MinnPost has published on OpEd from Melissa Wolf, director of the Minnesota Cable Communications Association, and Brent Christensen, president and CEO of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance on MN HF 4182, the Equal Access to Broadband bill (I have been following the bill) that would allow local governments to charge franchising fees to wired broadband providers…

Access to fast, reliable broadband and internet services is vital for every Minnesotan. From schoolwork to work from home, access to digital tools is an essential part of day-to-day life, not a luxury. Unfortunately, Minnesota lawmakers are proposing wrong-headed legislation that will give local governments authority to hike the price of essential internet and broadband services by as much as 8% – costing consumers more and threatening to halt the great progress made toward affordable, universal broadband access across the state.

The legislation currently moving through the House, which we refer to as the “Internet Tax bill,” will authorize local governments to enact what are essentially new taxes – which they call franchise fees – on broadband service providers. Decisions to add these new taxes to consumer bills and how that revenue will be spent would be made with very little transparency to consumers. Minnesotans are tired of additional fees and taxes being added to their bills. Ironically, this proposal allowing local governments to tack on new “fees” to internet bills comes while legislators are promoting other bills to ban junk fees.

So, what do these new taxes mean for Minnesotans? It means duplicative, burdensome taxes can be levied on consumers, making access to essential internet services inaccessible for many. Consumers won’t be getting a better or improved product — they’ll just be paying more for it.

When inflation is hitting family budgets harder than ever, and as the Biden Administration is stepping up efforts with billions in investments to close the digital divide, it begs the question of why Minnesota lawmakers want to put these onerous new taxes on essential internet and broadband-enabled services and move our state backward?

Moreover, this legislation comes at a time when more than 240,000 low-income Minnesota households are losing access to a federal $30/month broadband subsidy that is running out at the end of April. Why do state lawmakers want to compound this issue further and risk putting access to affordable internet, perhaps permanently out of reach for thousands of people, by adding layers of new fees to broadband bills? Low-income, BIPOC and underserved communities will be harmed the most by this legislation.