A DSL Co-op in Your Neighborhood?

Steve Hamlin writes "In reading on Slashdot about the increasing cost of cable broadband (and DSL is no cheaper), I ran across this article about a neighborhood that put together a co-op for DSL broadband. From a DSLAM housed in a barn to microwave relays, a frame relay T-1, and problems with Qwest, the whole deal."

Comments

our city apartment shares T1 lines

[call -151]

If you live in a big complex, it may well be cost-effective to do what our complex has done. We have 6 T1 lines coming in and then a wired network so that every unit has good high-speed access. The cost is included in our maintenance, and that brought the cable to just above your front door. (If you want someone else to do the interior wiring in your unit, you have to spring for that.) We've had this for years and everyone is very happy with the arrangement. DSLreports speed test reports 2538kbps down/1368kps up, so we are getting excellent connection speed.

We are in NYC and have co-op apartment in a 5 building complex with 400+ units. The co-op arangement means that the units are owned collectively by people who live here, so the decision was made by people live here and who have very much the interests of those who live here in mind. Our course, many of the people who live here are not taking full advantage of the bandwidth (there are many little old ladies who emigrated from Eastern Europe post WWII here.) In a sense, their maintenance is subsidizing the rest, but even those who do not use it or do not use it much are very pleased with what it has done for the resale value of the apartments. ("Free high-speed internet included with unit.")

Before we did this, we tried to figure out how much it would cost per unit, but that was hard to get a true cost since much of it was one-time costs like wiring and the firewalls and hardware, and since much of the setup and planning was done for free by people who live here. Even the most pessimistic estimates, though, put it at around than $10/mo /unit long-term, way less than the $50/mo cost of cable modem "service", which had been the only previous option. Since around one in five units already were paying for cable modem service, with more people signing up each month (that was two years ago), it was cost-effecive and a significant improvement in many respects.

Re:Good argument for government intervention...

[renehollan]

The problem with your analysis is that it empowers the state to overcome "activation energy" at the taxpayer's expense so that a desirable steady-state is achieved sooner, rather than later.

Armed with this power, the state can then extend a monopoly status quo beyond the point where it has short-term bebefits.

Libertarians generally say that this is a poor trade. In those cases where many agree that the short-term expense would be worth the immediate benefit, you wouldn't need government intervention.

There are many industries where economies of scale are enormous. The PC industry is one: it costs an enormous amount of money to make the "first" new-fangled CPU. After that, they're cheap as dirt, almost literally. No government intervention was required for this industry to take off. And, while I would have liked to see cheaper PCs sooner, it would be wrong to tax my fellows to achieve this.

The record on government intervention to "jump-start" infrastructure is generally poor, the odd success notwithstanding extended scrutiny of the track record.