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Citywide Fiber Project Challenges and Goals
aLAW writes "Who wants to receive fiber at their home? Vermont's queen city, Burlington, is planning on running fiber to each household in the city. 'It hardly seems possible, but by the end of 2007, all Burlington residents will be able to pay just one bill each month for their home phone service, broadband Internet connection and cable television channels. And they won't be making the check out to Verizon, or Adelphia.'"
...having that many of your bills served by a single provider makes for a single point of failure, and that's not good. If the company falls on hard times, then all of your utilities they handle will get hiked.
A good example is Time Warner. They're serving cable and cablemodems to my area, and soon to add phone. And every few months, they jack their prices up a few bucks. Without fail. And that's why I won't fall for their "$39 a month (or whatever the price is) to call anyone unlimited!" deal. Based on past performance, I know it's bogus.
Remember that competition usually works to keep prices down.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Here is a google cache to a different article about the project http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:1NEgZD8tfMEJ: www.sevendaysvt.com/features/
The site is down (small newspaper hosted by a small local ISP) but I do have knowledge of this project. I am local resident and have been watching this since its inception. This project has had its share of problem like any government project some budget overruns, Verizon trying to stop it in its tracks, public saying this should not happen, etc. The most interesting objection I heard was that this (including telephone service) should be done from wireless. I would love to hear the screams when a thunderstorm disrupts 911 service. The initial budget was in the low 6 figures Burlington is a relatively small under 40k people.
So far the project is already getting some use. The city and schools are now connected together by a Gig connection (many were not doing much better than dialup). The company where I am the IT person is also their first (and only?) customer. We are getting a 1.5 Mbit through a local ISP. So far no one is making money but the ISP, http://www.sover.net/ is now able to sell to other in town businesses for cheap. I pay Burlington Telecom $200/month for as much bandwidth as the ISP will give me.
This in a city where Adelphia (soon to be Comcast) has a monopoly for many parts of the city this is a very good idea. Some may say that city government should stay out of this area but I disagree. The deregulation of utilities let them do whatever they want but also assumed that the market would help with prices and quality. How many choices do you have for cable TV?
Or thinking of moving there?
Check out my dumbest idea ever (Cable modem)
Or here.
This might be true if we were talking about specific politicians holding a govt. office - but we're not.
The problem I see here is we're basically asking govt. to perform another function normally left to private industry, under the assumption that there's no other way for it to get done efficiently and/or properly.
That pretty much sums up why we have a post office and NASA handling space travel.
But is "fiber to the door" really this type of issue, or is this more a case of people just getting impatient and trying to "force the hand" of corporations to roll out a service?
You know, there's arguably little reason today why we really still require federal govt. to handle all of our mail. Sure, they seem to be doing a respectably good job and most people see no huge reason to upset the "status quo" if it works. But we're long past the "Pony Express" days and the high risks involved for mail carriers. Heck, the USPS sub-contracts much of its express mail delivery to FedEx right now! But when's the last time they really asked you to "vote on it"? I do, however, recall a guy in Texas getting thrown in prison for attempting to compete with the post office a few years ago.
With a private company, you effectively "vote them out" by declining to pay for their service or product. When enough people feel it's not worth the money anymore and quit using them, they go out of business or revamp their offerings.
I would much rather pay a company than the government. At least I have the option to invest in that company if I have the desire. I really don't understand why so many people put so much faith in the Government.
Because this is slashdot. A place were people put faith in their government due to some twisted logic that they are elite and highly educated. Thus, government is always the best choice above and beyond the public sector.
I don't know where this comes from, while some here believe in government others here don't. I myself am Libertarian, or Jeffersonian Liberal Democrat, who believes in small and limited government. And from some of the posts I've read here I'd say others are the same.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Jeez...
There are Bay Area cities in California that already provide many of these kinds of utilities, sometimes even for free. There's no sense in having capitalist-style competition for certain things. Basic home utilities strike me as one of those things that might be better provided by single city-based services.
I don't know about you, but I am not that keen to have my water controlled by private enterprise. I feel little differently about phone lines, etc.
BTW, if the city runs the utilities it might just provide stronger protection of my personal information concerning those items because the government is specifically limited in terms of what it can and cannot do as regards my info. It's not a perfect solution, but easily as good as what we've got. I know the private sector trades on my info without my permission as it stands right now.