Chapel Hill’s plan to sell broadband service to local businesses and residents has been prohibited by state law, but the town still plans to move forward with providing free Internet access in public places.
On Monday night, the Chapel Hill Town Council discussed the future use for the fiber network system, which the town began developing in 2009 for traffic signals and to provide faster Internet access to residents.
The town later began installing fiber optic cable, which is 1,000 times faster and can handle more data than the copper wires being replaced.
John Bjurman, interim town chief technology officer, said the town was looking into bringing fiber cables to private businesses and residences.
But state legislation passed in 2011 bars local governments from selling broadband services to prevent competition with corporate broadband providers.
“The problem is that the bill says that the town would have advantage over other providers, and so they say it’s not fair,” Bjurman said. “This hurts us and it hurts the citizens, all to make sure there’s no competition.”
Bjurman said although the town will not be able to sell broadband, it can provide free high speed Internet access in public places through the fiber optic system, which could still help breach the digital divide.
Paul Jones, a UNC professor and board member at Orange Networking, said the new system could allow people in neighborhoods with limited Internet access to use the Internet at churches or community centers.
“The town could probably provide no charge access to these communities just like they do at public places like town hall,” he said. “They just can’t sell it.”
