in the acceptable usage policies for their broadband networks—even though these restrictions are general, boilerplate terms also used by commercial ISPs. Incumbents typically are in favor of state-level legislation — often based on a model act drafted by the industry and distributed by the conservative lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — that seek to frustrate the deployment or expansion of municipal broadband networks. These can include requiring that cities hold a referendum to seek approval, instituting regulatory burdens on the approval process or their operations (including requiring competing bids from private entities), restricting municipal broadband providers from expanding outside of their jurisdiction, restricting them to only being a wholesale provider for private entrants, prohibiting municipal broadband in cities above a certain population, and restricting access to utility poles (thus requiring underground digging, which can be costlier), among others. In April 2019, Broadband Now reported that 26 states had such laws. The successful campaign to hold a referendum on municipal broadband in Fort Collins, Colorado was opposed by the Colorado Cable Telecommunications Association (which included incumbent Comcast), who spent nearly $1 million on lobbying efforts. Groups backed by the Koch brothers, including the Internet Freedom Coalition, and the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, have also been involved in lobbying efforts against municipal broadband projects. In the case of Nixon v. Missouri Municipal League (2004), the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that a municipality was not an entity under the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and that a state could determine what authority its own subordinate jurisdictions had. In 2015, the FCC acted to preempt state laws that restrict municipal broadband providers from extending their service beyond their current boundaries. The FCC grounded its ruling in Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which grants the FCC the authority to encourage the expansion of broadband by using "measures that promote competition in the local telecommunications market, or other regulating methods that remove barriers to infrastructure investment." A challenge to this was won by the states of Tennessee and North Carolina on August 10, 2016 in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 did not give the FCC the right to prevent states from prohibiting municipal broadband, on the grounds that the FCC could not reallocate power between a state and its subdivisions. The FCC declined to appeal. The largest group that opposes municipal broadband, however,