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Name For a Community-Owned Fiber Network?
CleverMonkey writes "I'm a town representative to a newly created municipal group creating a new type of telco. This group has formed to build and operate a FTTH network, and provide both triple-play services and access to other providers, to over 20 mostly rural towns in East-Central Vermont. The project is novel because of the size of the network (a cable pass down every road within 600 square miles), the low-density of the area served, and the public-ownership/private-financing model that is being used. Some of the towns included in this group currently have nothing beyond 14.4 dial-up on a good day. This project began as a grassroots effort in a couple of towns and the name they chose was ECFiber — East-Central Fiber — or sometimes the East-Central Vermont Community Network. We hope that this network will grow beyond one corner of this state, and we would like a name that is both descriptive and flexible. What would you name a community-owned, cutting-edge, G-PON fiber-optic network covering every remote corner of two-dozen contiguous towns?"
If you go with public ownership, you're going to run into the same problems many community wifi projects have run into. Interference from telcos at the state and federal government level. They will be all over you, and you will end up wasting funds fending off legal challenges, and lobbying the state government to not pass legislation that would destroy your project.
Instead I suggest the cooperative model that has worked for rural electric providers for over fifty years. A cooperative is a corporation that is owned by its customers. Using a cooperative organization will keep the government out, which I think will be essential to your organization's survival.
Good luck!
You might be right. The city of Alameda tried it with traditional cable and failed miserably. It has a bond payment due soon and revenue won't even cover the interest.
Lowell, Michigan also tried and gave up in 2007 when it realized that the cost of upgrading the system to modern standards would far exceed the value.
Running a telecom service in an underserved area is more expensive and complex than many people think. Often, the area is underserved for a reason.
That said, maybe fiber will work. Or maybe it's worth it as a social value to the community, even if it's pricey. Fingers crossed for you.