On 2024-05-24 14:32, Asp, David wrote:

Minnesota Strikes Down Preemption Laws Blocking Municipal Broadband | Welcome to Community Networks (communitynets.org)

The scary part of this is the "where it cannot agree with the owner on price, it may acquire an existing plant by condemnation." In other words, a city can use eminent domain to take a private company's network. There is, AFAIK, no statutory restrictions limiting this to cases where the private company is e.g. abandoning/neglecting traditional telephone service. And with the unfortunate Kelo v. City of New London SCOTUS decision, cities' eminent domain power is incredibly broad: they can take private property and give it to another private entity. Hopefully this is not abused.