In a move which at some stage could well be replicated in the UK it has been revealed that US telecom companies are fighting a battle to retain the upper hand in the small local US broadband markets. A report in the US press claims that Monticello, a small town in Minnesota has come under attack from local telecoms giant TDS Telecom over plans to build a fiber-optic broadband network for the town.
The local plan was put together by a group of public activists and they even obtained bond finance from the debt markets to develop the venture. However, in May this year TDS Telecom served a law suit claiming that public broadband was actually illegal and the venture should be halted.
In what many saw as nothing more than a stalling tactic to give the group time to prepare its own network and heap further cost onto the public funded venture the lawsuit was this week thrown out of court.
Monticello is the latest in a growing number of local communities that have announced their own fiber-optic networks after failing to receive a service from their local telecom companies. While the recent court cases have ultimately proved unsuccessful it is unlikely that the telecom companies will allow their markets to be hit without a fight.