4 ms·

As Rayiner commented elsewhere in the thread [1] Boulder has a population of 40,000 households, which is the appropriate metric to use when people within a hous

As Rayiner commented elsewhere in the thread [1] Boulder has a population of 40,000 households, which is the appropriate metric to use when people within a household regularly share a connection. It gets more expensive when you consider non-subscribing households, subsidized households, and operating costs. Payback periods quickly climb to 10-20 years or more, depending on how you do your math. However, I think it should also be considered that a municipal broadband network adds value to a city in much the same way that a road network, electric grid, natural gas, or water/sewer network adds value. For a point of contrast, the city contains ~300 miles of roads at ~$5 million per mile, or a road network value of $1.5 billion dollars. That's about $40,000 per household! Other utilities have huge costs as well. I believe that Internet access is becoming as important as transportation, water, and electric service for the economic health of a city. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17311782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17311782

st26 8y ago
Kinda makes it sound like they've got too much road. Property taxes are only a thousand or three per single family household, I believe.
- burlesona 8y ago
  Nailed it.
- leesalminen 8y ago
  It sure doesn’t seem that way :). Traffic in Boulder has gotten significantly more annoying over the last several years.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Perhaps too much road infrastructure has induced traffic? https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
    - jonlucc 8y ago
      I only visit Boulder, so I'm not positive, but it seems to me that they have tons of people coming in from the suburbs. Most of the people inside of Boulder, in my experience, tend to ride bikes and/or take public transit, but you need a car to get to some trails and you need a car to get into Boulder as a resident of the surrounding areas (or at least most people do).
      - justinator 8y ago
        Yes, a good majority of people who work within Boulder live outside of the city proper. The price of living is too high for many people, especially service industry folks. Public transportation isn't bad, but it's not great. We were recently promised a commuter train line from Denver, and were given the ol' switcheroo and instead the bus system was expanded. I do not know of any trails you would absolutely need a car to get to. One of the more popular places to start a hike, Chautauqua, actually started a very expensive paid parking program to get people to stop driving there (parking is limited, complaints from residents over noise), and instead take the free shuttle from city center. Anyways, my home internet is absolute garbage (I'm just west of HW36, so outside of the city by a block). My speed is 5.05 Mbps down, 0.47 up and there's no alternatives to Century Link in my area. I might as well use a cellular network.
        leesalminen 8y ago
        You're lucky you have the cell network option :). I have similar speeds through a WISP but no cell signal.
        justinator 8y ago
        Cell. is actually about 3x faster in a quick test, but latency is also about 3x as bad. In general though, cell isn't that great of an option full time, if you go anywhere, say a quarter of a mile west of where I am, as you'll be in the mountains with poor service. It's just whatever the local subnet is for my neighborhood. Across the street, the DSL is much better.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    That's the explicit strategy of the "slow growth" crowd running city council.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  The point I was trying to make is that utilities and infrastructure don't add up in ways that make budget decisions simple or that seem sensible when viewed from a simple calculation of total cost divided by number of households. If we did that same calculation for other utilities, we would not have many utilities at all! Honestly, I'm not really sure how it's all paid for at the end of the day.
  - mmt 8y ago
    I think it's also important to amortize construction costs over the useful life of the infrastructure, not just how long it takes to pay back the loan. That $40k of road is only $800/year over 50 years. (And I doubt all of it was even originally as expensive as your estimate, especially considering cost of land, which was closer to zero before there was a road there). Of course, maintenance costs have to be counted, too, and in the case of fiber, it would, instead, be eventual upgrades.

st26 8y ago

Kinda makes it sound like they've got too much road. Property taxes are only a thousand or three per single family household, I believe.

burlesona 8y ago
Nailed it.
leesalminen 8y ago
It sure doesn’t seem that way :). Traffic in Boulder has gotten significantly more annoying over the last several years.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  Perhaps too much road infrastructure has induced traffic? https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/
  - jonlucc 8y ago
    I only visit Boulder, so I'm not positive, but it seems to me that they have tons of people coming in from the suburbs. Most of the people inside of Boulder, in my experience, tend to ride bikes and/or take public transit, but you need a car to get to some trails and you need a car to get into Boulder as a resident of the surrounding areas (or at least most people do).
    - justinator 8y ago
      Yes, a good majority of people who work within Boulder live outside of the city proper. The price of living is too high for many people, especially service industry folks. Public transportation isn't bad, but it's not great. We were recently promised a commuter train line from Denver, and were given the ol' switcheroo and instead the bus system was expanded. I do not know of any trails you would absolutely need a car to get to. One of the more popular places to start a hike, Chautauqua, actually started a very expensive paid parking program to get people to stop driving there (parking is limited, complaints from residents over noise), and instead take the free shuttle from city center. Anyways, my home internet is absolute garbage (I'm just west of HW36, so outside of the city by a block). My speed is 5.05 Mbps down, 0.47 up and there's no alternatives to Century Link in my area. I might as well use a cellular network.
      - leesalminen 8y ago
        You're lucky you have the cell network option :). I have similar speeds through a WISP but no cell signal.
        justinator 8y ago
        Cell. is actually about 3x faster in a quick test, but latency is also about 3x as bad. In general though, cell isn't that great of an option full time, if you go anywhere, say a quarter of a mile west of where I am, as you'll be in the mountains with poor service. It's just whatever the local subnet is for my neighborhood. Across the street, the DSL is much better.
- monocasa 8y ago
  That's the explicit strategy of the "slow growth" crowd running city council.
LeifCarrotson 8y ago
The point I was trying to make is that utilities and infrastructure don't add up in ways that make budget decisions simple or that seem sensible when viewed from a simple calculation of total cost divided by number of households. If we did that same calculation for other utilities, we would not have many utilities at all! Honestly, I'm not really sure how it's all paid for at the end of the day.
- mmt 8y ago
  I think it's also important to amortize construction costs over the useful life of the infrastructure, not just how long it takes to pay back the loan. That $40k of road is only $800/year over 50 years. (And I doubt all of it was even originally as expensive as your estimate, especially considering cost of land, which was closer to zero before there was a road there). Of course, maintenance costs have to be counted, too, and in the case of fiber, it would, instead, be eventual upgrades.