Municipal Broadband - Disadvantages

Disadvantages

Although municipal broadband may be helpful to many, there is a question as to whether it is essential and if so at what cost. Municipal broadband ideology and technology have complex issues with numerous legal implications, all of which must be considered when installing municipal broadband or wireless networking. Social focus needs to be directed at government agencies who authorize municipal broadband, thus dictating its availability and price. As a relatively new and improvable concept, municipal broadband is still extensively regulated by both the FCC and individual state guidelines and standards. Universal broadband services cannot be implemented without rigorous governmental-policy debate in regulating the use of the broadband. A study by the Reason Foundation found that highly dynamic wireless Internet technology allows for a higher risk for providers. There are also concerns over price gouging or "elasticity of demand", a concept that will force Internet service providers to provide a continued loop of special offerings and lower prices.

Legally and politically, the issues surrounding broadband are numerous, but a multitude of technical issues are yet to be overcome, such as how citywide wireless Internet can avoid interfering with transmissions by other Internet and network providers. There are also four important economic aspects to be considered with the respect to municipal broadband:

1. Which providers are currently providing service in a particular area or region?
2. What will be the effect on current providers economically, socially, and individually?
3. Will the installation be funded by local, state, or national government?
4. Who will be responsible for on-going maintenance?

Of these four areas, the funding question is the most controversial and contingent upon the belief that national government should fund broadband. There are concerns over complete convergence and control of the Internet being placed in government hands under projects ultimately funded by the taxpayer. Although municipal broadband has the potential to provide a quandary in concepts of right or wrong, rich or poor, and literacy or illiteracy, the technology can either work to decrease the ever growing digital divide or might just as easily make it wider.