Municipal Fiber Network Will Let Customers Switch ISPs In Seconds (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader shares an Ars Technica report: Most cities and towns that build their own broadband networks do so to solve a single problem: that residents and businesses aren't being adequately served by private cable companies and telcos. But there's more than one way to create a network and offer service, and the city of Ammon, Idaho, is deploying a model that's worth examining. Ammon has built an open access network that lets multiple private ISPs offer service to customers over city-owned fiber. The wholesale model in itself isn't unprecedented, but Ammon has also built a system in which residents will be able to sign up for an ISP -- or switch ISPs if they are dissatisfied -- almost instantly, just by visiting a city-operated website and without changing any equipment. Ammon has completed a pilot project involving 12 homes and is getting ready for construction to another 200 homes. Eventually, the city wants to wire up all of its 4,500 homes and apartment buildings, city Technology Director Bruce Patterson told Ars. Ammon has already deployed fiber to businesses in the city, and it did so without raising everybody's taxes.

Comments

what? that's absurd!

[Gravis Zero]

You can't just pit ISP against each other like this! How do expect companies to overcharge for services if they have to compete for customers?! Clearly these cities don't understand the nuances of capitalism! ;)

Yay! What's old is new again!

[MobyDisk]

This is how internet service used to be! The current generation growing up just naively assumes that your local telecom company is your ISP, and can't even wrap their head around this idea that you could choose an ISP separately from the company that shows up to your front door to wire it.

This is the market solution to Network Neutrality. The "golden age" of the internet was back when the telephone companies just provided the wires, and people could sign-up for whatever ISP they wanted. Then, when telecom companies bought out the ISPs, and the two markets combined into a single vertical slice, is when the problems started. With monopoly came DNS servers that redirect you to ads, paid prioritization of traffic, no more static IP addresses, no more allowing people to run servers, etc. Network Neutrality is so much a battle about restoring the internet to the way it was. I fear it won't be successful unless we restore competition to the ISP market again.

Re:lawsuit

[EndlessNameless]

Since one is customer, and the other is one of several ISPs, then what "regulation" is needed?

Someone has to run the fiber, maintain it, replace it, and decide who gets to use the free space in the conduit (because someone eventually will).

If the government doesn't own the fiber or the conduits, then it will have to regulate the companies that do.

Want a real life example? Look at utility poles.

My state has laws that force utility companies to share poles when there is space available on them. Most states have similar regulations. Why? Because they didn't want to share with anyone, and we don't want 10 poles on every block. There is occasional squabbling, but it works.

What are the chances that the industry will behave better with fiber or underground conduits? Not very good, I would say.

I personally don't care if a service is managed by a dicknosed bureaucrat or an assfaced CEO. My ideological preference is whatever actually works. They can figure out how to play nice with everyone and deliver what people want, or they can go to hell.

Heavily-regulated residential utilities seem to be both reliable and affordable, so I'll roll with that. I have no complaints about my electric, water, gas, or sewage. Only the minimally-regulated cable and internet industry seems to be jacked up---at least in the five states where I've lived. So I have no problem trying to make the cable/ISP industry more like the others. If that doesn't work, walk it back and try something else.