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Utah Cities To Provide High-Speed Net Access
Instarx writes "The New York Times reports that Salt Lake City and other Utah cities plan to install an ultrahigh-speed optical network as a public utility project starting next year. The network would provide internet access [for about $28 per month] in direct competition to slower commercial offerings. The network would be capable of delivering data over the Internet to homes and businesses at speeds 100 times faster than current commercial residential offerings. It would also offer digital television and telephone services through the Internet."
Clicky-clicky
The article points to the sluggish economy as a hindrance to this sort of deployment in Utah, as well as other municipalities, but I think it may actually help the project.
When you look at the vendors, their pricing has just dropped because they are hungry. So, you can get incredible pricing for the equipment, the electronics, the fiber, all the things you need. Because the economy's down, interest rates are down, so that's going to help financing.
And because they don't just have a free flow of cash in the telecom world, there are companies that are very interested because they don't have the capital riding on somebody else's network. You take that all together and the timing actually is pretty darn good.
As far as municipal involvement in this, the genie is out of the bottle in my opinion. Municipalities across the country are either going to do the retail or the wholesale, but they're going to do something. And they're not satisfied to just sit and wait when an incumbent or some private sector company decides that they're big enough and it's worth their while to come in to build the networks.
The speeds to be provided "are way more than what most consumers need in their home," Mr. Fenn said, adding, "Why provide a Rolls-Royce when a Chevrolet will do?" As I see it, the project is more like building an 8 lane bridge when a 4 lane will do just fine. Of course, I think Salt Lake is very very wise for making the decision to do it. Getting everything on one large "pipe" is what most cable companies are already planning. Hell if telephone companies thought that they could push TV over twisted pair they would be talking about it too. A few "watchdog" groups are a little worried about the spending, and I don't blame them, exp after the tech boom bubble burst. However, I am not sure of the price of rolled fiber cable, but I think it's a safe bet that it's better than it was 3 years ago.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
Perhaps Utah is different from where i live...
But as a d00d working in an ISP that offers both high-speed wDSL and dialup, i say they missed the mark by about 5 years.
Sure there are geeks like us that demand high-speed inet, but for the most part, i see people leaving high-speed in droves to go back to dialup.
It appears that even though broadband is cheaper than it has ever been, there are enough people still trying to justify the cost to check their email a few times a week.
The Internet Craze Is Over(tm).
do() || do_not();
I just hope they aren't taking money away from everyone else in the state to pay for something that's only going to benefit the cities.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
About damn time.
Well, it's a good idea in some ways, but isn't there major potential for DOS attacks? I mean against the local network, can't you monopolize pretty much all the bandwidth of the neighborhood fiber? I guess you can get into QOS metering and stuff, but that's a hassle.
This is really cool though in that it goes back to what the internet really is - peer to peer at its lowest level. Everyone is a client, everyone is a server, everyone has a public IP. No more of this corporate-shoved consumerism dreck. Very cool
funny munging
this seems all well and good, but what about local ISPs in utah? How are mom and pop shops expected to compete with the government? Hopefully this doesn't happen in PA, or I'd be out a job, and very very angry at my local government.
> upstream bandwidth
Upstream? Now that's just silly. Obviously, everyone only *downloads*, so uploading isn't an issue. A downloads from B, B downloads from C, and C downloads from A. It all works out in a beautiful Escher-esque way, each node feeding off of each other, downhill both ways...
Is the job of the government to provide high speed internet service to homes? As much as I like the sound of inexpensive bandwidth, if it's directly the government's service, there is a large potential for filtering or other restrictions on access, and a much greater threat for logging one's activities. I do not like this idea.
The government does not provide phone infrastructure, it instead regulates the companies that provide telephone service. I wouldn't want my telephone, television, newspaper, radio, or internet access to come from one extremely powerful group who would have a significant interest in manipulating information for their own benefit.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The costs are substantial. Mr. Morris said Utopia would spend about $1,100 a home to run the fiber network by each house in the 18 cities involved, and an additional $1,400 for each home that decided to be connected.
What would you personally do with $1100 dollars? Would you spend it so you can have the potential of spending another $1400 and monthly fees to get more bandwidth than you would ever need right now?
Now how about enforcing that on every homeowner in your city?
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Leave this to the free market of competition -- any time the government enacts these "wonderful projects" it ends up costing bigger bucks than if it was done for profit. How many non-users will pay higher taxes so that the actual users can get a service they way? How many ISP jobs will be lost? How many useless government jobs will be added?
Is this what you want? The same bureaucrats who have ruined education, who have done nothing but porked their budgets out of control -- you want these guys serving your high speed data?
From the article:
Jerry Fenn, the president of the Utah division of Qwest, the regional telephone company here that provides its own high-speed Internet access, said there were few uses yet for the network Utopia plans to deliver.
The speeds to be provided "are way more than what most consumers need in their home," Mr. Fenn said, adding, "Why provide a Rolls-Royce when a Chevrolet will do?"
This is exactly the line of thinking that prevents projects like this from implementation all accross the country. Just because "it's more than we need" right now does not mean it won't be down the road. It's the chicken and egg situation of the tech sector- no one will build it until there is a need, but there will not be a need unless it's there for people to develop uses on. Sort of ironic coming from a society which prides itself in gas gussling SUVs and exhorbitant homes.
Even though I live on the other side of the country, I hope this goes through, if not for the geeks of Utah, but for the hopes that municipal (read not controlled by draconian corporations) communications infrastructure can be rolled out in other places too.
These are all for the USA -
From April 2003: Broadband adoption races ahead in US
A little older, 2002: More consumers hooked on broadband
I think you get the idea...
I work for the Local Government in Lafayette, Louisiana and we've been rolling out fiber for years now all over the city... Businesses and residents can buy access through numerous resellers which all specialize in different things... Including one or two that specialize in delivering high-speed wireless access to your house. :)
Of course LARGE cities end up in the news for mentioning they'll be rolling out fiber someday now, while us smaller cities that have had a fiber network for a couple years never get mentioned.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Ummm.... a small percentage of people here feel the need to pay some other company, most definatly NOT blockbuster, to edit out the "bad stuff" for them...
For the rest of us, there's nobody telling us that we can't go pick up a move that's rated "R" if we want to, or for that matter go to an adult video store with "XXX" videos, or get them on pay-per=view, or whatever... Sure, they've tried..but failed, since the majority of people figured out that it was a stupid idea to begin with.
So I can pretty confidently say that they won't try to force a filter onto people, we're not talking about China here!
I'll be the first to tell you that Utah has some oddities...especially when it comes to alcohol laws. But if you haven't lived here, (and I have, my entire 27 years), then forgive me for being blunt, but you don't have a clue.
Okay, ha ha... we are all a bunch of amish here. Whatever! Is there a market here for movies w/ the violence and swearing taken out? Sure. Can you still get the other R rated films as well. Yes. Would they force people to use censor'd net if they did have it? No. If anything they would just provide it as an option, which I am sure some people would appreciate, but you could still get the raw full of pr0n feed if you wanted it.
That should read "Utah Taxpayers To Provide High-Speed Access".
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
I personally think this is the appopriate way to move forward with public infrastructure. The community pools together resources from taxes to pay for its own infrastructure - and then allow service providers to pay for access (to help defray up-front infrastructure costs) and actually compete for consumer dollars.
Create a municipal digital network, and allow cable/telecom companies to actually compete. If anything, people should have learned their lesson -- when Comcast offers to build your infrastructure 'for free', its monopoly is going to cost more than the upfront cost to have done it publicly.
Similarly with power lines and water/sewer. There is a basic conflict of interest between a corporations who are focused on profit above all else, and the public good which is focused on dependability and quality above all else. for example: consider the power transmission infrastructure.
sure, if the consumer cares about quality and dependability, the free-market should bear out those providers who manage such standards. However, the shared infrastruture -punishes- companies who invest (all its competitors benefit from the increased quality, only the investor takes the financial hit and then has to charge -more-, pricing itself out of the game).
The logical step is simply taking jurisdiction of the local lines back on the local level, and the long-haul lines on the federal level (think US highway/road system).
it's not like our infrastructure couldn't use a nice big upgrade anyway. and the telecom industry could certainly benefit from some public works projects to bid on.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Perhaps that's just wishful thinking on my part. Personally, I don't place myself in either camp. It all depends on the product being produces. Do I want a for-profit company making decisions about my medical coverage? Hell no! Do I want the government making my car? Of course not!
In this case, it only makes sense that a critical infrastructure like Internet service be provided by the state. Charging me $50/month for my broadband connection seems ridiculously high. Either the the cable company is terribly inefficient or they will be making money hand over fist far into the future.
We all know companies set prices where they will make the most profit, the public be damned, with no obligation to social justice issues. They don't care if nearly 33% of the population can't aford to shell out $50/month for broadband. All that matters to them is that it will make them more money if they gouge those who can afford to pay and leave lower income folks out in the cold.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
There are some minor problems. Technically, the staff of the city network need to gain a little experience. But overall, it has been a pleasant experience and I recommend it to everyone else.
It's about time the rest of the state catches up to us. Heck, we're just a little ol' cowboy town that barely knows how to find the 'on' button for our com-poot-urs.
H0ek
Think you're smart? Prove you've got brains!
Municipalities across the country are either going to do the retail or the wholesale
Many have been, and in spite of the track record and sufficient demonstration of their inability to operate as a professionally run telecom entity, many still aspire to do things more interesting than running their local water plant.
What is important for any consumer (and citizen, in the case of a municipal considering getting into commercial enterprises with your tax dollars) is to understand the dynamic of motivation in any operation.
In Utah, the complaint is being made that too many commercial entities are ignoring the demand for broadband. Being one who provides this to a third of a fly-over country state, I can tell you that the claims of interest in broadband (even at 60% comperable city cable modem prices) is far less than the claims. I've had communities present us with petitions with over 200 signatures, only to discover that less than 20% of that number were actually prepared to pay for the service when it was finally provided. (It wasn't price or competition - but rather a large majority of parties signing it to pad the numbers in the hope they could bring something good to their community - without they themselves actually having to purchase it!)
And we're motivated by the consequence of failure being of significant disinterest (forget about making great profits at this point - broadband in rural America is being operated exceptionally well if you're breaking even) . Contrast that with a municipal. They are used to 8:30 to 4 work hours, not twelve-hour days, expect to sneak out early Friday and never work weekends. They're typically overstaffed with undercompetent people and solve problems by throwing more bodies at the problem, or (god forbid), hiring and believing consultants.
Their motivation? It's typically prestige and recognition. Failure isn't a possibility, as they will quickly transfer moneys from their monopoly operations (water, sewer, etc.) either legally or illegally (watch out for those creative loans from the monopoly that get "forgiven" and wiped off the books a few years later, or the illegal transfer "loaning" of assets, including employees, vehicles, equipment and office space that is billed to the regulated monopoly but actually put to use within the broadband operation).
The result: you end up paying the highest water, sewer, electric, etc. rates in the state. One municipal in our region, who decided to offer broadband (in spite of three - yes, three - other broadband offerings) has an electric and water rate over 40% higher than anything remotely close in the region. That and creative accountants.
Worse yet, the municipals simply do not understand the telecom business. They're used to product life cycles of 5 to 10 years and don't understand capitalizing something that'll be obsolete in 12 months. They don't understand that core business means you need to have expertise on the subject - they'll hire consultants to an extent that ensures their project will never be profitable. This leads to unfortunate purchasing decisions - e.g. buying proprietary equipment from a company that goes bankrupt and leaves the municipality with an investment in junk (this happens more than you'd think - in fact, one of the proprietary near-line of sight vendors in our business that has the most success with municipals is a breath away from chapter 11 or 7, but they nail the municipal process by building their confidence up in the sales process about how easy this broadband stuff is - "heck, this stuff sells itself and is nearly self-installable!").
Now you're really in trouble, as a consumer of the water/gas/electric from the municipal. Consider for a moment - what would you do if you disagreed with paying 50% or more for your utilities to subsidize a pathetic broadband operation? Have you evern looked at how you can get rid of your municipal management? They're very hard to remove - most are unaccountable to the political process and report only to a w