, where the city has built and operated a Wi-Fi Internet network that provides email and web hosting applications.
Because of significant financial interests on either side of the issue, there is a variety of academic literature that supports and rejects the feasibility of a municipal network from an economic perspective.
Proponents of municipal broadband also argue that the entrance of a public provider into a local market increases the competition which reduces prices and improves the quality of service.
[13] Opponents argue that the publicly funded networks have an unfair financial advantage that actually crowds out private investment[14] and leads to long-term reduction in competition and problems associated with monopolization.
[18] In 2021, President Joe Biden attempted to include direct provisions for municipal broadband in his $1 trillion infrastructure bill.
[21][22][23] In an op-ed, Larry Irving stated that "private sector ownership generally is more effective and efficient, promotes innovation, and helps assure freedom of speech and open networks".
[24] Trump administration FCC commissioner Michael O'Rielly argued that governments were infringing on their residents' First Amendment rights via prohibitions on "hateful" or "threatening" speech in the acceptable usage policies for their broadband networks—even though these restrictions are general, boilerplate terms also used by commercial ISPs.
[27][33] Groups backed by the Koch brothers, including the Internet Freedom Coalition,[36] and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, have also been involved in lobbying efforts against municipal broadband projects.
[33] In support of U.S. government agencies attempting to deploy broadband services more widely, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation detailed the cost estimates of providing "fiber optic connectivity to anchor institutions" in the United States in 2009.
[41] On February 17, 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was passed in an effort to build the economy, assist in job creation and retention, and improve U.S. infrastructure.
However, a report from West Virginia's legislative auditor suggested that the state had misused the stimulus money, and wasted an estimated $7.9–15 million on purchasing high-capacity Cisco routers that were often installed in smaller facilities which did not require such extensive network capacity.
[45][46][47] The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has addressed the question of whether a municipality was an "entity" under the Telecommunications Act which mandates that "No State or local statute or regulation, or other State or local legal requirement, may prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the ability of any entity to provide any interstate or intrastate telecommunications service."
The legal question revolved around whether a state could prevent a municipality, as its subordinate government body, from entering the telecommunication market.
[49] In February 2015, the FCC voted to assert this jurisdiction to challenge municipal broadband laws in North Carolina and Tennessee, citing authority under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to encourage the expansion of broadband by using "measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment.