A few years ago, you might recall that Oregon legislators passed a new law giving tax cuts to ISPs willing to quickly deploy gigabit broadband in the state. The goal was to encourage the rise of smaller broadband competitors, easing their entry into what traditional has been a very hostile market controlled by politically-powerful incumbents. But the effort had numerous issues, first of which being that an initial draft actually make deployment more expensive for companies like Google Fiber.

Oregon lawmakers quickly lamented their decision, pointing out that Comcast charging $300 per month (plus a $1000 install fee) wasn't quite the kind of behavior they were looking to reward.

The 2015 effort also backfired in that Google Fiber, which had repeatedly hinted at offering service in the city, abruptly backtracked in 2016 after Google higher ups began to get cold feet about the slow pace and high costs of fiber deployments. With the tax cuts intended to aid competition instead going to pad incumbent pockets, the state now wants that money going back into its communities, not Comcast's already-flush wallet.

As such, state lawmakers are now looking at killing off the relatively young law entirely.

But initial efforts to do so haven't gone particularly well so far, in part thanks to Comcast lobbyists who would very much like to retain the $15 million annual tax cut Comcast now gets in the state for effectively doing nothing differently. One repeal effort last week died in the House legislature thanks to this lobbying pressure, and it's not clear when Oregon lawmakers will try again.

Locals argue this tax break now lining Comcast's pockets could have gone a long way to help fund cash-strapped regional schools and public services.