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After Beating Cable Lobby, Colorado City Moves Ahead With Muni Broadband (arstechnica.com)
Last night, the city council in Fort Collins, Colorado, voted to move ahead with a municipal fiber broadband network providing gigabit speeds, two months after the cable industry failed to stop the project. Ars Technica reports: Last night's city council vote came after residents of Fort Collins approved a ballot question that authorized the city to build a broadband network. The ballot question, passed in November, didn't guarantee that the network would be built because city council approval was still required, but that hurdle is now cleared. Residents approved the ballot question despite an anti-municipal broadband lobbying campaign backed by groups funded by Comcast and CenturyLink. The Fort Collins City Council voted 7-0 to approve the broadband-related measures, a city government spokesperson confirmed to Ars today.
While the Federal Communications Commission has voted to eliminate the nation's net neutrality rules, the municipal broadband network will be neutral and without data caps. "The network will deliver a 'net-neutral' competitive unfettered data offering that does not impose caps or usage limits on one use of data over another (i.e., does not limit streaming or charge rates based on type of use)," a new planning document says. "All application providers (data, voice, video, cloud services) are equally able to provide their services, and consumers' access to advanced data opens up the marketplace." The city will also be developing policies to protect consumers' privacy. The city intends to provide gigabit service for $70 a month or less and a cheaper Internet tier.
While the Federal Communications Commission has voted to eliminate the nation's net neutrality rules, the municipal broadband network will be neutral and without data caps. "The network will deliver a 'net-neutral' competitive unfettered data offering that does not impose caps or usage limits on one use of data over another (i.e., does not limit streaming or charge rates based on type of use)," a new planning document says. "All application providers (data, voice, video, cloud services) are equally able to provide their services, and consumers' access to advanced data opens up the marketplace." The city will also be developing policies to protect consumers' privacy. The city intends to provide gigabit service for $70 a month or less and a cheaper Internet tier.
I live in Longmont, about 40 minutes south of Ft. Collins, and we have had fibre internet through the city for over a year. 1 GB speeds up/down and only $49/Month. Forever. It's on our utility bill. When they went live everyone left comcast and centurylink in droves, and I hope it happens over and over.
This city council V O T E D to pursue this. You as a citizen are entitled to your opinion and so too are the folks from Fort Collins.
I am lucky enough to live in a city with municipal fiber. It was expensive, took forever to build out, but now that is has been done for a few years it is making money like gangbusters, is fast, is cheap and has been so successful that is about to expand into neighboring towns because they are begging for it to do so.
I have no data caps and a fully symmetrical 100Mbps connection for 50 bucks a month with no contracts what-so-ever. This is what everyone deserves and what AT&T, Cox Cable, Charter Cable, CenturyLink, etc could not manage despite being here for decades longer.