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.

Comments

Neighboring CIties started this

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Neighboring CIties started this

[sdinfoserv]

The City of Olympia tried to do the same thing and built "ClickNet". That system loses almost $10M per year.

Re:Neighboring CIties started this

[Areyoukiddingme]

What's happened to your property & sales taxes?

Property tax in Longmont, CO is unchanged since 1991. Sales taxes went up from a total of 8.26% to 8.515% effective January 1, 2018, after a ballot measure approving it was voted on by the residents in November. History data does not seem to be readily available.

There's some complaining that property tax assessments have risen sharply in recent years in Boulder County, where Longmont is, but that's county-wide, in both incorporated and unincorporated areas.

Re:Neighboring CIties started this

[PPH]

The City of Olympia

I think you mean Tacoma. And until a few years ago, they wholesaled fiber bandwidth to some ISPs. That proved to be money losing. So they are switching to selling direct to their customers.

Re: Neighboring CIties started this

[Darinbob]

A lot of this oppositions isn't just from corporations, there's a huge libertarian swath that believes no government is the best government, and any municipal services are inherently evil. Thus the libertarian oriented question that implies taxes must have gone up; and if someone had said taxes did go up they would say "Aha! This proves that abusive corporations are far preferable to local governments responding to the will of the people."

Re: Neighboring CIties started this

[Bengie]

Actual real ISPs in the USA that try to be transparent and offer quality reliable services to mediocre income areas with sub-optimal densities are claiming that all technical aspects of the Internet, including upgrading, managing, and maintaining their infrastructure and providing transit bandwidth, is 1%-3% of operating costs.

The Internet is only 1%-3% of your Internet bill. This begs the question of why incumbent ISPs are so up in arms about restricting the Internet and trying to charge overage fees and the like, if 1% of their costs have anything to do with you actually using the Internet.

Doesn't matter

[sdinfoserv]

Muni-Broadband is just the last mile of pipe. If Netflix or Youtube traverses any one of the cabal members upstream infrastructure (which is highly likely), the traffic can/will be degraded or throttled.
As much as I detest these companies, I don't believe it is the role of local government to compete with private business using public tax dollars and staff with life long benefits again paid by citizens.

Re:Doesn't matter

[PoopJuggler]

You mean like the police and fire departments?

Re:Doesn't matter

[mrun4982]

It's the government's job to step in and provide a solution if the monopolies refuse. Myself and lots of people I know have municipal run gigabit internet and you won't find someone disappointed with it. It's the best service I've ever had and yes, it is very fast. Large games, big updates, etc download orders of magnitude faster than on ordinary broadband.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Doesn't matter

[ShanghaiBill]

You mean like the police and fire departments?

Privatized police are problematic, but there are privately run fire departments.

If you don't pay your bill, they let your house burn down.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Ichijo]

As much as I detest these companies, I don't believe it is the role of local government to compete with private business using public tax dollars and staff with life long benefits again paid by citizens.

So the roads should be privatized and tolled?

Re:Doesn't matter

[Kjella]

It's the government's job to step in and provide a solution if the monopolies refuse.

That's the weakest argument you could use. As a general rule of thumb if the market - that is, the users - aren't willing to pay for the service that service should not exist. Otherwise you'd approve of every public, subsidized boondoggle sucking money out of general taxes. Most public services replace or compete private services, like if there was no public fire department or waterworks I'd probably have a private fire department and some sort of well association and you have mixed markets like public/private transport.

The government should step in where there's market failure, usually because it's unfeasible for anyone else to service you and you're being gouged. Like if you don't like your local grocery store could you go to a different one. But if you can't get out of your driveway without being subject to a toll road's prices and terms you don't have a real choice. If the rest of the city district is connected to one sewer system nobody's laying down pipes for a different one. Or a second set of rails and railway stops.

Is the ISP market that bad? Potentially yes. Potentially no, like you got many kinds of networks with huge benefits of scale where there'll never be many competitors like say physical cell phone networks, with leased access you can have many names but it'll all come down to at most 3-4 different sets of infrastructure. That doesn't mean it's a market that is so limited the government has to step in. It's the kind of market you can keep competition open if you regulate it well, but if you don't it'll decent into monopoly abuse.

Re:Doesn't matter

[Bengie]

If Comcast could run 100Mbps with no caps, they would.

Please explain why rural areas have 1Gb fiber for $80 from small private ISPs and the city has 60Mb copper for $100/m from incumbents. Obviously is cheaper in rural areas, right? Running that fiber line to the farm 3 miles away must be easy money.

Case study after case study shows that being an ISP in even a moderately populated area is a cash cow of high margin profits. Case studies are also showing that the most difficult part of becoming an ISP is getting through the red-tape trap incumbents have setup and the crazy expensive and drawn out legal proceedings that can take years because incumbents will fight tooth-and-nail to keep competition out.

net neutrality and competition

[roc97007]

Wow, I haven't seen the bright side in eliminating net neutrality until just this moment. Once it's eliminated, Comcast will inevitably go back to data capping and throttling their competition, (because, hey, money) and people will have even more reason to go with municipal fiber instead. And of course, to keep up profits, Comcast will respond with even more draconian measures, which will cause even more people to quit. This will be very entertaining.

Major error in your thought

[gurps_npc]

There are certain things that private corporations should not do. Except for the most ardent libertarians, the army is a prime example.

Another is the road system. It is stupid to let a bunch of companies build toll roads. Why? Because 1) everybody needs them. 2) Once a minimum quality level is reached, there is little difference, aside from how much you use it. 3) It is to everyone's benefit that the road system goes everywhere, not just the most high traffic areas. 4) There is minimal innovation, we know how to build this, it isn't hard, there really isn't anything to compete on except for price and capacity. 5) It makes no sense to build multiple road systems side by side - doing so would take up excess space with minimal advantages.

All of these same arguments except the last apply to the internet just as much as it does to car roads. There is one other difference - a state run ISP would be tempted to censor. But the same does not apply to a CITY run ISP, or even a county run ISP.

Basically, private business have ZERO business competing with local government tax dollars on this. They have NO benefit to anyone except themselves and the people they bribed to get monopolies.

Which is the real problem here - you are so upset with the government owned monopolies that you are ignoring the major disadvantages of the government SOLD monopolies.

Corporations are great and wonderful in their place. But they have severe limitations and frankly, running an ISP is a bad idea.

If a corporation can not compete with a local, municipal run ISP, then it has no business existing. They are not owed a business, they must EARN it.

Re:Major error in your thought

[thestuckmud]

I'll point out, if you read the actual proceeding, the city isn't actually going ahead with building the fiber internet, they're going ahead with the studies and plans. The final approval still requires a public vote in November of 2018. There are very few details in what the council approved.

I am delighted to say you misread the proceedings. Rather than having to wait until Nov, 2018, the City Council approved Ordinance No. 011, 2018, which authorizes "the City Electric Utility to begin implementing its provision of broadband facilities and services and to receive and expend the General Fund loan through the Light and Power Fund."

Regarding your other arguments:

First, Fort Collins has pledged to uphold net neutrality as an ISP. Municipal efforts like this on are the best solution currently suggested by net neutrality advocates in response to the FCC's new approach to regulation. In response to the FCC, Comcast has withdrawn their promise to provide net neutrality in their services.

Second, we can argue whether Comcast is a de facto mopnopoly or a de jure monopoly in Fort Collins, but whatever name you choose way, Comcast has exclusive access to the cable through which they provide internet and they are my only choice if I want a broadband connection at my house in this city.

The notion that Comcast cannot compete is ludicrous. Their profits are too high for them to leave town, as evidenced by the $900,000 ($55 per vote) they (along with Centurylink) spent trying to influence the municipal broadband election. They will continue to offer cable, internet, telephone, security, and other services, with all the advantages of a major content producing conglomerate.

Finally, you ask why many government distrusting slashdotters are willing to take their chances with Fort Collins' city government? I can only speak for myself, and the reasons are twofold: First this is a case of trust governement or trust a company that has already proven itself duplicitous. But more importantly, the city government here in Fort Collins does a darned good job of governing and has earned my trust.

Re:Major error in your thought

[slack_justyb]

Let me focus in on something you got there...

Or any of a large number of other things that they would do were it not for the courts to stop some of it

So I'm going to go with this idea that you believe in legal recourse. If not then just skip the rest of this, we're just not going to go anywhere.

So the question remains: who do people who exhibit a complete distrust of the government suddenly accept promises at face value from the same government?

The thing is this. There have been at least three dozen cases but here's one for you 600 F.3d 642 that have established that there is not a legal recourse for network traffic manipulation without the following things. The FCC must approve of what those rules are for network traffic, which they did in 2007. The FCC may only apply those rules to those classified as Title II, which in 2010, Comcast was not classified as. So, lacking Title II classification the courts have ruled that there is no current legal recourse for network traffic manipulation.

So the question is, where does this all come from? PL104-104 passed by Congress in 1996. In this law Congress dictates in section 509 that section 230 of Title II of 47 USC 201 is amended that gives the FCC the power to dictate what is "fair" for "network traffic". That basically sets it up as, the word "fair" can be defined by the FCC. And after several legal battles between 1996 and 1998, the FCC commissioned a study to define what "fair" meant, because that's what Congress told them to do and judges really couldn't do much because the definition by law of fair was to be defined by the FCC.

They haven't shown that to me, and I don't accept the argument that they are no longer promising something they don't need to promise means they're going to do the opposite. But that's a personal decision.

You are right except when you walk into a court room. Which is the entire point here. We've all got different points of views on what "fair" is, that's why we have laws. It's sort of the axiom of what "fair" means except not agreeing with it means going to jail or fines. And that was the entire point, judges couldn't just magically whip up a definition of what fair meant back in 1996, but there wasn't really anything in the books to give them guidance. But I digress. The FCC in 1998 begins to make rules on what fair meant, and in 2002 they come forward with what those rules are in something with a horrible name called the "Cable Modem Order" here I'll save you a Google.. Here's a fun bit for you.

The Communications Act does not clearly indicate how cable modem service should be classified or regulated; the relevant statutory provisions do not yield easy or obvious answers to the questions at hand; and the case law interpreting those provisions is extensive and complex.

As you can see by this point (and we're only at 2002), there were so many lawsuits that you couldn't even make good rules based on case law, because I know a lot of us find it hard to remember this, but the Internet was literally fucked traffic wise back then. Now I should make it abundantly clear here, we're talking about traffic here. Case law had already established a clear distinction between "service" and "traffic". Basically, as long as your connection didn't go dark, you weren't in any violation of FTC rules and since the FCC hasn't spoken up yet about it. A connection to the Internet, even if it completely blocked email, was just a connection to the Internet, no harm/no foul. That's the difference that case law had at least agreed on by "service" versus "traffic". And so if you couldn't access Microsoft's website, there's no legal recourse, but if you just couldn't get on

Re:Government overreach at its finest

[K. S. Kyosuke]

What happens when the municipality gets cash strapped and decides to jack rats up by a factor of 10?

Uh...new elections?

Re:Buddy of mine wants to cut the cord

[penandpaper]

, it's not like those mega corps care about free speech.

You mean all those pro-NN companies like Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc.