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Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

arstechnica.com

21–30 of 230 posts

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#21

I hear a lot of people being dissatisfied with Comcast. What is it that makes them so hard to compete with that people have to resort to city-run networks?

it's expensive to lay cable through a whole city. digging / horizontal drilling aren't cheap, and if you're not the city, you've got to deal with the permitting process and accompanying hassle.

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#22

I hear a lot of people being dissatisfied with Comcast. What is it that makes them so hard to compete with that people have to resort to city-run networks?

This site has some opinions on the matter:

https://consumerist.com/2014/05/10/why-starting-a-competitor...

https://consumerist.com/2014/03/07/heres-what-lack-of-broadb...

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#23

I'm pretty proud of my hometown for passing this measure! Longmont, a town 30 miles south of Fort Collins, passed something similar a couple years ago, and it sounds like it's been pretty successful so far[1], so I'm excited to see where this goes. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15570559#up_15573817

Do you happen to know where they hire people for working on this? Are they city or state employees, or are they using a bunch of contractors? Edit: Hmm, looks like Fort Collins will use contractors for installs and hire 10 to 38 people over five years (p. 39 - Personnel Requirements): https://www.fcgov.com/broadband/pdf/7.27.17%20Broadband%20Bu... However, this is excluding developers for things like customer portals…

Good find! I was curious too, and that does seem pretty small. I wonder how many people NextLight employs and contracts out in Longmont?

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#24
post #4

how to encourage other cities to do the same? can colorado guide the rest of the cities and states to through similar initiatives?

I'm in Colorado Springs (2nd largest city in Colorado) and we passed this last year although it didn't get any coverage. Colorado is definitely moving in the right direction.

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#25

I hear a lot of people being dissatisfied with Comcast. What is it that makes them so hard to compete with that people have to resort to city-run networks?

Comcast is in rent-seeking mode at this point; extracting as much money as possible from existing infrastructure.

By "infrastructure" I mean last-mile fiber buried/strung throughout neighborhoods and into peoples' homes. It's expensive to build such infrastructure, due to varieties of local laws, right-of-way access, and for the same reasons leaf nodes are most numerous in typical tree data structures.

So, Comcast's approach is to extract as much money as they can from existing infrastructure which they've built, acquired, or gained exclusive rights to, while directing minimal resources to building new such.

Along with that, they expend a lot of effort lobbying to protect that infrastructure from encroachment or competition by other entities, like other private ISPs, unbundling laws, municipal broadband, and the like.

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#26
post #16
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you misinterpret? Obviously it's not just you. No consumer would be happier if Comcast didn't try to provide a better product. The point is that judging by their past actions, Comcast won't do that.

No, he's agreeing with everybody that Comcast acts shitty when they do this.

I think the comment you're replying to understands that. I interpreted it as them calling out the fake bravery of saying "maybe it's just me" before sharing a very common and widely-held opinion.

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#27

Whenever this happens - and it happens a lot - Comcast & Co just goes up a level to the state legislature and has them outlaw municipal broadband: https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big-tel... Can't they just do the same thing in Colorado?

I am sure people in colarado are bold and smart enough to not let such back door efforts come in the way of their expectations.

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#28
post #12
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's just me, but the right thing for Comcast to do is try to provide a better product. Competition is healthy, legislation is illness.

Did you misinterpret? Obviously it's not just you. No consumer would be happier if Comcast didn't try to provide a better product. The point is that judging by their past actions, Comcast won't do that.

They did in Chattanooga, but not before trying to sue the city four times:

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ezpk77/chattanoog...

A couple shorter articles on the same topic:

https://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8530403/chattanooga-comcas...

https://consumerist.com/2017/04/11/comcast-introduces-gigabi...

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#29
post #17

I hear a lot of people being dissatisfied with Comcast. What is it that makes them so hard to compete with that people have to resort to city-run networks?

I don't really see why having the city run its own Internet service should be considered a resort. Getting the profit motive as far away from basic utilities like Internet transit as possible seems like a win, because you don't want an undifferentiated bit pipe to have to continue to make more and more money over time.

My city has a pretty sweet hybrid of this. We have a local company that provides electricity/cable/internet which received grants from the city to get off the ground. But it's now self-sufficient while still remaining cheaper than Comcast, with gigabit speeds.

Re: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado

#30

Whenever this happens - and it happens a lot - Comcast & Co just goes up a level to the state legislature and has them outlaw municipal broadband: https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big-tel... Can't they just do the same thing in Colorado?

I am sure people in colarado are bold and smart enough to not let such back door efforts come in the way of their expectations.

I'm sure other people in Colorado would gratefully accept the appropriate amount in "campaign funds" to run against those who would dare to compete against Comcast.

I mean, really - how dare they?

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