I would take this article with a big grain of salt. It uses "26 states" as a headline figure, but seems to categorize any sort of regulation on the process by which municipal entities deploy broadband as an improper "restriction." For example, look at California:
> California state laws do not prohibit municipalities from offering broadband service, but up until to 2018 they did prevent “community service districts” (CSDs) from offering broadband unless there was no private company willing to offer service in the area. CSDs are independent local governments formed by residents of rural and unincorporated areas. CSDs were also forced to lease or sell their broadband infrastructure to any private telecom company that enters the market.
> In 2018, lawmakers passed legislation that removed state restrictions on limiting publicly-owned broadband networks for CSD residents. The new law enables CSDs to create enhanced infrastructure financing districts (EIFDs), which can be used to pay for public broadband infrastructure. The new law also removed the requirement to determine whether a private company would be willing to offer service, and ensures CSDs do not have to lease or sell public broadband infrastructure to private telecom companies that enter into the market.
So prior to 2018, you could build municipal broadband, but you couldn't set up a special taxing district for it, and then they got rid of that restriction in 2018. Should California count in the "26 States?"
The description of some of the other states' restrictions seem copy-and-pasted and do not match the underlying regulations. Look at Wisconsin. The article says that Wisconsin requires municipal broadband providers to include "phantom costs" in their accounting, and prohibits charging less than what incumbents charge.
If you look at the cited section, https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/66/IV/042..., the only requirement seems to be that municipalities must hold a public hearing, must perform a cost-benefit analysis, and reimburse the municipal treasury for the preparation of that analysis from from service revenues. And even that requirement is subject to numerous exceptions. For example, a municipality can construct municipal broadband without even a hearing or a cost-benefit analysis where (1) the municipality offers wholesale infrastructure to companies that directly offer service to end users, and (2) there is not two or more competitors in the municipality already.
That's an extremely reasonable set of requirements for municipal broadband, and in fact 66.0422(3m) basically lays out the "municipality builds the pipes, other companies offer service" model that folks on HN love so much. But this article deems that a "bureaucratic barrier to municipal broadband."
The problem with this sort of reporting is that it’s based on an extremely pro-government/anti-private-sector viewpoint. It doesn’t evaluate the rules on their merits, but assumes that every rule that restricts the municipal government and benefits the private sector must be bad, even if it’s otherwise a good idea. We know that’s not true.