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Longmont, just south of Fort Collins, was the first city in Colorado to build out a municipal ISP, and it’s inspired surrounding cities to do the same. It’s whe
by polpo 7y ago
Longmont, just south of Fort Collins, was the first city in Colorado to build out a municipal ISP, and it’s inspired surrounding cities to do the same. It’s where I live and it was a not-insignificant reason why I chose to move here. So far it has been a resounding success for the city. The buildout completed on time and adoption rates are higher than initially expected (the city planned for 37% but the last number I saw was around 54%). In my experience, the service has been so good as to be totally invisible. And I know my $50/mo rate will never rise. I wish Fort Collins the same experience. The fact that they both cities have municipal electric service will help this significantly.
- longcommonname 7y agoTheres still locations here that can't get fiber. The local hospital is owned by a church and they own apartments adjacent to the hospital. These apartments are surrounded by others that get fiber but the map still shows they aren't planned.
- torwayburger 7y agoIf there is some geographical last mile type issue to bring internet to these buildings that are surrounded by fiber, it could be helpful to pitch the church/hospital with a wireless link from one of the fiber pops. I have brought service to medical and hospital buildings in this way before and it's always worked out well.
- dantillberg 7y agoIn the case described above, the topography is "completely flat", and the internet provider in question already provides electrical service to the premises.
- torwayburger 7y agoThat should mean they have public utility status, access to public poles etc. It would simplify such a solution. I've deployed such links in a flat scenario as well.
- rasz 7y agoSounds like the landlord problem.
- dantillberg 7y agoIf you can't get municipal fiber where you live in Longmont (I'm a resident; hi!), you should most likely be complaining to your landlord, not the city. If you're not sure, call up Longmont Power & Communications and ask them what's up. There are a few apartment complexes around Longmont that have resisted integration with the city's fiber network. My understanding is that the city has negotiated with each of them over the installation of fiber on their premises and that some of those negotiations didn't succeed, e.g. the apartment complex owners wanted to own and control the fiber that the city would pay to install.
- samstave 7y agoGet a neighbor and a few dollars and broadcast that connection as a wisp via ubnt equipment.
- xur17 7y agoI have a friend that did this between 3 houses. The Ubiquiti equipment to make it happen is fairly affordable, and works pretty well.
- 8ytecoder 7y ago(I don't live in Colorodo) But this rings true. My building has some sort of an arrangement with Comcast. It's only Comcast and AT&T that are there right now. They pretend to work with other ISPs I bring in but usually cite "something something safety" and prevent them from setting it up. I have given up for now since Comcast has got the price down to $50 for a 75Mbps line for me. Point is, while I don't know how and can't confirm, I have a strong feeling that Comcast pays off landlords somehow.
- in_hindsight 7y agochurch owns apartments, does it rent it out to anyone ?
- Ididntdothis 7y ago“And I know my $50/mo rate will never rise.” Let’s hope they tie it to inflation or similar. Otherwise the system will die slowly due to underfunding.
- beatgammit 7y agoIt could just be locked in for existing customers, but rise for new customers. Over time, people move or die, so it shouldn't be much of an issue.
- papaver 7y agothats correct. its now $70 for new customers.
- icebraining 7y agoWell, they can presumably offer 1Gbps for $50/mo indefinitely.
- virgilp 7y agoWell, Romania is known for cheap internet prices, but for reference, here the largest _private_ operator is offering 1Gbps for $9.33/mo, taxes included (19% VAT). I kinda' doubt that $50/mo is really unsustainable, especially once the infrastructure is already built.
- voltagex_ 7y agoWhat's the actual bandwidth like? Where's the closest big exchange?
- virgilp 7y agoI don't have the 1Gbps connection, I took the cheaper 400Mbps one. But they're fairly good at actually offering the promised bandwidth. Again, internet is one of the very few top-notch things here, better than most of the world.
- rhmw2b 7y agoI live in Longmont as well and can confirm that internet here is awesome. I've never once had to think about it and always get at least 800 Mbps. Longmont as a city is great as well. People view it as a cheaper place to live than Boulder, but I'd much rather live here.
- brennanpeterson 7y agoI grew up there, and just moved back. Is much nicer than 30 years ago, and legitimately nicer than boulder. Fiber is great, and people forget how much of US infrastructure was communal in early electric buildouts as well. Some of the objections seems to be reflexive anti-government sentiment. I haven't seen corporate services do well enough to convince me of the realistic improvements. And with most services negotiated on the national level (Netflix, apple, hbo, whatever) as direct buys, the last mile as a subsidy for cable negotiation seems wasteful.
- chooseaname 7y agoOT: Outside of Boulder, what's the tech job scene like out there?
- bri3d 7y agoThe Denver tech job scene is pretty strong. A lot of startups and a growing corporate outpost presence, as well as all of the "old tech" around the Tech Center. Northern Colorado (Longmont, Ft. Collins) has traditionally been a center for hardware design and test equipment, but unfortunately most of these companies have shrunk overall and have reduced their Colorado presence. I would say that in recent years the epicenter of startup software jobs in Colorado has shifted back from the brief Boulder startup run and moved into downtown Denver, while Boulder has become a center for corporate outposts (Google, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, Workday, NetApp, Splunk).
- bproven 7y agoAgreed - I wish FoCo could attract more tech companies - it is a great city with highly educated people (esp with CSU here). But for now your best bet is remote work if you want to get paid a salary equal to the COL of FoCo (which is almost the same as Denver/Boulder). Sadly due to lack of competition in tech, the few tech companies here pay well below market because they can. You can literally move to Boulder/Den and get a 30-40% pay increase...
- jiveturkey 7y ago> municipal > my $50/mo rate will never rise Came here to dispute that. Your rate may never rise but deficits will come out of taxes. Being a public service the budget is publicly available. For 2018, I count $11,930,874 in expenses and $12,420,323 in revenue (literally 99.9% from $50/mo service charge). That's a 3.9% margin. At that margin, I don't see how rates will never rise. The expenses will go up with inflation. If the revenue remains constant ... That said, it wasn't readily obvious so I didn't dig deeply to see if some 2018 expenses were unusual one-time charges, or anything like that.
- michilumin 7y agoIn Colorado here as well, but unfortunately unincorporated Jeffco. Really hope this begins to spread through Colorado, since right now our only option is Comcast. If it does well for Fort Collins and Longmont, maybe other areas will try it as well.