Why Voters Are Rejecting Municipal Broadband

One of the most closely watched municipal broadband efforts of the past two years went down to defeat on November 2. Voters in Illinois' Tri-Cities – Batavia, Geneva, and St. Charles – wisely decided their local governments should not be in the business of providing HBO and MTV.

The referenda's backers blame "misinformation" from SBC and Comcast as the reason why the measures were defeated by large margins for the second time in as many years, but they overlook two more likely explanations: The growing availability of inexpensive broadband and the increasing sophistication of consumers.

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