Broadband Lack of Success

The Detroit News cited the Mackinac Center in an editorial opposing a $25 billion broadband internet plan put forth by the Federal Communication Commission.

Arguing that "Americans can't afford it and don't need it," the piece draws upon the Mackinac Center's report on Michigan's own failed experiment with governmental broadband efforts:

A retrospective analysis published by the free-market Mackinac Center last year noted that when the plan was first proposed, the expanded broadband network was projected to provide 500,000 new jobs and generate $440 million in new gross state product in the first decade.

...

Ultimately, the whole project went bust and the housing authority wrote off its loan. The Mackinac Center noted that by 2006, five years after the state project was proposed, private firms had made broadband Internet services available to 99 percent of Michigan's ZIP codes.

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