"Even if Fort Collins’s network succeeds, it’s not likely to send Comcast scrambling to revamp the way it treats customers or content. The future of the free and open internet will remain in question for the vast majority of the country’s online users. But ISPs have been shamed into user-friendly practices before—Google Fiber’s splashy rollout a few years ago had the knock-on effect of scaring giants like AT&T into building more gigabit fiber networks in major markets. “The number of municipal networks out there is so small that it’s probably not going to have a deterrent effect on somebody like Comcast,” says Ryan Singel, a fellow at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. “I think they are important for people to see as different models and to be able to try and hold those providers to those ideals in absence of the bright-line rules that the chairman [of the FCC] is getting rid of.”"
The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.