The question posed is whether or not a state can control where a local governmental agencies can provide service. In the document below, the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga (EPB) wants to expand its internet into a location that outside it's authorized area. On 7/24/2014 3:28 PM, William Herrin wrote:
On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 6:10 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
For the record, Eric, I'm certain that states can preempt municipalities. Howdy,
Actually, it usually stands on its head: states determine the scope of what local governments are -permitted- and required to do rather than what they're forbidden.
Traditionally, sanctioning the local cable TV company has been one of the activities the states assign to individual localities while sanctioning the local telephone company has been kept up at the state corporation commission or public utilities commission.
With the convergence of cable TV and telephone into Internet, it's anybody's guess which regulation goes where. Everybody wants the power. Nobody wants the responsibility.
The question is can FCC preempt States? Generally yes, as long as there is some aspect of the activity that moves it into the realm of interstate commerce. The FCC would have trouble preempting the states on a pure layer-1 fiber build but it is within the federal government's authority to preempt state regulation on general Internet access and any infrastructure not meticulously separated from the same.
For example, the FCC preempts all state and local regulation of sub-meter satellite dishes on the grounds that satellite communications is fundamentally interstate in nature. They even preempt homeowners' association rules.
There's also the question of whether the FCC already has the authority or if they'd need an act of congress to get it. On that question, I have no idea.
Regards, Bill Herrin