The FCC “has generally advocated market-based mechanisms that will promote competition, provide flexibility to broadband providers, and stimulate investment in broadband networks.”5 It believes that “[w]ireless broadband, as well as other alternative broadband platforms such as satellite and broadband over power lines, can create a competitive broadband marketplace and bring the benefits of lower prices, better quality, and greater innovation to consumers.”6 Although traditional telecommunications and cable companies increasingly added broadband Internet services to their product offerings in the late 1990s, hundreds of municipalities throughout the country also have considered whether they should provide broadband Internet access to their residents, and if so, During this time, some municipalities installed.
