The fallout from Lafayette

It's risky to manufacture hindsight--to try to guess how a specific moment or event will be viewed in the future. But I'm going to take that risk and predict that Saturday's election in Lafayette, La., will go down as a major event in the history of community broadband networks.

More voters than expected turned out to approve the Lafayette Utility System's $125 bond issue to build and operate a fiber to the premises network for voice, data and video services, and the final margin--about 2-1--also exceeded expectations. The vote itself had gotten the city global publicity, and now the genuine interest of the citizens in having their own fiber network could not be denied.

City-Parish President Joey Durel attributes the victory, in part, to his town's heritage.

"Our town is very entrepreneurial, probably because of its Cajun heritage, and the wildcatters in the oil industry that helped make Lafayette what it is today," he said. "One of the factors that makes our area so unique is the fact that the first three or four cultures that settled here were forced here from somewhere else. Thus our food."

I think, however, that there is a growing sense among people in other towns that broadband networks are no longer something for which they can afford to wait. Why else would a growing list of town leaders be willing to tackle such a difficult task?

Jim Baller, attorney with The Baller Herbst Law Group who represents Lafayette and many other cities battle the legal issues around community broadband, has seen newspaper editorials from as far away as Johannesburg, South Africa, advocating following Lafayette's lead.

"There is a growing recognition that our future depends on broadband--everything will be done through it and the more bandwidth we have at affordable rates, the more we are going to be able to hold our own," he said. "If we don't do that, we are not going to be able to continue to occupy the position of leadership we have held."

Baller was in Lafayette for Saturday's vote and the celebration that followed but he was back in Washington on Monday, working on other fronts, including North Kansas City, where Time-Warner has gone to court to block a local fiber-optic network and is appealing the initial dismissal of its lawsuit, and Utah, where Qwest is suing the Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA) claiming it is creating unfair competition.

Such battles are likely to continue until incumbents and municipalities figure out a way to work together more effectively. If the vote in Lafayette can do anything to encourage that kind of cooperation, it will be more than a major event--it will be a turning point.

E-mail me at cwilson3@primediabusiness.com.