The city’s ambition is that every business and premises in the city will have the broadband capacity of Chattanooga and the dozen cities that are getting the same capacity through Google Fiber. Supporters are already dreaming that tech savvy-young ones who develop Apple and Google apps and like to kayak, mountain climb, bike, hike, ski and live in safe, livable small cities will start a migration to Montrose. In 2005 that right was taken away by corporate Internet giant lobbyists who persuaded the state legislators it would be unfair competition to allow rural areas like mine to provide their own gigabit Internet speeds if the giants refused to do so. My little San Juan Mountains town in western Colorado on April Fool’s Day voted by an overwhelming 74% to reclaim the right to provide our own broadband, cable, phone and other telecommunication services. Colorado law required citizens to vote in support of municipal participation in broadband buildout. Leaders of Montrose, Colorado, a city of 19,000 on the Western Slope, think their economic future is tied to faster Internet connections.

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