Below is a list of pending bills in various state legislatures (as of 17 March 2005).

Colorado - SB 05-152 (as amended)

As originally proposed, SB 05-152 would have prohibited municipalities from providing telecommunications services, cable services, or advanced services (Internet access with capacity of at least 144 Kb/s in both directions), directly or indirectly, at wholesale or retail, unless the municipalities met various onerous requirements. A municipality intending to provide such services would have been required to hold a preliminary public hearing to inform the public of its intent and would also have had to obtain a majority vote in a referendum on its proposal. The original bill also prohibited municipalities from cross-subsidizing covered services and facilities in any way; required municipalities to secure and pay for bonds used to finance telecommunications, cable, and advanced-service facilities from the revenues of each of these services, taken separately; subjected municipalities to all federal, state and local requirements that apply to private entities; required municipalities to set rates high enough to recover their actual direct and direct costs, plus imputed fees, taxes and other charges that similarly-situated private entities would pay; and removed municipal eminent domain authority and antitrust immunity. The amended bill would remove the cross-subsidization, revenue-bond and price-fixing restrictions. It would also give unserved municipalities the right to invoke a Pennsylvania-like first-refusal process, and it would grandfather local governments that have "entered into an agreement or otherwise taken any substantial action" prior to the effective date of the act.

Florida -- SB 1714 and HB 1325

SB 1714 and HB 1325 would permit municipalities that were providing communications or information services of any kind on May 1, 2005, to continue to do so, but they could not extend their service areas, add new subscribers, or add new services. With regard to services omitted by the private sector, municipalities would have to send letters to all non-governmental providers in the area and then wait 240 days to see whether at least one provider stepped forward to provide the service. If none did, the municipality would have to obtain a detailed feasibility study, hold a hearing, and conduct a referendum before providing the service.

Illinois -- SB 499 Amendment 1 (Consideration delayed by sponsor)

SB 499 Amendment 1 would add a new subsection to the Illinois statute that governs the Illinois Commerce Commission's authority to issue certificates of service authority, 220 ILCS 5/13-401. The new provision would read as follows "(c) No political subdivision of this State shall provide or offer for sale, either to the public or to a telecommunications provider, a telecommunications service or telecommunications facility used to provide a telecommunications service for which a Certificate of Service Authority is required pursuant to this Section." Industry supporters of this bill refer to it as a "place holder" while discussions among stakeholders within the state occur.

Indiana - HB 1148 (Died in committee 2/16/05)

HB 1148 would bar municipalities that are providing communications services on June 30, 2005, from adding new services or extending services to new areas. After that date, the bill would prohibit any municipality from providing any telecommunications service, any cable service, any broadband service, any information service, any application such as Voice over Internet Protocol, or any communications infrastructure or facility, if even a single private-sector entity was already providing the service in question, or claimed that it intended to do so within nine months of the time that the municipality wanted to do so. The bill makes no provision for fundamental differences attributable to data speeds (e.g., 200 kilobits per second versus 100 Megabits per second); symmetry (one direction versus both directions); mobility (wireless versus fixed); price; affordability to particular groups; signal quality; content (e.g., number of channels, categories of programming, local versus regional or national subject matter); quality of customer service and support; or other factors that a community may