Gigi Sohn Touts GON Partner Without Revealing Financial Ties and Personal Conflict of Interest

The American Association of Public Broadband (AAPB), headed by former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) candidate Gigi Sohn, failed to disclose her financial relationship to a touted provider in a recently published how-to guide for cities looking to build government-owned networks (GONs).

AAPB (of which Sohn serves as executive director) and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society collaborated on the handbook entitled “Own Your Internet: How to Build a Public Broadband Network.” In that guide, the groups lay out a blueprint for how government entities can create their own GONs, which now number an estimated 650 around the United States.

“This handbook is a key part of AAPB’s strategy to double the number of public networks in the next five years,” Sohn wrote in a press release announcing the publication.

The guide includes profiles of example communities that AAPB holds in high regard. This includes Colorado Springs, which is in the process of building a citywide open-access fiber network at an estimated cost of $600 million. (Yes, a six followed by eight zeroes.) The Colorado city of about 500,000 residents selected provider Ting as the anchor tenant for the network, and hopes to lease excess fiber capacity to other providers.

A fact the guide omits is that Sohn serves on the board of directors of Ting’s parent company, Tucows. And Sohn received 6,875 shares of stock in Tucows in the third quarter and fourth quarter of 2023. At the time those were rewarded, they were worth nearly $140,000.

The guide notes that the private sector “has profit as its prime motivator” and that “the profit and loss statement and the balance sheet are the key measures of success.” But as AAPB claims that a municipal broadband network differs by making “community benefit as its primary purpose,” the group praises a GON from which Sohn stands to financially benefit without revealing the connection.

The guide further promotes Ting in its index, noting it is one of the vendors providing retail services to public broadband networks that city leaders could contact.

The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) reached out to the media relations liaison for AAPB to seek comment from Sohn on the issue, but she did not respond to the request.

From incumbents with slower speeds or expensive prices to the need to “future proof” the internet with fiber to the home, “Own Your Internet” advocates the usual rationales for cities to build their own networks. The guide omits the various risks that TPA has written about in its reports such as “GON with the Wind: The Failed Promise of Government Owned Networks Across the Country.” These include low take rates, government corruption and higher-than-expected construction costs. These various challenges have led to many failing GONs bailed out by taxpayers.

But AAPB doesn’t include such information in this report, just as it keeps Sohn’s financial conflict of interest close to the vest.

Johnny Kampis is director of telecom policy for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance