Lawmakers pushing to prevent towns and cities from constructing their own broadband networks certainly wouldn’t be doing any favors for North Carolina residents.

They would be providing a boon to telecom companies, however.

The N.C. House Finance Committee will hold a public hearing this week on legislation that would sharply restrict the ability of municipalities to do so when private companies won’t build high-speed Internet systems in lightly populated areas.

House Bill 129 would require municipal broadband providers to follow the same state, federal and local regulations and pay the same amount of taxes that commercial companies do.

Cable and phone companies have been urging the legislature to restrict municipal broadband services since the N.C. Court of Appeals appeals court ruled in 2005 to uphold the right of towns and cities to offer their residents broadband. These companies argue that the bill merely levels the playing field because local governments don’t have to pay taxes and can subsidize their rates by transferring money from other municipal funds.

Wilson, Salisbury, Laurinburg, Morganton, Davidson and Mooresville operate municipal networks. The bill at least has been amended to exempt these existing networks from the proposed rules.

Those towns and cities stepped in to build broadband networks — a crucial 21st century communication platform — because the private companies wouldn’t. Rural, sparsely populated areas just don’t hold the profit potential these companies seek.

And those are just the areas — especially in Eastern North Carolina — that would benefit most from broadband services, both from an economic and education standpoint.

Lawmakers should stand up for the people in those areas, not the giant telecom corporations.