I was pleased to see a recent address the growing differences between rural and urban areas of Colorado. It was particularly important that the article highlighted the disparity in broadband internet access, noting that the disparity is an “economic equalizer.”
What it fails to identify, however, is the reason broadband availability improved from 59 percent to 77 percent in recent years: a competitive free marketplace that encourages investment.
That marketplace has been significantly threatened by the Obama administration’s 2015 decision to classify the internet as a public utility and strictly regulate it. That move, purportedly taken to enforce net neutrality, amounted to a government takeover of the internet that undermines market forces and depresses investment in broadband networks.
The federal government needn’t treat the internet like a utility to guarantee net neutrality. Republicans and Democrats both support the basic idea that users should not be blocked or rerouted from certain sites by internet service providers — so it shouldn’t be difficult to pass bipartisan legislation that will codify net neutrality while also preserving the idea that an open market should determine winners and losers online, not the government.
While conditions have improved, nearly a fourth of the state still lacks broadband access. We need federal legislation to protect the internet. Letap not make the same mistakes previously generations did by allowing Colorado’s rural areas to lose critical opportunities due to lagging access to phone service.
State Rep. Dave Williams is a Republican from Colorado Springs.
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