New Jersey town's municipal broadband plans facing opposition from dark money group (surprise)

The town of Vineland, New Jersey and its residents have been frustrated by the lack of reliable, affordable broadband. And like many other communities nationwide, they have decided to take action and study the concept of a city-owned open access fiber network. And, like in many other communities, it's raised the hackles of a dark money group.

The Taxpayer Protection Alliance Foundation (TPAF) is one of a number of organizations across the country that emerge from the shadows to try to block community broadband projects. It's not a stretch of the imagination to image that dark money flowing from the incumbent providers trying to protect their market monopoly or duopoly. However, since TPAF and an alphabet soup of other groups of the like don't have to reveal their donors, there's no real way to know.

Ironically, TPAF - whose funders are completely hidden - is attacking Vineland for not being transparent about their feasibility study, which was performed by open acces network provider Bonfire. The group put in an open records request asking to see the 54-page feasibility study report, but the city denied the request because a competitor could use the report for their own competitive advantage. It's a move that TPAF has used in numerous other communities that were considering projects, always claiming that their motives are purely protecting taxpayers. 

New Jersey does not have any restrictions in place to block municipal broadband networks. But that doesn't mean that big telecom won't push back to protect itself from the will of the people.

CLICK HERE to read an article about Vineland and the dark money attacks at Ars Technica.