Greenlight is a bundled telecommunications service owned by the city of Wilson, North Carolina. Its services are distributed over a fiber-optic network that was constructed by the city. The service has attracted attention because of the controversy surrounding its competition with Time Warner Cable and CenturyLink.
Contents
FCC order
As part of the Commerce Clause power of the federal government, federal regulatory power overrides state power to regulate the internet. As a result, any state laws which would limit consumer choice of internet access provider to a single seller like Time Warner Cable or Verizon have been preempted by the Federal Communications Commission order taken on Thursday February 26, 2015. Thus municipal broadband is safe until another President who favors the Cable monopoly takes office because FCC orders can be reversed as Presidents change. In the end the United States Congress would have to exercise preemption when there is enough consensus for a bill which a sitting president can sign like the 1996 Telecom law signed by President Bill Clinton which allowed for such predatory high cable prices.
Creation
In order to fund the Greenlight project, the city of Wilson used funds from bonds, instead of taxpayer money.