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> Yes, but that's the fiber backbone underlying the residential internet service. True, but that still does not mean you can attribute 100% of the federal smar

> Yes, but that's the fiber backbone underlying the residential internet service. True, but that still does not mean you can attribute 100% of the federal smart meter grant to the fiber buildout. Even if you chose to ignore all the other investments made into the smart metering infrastructure, fiber routes built to service the electric grid (such as routes to substations) cannot be used for providing Internet service. As such it is not reasonable to attribute 100% of the $111.5M grant to EPB fiber's network. > Sure, with the newer 83,000 subscribers figue, it's more like $4,000 rather than $5,000. This again assumes 100% of the federal grant being used to subsidize EPB fiber. I don't think that argument has any merit, as both the Feds and the incumbents would have words if that were the case. > The FiOS uptake rate is under 40% (and during the first decade was under 1/3). Yes, but we aren't talking about Verizon here. EPB's take rate is somewhere between 50% and 66% (83k subs out of 120k households, but part of those 83k are businesses), so my point still stands that costs are equivalent, given the actual take rate. > It says that's the "Average cost of hooking up new fiber optic customer for EPB." I don't take that to be the cost including construction of the network in the first place. No, but it includes the new construction needed to hook up customers in new developments. > Is that for debt service? That could be for shared O&M too. "$10 million: Fiber optic system access fees and rents paid to electric system in 2014" > Television packages are also a major revenue source. In computing the operating margin, if you exclude TV from costs you also need to exclude TV from revenues. Yes, but TV services are usually a loss leader and a break even proposition at best. Margins would probably improve by dropping TV.

amazon_not 10y ago
To put the issue to rest with some finality, here are the costs of the EPB fiber network, as per the report from the Office of Legislative Reasearch for the Conneticut General Assembly: "EPB issued $229 million in revenue bonds in 2008. Of this amount, $162 million was used to build the fiber optic network, which is owned by the EPB's Electric Division and is used for both the smart grid and telecommunications services." "To date, EPB's Fiber Optic Division has borrowed approximately $50 million from the Electric Division to finance the costs of adapting the broadband network to provide telecommunications services to its customers." For simplicity, let's ignore the fact that a part of these costs should be attributed to the power company, as the fiber network is also used for smart metering. At a cost of $212M for 83 000 subscribers, this gives us a cost per subscriber of $2554. If you add $28M to account for the first three years interest and other financing costs, it becomes $240M for 83 000 subscribers, resulting in $2892 per subscriber. So there. A far cry from $5000 per subscriber. Source: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2012/rpt/2012-R-0515.htm https://www.cga.ct.gov/2012/rpt/2012-R-0515.htm

amazon_not 10y ago

To put the issue to rest with some finality, here are the costs of the EPB fiber network, as per the report from the Office of Legislative Reasearch for the Conneticut General Assembly: "EPB issued $229 million in revenue bonds in 2008. Of this amount, $162 million was used to build the fiber optic network, which is owned by the EPB's Electric Division and is used for both the smart grid and telecommunications services." "To date, EPB's Fiber Optic Division has borrowed approximately $50 million from the Electric Division to finance the costs of adapting the broadband network to provide telecommunications services to its customers." For simplicity, let's ignore the fact that a part of these costs should be attributed to the power company, as the fiber network is also used for smart metering. At a cost of $212M for 83 000 subscribers, this gives us a cost per subscriber of $2554. If you add $28M to account for the first three years interest and other financing costs, it becomes $240M for 83 000 subscribers, resulting in $2892 per subscriber. So there. A far cry from $5000 per subscriber. Source: https://www.cga.ct.gov/2012/rpt/2012-R-0515.htm https://www.cga.ct.gov/2012/rpt/2012-R-0515.htm