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City-Owned Internet Services Offer Cheaper and More Transparent Pricing, Says Harvard Study (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Municipal broadband networks generally offer cheaper entry-level prices than private Internet providers, and the city-run networks also make it easier for customers to find out the real price of service, a new study from Harvard University researchers found. Researchers collected advertised prices for entry-level broadband plans -- those meeting the federal standard of at least 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload speeds -- offered by 40 community-owned ISPs and compared them to advertised prices from private competitors. The report by researchers at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard doesn't provide a complete picture of municipal vs. private pricing. But that's largely because data about private ISPs' prices is often more difficult to get than information about municipal network pricing, the report says. In cases where the researchers were able to compare municipal prices to private ISP prices, the city-run networks almost always offered lower prices. This may help explain why the broadband industry has repeatedly fought against the expansion of municipal broadband networks.
"City internet" isn't doing research and development.
If they did 100% "city internet" in the 1990s, we'd all be using dial up modems today because R&D is what makes technology evolve.
That is fine for the water supply because water supply technology doesn't change much, we are still using pipes like the Romans.
City internet has its place, just like public libraries and such. But it is not a widespread answer.
Universal "city internet" has all the weaknesses of 1982 AT&T break up, where phone technology was stifled because monopolies have no reason to evolve.