The details of the deal aren't clear, but it looks like the path may still be open for the city of Philadelphia to offer cheap or free broadband access to its residents, to the consternation of Verizon, Comcast and other private companies. But, as the Washington Post's Cynthia Webb reports, the telecom lobby may have given up a little in this battle, but it's winning the war.Only Philadelphia is going to get a pass, while state legislation (House Bill 30) written by the industry's lobbyists that gives telephone companies the power to block municipal Internet service plans will still leave other cities under their thumb.

The Philadelphia Daily News called the legislation "eminent domain, but for the private sector." And this is the law in nearly a dozen other states, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer.

You'd think Democrats might be pushing universal broadband access, but as this story shows, they're enmeshed in competing interests. Philly Mayor John Street, a Dem, sees an opportunity to both boost his city's economy and bridge a digital divide that has only widened as wealthy families flock to high-speed access while poorer ones may not even have dial-up. But the state's Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, apparently faced conflicting pressures. One of his biggest campaign contributors, the law firm Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, also represents Comcast and brags on its website of helping pass a similar bill in the state of Utah.

My understanding is that back in the early 1990s, when national Democrats were in a position to push an earlier version of universal Internet access, pressure from telecom companies and unions had the effect of diverting that well-intentioned proposal into Clinton's "wired schools" initiative, which has been a huge boondoggle and has scarcely closed the digital divide. Looks like the same sort of thing is still happening.