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What doesn’t work in one place can work in others. As another comment describes [1] several Washington counties along the Columbia River Valley have gigabit fib

What doesn’t work in one place can work in others. As another comment describes [1] several Washington counties along the Columbia River Valley have gigabit fiber built out by public utility districts. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26828097

walrus01 6y ago
The big thing that differentiates those counties is they already operate the last mile electrical grid as a PUD (public utility district). So they already have bucket trucks, crews of linemen, flaggers, reel trailers, other aerial fiber/cable construction resources on staff and trained. Other parts of WA state have privately owned last mile grid operators like Puget power and Avista. Washington state viewed from a whole-state colored map perspective is a wild patchwork quilt of different last mile telco operators (mostly centurylink or ziply now, but others exist, like how the ellensburg valley is neither), and mottled variety of different types of electrical grid operator. Or different types of combination aerial/underground cable operator (comcast or charter, mostly, but by no means all). It will be somewhat more time consuming, costly and difficulty for a county that is not also a PUD to set up their own fiber construction enterprise.
- coryrc 6y ago
  Also, they generate way more electricity than they use, so they use the extra money selling it to subsidize local efforts.
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  In chelan and Douglas counties, the PUD essentially owns the fiber networks as well as the power networks, but they are only allowed to sell power directly. For broadband I have to go through another provider, I’ve always thought this was silly. A few of those providers have done quite well financially, in leveraging this situation. All they do is customer service, and hook up from the pole to the house, and lease routers. the infrastructure investment was prepaid by the public.
  - CameronNemo 6y ago
    I don't see why that is such a terrible situation. Sure some providers are profiting off of people's naïveté, but other providers could easily undercut them with minimal investment. And let's face it, govt orgs have a bad reputation in the customer service area.
    - avs733 6y ago
      So do telcos
    - mtnGoat 6y ago
      Except in this case the PUD are not for profit and do not have a monopoly. So they are forced to compete. Sad that so many public utilities have screwed up so bad and ruined the idea for the rest. The customer service at the local PUDs are quite simply amazing. They pay and treat their employees incredibly well also. In this case I think the PUD can actually undercut the existing providers as they already have support staff in place, linemen, etc. but aren’t allowed to take a profit.

walrus01 6y ago

The big thing that differentiates those counties is they already operate the last mile electrical grid as a PUD (public utility district). So they already have bucket trucks, crews of linemen, flaggers, reel trailers, other aerial fiber/cable construction resources on staff and trained. Other parts of WA state have privately owned last mile grid operators like Puget power and Avista. Washington state viewed from a whole-state colored map perspective is a wild patchwork quilt of different last mile telco operators (mostly centurylink or ziply now, but others exist, like how the ellensburg valley is neither), and mottled variety of different types of electrical grid operator. Or different types of combination aerial/underground cable operator (comcast or charter, mostly, but by no means all). It will be somewhat more time consuming, costly and difficulty for a county that is not also a PUD to set up their own fiber construction enterprise.

coryrc 6y ago
Also, they generate way more electricity than they use, so they use the extra money selling it to subsidize local efforts.
mtnGoat 6y ago
In chelan and Douglas counties, the PUD essentially owns the fiber networks as well as the power networks, but they are only allowed to sell power directly. For broadband I have to go through another provider, I’ve always thought this was silly. A few of those providers have done quite well financially, in leveraging this situation. All they do is customer service, and hook up from the pole to the house, and lease routers. the infrastructure investment was prepaid by the public.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  I don't see why that is such a terrible situation. Sure some providers are profiting off of people's naïveté, but other providers could easily undercut them with minimal investment. And let's face it, govt orgs have a bad reputation in the customer service area.
  - avs733 6y ago
    So do telcos
  - mtnGoat 6y ago
    Except in this case the PUD are not for profit and do not have a monopoly. So they are forced to compete. Sad that so many public utilities have screwed up so bad and ruined the idea for the rest. The customer service at the local PUDs are quite simply amazing. They pay and treat their employees incredibly well also. In this case I think the PUD can actually undercut the existing providers as they already have support staff in place, linemen, etc. but aren’t allowed to take a profit.