“A majority of Americans across a wide range of demographic groups are in favor of local governments being able to build their own high-speed networks,” according to a new Pew study conducted between March 13-27, 2017. Seventy percent (70%) of the public believe “local governments should be able to build their own broadband networks if existing services in the area are either too expensive or not good enough.”
Reflecting a trend we are seeing across the country, support for local Internet choice crosses party-lines. According to Pew, solid majorities of Democrats (74%) and Republicans (67%) favor the right of communities to make their own decisions about municipal broadband networks. With the growing importance of the Internet for job applications, for education, for healthcare, for public safety, and more, Pew found that almost half of Americans are saying home broadband is “essential.”
The full Pew study can be found here.
A hat -tip to Kevin Taglang at the Benton Foundation for alerting us to this new research.
