Kansas Broadband Market Fights for Pro-Community Legislation

The Kansas rural and urban broadband market - the people, businesses and organizations that pay for services - is demanding state government get out of the way and let the market get faster better Internet access. This market response is setting the stage for legislative battles in other states.

A statewide community petition drive demands legislators "bring NO broadband bill forward until you visit our communities and learn about our inadequate broadband." Topeka, KS entrepreneur Lazone Grays addresses the negative impact on small businesses of the ALEC-inspired, lobbyist-written bill that threatens communities' ability to implement their own best solutions to meet broadband needs.

From his vantage point in the state capital, and being actively engaged professionally in increasing communities' access to technology that prepares individuals for the work world, Grays discusses why and how constituents in all states must get into the broadband political game:

• there's a disconnect between constituents and legislators who believe they only answer to industry lobbyists;
• inadequate broadband infrastructure is an urban as well as rural problem; and
• small business must be the core of counterattacks on bad broadband bills.