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Comcast Rejected by Small Town -- Residents Vote For Municipal Fiber Instead (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

A small Massachusetts town has rejected an offer from Comcast and instead plans to build a municipal fiber broadband network. From a report: Comcast offered to bring cable Internet to up to 96 percent of households in Charlemont in exchange for the town paying $462,123 plus interest toward infrastructure costs over 15 years. But Charlemont residents rejected the Comcast offer in a vote at a special town meeting Thursday. "The Comcast proposal would have saved the town about $1 million, but it would not be a town-owned broadband network," the Greenfield Recorder reported Friday.

"The defeated measure means that Charlemont will likely go forward with a $1.4 million municipal town network, as was approved by annual town meeting voters in 2015." About 160 residents voted, with 56 percent rejecting the Comcast offer, according to news reports.

9 of 311 comments (clear)

  1. Expect litigation by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comcast will sue and ironically claim anti-competitive / anti-free market behavior on the part of the town. They will seek to add hundreds of thousands in legal fees before this is settled, win or lose. That is what they do.

    1. Re:Expect litigation by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Personally, I believe that the best approach would be for the city to create and own its own municipal network and then to allow multiple companies to sell services on it to the citizens.

      The major cost of broadband is trenching. So an even better solution is for the city to install public conduit, like a 6-inch PVC, and then let any bonded company pull fiber for a nominal fee. That might result in real competition.

  2. Do the math by MasseKid · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There are 1266 people in that town as of the last census. This contract was supposed to be for 15 years. Assuming the interest cost for both infrastructures was the same, there was a cost difference of ~940K. Averaging that cost per month over 15 years amongst the 1266 people yields a monthly cost of 4.12$. I find it hard to believe that comcast was going to provide service cheaper than the municipal would. And I find it very easy to believe they can do it for less than 5$ a month cheaper than comcast.

  3. Expect muni to be sued by Comcast by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Very soon.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. Why would they pay Comcast? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I don't understand why Comcast would expect the town to pay them? Is that common?

    I thought that the cost of infrastructure was a cost of doing business that Comcast would recoup through subscription fees, why do they need a subsidy?

  5. Comcast tried to block ours... by Pezbian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comcast tried to kill Utah's UTOPIA fiber project. They failed and now even a town with less than 1000 people has a 10G fiber option (most go with 1G).

    The hell with Comcast.

    --
    In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
  6. Re:Muni ISPs should be based on Distributism by Falconhell · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They are certainly kicking your asses in life expectancy, education and public health. I know it’s hard for a seppo to comprehend, but money isn’t everything.

  7. Re:Comcast may be bad by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Municipal" will be worse.

    For the same reasons you don't want the town hall to run pizzeria.

    Funny, nearly every place that has tried it has had good results. The key, of course, is to do it correctly. First, the city comes in and installs the lines. Then, they contract out service to local ISPs. ISPs compete with each other to provide service over the existing infrastructure, which means that the cost for a new ISP to join the mix is negligible, leading to a highly competitive market even in low-population areas. And the only thing the municipality has to do is maintain the infrastructure, which, it turns out, is something that government does pretty well.

    --

    Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  8. Will see how it pans out.... by no-body · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In this country (US) are numerous forces in play to take away more and more rights from the general population through various tricks and manipulations to get it to a much smaller section of folks living in the same country.

    Not allowing municipalities to supply their own Internet service is one of many attempts, please see:

    https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/

    I am happy to live in a municipality who made it and provides this type of service. After getting rid of ComCast, whose manner in getting out of their claws and get my right required a small claims court case, it just feels better to now "own" it better in some way.

    -------------------
    The day is not far distant when humanity will realize that biologically it is faced with a choice between suicide and adoration.
    -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin † 10. April 10, 1955