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Why Municipal Broadband is Good
batageek writes "An excellent interview with Jim Baller (muni-telco-lawyer) concerning the growth and efforts of municipal broadband providers and the fights they go through with the incumbent providers and state legislatures." If you're wondering why you don't have fiber-to-the-home yet, read this.
The article is kind of long and boring, but here's the key paragraph:
FTTH [fiber to the home] networks are a good case in point. At present, cable can make more money selling relatively modest cable modem services over their Hybrid Fiber Coaxial (HFC) networks, and telephone companies can make more money selling DSL over their copper-based networks, than they can make by investing huge sums in FTTH networks that would allow them to offer substantially more robust broadband services. To wring every last dollar out of their existing systems, the cable and telephone companies are also working hard to persuade Congress, state legislatures and the FCC to allow them to close their systems to Internet Service Providers, CLECs and other potential competitors. Until these conditions change, the cable and telephone companies will simply not invest in FTTH networks. Instead, they will continue to try to convince us that we really don't need more bandwidth than they're offering. At the same time, they will try to block municipalities from building FTTH systems that could disprove these claims.
So it's the usual story. Corporations looking out for their bottom line. Using money and power to prevent competition from organizations that might act in the public interest (and thereby cut into corporate profits).
"If I could live to be several hundred
I could take a walk and really wander, really wonder."
Here in England, we actually have a choice of broadband providers. You can get either Cable or DSL (that is, via your phone service or cable service), and this healthy competition tends to keep the prices down a bit.
Dear $diety... Lock Haven?
I went to the college there from 1991-1993. Other -than- the college, the town was about as "High Tech" as any other small town nestled in the backwater woods of the north east USA 'mountain' towns. Go a mile off any decently paved road, toss a stone, and you'll hit Amish.
Now mind you, this was 1993 when I left. The college had -just- gotten hooked up to that (to us) Super High Tech Internet Highway!
Lock Haven creeped me out. I kept expecting to hear dueling banjos when I walked into town. The cops and "Townies" all but despised the college kids to the point of almost lynching any college kid who wandered off campus unaware...
It was a town that exhuded the feeling that 'Literacy' was not one of the top twenty sought after skills of the populace.
I'm not surprised nobody signed up, if the town was anything like I remember it being a decade ago. General concensus would have been "Fiber for $40? Lurleene can go down to the fabric store and get fiber for $2 a bag, I ain't paying no $40 for fiber."
Me? I'd've blown a nut the moment you would have said "$40/month for 10mb each way"
I work for a city govt in Texas, and if anyone in our public utilities customer service positions treated someone that way, they'd be fired in short order... but only if you actually bothered to prepare a formal complaint to the department. If the complaint is factual, well documented and is not a lunatic ranting, it is taken *very* seriously here. We've even had citizens bring their complaints (well prepared and "educated") before the city council as initial complaints, not going thru the normal departmental channels first, and let me tell you doing that usually gets investigative results FAST. It is a municipal employee's worst nightmare for a citizen to voice their complaint first to the council, so we make it well known at the service counters that if someone has a valid issue with a city utility, that they get priority attention from us, the staff.
.so is 640k...or so I hear.
dont know much about fiber do you...
a single fiber's bandwidth is limited by the electronics on the end of it. Fiber it's self has no bandwidth limit. so I can send 90,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bits per second through it both directions at the same time.
Lumpy is right. If you actually learn about fiberoptics before you pan someone's idea you might be able to make smart posts.
The best example is the electric power generation and distribution in Québec (Canada). Since the early 1960's, electric power generation has been nationalized in Québec, and the result is the lowest electricity rates in the world, all the while paying-off the northern native communities on whose land the dams have been erected so well that, on the whole continent, they are the better-off natives (that's "indians" for you non-PC types).
Even with all this, it manages to pour billions of dollars in the government's coffers (that's so much taxes we won't have to pay).
Much of the revenue is made through exportation, and this is thanks to the hydroelectric nature of the generation system: unlike a thermic or nuclear power plant, a dam can be turned-off during off-peak times. So, during the night, we close the dams, and buy surplus power from the US at 2, while during the day, we open the whole shebang and sell our surplus at 4...
By contrast, Hydro-Ontario (which had been owned by the province for a century) has been privatized and the market "opened-up", just like in California. The result is a complete fiasco, as small businesses face 500% electric power cost increases (for electoral reasons, consumers have been guaranteed - at government expense - a lower fixed rate).
Come have a look up here, and whenever someone says that government-ownership is bad, you can safely answer back "bullshit", and then ask him why the roads and highways aren't owned by private entreprise to see him bumble...
Back in 1995 or thereabouts, I read an article that said something to the effect of "T1 speeds in five years for $30? How does that bite you?"
The prediction is both true and false. True in the sense that you can certainly achieve T1 speeds easily for that cost and even less, but false in the sense that greed has both driven prices through the roof and service through the floor.
In Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, broadband cable costs US$30/month with effectively no caps (though egregious uploaders and downloaders do get flagged). In most of the US, the typical cable or DSL provider wants around $50/month for lesser service - even in lower-cost areas. I'll tell you one thing - when I was living in the US, it sure bit my ass.
Your trolling.......
Have you ever used a fusion splicer? They don't break easily. They are actually quit rugged. They work quite well in a windstorm at near freezing temperatures.
nice try.
Yes I have one here. and it has been broken 3 times by loaning it out to baffoons that think they are durable. The cleaver is easily screwed up, and one small drop IN it's case misaligns everything to the point that every splice can't get any lower than 2db loss. Now it needs to be realigned and serviced. and yes I've tried 3m crimplok's they suck badly. you CANT get less than 1db loss (oh sure turn up the lasers to get more signal.... NOT!)
Fiber into the home is STILL stupid. without looking at the fact that instead you put the node in the house instead of on the pole (more expensive now) what the hell is the advantage? do you have a DSL moden that has a fiber port? how about a calbe modem that does. Oh how about a nice fiber splitter.. those are cheap.
dealing with light is expensive. dealing with it right is even more expensive. drop back to technology that isnt as picky (a speck of dust can easily down your fiber communications) when you get in the house and leave the upgrades to increase bandwidth to replacing guts in a pol mounted enclosure... Voila I just upgraded 20 homes with one piece of equipment. instead of replacing 20 devices on the outside of 20 homes.
besides, what's the matter? can't back up your claims so you post AC?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This quote about "ultra-rural" Grant County PUD is somewhat misleading:
"In fact, in ultra-rural Grant County, WA, where users of the County's FTTH system have affordable access to speeds of 100 Mbps in both directions, bandwidth usage has jumped more than 600 percent and upstream usage actually exceeds downstream usage. Why? The County believes that small businesses are sending substantially more information to the Internet than they are downloading, and gamers are vastly increasing their real-time usage."
While it's true that the users are getting 100mbps access, they are *paying* for only 1mbps access. The PUD is simply too lazy (or incompetent) to limit the actual rates. Now that the PUD is running out of cash to continue rolling out the program they are still fighting any efforts on the part of service providers to actually rate-limit connections and use that to provide quality of service (and enough cash-flow to the PUD to pay for the program).
The other problems with public power doing broadband is their bureaucratic nature. These are not business people but salaried workers who are accustomed to a business model that does not include competition or the risk of going bankrupt. They have been tutored in a regulated monopoly environment in which the "bottom line" can often be whatever they want it to be. Here in Grant County they have apparently (it's hard to get a straight answer) raised the electric power rates to help cover the fiber rollout costs. This has enraged the agricultural interests who feel, with some justification, that those who will benefit most from fiber should pay the most to roll it out.
Additionally, the PUD here has entered into questionable contracts with favored service providers. There is at the present time an investigation into these dealings being undertaken by an "independent" Seattle-area lawyer. The word "independent" is in quotes because the attorney doing the investigation told me he is acting as the attorney for the PUD Commissioners with all the secrecy a client-attorney relationship can imply. Whether the results of this investigation, which could be politically damaging, will be released to the public is "entirely up to the PUD Commissioners", he said.
The Grant County PUD is hardly a shining example of local-control broadband. The PUD controls two hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River and will spend something over $200 million in their fiber project (no one yet knows the real costs). This is big money no matter how you look at it and allegations of sweetheart deals to special interests abound.
Broadband is expensive no matter who does it and no matter what a high-power lawyer in Washington, DC says. Trying to do it with a community effort might be successful or it might not be. There are many pitfalls and with so much money involved there is always the possibility of corruption and waste.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Re:No thanks. (Score:3) by Lumpy (12016) on Thursday May 22, @10:33AM (#6014949) (http://www.your-website-sucks.com/) Electricity is required for a minimum standard of living. really? so all those people in africa are dead then? you can live with much MUCH less. it's how many luxuries you want that requires your electricity..
How did this get modded insightful? It's fairly obvious that the original poster was referring to legal requirements, not absolute needs. Besides, it doesn't matter if you can live without electricity and running water - try it in the US and you risk having your building condemned.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
OPEC doesnt much deal in gas. In North America almost all gas comes from Canada, Mexico and the US. And the fact is there is a gas shortage there. Importing the gas via ship is a costly business, so expect even higher gasprices in the future. Because demand is going up and production going down.
I live near Kutztown, PA, a university community of about 4000 people which is running a muni fiber network to downtown homes and businesses and planning to bill users for it along with water, sewer, etc. I called and asked the local govt folks if they would consider putting Wi-Fi broadcast antennas on top of the local "mountain" (big hill, really - couple hundred feet high) to reach outlying areas. I already have a DirecTV dish - one more wouldn't be a problem The fellow I spoke to said they'd really love to do something like that, but Verizon and other private broadband providers were heavily lobbying state government and threatening lawsuits as it was; they needed to tread very lightly just now and couldn't risk expanding the planned service area, which would be seen as a provocation by the private providers.
Hello! Cost of Infastructure is the reason why! Say you can get a good deal on Long range fiber transceivers at 100$ a pop (This still completely Leaves out the Equipment this will still be needed to be hooked up to.).. you need 1 on each end... So your amost at 1/4 of a million dollars just for lasers.. No equipment to hook up yet at all... Just to light up the fiber.. Cost of recovery... if your broadband provider can cut more than 15$ a month in profit they are doing VERY good... so lets just say they have a profit of 15$ a month on 45$ It will take just over 13 months to do cost recovery Just on the Lasers required... and lasers will end up being the cheapest item on the list... If you can get fiber dug in the city for less than 75$ a foot Your smilin... and overhead is 35$ a foot or more... Thats just for Installation.. not including the medium.. (which is Virtually free compared to the installation cost).. Then you have Termination equipment.. You would be lucky to be able to terminate for 300$ a end.. I really doubt you could end up with less than 1000$ a house to terminate both ends of the fiber... and at 7.5 years untill there is profit to be made... How many of todays Investors are willing to wait that long to see a return on thier investment.. Practically 0...
Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
Early on the only internet provider in Korea was the big Telecom company (in the dial-up modem days). The government offered financial incentives to anyone who want to offer a competing service. They would get tax breaks and big fat low interest loans. Soon everyone was using these alternate providers, so to fight back, the big telecom upgraded their own systems and servers and there has been fierce competition ever since.
The economy in S Korea is also very different from North America. Here we have many franchises ang megamarts and major utility providers that price fix everything. In Korea there actually is competition and most commodities are very cheap, because as soon as someone can offer it cheaper, they will, and everyone will switch to that new cheaper provider.
This already happens (to an extent) with DSL in the UK - you have copper to your house, and then you pick which ISP you want to supply you with connectivity.
:o)
What then happens is that the big incumbents keep prices high and grab all the dumb (l)users who want the 'saftey and reliability' of a big name like BT (ha! - their network goes down more often than a young lady of questionable morals) whilst the geeks can pick a much better service from Zen or Nildram for less money
Everytyhing transits over the BT ATM network* (for which you pay through the nose) but where it goes after that is up to you.
*Except those on unbundled local loops, who get things like 2mb/sec connections off peak (512k on) for the same price as I pay for 512k all the time, and also get to pick from ADSL and SDSL as well as much higher speeds - BT blow goats, they are shockingly incompetent by comparison.
Beep beep.