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Citywide Fiber Project Challenges and Goals

Posted by Zonk on from the we-control-the-horizontal dept.

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.'"

2 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Might seem like a good idea, but... by Weaselmancer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...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.
  2. From a local by snizfast · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?