7 ms·

Repaid over twenty years, as I understand it: "A 20-year debt structure would require annual payments of $1.1 million from the city, according to staff estimate

Repaid over twenty years, as I understand it: "A 20-year debt structure would require annual payments of $1.1 million from the city, according to staff estimates. That could be supplemented with money from the city's general fund and, perhaps, revenue generated by early customers of the fiber network." Though there is some math discrepancy since that would not cover the $140 million. Nonetheless, as a Boulderite, I am happy to finally see this happening.

rayiner 8y ago
That's about 10 million per year in debt payments for the full $140 million investment. If you assume that 50% of households subscribe, and the city subsidizes rates so no capital is recovered from folks below the poverty line, that's about $686/year per subscribing household. Which is crazy high--the non-subsidized ARPU will have to be $140 to break even. (Which is also not out of line--Verizon will barely break even on FiOS at $110 ARPU, and that deployment was cheaper and had no subsidy component.)
- jartelt 8y ago
  Comcast charges $160 a month for 1000 Mbps internet and $110 a month for 400 Mbps. The $100 per month you quote isn't terrible when compared to those numbers.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - StillBored 8y ago
    I wish people would also list the upload speeds, which for doing backups, sending grandma 4k video links of the kids, etc is miserable on the 20-40Mbit, that the cable companies are providing to go with most of their "gigabit" packages. The idea that you need to use facebook's/etcs spyware just to share a couple photos with your friends goes against the entire premise of the internet's PtP architecture. More generally, does a media companies ownership of the infrastructure create a conflict of interest when it comes to providing a symetric communications path so you can stream your kids video's instead of having to involve a 3rd party to "cache" them for you?
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Unless Comcast is doing a fiber installation to your home, it's not comparable. They are probably just raising the caps they have on their existing conditions, but the neighborhood is still sharing the same amount of bandwidth. It's also not symmetrical up and down.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - paulie_a 8y ago
    If I was an employee of Comcast, when someone asked what I did I would be so ashamed I would rather say "i am a prostitute that uses the money for drugs".
- numbsafari 8y ago
  $100/mo for FTTH vs. $69/mo for 250MB/s Comcast? I'll take the FTTH and leave Comcast and Century Link behind, thank you very much. Would be even better if the City charged you for the fiber link and then let you select your backend provider. E.g., the way consumer choice works in the electric space. Let the city run/own the cable, and let the back-end carriers compete to provide the backbone and value-added services. Give every house a basic connection that lets them interact with city and state services only, for free.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    > $100/mo for FTTH vs. $69/mo for 250MB/s Comcast? I'll take the FTTH and leave Comcast and Century Link behind, thank you very much. It's $100/mo only if you hit 50% uptake rate. If your uptake rate is only, say, 33%, because most people don't care about gigabit and would rather save the $30/month, your per-household cost shoots up (as does what you have to charge to recover the investment).
  - rayiner 8y ago
    Maybe you're willing to pay more. Most people probably aren't. (FiOS uptake rates are under 40% even though its always been much faster than competing cable services.) And the brutal economics of fiber really punish you for that. If your uptake rate goes from 50% to 33%, your per-subscriber costs have to go up to compensate (which puts even more downward pressure on your uptake rate).
    - Retric 8y ago
      FIOS includes TV. The real issue is Verizon is not that much better than cable companies.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        I'm not sure I understand your first point? TV is a major part of the economics of fiber deployment. Chattanooga's fiber system also includes TV, so does Google Fiber. As to your second point--have you ever had FiOS? Verizon's wireline division is run like old-school AT&T--FiOS is very high quality.
- julienchastang 8y ago
  So $200 million for the entire build out including debt costs? Your debt calculation assumes a Muni-bond rate of 4% which seems high to me. AAA muni bonds are more like 2.8%.

rayiner 8y ago

That's about 10 million per year in debt payments for the full $140 million investment. If you assume that 50% of households subscribe, and the city subsidizes rates so no capital is recovered from folks below the poverty line, that's about $686/year per subscribing household. Which is crazy high--the non-subsidized ARPU will have to be $140 to break even. (Which is also not out of line--Verizon will barely break even on FiOS at $110 ARPU, and that deployment was cheaper and had no subsidy component.)

jartelt 8y ago
Comcast charges $160 a month for 1000 Mbps internet and $110 a month for 400 Mbps. The $100 per month you quote isn't terrible when compared to those numbers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- StillBored 8y ago
  I wish people would also list the upload speeds, which for doing backups, sending grandma 4k video links of the kids, etc is miserable on the 20-40Mbit, that the cable companies are providing to go with most of their "gigabit" packages. The idea that you need to use facebook's/etcs spyware just to share a couple photos with your friends goes against the entire premise of the internet's PtP architecture. More generally, does a media companies ownership of the infrastructure create a conflict of interest when it comes to providing a symetric communications path so you can stream your kids video's instead of having to involve a 3rd party to "cache" them for you?
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Unless Comcast is doing a fiber installation to your home, it's not comparable. They are probably just raising the caps they have on their existing conditions, but the neighborhood is still sharing the same amount of bandwidth. It's also not symmetrical up and down.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- paulie_a 8y ago
  If I was an employee of Comcast, when someone asked what I did I would be so ashamed I would rather say "i am a prostitute that uses the money for drugs".
numbsafari 8y ago
$100/mo for FTTH vs. $69/mo for 250MB/s Comcast? I'll take the FTTH and leave Comcast and Century Link behind, thank you very much. Would be even better if the City charged you for the fiber link and then let you select your backend provider. E.g., the way consumer choice works in the electric space. Let the city run/own the cable, and let the back-end carriers compete to provide the backbone and value-added services. Give every house a basic connection that lets them interact with city and state services only, for free.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > $100/mo for FTTH vs. $69/mo for 250MB/s Comcast? I'll take the FTTH and leave Comcast and Century Link behind, thank you very much. It's $100/mo only if you hit 50% uptake rate. If your uptake rate is only, say, 33%, because most people don't care about gigabit and would rather save the $30/month, your per-household cost shoots up (as does what you have to charge to recover the investment).
- rayiner 8y ago
  Maybe you're willing to pay more. Most people probably aren't. (FiOS uptake rates are under 40% even though its always been much faster than competing cable services.) And the brutal economics of fiber really punish you for that. If your uptake rate goes from 50% to 33%, your per-subscriber costs have to go up to compensate (which puts even more downward pressure on your uptake rate).
  - Retric 8y ago
    FIOS includes TV. The real issue is Verizon is not that much better than cable companies.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      I'm not sure I understand your first point? TV is a major part of the economics of fiber deployment. Chattanooga's fiber system also includes TV, so does Google Fiber. As to your second point--have you ever had FiOS? Verizon's wireline division is run like old-school AT&T--FiOS is very high quality.
julienchastang 8y ago
So $200 million for the entire build out including debt costs? Your debt calculation assumes a Muni-bond rate of 4% which seems high to me. AAA muni bonds are more like 2.8%.