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Honestly Municipal Broadband should be built out as an Open Access Network[0]. They're currently facing a lot of lobbying from the existing broadband monopolie

Honestly Municipal Broadband should be built out as an Open Access Network[0]. They're currently facing a lot of lobbying from the existing broadband monopolies because they're building direct competition to them, this is an unnecessary fight. Particularly when their ultimate goal is just to get fast high quality internet. Build it as an OAN instead and let CenturyLink, Comcast, Charter, etc, lease it. But also let new smaller players lease it too. Instead of fighting the big guys, get them onboard with this plan. The big guys won't LOVE it because they still lose their monopolistic stranglehold, but at least you aren't using public revenue to push them out of the market. You're using public revenue to create a road that any business can use for an equal fee. In any regard your local citizens get: Faster internet, more choice of ISPs, and perhaps lower prices due to more competition. Let citizens be the "king maker" by choosing their own ISP. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-access_network

cdubzzz 9y ago
> The big guys won't LOVE it because they still lose their monopolistic stranglehold, but at least you aren't using public revenue to push them out of the market. You're using public revenue to create a road that any business can use for an equal fee. I really can't imagine the response from larger incumbents being any different if this sort of format were being proposed. Why accept any competition at all when you can have none or almost none?
- mikestew 9y ago
  Why accept any competition at all when you can have none or almost none? Because that won't last forever. One top-level comment here lays out how much money the incumbents spent to defeat such measures, and they still lose. Incumbents such as Comcast appear to be so hated that the only thing keeping them in place are monopoly deals written years ago. IOW, they are not going to get widespread public support. Without public support, they rely on cronyism and old regulatory deals. They would do well to at least have a plan for how they would fit in this new world order (and I would be shocked if they didn't), if for no other reason than to not be caught off guard when the tide changes.
  - koolba 9y ago
    They don’t always lose though. And winning a legislative victory banning muni competition seals their revenue stream for years.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    The tide won’t change for years or decades. Relatively few places have the ability to do ballot measures like this, and the feds will make it more and more onerous to comply with various regulations.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      > Relatively few places have the ability to do ballot measures like this By my count, 33 states make it even easier to build municipal broadband than Colorado, including most of the big ones (CA, NY, IL, NJ, PA, TX, MA): https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-laws-states-use-to-crush-broadband-competition https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-law.... Most have no restrictions on such networks at all.
- thirdsun 9y ago
  Because that's the same thought process that seems to be prevalent among the very ISPs we're critisizing all the time. Should that kind of thinking really be copied? Why not use the chance and show how it's done properly?
rtkwe 9y ago
What actual services are really left for them to provide on an OAN though that aren't just as well served being a website?
- tedd4u 9y ago
  All the stuff they offer today. Comcast / Xfinity for example could offer the following over an OAN: Telephony / VOIP Television channels, especially sports Free/sponsored content (NBC etc) Email "security" virus protection etc Business services Home security systems
  - tedd4u 9y ago
    P.s. I think Ammon, Idaho is the model for this. Here's a recent article describing the setup: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-if-switching-fiber-isps-was-as-easy-as-clicking-a-mouse/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-...
    - grahamburger 9y ago
      There's also Utopia in Utah. It's not all sunshine and roses but it's pretty good. http://www.utopianet.org http://www.utopianet.org
  - wmf 9y ago
    But couldn't they could also offer that same stuff over the regular Internet? Why do they need to be your "ISP" to offer that? So that they can sneak extra stuff onto a single confusing bill?
    - sli 9y ago
      Yes, and they don't, respectively. Comcast could simply choose not to use the public OAN and stay on their private (or "private") lines, for better or for worse. As for your third question: probably yes, heh.
- sigstoat 9y ago
sliverstorm 9y ago
That was discussed as one model. I suspect the city is not "against" such a model, but doesn't want to tie the success of the rollout to private providers. Fort Collins already got burned by Axia backing out of talks about a contracted model. Once you assume the city is both building the fiber and providing services over the fiber, I'm not sure if also making it an OAN makes sense anymore?
- gnopgnip 9y ago
  It would allow the city to earn additional revenue by leasing the lines to other ISPs. There are a lot of situations the city can be in where they would make less money overall by offering the whole service than they would by just charging for the infrastructure. In many cases the customer support and technical support staff would be government employees with the extra costs that involves, a private company can often provide this service more efficiently.
fortythirteen 9y ago
Except that nationalization is part of the plan, under the guise of "affordable municipal broadband". A government owned near-monopoly replacing a private one.
- delinka 9y ago
  When has that ever been the case? The FCC doesn't build anything. If you're worried about the federal government paying private companies to build out such a thing, take a look at the first decade of the current century where taxpayers funded the telecoms to build out broadband infrastructure with pretty much zero regulation around, well, any of it. There was no specification that the network be nationalized or become government property or that some random government agency could coerce the telecoms into controlling information on the internet ... So what are you talking about?
  - wmf 9y ago
    It's local governments, not the federal government. In theory there is a concern that a municipal ISP could outcompete commercial ISPs due to lower cost of capital and such, but it's not clear if that has ever happened.
    - stale2002 9y ago
      Uhh, isn't that a GOOD thing though. If the other companies can't compete because their prices are too high, well sucks to be them. The only thing that matters is the consumers.
      - rayiner 9y ago
        Artificially suppressed or subsidized prices are not a good thing and in fact are a huge problem in the infrastructure world. It kills infrastructure investment. Our electrical grids, water and sewer systems, transit systems, roads, etc., are all crumbling because short-sighted "pro consumer" types thought the most important thing was to keep prices low for consumers.
Robotbeat 9y ago
Why not just let citizens use it for a standard fee, just like a regular road? (In the case of roads, the fee is gas taxes, registration fees, and sometimes car property tax in addition to the general fund.) Why should the businesses get preferable treatment to individuals or citizens?
- seanalltogether 9y ago
  Because customers need support. They need someone to call when service goes down, they need someone to call when a billing error occurs, they need someone to call when moving properties. I wish Open Access networks applied to more services in the states like telecom, gas/electric, railways etc. Let the government worry about city planning and where to lay pipes, rails or lines, and let the companies do the day to day management of servicing customers.
  - stinkytaco 9y ago
    I don't know much about how ISPs operate, but I do know a bit about gas, electric and water and I can't see how they would work without some sort of central entity managing it. It's hard to see what benefit leasing that infrastructure out would be considering the municipality would still need to load balance, repair, and meter. And frankly, those services don't need that much maintenance on the service end and when they do, private companies do generally supply it. I hope that someday using the internet becomes as easy and natural as using the electrical grid.
    - lhopki01 9y ago
      Open Loop is pretty common in Europe. I have one electricity line, one gas line, one phone line but I can choose from multiple providers for each service. For gas and electricity whoever I buy from is responsible for putting the correct amount into the network. For the phone line for fiber to the cabinet internet they hook up their network at the exchange and patch my through. In all cases the providers have to pay a fee to the infrastructure owner that's a fixed regulated rate which pays for maintenance on the network. There is now point running more than 1 fiber optic cable to each house just like there isn't a point running more than one electricity or gas line to each house.
shados 9y ago
My understanding is that in Utah they did that with Utopia and the lobbyists put some pretty big roadblock in it (and refused to use it). So I don't think it's that simple. I'm not super knowledgeable in the field, but it's also my understanding that it's much, much harder to do TV + Internet, while just Internet is significantly easier. A lot of the shady deals with municipalities and regulations involve the TV part of things. I'd personally be happy with just one hassle-free, super fast pipe just for the internet, relying on Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, Amazon, Twitch, Crunchyroll, etc for all of my TV needs (that's what I do right now already). But it seems that the majority is not willing to give up cable TV entirely, and that limits the target audience.
guelo 9y ago
Fine as long as there is also a Public Option so the privates can't collude and sabotage the thing as they've done in other situations.
tzs 9y ago
That sounds kind of like how it works in Washington. Public utility districts can "construct, purchase, acquire, develop, finance, lease, license, handle, provide, add to, contract for, interconnect, alter, improve, repair, operate, and maintain any telecommunications facilities within or without the district's limits", but only for their own telecommunications needs or for "the provision of wholesale telecommunications services within the district and by contract with another public utility district".
zouhair 9y ago
Why would you let them in? The point is to fight so you won't have to deal with them in any shape or form and any profit that will come of this endeavour will all go to the municipal coffers.

cdubzzz 9y ago

> The big guys won't LOVE it because they still lose their monopolistic stranglehold, but at least you aren't using public revenue to push them out of the market. You're using public revenue to create a road that any business can use for an equal fee. I really can't imagine the response from larger incumbents being any different if this sort of format were being proposed. Why accept any competition at all when you can have none or almost none?

mikestew 9y ago
Why accept any competition at all when you can have none or almost none? Because that won't last forever. One top-level comment here lays out how much money the incumbents spent to defeat such measures, and they still lose. Incumbents such as Comcast appear to be so hated that the only thing keeping them in place are monopoly deals written years ago. IOW, they are not going to get widespread public support. Without public support, they rely on cronyism and old regulatory deals. They would do well to at least have a plan for how they would fit in this new world order (and I would be shocked if they didn't), if for no other reason than to not be caught off guard when the tide changes.
- koolba 9y ago
  They don’t always lose though. And winning a legislative victory banning muni competition seals their revenue stream for years.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  The tide won’t change for years or decades. Relatively few places have the ability to do ballot measures like this, and the feds will make it more and more onerous to comply with various regulations.
  - rayiner 9y ago
    > Relatively few places have the ability to do ballot measures like this By my count, 33 states make it even easier to build municipal broadband than Colorado, including most of the big ones (CA, NY, IL, NJ, PA, TX, MA): https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-laws-states-use-to-crush-broadband-competition https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/qkvn4x/the-21-law.... Most have no restrictions on such networks at all.
thirdsun 9y ago
Because that's the same thought process that seems to be prevalent among the very ISPs we're critisizing all the time. Should that kind of thinking really be copied? Why not use the chance and show how it's done properly?

rtkwe 9y ago

What actual services are really left for them to provide on an OAN though that aren't just as well served being a website?

tedd4u 9y ago
All the stuff they offer today. Comcast / Xfinity for example could offer the following over an OAN: Telephony / VOIP Television channels, especially sports Free/sponsored content (NBC etc) Email "security" virus protection etc Business services Home security systems
- tedd4u 9y ago
  P.s. I think Ammon, Idaho is the model for this. Here's a recent article describing the setup: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-if-switching-fiber-isps-was-as-easy-as-clicking-a-mouse/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/06/what-...
  - grahamburger 9y ago
    There's also Utopia in Utah. It's not all sunshine and roses but it's pretty good. http://www.utopianet.org http://www.utopianet.org
- wmf 9y ago
  But couldn't they could also offer that same stuff over the regular Internet? Why do they need to be your "ISP" to offer that? So that they can sneak extra stuff onto a single confusing bill?
  - sli 9y ago
    Yes, and they don't, respectively. Comcast could simply choose not to use the public OAN and stay on their private (or "private") lines, for better or for worse. As for your third question: probably yes, heh.
sigstoat 9y ago

sliverstorm 9y ago

That was discussed as one model. I suspect the city is not "against" such a model, but doesn't want to tie the success of the rollout to private providers. Fort Collins already got burned by Axia backing out of talks about a contracted model. Once you assume the city is both building the fiber and providing services over the fiber, I'm not sure if also making it an OAN makes sense anymore?

gnopgnip 9y ago
It would allow the city to earn additional revenue by leasing the lines to other ISPs. There are a lot of situations the city can be in where they would make less money overall by offering the whole service than they would by just charging for the infrastructure. In many cases the customer support and technical support staff would be government employees with the extra costs that involves, a private company can often provide this service more efficiently.

fortythirteen 9y ago

Except that nationalization is part of the plan, under the guise of "affordable municipal broadband". A government owned near-monopoly replacing a private one.

delinka 9y ago
When has that ever been the case? The FCC doesn't build anything. If you're worried about the federal government paying private companies to build out such a thing, take a look at the first decade of the current century where taxpayers funded the telecoms to build out broadband infrastructure with pretty much zero regulation around, well, any of it. There was no specification that the network be nationalized or become government property or that some random government agency could coerce the telecoms into controlling information on the internet ... So what are you talking about?
- wmf 9y ago
  It's local governments, not the federal government. In theory there is a concern that a municipal ISP could outcompete commercial ISPs due to lower cost of capital and such, but it's not clear if that has ever happened.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    Uhh, isn't that a GOOD thing though. If the other companies can't compete because their prices are too high, well sucks to be them. The only thing that matters is the consumers.
    - rayiner 9y ago
      Artificially suppressed or subsidized prices are not a good thing and in fact are a huge problem in the infrastructure world. It kills infrastructure investment. Our electrical grids, water and sewer systems, transit systems, roads, etc., are all crumbling because short-sighted "pro consumer" types thought the most important thing was to keep prices low for consumers.

Robotbeat 9y ago

Why not just let citizens use it for a standard fee, just like a regular road? (In the case of roads, the fee is gas taxes, registration fees, and sometimes car property tax in addition to the general fund.) Why should the businesses get preferable treatment to individuals or citizens?

seanalltogether 9y ago
Because customers need support. They need someone to call when service goes down, they need someone to call when a billing error occurs, they need someone to call when moving properties. I wish Open Access networks applied to more services in the states like telecom, gas/electric, railways etc. Let the government worry about city planning and where to lay pipes, rails or lines, and let the companies do the day to day management of servicing customers.
- stinkytaco 9y ago
  I don't know much about how ISPs operate, but I do know a bit about gas, electric and water and I can't see how they would work without some sort of central entity managing it. It's hard to see what benefit leasing that infrastructure out would be considering the municipality would still need to load balance, repair, and meter. And frankly, those services don't need that much maintenance on the service end and when they do, private companies do generally supply it. I hope that someday using the internet becomes as easy and natural as using the electrical grid.
  - lhopki01 9y ago
    Open Loop is pretty common in Europe. I have one electricity line, one gas line, one phone line but I can choose from multiple providers for each service. For gas and electricity whoever I buy from is responsible for putting the correct amount into the network. For the phone line for fiber to the cabinet internet they hook up their network at the exchange and patch my through. In all cases the providers have to pay a fee to the infrastructure owner that's a fixed regulated rate which pays for maintenance on the network. There is now point running more than 1 fiber optic cable to each house just like there isn't a point running more than one electricity or gas line to each house.

shados 9y ago

My understanding is that in Utah they did that with Utopia and the lobbyists put some pretty big roadblock in it (and refused to use it). So I don't think it's that simple. I'm not super knowledgeable in the field, but it's also my understanding that it's much, much harder to do TV + Internet, while just Internet is significantly easier. A lot of the shady deals with municipalities and regulations involve the TV part of things. I'd personally be happy with just one hassle-free, super fast pipe just for the internet, relying on Netflix, Youtube, Hulu, Amazon, Twitch, Crunchyroll, etc for all of my TV needs (that's what I do right now already). But it seems that the majority is not willing to give up cable TV entirely, and that limits the target audience.

guelo 9y ago

Fine as long as there is also a Public Option so the privates can't collude and sabotage the thing as they've done in other situations.

tzs 9y ago

That sounds kind of like how it works in Washington. Public utility districts can "construct, purchase, acquire, develop, finance, lease, license, handle, provide, add to, contract for, interconnect, alter, improve, repair, operate, and maintain any telecommunications facilities within or without the district's limits", but only for their own telecommunications needs or for "the provision of wholesale telecommunications services within the district and by contract with another public utility district".

zouhair 9y ago

Why would you let them in? The point is to fight so you won't have to deal with them in any shape or form and any profit that will come of this endeavour will all go to the municipal coffers.