FCC's Broadband Quartet: A State-Federal Fugue or Feud?

The states care about broadband. California and Kentucky regulators have developed creative legal theories to extend their jurisdiction to regulate broadband services. The Colorado, Washington, and Michigan legislatures, among others, created incentive programs to promote broadband investment within their states. And municipalities themselves are getting into the business of providing broadband services where private companies are not serving their communities. Though not growing at the initially predicted rates, broadband use continues to grow steadily and impressively. In fact, little noticed over all the noise of the tech crash, broadband use quietly keeps growing, with cable and phone companies adding the most subscribers last year of any year ever.1 Many states view the deployment of broadband networks as important to