Residents are outraged by a state law restricting them from high-speed Internet

McDonald, TN (WDEF) – Joyce Coltrin owns a small nursery, growing and selling plants, in South Bradley County, but said she can’t ship products to her customers around the country because she’s missing one important thing.

"We have no Internet," said Coltrin, "Well I could get dial up, but even if I wanted to send a UPS package, they don’t-their system doesn’t function on the dial up service."

Coltrin said every day she has to travel 10 miles from her shop, across the county line, into Hamilton County just to get on the Internet to serve her customers, "Two or three years ago we just asked Volunteer Electric and EPB if they could work together, and they said sure. And then they discovered, after thinking about it, the state law that prevents them from working together to provide us with broadband."

Which is why a public meeting was held Tuesday night, in McDonald, to allow residents to voice their frustrations about the law. "We’ve been fighting to try to get broadband here in Bradley County, Meigs County, Polk County for a number of years. Not months but years," said State Rep. Dan Howell.

"The minute (people) understand that there’s a state law preventing it, they’ll say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’" said Coltrin, "They actually don’t believe me a lot of times and it’s true. It’s a state law, and it just needs to be changed."

Without the law in place, utilities would be allowed to answer any public need for greater access to fiber optic broadband.