Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
1–10 of 86 posts
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#2We need that! The Internet should actually be free given the value they all get from me.
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#3> despite billions in tax breaks, regulatory favors, and subsidies, companies like AT&T have long refused to upgrade low-income and minority Cleveland neighborhoods to fiber.
There is a very easy solution to this. Electric utilities should be required to lay fiber along with electric. They can choose to offer internet (better) or offer fiber with a choice of carriers.
EPB in Chattanooga has been providing fiber to homes for decades.
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#4"Cheap" to be determined
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#5> despite billions in tax breaks, regulatory favors, and subsidies, companies like AT&T have long refused to upgrade low-income and minority Cleveland neighborhoods to fiber. There is a very easy solution to this. Electric utilities should be required to lay fiber along with electric. They can choose to offer internet (better) or offer fiber with a choice of carriers. EPB in Chattanooga has been providing fiber to ho…
It's the obvious solution, so of course it won't be done.
I now have four separate companies' fiber running through my property, of which I am connected to only one, but I could switch to two others anytime I wanted to, and then they'd run the "last connection" to my house. It's kinda silly.
(The fourth is a business line, which I could connect to but that involves more work as it is older.)
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#6> despite billions in tax breaks, regulatory favors, and subsidies, companies like AT&T have long refused to upgrade low-income and minority Cleveland neighborhoods to fiber. There is a very easy solution to this. Electric utilities should be required to lay fiber along with electric. They can choose to offer internet (better) or offer fiber with a choice of carriers. EPB in Chattanooga has been providing fiber to ho…
If the municipality owns the poles and the power company this is comparatively easier. In places that own both, like Traverse City in Michigan, Chattanooga TN, or Longmont CO, this model can be incredibly effective. The problem, at least in my part of the world (Michigan) is that most municipalities do not own the poles or the power company. The power company is instead a large publicly traded corporation, albeit with strong regulation.
Adding regulation to force power companies to run dark fiber on new runs only addresses part of the problem. You still have to deal with the millions of miles/kms of installed grid that sees proactive maintenance _maybe_ once a decade.
Not to mention the state laws in dozens of states that place onerous rules on municipalities installing their own broadband service, or even outright forbid the practice entirely. These laws are often the result of ILECs lobbying state governments or using their lobbying groups to directly write "model legislation" that state governments subsequently adopt.
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#7> despite billions in tax breaks, regulatory favors, and subsidies, companies like AT&T have long refused to upgrade low-income and minority Cleveland neighborhoods to fiber. There is a very easy solution to this. Electric utilities should be required to lay fiber along with electric. They can choose to offer internet (better) or offer fiber with a choice of carriers. EPB in Chattanooga has been providing fiber to ho…
If the municipality owns the poles and the power company this is comparatively easier. In places that own both, like Traverse City in Michigan, Chattanooga TN, or Longmont CO, this model can be incredibly effective. The problem, at least in my part of the world (Michigan) is that most municipalities do not own the poles or the power company. The power company is instead a large publicly traded corporation, albeit wit…
Rarely does a situation so desperately cry out for the use of eminent domain.
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#8> despite billions in tax breaks, regulatory favors, and subsidies, companies like AT&T have long refused to upgrade low-income and minority Cleveland neighborhoods to fiber. There is a very easy solution to this. Electric utilities should be required to lay fiber along with electric. They can choose to offer internet (better) or offer fiber with a choice of carriers. EPB in Chattanooga has been providing fiber to ho…
Imagine that: company gets free money from the government to do such-and-such thing but isn't strictly required to do it, then they take the free money and don't do the thing. It's almost like corporations are self-interested and un-altruistic.
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#9> despite billions in tax breaks, regulatory favors, and subsidies, companies like AT&T have long refused to upgrade low-income and minority Cleveland neighborhoods to fiber. There is a very easy solution to this. Electric utilities should be required to lay fiber along with electric. They can choose to offer internet (better) or offer fiber with a choice of carriers. EPB in Chattanooga has been providing fiber to ho…
It's the obvious solution, so of course it won't be done. I now have four separate companies' fiber running through my property, of which I am connected to only one, but I could switch to two others anytime I wanted to, and then they'd run the "last connection" to my house. It's kinda silly. (The fourth is a business line, which I could connect to but that involves more work as it is older.)
I'm not saying it's right but I'm predicting the argument against will be that it will increase the cost of running electric which you think would be "who cares" but homeowners end up footing that bill and are more let's say more price-sensitive than governments.
It's crazy we still haven't won the fight of "if you build a house the literally state controlled electric company has to hook you up" but here we are.
Re: Cleveland launches plan to provide cheap broadband
#10> despite billions in tax breaks, regulatory favors, and subsidies, companies like AT&T have long refused to upgrade low-income and minority Cleveland neighborhoods to fiber. There is a very easy solution to this. Electric utilities should be required to lay fiber along with electric. They can choose to offer internet (better) or offer fiber with a choice of carriers. EPB in Chattanooga has been providing fiber to ho…
If the municipality owns the poles and the power company this is comparatively easier. In places that own both, like Traverse City in Michigan, Chattanooga TN, or Longmont CO, this model can be incredibly effective. The problem, at least in my part of the world (Michigan) is that most municipalities do not own the poles or the power company. The power company is instead a large publicly traded corporation, albeit wit…
isn't "pole ownership" and access to those poles what doomed google fiber? In some cases it's easy to run fiber yourself in other cases it's completely impossible.