21 ms·

Study: 40.2% of Consumers Would Consider Switching to Municipal Broadband

168 points by Reinhart 5y ago

spullara 5y ago
How in the world can someone "prefer their current provider" without something to compare against? I think in any kind of survey like this, I would like to see the actual questions that were asked.
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  I can imagine that some people would not prefer their current provider if their current provider is, say, Charter. I suspect people might willingly leap into a dark pit filled with who knows what over continuing with Charter.
  - excalibur 5y ago
    Or Comcast.
  - shakezula 5y ago
    Comcast was my only provider for 3 years. There were times I almost considered just canceling the contract and tethering on my phone because of how bad Comcast was.
    - olyjohn 5y ago
      I've been on Starlink for a few months. It's honestly been a pain in my ass, and nowhere near as reliable as Comcast. But I am being patient and waiting, because right now it's worth it to me just to tell Comcast to fuck right off. Starlink has been improving though quite a lot just since I got it... so I'll keep giving it time.
      - DangitBobby 5y ago
        I thought starlink was for people living in rural areas with no real broadband alternatives.
        cozzyd 5y ago
        Yeah, any place with comcast broadband is almost certainly a poor fit for Starlink due to the limited total bandwidth over a geographic region.
        DangitBobby 5y ago
        My parents' only option for broadband right now is mobile hotspots. Unless you count traditional satellite internet, which I do not.
        kixiQu 5y ago
        So that tells you how someone feels about Comcast's "real broadband alternative"
    - spullara 5y ago
      I must be on some special list at Comcast. Every time I have had to deal with them lately for changing service or helping debug an outage their online chat has been extremely competent and solved the problem. Which is a big change from years ago.
- dec0dedab0de 5y ago
  How in the world can someone "prefer their current provider" without something to compare against? Maybe they've had bad experiences dealing with other municipal services from their city. Or maybe they just think the act of switching will be a pain in the butt. I can imagine many of the answers boil down to "yes, give me anything but X" or "it's good enough please don't break it"
- nightski 5y ago
  Not every city in America is terrible. I live in a city of ~250k, we have multiple competing cable companies here and we get very reliable, fast, gig internet for a good price. In my childhood hometown they have muni internet. It started out great as it was cutting edge. They have barely upgraded in over a decade. It's crap and the cable company in town has largely won. I also don't want the government tracking my internet history in any fashion. Too many government services could tie into knowledge about you and I want the government to have only the minimum information necessary to provide those services.
  - dv_dt 5y ago
    That an ISP is municipal is hardly any sort of deciding factor on if government tracking has been welcomed into a given data service or not. Large private telecoms imho are both much more likely to be targeted and to cooperate.
  - streblo 5y ago
    > Not every city in America is terrible. Fine, but MANY are. In the past 5 years I've lived in two of America's biggest cities and only had one ISP to choose from. > I also don't want the government tracking my internet history in any fashion. Too many government services could tie into knowledge about you and I want the government to have only the minimum information necessary to provide those services. As if the government can't/doesn't already subpoena your ISP for this information.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - vangelis 5y ago
    > I also don't want the government tracking my internet history in any fashion. The government already can compel your ISP to hand over that data.
    - geodel 5y ago
      So you are saying we better willingly give data, since govt can anyway get it if they want?
- cozzyd 5y ago
  I already have cheapish high-quality internet (Webpass). An alternative would be unlikely to improve my bandwidth (I only have gigabit ethernet on all my devices anyway..) or latency (1-2 ms to work). Maybe it would be cheaper...
  - spullara 5y ago
    If I was offered Chattanooga's municipal internet access, I would take it. But it really matters what the offering might be. They have had up to 10G symmetrical speeds since 2015! https://muninetworks.org/tags-135 https://muninetworks.org/tags-135
- pessimizer 5y ago
  It's the same way polls can find so many people who love their current health insurance company. "Would you like things to continue the way they are, or would you like to venture into the unknown with this service that is crucial to your current lifestyle?"
- megaframe 5y ago
  I don't think it's that they "prefer their current provider" it's that they prefer not to think about it or go through the hassle of changing. Like if someone got an oil change and it works for them every time and you sent them a flyer telling them there's a better place with better oil that's slightly cheaper. The product they buy serves their need and they don't want the work of having to try a new place out. I'm not really surprised by this. In my old building, out of 6 units I was the only to get fiber and after a few years someone new moved in they were up to two people. I know for a fact 2 other units were work from home business sales folk who did regular video calls (even before covid) and they continued with comcast despite slower up/down at a higher price. In my new building again the same thing. This time 10 units, only myself and one other with fiber despite the same issues. Even with multiple household having a very compelling reason to switch (work from home and home schooling). I asked an older neighbor in my old building why they hadn't switched and their response was that comcast was good enough for them, I explained it was also cheaper, they said they'd "look into it" and 3 years later still on comcast.
smnrchrds 5y ago
I expect people to only switch if the price of the municipal option is lower. I also expect the corporations to get into a price war with municipalities, which they will win, because they have bigger coffer and economies of scale. I also expect the prices to go slowly but surely back up when the municipal option goes out of business.
- asdff 5y ago
  In recent years that's not been the case. Municipal option has been faster, sometimes, fiber, and cheaper. It's far from failed, in Chatanooga for example it is very successful.
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am. But the Planet Money episode on this topic mentioned municipal broadband has more failure stories than success. It's worth a listen if you have the time. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-big-internet https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-bi...
    - ZoomerCretin 5y ago
      >But the Planet Money episode on this topic mentioned municipal broadband has more failure stories than success. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/865908114 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/865908114 I'm not seeing that in the transcript. I'm seeing a story about corporations being so afraid of municipal broadband that they pay for laws to make it illegal.
      - smnrchrds 5y ago
        They talk about a study. The relevant section starts here: > SAYRE: Christopher Yoo is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in technology and the Internet. And in his spreadsheet is essentially the story of what happened to other cities that tried to do what Wilson, N.C., was trying to do - build and run their own fiber-optic network. ... > cities tend to assume these fiber-optic networks will pay for themselves. They borrow millions and millions of dollars and are often screwed because one of a million things goes wrong. I believe the study is this one: https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6611-report-municipal-fiber-in-the-united-states-an https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6611-report-municipal-f...
imoverclocked 5y ago
Given that cable companies are often monopolies in the region they operate and that they have a history of shady practices, I’m not sure why people are so hesitant to accept local governments from offering broadband instead. If they did then at least there would be public input on the implementation instead of just corporate interests deciding who is eligible and what they want to install (and when…)
- asdff 5y ago
  Municipal broadband doesn't bundle with TV and sports like Comcast does. Addicted people need their hits of dopamine, and Comcast (or insert evil ISP here) controls the supply even with a municipal player in town. I wouldn't be surprised if Comcast charged you more for your TV package alone than if you bundled your internet as well.
  - scarface74 5y ago
    There are plenty of internet OTT services that provide live TV like Hulu Live, YouTube TV, Sling, etc. These days if you’re not into sports, there is really no need for live TV. You can mix and match streaming services.
    - kemotep 5y ago
      And you can always just pay for MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. streaming services. You get hit with the same blackout dates too! Also, digital antennas can come in handy if the local channels provide the news and sports content that you could otherwise not get with Internet TV services.
      - jacobr1 5y ago
        I wish there was some kind of non-blackout streaming for local teams. I paid for youtube tv before the implemented blackouts and it was great. I'd totally pay the leagues directly! The only option seems to be the massive "all the games" packages on top of a cable subscription.
  - 5y ago
bpodgursky 5y ago
I don't see any way this could be a meaningful survey, because the implication is that 60% of consumers would "not even consider" switching to a cheaper provider, which is ridiculous. Of course people would consider it. I'm not even personally convinced it's a great idea (I'm not currently impressed with municipal _anything_ living in Seattle), and I would _consider_ using it instead of Xfinity. I doubt there are 20% of Americans who would reject cheap municipal broadband out of principle, if it existed and was offered to them cheaply. It doesn't mean they think it's realistic or good policy.
- runako 5y ago
  > not currently impressed with municipal _anything_ living in Seattle Are the water and sewage systems that bad in Seattle? I was unaware, but will now be detouring to learn more (although I am a little hesitant to find out what problems could be arising on the sewage front).
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    The water quality is fine, and I haven't had sewage problems. But they are both pretty crazy expensive given how much accessible clean water there is in the PNW (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/rain-soaked-seattle-has-nations-highest-water-bills/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/rain-soaked-s...). I'm not impressed with trash or recycling pickup, which are intermittent and expensive. Electricity is fine I guess, but we have solar and don't end up paying anything on net so I don't pay attention to the price.
    - Cd00d 5y ago
      To be fair, it doesn't seem like you have many issues with municipal management, but don't like the cost. How can you know the cost is worse than a privatized version? Intermittent trash pickup does seem problematic.
    - kn0where 5y ago
      I think the high cost of water is largely due to sewage treatment costs, which are higher because we’re surrounded by water. I think Seattle Public Utilities contracts out trash pickup to companies like Waste Management, just based on what I see on the side of the garbage trucks driving in my neighborhood, so if they’re not doing a good job perhaps the city should re-evaluate that contract.
Proven 5y ago
Yeah, especially if it was "free" (funded by top taxpayers). And water is wet.
atlgator 5y ago
Allegedly Chattanooga has 10Gb municipal broadband. Anyone use it? How's the service?
- learc83 5y ago
  I have the 1Gb municipal broadband here in Chattanooga. The customer service is fantastic—night and day compared to what I had with Comcast when I was in Atlanta. I haven’t had any outages in the year or so I’ve been here. Latency and packet loss are better than what I had with Comcast on average. There are no caps either. I pay the same price here that I paid for 50mbps Comcast business class (business to avoid the data caps).
anotha1 5y ago
Would a municipality be able to compete regionally outside of their "jurisdiction"? I could see a major increase in these municipal providers if that could somehow be an additional revenue driver. But I also imagine the existing players already lobbied a law to prevent that.
reilly3000 5y ago
That’s fairly amazing to me considering the billions of dollars that corporate monopolies have invested in advertising and PR, compared to zero in towns that haven’t done any promotion of the idea of municipal broadband.
- shakezula 5y ago
  It's cause they've invested all that money in PR and advertising and not _actually running fiber to my god damn house_.
  - Maxburn 5y ago
    This I literally get junk (physical) mail twice a week from my ISP trying to sell me different thing. They are using every combination of "open immediately", postcards, odd shaped, odd colors, things that fall out of envelopes when you open them etc etc. The marketing campaign must have a monster budget.
- notahacker 5y ago
  How is it amazing that a significant fraction of Americans said they might consider leaving a service provider if the alternative actually existed? (if, say, it was cheaper or better). If I asked you if you'd be interested in cheaper electricity, would you be more likely to say "no, I like the ads this company does" or "maybe"? Advertising lets people know that stuff exists and makes some things sexy (not so much broadband...). It doesn't render consumers incapable of considering alternatives.
- ArkanExplorer 5y ago
  The greatest fear of Telecommunications companies is being reduced to a 'big dumb pipe': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_pipe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_pipe The entire purpose of their marketing departments to delay that happening for as long as possible.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    From the article > "In a world of dumb terminals and telephones, networks had to be smart. But in a world of smart terminals, networks have to be dumb." — George Gilder, The Coming of the Fibersphere, Forbes ASAP, December 7, 1992 > The Coming of the Fibersphere, Forbes ASAP, December 7, 1992 > 1992 sheds tear
devoutsalsa 5y ago
I bet the other 60% would also consider switching after the price hikes to make up for lost revenue from the other 40%.
muro 5y ago
Different country (Switzerland), have been using municipality broadband since we moved to this place. I'm happy with the service part - techs are knowledgeable, support is fast. Less happy with the price and speed - it's more expensive (about double) than places that have competition (e.g. Zurich, which is nearby) and while Zurich had 1Gb+ for years, ours was only enabled last year. They do fulfill what they promise - I pay for 600Mbit and that's what I get. No "up to" nonsense.
jonpurdy 5y ago
What I am interested in: a single entity responsible for trenching/fibre infrastructure, then allowing providers to resell access to it. Requiring each ISP to run their own fibre makes no sense to me. Let ISPs compete on price and quality of service, not on having billions in the bank to roll out the fibre (or take subsidies and not roll it out, like in many places in USA). Even worse in condos (like in Toronto) where the condo board has signed an agreement with a provider and not allowing occupants any choice. Huge shoutouts to Beanfield (Toronto) and Sonic (SF) for actually providing symmetric gigabit for cheaper than the incumbents with lower, asymmetric plans. If all companies were like them I wouldn't be advocating for municipal broadband.
- q3k 5y ago
  What you're talking about is called Unbundled Access / Bitstream access [1]. Although that's currently mostly talked about in the context of copper/DSL access. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_access
  - jonpurdy 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification; that's exactly what I was referring to. I'd like to see fibre included in that since it's likely to be the physical medium that will last a century or more, regardless of the protocols on top of it.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      This would be better, but exactly what is the purpose of last-mile-only competition? It feels like LARPing capitalism because we are embarrassed natural monopolies exist.
      - hedora 5y ago
        The purpose is to align incentives so that there is competition for customers on both ends of the fiber cable. The fiber cable itself is enough a commodity that it can be structured (from a business perspective) more like roads or water lines. This is actually how ISP’s worked at the dawn of home Internet in the US. There’s no way the incumbent monopolies would have given people access to raw TCP/IP if not for decentralized competition. (Look at Prodigy, AOL and Compuserve’s behavior for the decade prior for hard evidence). Historically, the phone company in the US could even block the usage of answering machines and modems. It took anti-trust action to eliminate those bans. We see the same thing today, with AT&T’s crappy FTTN routers, intentional cable modem buffer bloating, and the abomination that is IPTV cable service. Last mile only competition eliminates all those things.
resfirestar 5y ago
In Minneapolis there's no municipal broadband, but there is a local company that offers FTTH. I use it and it's clearly superior to any cable company I've ever had (more speed for the price, more reliable, when you call customer service an actual person picks up the phone instead of an automated system, etc). Even so, my perception is that Xfinity is more popular because people either aren't aware that there are other options or because they want to bundle it with their TV package, particularly sports. I would think municipal broadband anywhere wouldn't take over for similar reasons, and a government service would have even less ability to win at marketing unless they booted out the cable company.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
throwawayboise 5y ago
I would consider it, but in light of the way my municipality runs its other services (water, trash, road maintenance, transit, etc.) I'd be hesitant. In other words, they have no demonstrated record of competence to stand upon.
tyingq 5y ago
I assume the percentage would be higher if it just showed an actual comparison of upload/download speeds, bandwidth caps, and price. This poll may be just showing whether the consumers even know what "municipal broadband" means. Probably also colored with people's perceptions of how sticky "bundles" they already have for TV and phone are, how they would get their cable channels, etc.
- ckemere 5y ago
  I am super happy with my AT&T fiber in Houston. $60/month for gigabit, friendly union techs that came out the next day when I cut through the line in the wall by accident. It bothers me that it's only available in the fancier (whiter) parts of the city, but I have no complaints about the service or price.
  - lurker24 5y ago
    Thankyou so much for mentioning unions and whiteness. Please, we need more people like you moving to Texas
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Its also hard to discount how much American's distrust the government. "Send all your data through a government owned server" is going to have a negative knee-jerk reaction from many/most people.
  - zionic 5y ago
    I like it because now my ISP is bound by the 1st amendment.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    I mean you should have some level of reaction at the thought of being subjected to network policy set by the US government. Encryption isn't magic and you're still giving the gov't a huge amount of observeability and direct influence that they don't currently have. If you believe that we'll get legislation that enforces that municipal broadband must be a content-neutral dumb pipe and not every legislature trying to stick their hands in it for all sorts of random initiatives then I have 7 perpendicular red lines I want to show you.
ShakataGaNai 5y ago
The best experience for the price are companies like Sonic, Webpass and Monkeybrains. All small providers doing something WAY better than the huge incumbents, for typically way cheaper. 100% would be off the local cable company if my municipality offered anything similar speed what I have. While I've not had much in the way of bad experiences, it's mostly because they aren't Comcast level huge.
zabzonk 5y ago
Could we possibly tag posts like this as something like "US Only" - there are no municipal broadband networks in (for example) the UK. Unless perhaps in Hull?
austincheney 5y ago
I suspect the major considerations for choosing a service provider are price, availability, and service quality. Potential customers are more likely to consider municipal broadband if they are either unhappy with their current service or that service is less than gigabit speed. I also suspect the incumbents aren't troubled by competition in areas where they provide gigabit service with strong reliability but they will fight to the death to keep municipal broadband out of areas they hope to expand into. Both of those assumptions, if accurate, would suggest network access is, at least secretly, perceived as a utility by both the providers and customers.
CivBase 5y ago
I'm not necessarily against municipal broadband - I'd probably use it over my current ISP - but it feels like a poor solution to the problem. Municipal broadband doesn't help anyone outside the municipality. Ideally, broadband ISPs would just compete with eachother. But the infrastructure is expensive, so it seems most of them have unofficially agreed it's just not worth the cost to expand into eachothers' territory and compete for customers. How did we get around this issue with the telephone grid and what's stopping us from doing the same with ISPs?
aphextron 5y ago
My guess is that the other 59.8% simply don't know what it is
elric 5y ago
Who manages this municipal broadband? Are these the same local governments who are so fond of surveillance? Why would you trust them with your internet access & data?
client4 5y ago
I don't really care who I get my internet from. If you don't spy on me, are cost competitive, and have good enough speeds I'm in (and relatively low downtime).
geon 5y ago
Here in Sweden it is kind of the norm. I have 100/100 municipal fiber in my cottage in the middle of the forest. I could have higher speed, but it didn't feel cost effective since I don't use it much.
sys_64738 5y ago
Broadband should be like your city’s water/sewer and as cheap as possible. Most municipalities with their own broadband have better service than Comcast.
soucy 5y ago
The reality is that getting municipal broadband in the US is very challenging. Even if you get the political good will early on, the fight that big players bring on is significant. One recent effort I was involved in was almost there after years of planning and having just completed a pilot build out, but got derailed by a commercial provider responding to an RFP for service by sending the municipality a non-response notice along the lines of "It's great that you're building out FTTH, but we plan on doing a full FTTH deployment of our own and it will be done within a year, just thought you'd like to know." This in itself was enough to kill any further funding, without any evidence that the company will actually follow through, because nobody has the appetite for the politics of holding the bag. They effectively got to the right people to kill the effort. Now the community is trying to see if that provider will buy a lease on what's been built so it's not a black eye in front of tax payers. The best solution is not the one that established corporations want to see: 1. The municipality owns and deploys dark fiber using an open access FTTH model in an Active Ethernet design (e.g. every household or building has a dedicated strand, no GPON). The prevents people from being locked in to a specific speed, technology, or provider. If someone needs 100G the fiber will support it just fine. 2. The municipality maintains fiber concentration points and equipment huts or facilities for providers to co-locate equipment and service customers directly (allows choice and competition). 3. An anchor non-profit ISP (established as a 501(c)(3) and managed under a member-owned Credit Union model) is funded via a grant to provide day-1 service, but any commercial provider is free to make use of the fiber to service any location using a fair and published fiber strand fee that is presented to the customer as part of their bill (usually $10 a mo.) 4. The initial build-out is fully funded as a universal service (every property in the community, not just the high margin locations) through low-interest municipal bonds (10 year) and paid for using a modest property tax increase like any other municipal infrastructure effort. Fee collection covers ongoing maintenance and if adoption is good can cut the tax burden down by as much as half. In other words we need to start thinking of dark fiber as a public utility the same way we think about water or electricity, but we also need to do it in a way where that utility doesn't get in the way of service delivery. The fiber is the road, and the delivery trucks that drive on it are the ISP. Everything here is easy to do. The problem is you can almost never win the political fight to make any of it happen, at least not at the municipal level when going up against national corporations that bring in more money in one month than your annual budget. There is no reason cost-driven for people to not have symmetrical gigabit as a baseline level of connectivity. Under the model described above, you can deliver gigabit service for about $50 a mo.

168 points by Reinhart 5y ago

How in the world can someone "prefer their current provider" without something to compare against? I think in any kind of survey like this, I would like to see the actual questions that were asked.

at_a_remove 5y ago
I can imagine that some people would not prefer their current provider if their current provider is, say, Charter. I suspect people might willingly leap into a dark pit filled with who knows what over continuing with Charter.
- excalibur 5y ago
  Or Comcast.
- shakezula 5y ago
  Comcast was my only provider for 3 years. There were times I almost considered just canceling the contract and tethering on my phone because of how bad Comcast was.
  - olyjohn 5y ago
    I've been on Starlink for a few months. It's honestly been a pain in my ass, and nowhere near as reliable as Comcast. But I am being patient and waiting, because right now it's worth it to me just to tell Comcast to fuck right off. Starlink has been improving though quite a lot just since I got it... so I'll keep giving it time.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      I thought starlink was for people living in rural areas with no real broadband alternatives.
      - cozzyd 5y ago
        Yeah, any place with comcast broadband is almost certainly a poor fit for Starlink due to the limited total bandwidth over a geographic region.
        DangitBobby 5y ago
        My parents' only option for broadband right now is mobile hotspots. Unless you count traditional satellite internet, which I do not.
      - kixiQu 5y ago
        So that tells you how someone feels about Comcast's "real broadband alternative"
  - spullara 5y ago
    I must be on some special list at Comcast. Every time I have had to deal with them lately for changing service or helping debug an outage their online chat has been extremely competent and solved the problem. Which is a big change from years ago.
dec0dedab0de 5y ago
How in the world can someone "prefer their current provider" without something to compare against? Maybe they've had bad experiences dealing with other municipal services from their city. Or maybe they just think the act of switching will be a pain in the butt. I can imagine many of the answers boil down to "yes, give me anything but X" or "it's good enough please don't break it"
nightski 5y ago
Not every city in America is terrible. I live in a city of ~250k, we have multiple competing cable companies here and we get very reliable, fast, gig internet for a good price. In my childhood hometown they have muni internet. It started out great as it was cutting edge. They have barely upgraded in over a decade. It's crap and the cable company in town has largely won. I also don't want the government tracking my internet history in any fashion. Too many government services could tie into knowledge about you and I want the government to have only the minimum information necessary to provide those services.
- dv_dt 5y ago
  That an ISP is municipal is hardly any sort of deciding factor on if government tracking has been welcomed into a given data service or not. Large private telecoms imho are both much more likely to be targeted and to cooperate.
- streblo 5y ago
  > Not every city in America is terrible. Fine, but MANY are. In the past 5 years I've lived in two of America's biggest cities and only had one ISP to choose from. > I also don't want the government tracking my internet history in any fashion. Too many government services could tie into knowledge about you and I want the government to have only the minimum information necessary to provide those services. As if the government can't/doesn't already subpoena your ISP for this information.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- vangelis 5y ago
  > I also don't want the government tracking my internet history in any fashion. The government already can compel your ISP to hand over that data.
  - geodel 5y ago
    So you are saying we better willingly give data, since govt can anyway get it if they want?
cozzyd 5y ago
I already have cheapish high-quality internet (Webpass). An alternative would be unlikely to improve my bandwidth (I only have gigabit ethernet on all my devices anyway..) or latency (1-2 ms to work). Maybe it would be cheaper...
- spullara 5y ago
  If I was offered Chattanooga's municipal internet access, I would take it. But it really matters what the offering might be. They have had up to 10G symmetrical speeds since 2015! https://muninetworks.org/tags-135 https://muninetworks.org/tags-135
pessimizer 5y ago
It's the same way polls can find so many people who love their current health insurance company. "Would you like things to continue the way they are, or would you like to venture into the unknown with this service that is crucial to your current lifestyle?"
megaframe 5y ago
I don't think it's that they "prefer their current provider" it's that they prefer not to think about it or go through the hassle of changing. Like if someone got an oil change and it works for them every time and you sent them a flyer telling them there's a better place with better oil that's slightly cheaper. The product they buy serves their need and they don't want the work of having to try a new place out. I'm not really surprised by this. In my old building, out of 6 units I was the only to get fiber and after a few years someone new moved in they were up to two people. I know for a fact 2 other units were work from home business sales folk who did regular video calls (even before covid) and they continued with comcast despite slower up/down at a higher price. In my new building again the same thing. This time 10 units, only myself and one other with fiber despite the same issues. Even with multiple household having a very compelling reason to switch (work from home and home schooling). I asked an older neighbor in my old building why they hadn't switched and their response was that comcast was good enough for them, I explained it was also cheaper, they said they'd "look into it" and 3 years later still on comcast.

smnrchrds 5y ago

I expect people to only switch if the price of the municipal option is lower. I also expect the corporations to get into a price war with municipalities, which they will win, because they have bigger coffer and economies of scale. I also expect the prices to go slowly but surely back up when the municipal option goes out of business.

asdff 5y ago
In recent years that's not been the case. Municipal option has been faster, sometimes, fiber, and cheaper. It's far from failed, in Chatanooga for example it is very successful.
- smnrchrds 5y ago
  Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am. But the Planet Money episode on this topic mentioned municipal broadband has more failure stories than success. It's worth a listen if you have the time. https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-big-internet https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865908114/small-america-vs-bi...
  - ZoomerCretin 5y ago
    >But the Planet Money episode on this topic mentioned municipal broadband has more failure stories than success. https://www.npr.org/transcripts/865908114 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/865908114 I'm not seeing that in the transcript. I'm seeing a story about corporations being so afraid of municipal broadband that they pay for laws to make it illegal.
    - smnrchrds 5y ago
      They talk about a study. The relevant section starts here: > SAYRE: Christopher Yoo is a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in technology and the Internet. And in his spreadsheet is essentially the story of what happened to other cities that tried to do what Wilson, N.C., was trying to do - build and run their own fiber-optic network. ... > cities tend to assume these fiber-optic networks will pay for themselves. They borrow millions and millions of dollars and are often screwed because one of a million things goes wrong. I believe the study is this one: https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6611-report-municipal-fiber-in-the-united-states-an https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/6611-report-municipal-f...

imoverclocked 5y ago

Given that cable companies are often monopolies in the region they operate and that they have a history of shady practices, I’m not sure why people are so hesitant to accept local governments from offering broadband instead. If they did then at least there would be public input on the implementation instead of just corporate interests deciding who is eligible and what they want to install (and when…)

asdff 5y ago
Municipal broadband doesn't bundle with TV and sports like Comcast does. Addicted people need their hits of dopamine, and Comcast (or insert evil ISP here) controls the supply even with a municipal player in town. I wouldn't be surprised if Comcast charged you more for your TV package alone than if you bundled your internet as well.
- scarface74 5y ago
  There are plenty of internet OTT services that provide live TV like Hulu Live, YouTube TV, Sling, etc. These days if you’re not into sports, there is really no need for live TV. You can mix and match streaming services.
  - kemotep 5y ago
    And you can always just pay for MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. streaming services. You get hit with the same blackout dates too! Also, digital antennas can come in handy if the local channels provide the news and sports content that you could otherwise not get with Internet TV services.
    - jacobr1 5y ago
      I wish there was some kind of non-blackout streaming for local teams. I paid for youtube tv before the implemented blackouts and it was great. I'd totally pay the leagues directly! The only option seems to be the massive "all the games" packages on top of a cable subscription.
- 5y ago

bpodgursky 5y ago

I don't see any way this could be a meaningful survey, because the implication is that 60% of consumers would "not even consider" switching to a cheaper provider, which is ridiculous. Of course people would consider it. I'm not even personally convinced it's a great idea (I'm not currently impressed with municipal _anything_ living in Seattle), and I would _consider_ using it instead of Xfinity. I doubt there are 20% of Americans who would reject cheap municipal broadband out of principle, if it existed and was offered to them cheaply. It doesn't mean they think it's realistic or good policy.

runako 5y ago
> not currently impressed with municipal _anything_ living in Seattle Are the water and sewage systems that bad in Seattle? I was unaware, but will now be detouring to learn more (although I am a little hesitant to find out what problems could be arising on the sewage front).
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  The water quality is fine, and I haven't had sewage problems. But they are both pretty crazy expensive given how much accessible clean water there is in the PNW (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/rain-soaked-seattle-has-nations-highest-water-bills/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/data/rain-soaked-s...). I'm not impressed with trash or recycling pickup, which are intermittent and expensive. Electricity is fine I guess, but we have solar and don't end up paying anything on net so I don't pay attention to the price.
  - Cd00d 5y ago
    To be fair, it doesn't seem like you have many issues with municipal management, but don't like the cost. How can you know the cost is worse than a privatized version? Intermittent trash pickup does seem problematic.
  - kn0where 5y ago
    I think the high cost of water is largely due to sewage treatment costs, which are higher because we’re surrounded by water. I think Seattle Public Utilities contracts out trash pickup to companies like Waste Management, just based on what I see on the side of the garbage trucks driving in my neighborhood, so if they’re not doing a good job perhaps the city should re-evaluate that contract.

Proven 5y ago

Yeah, especially if it was "free" (funded by top taxpayers). And water is wet.

atlgator 5y ago

Allegedly Chattanooga has 10Gb municipal broadband. Anyone use it? How's the service?

learc83 5y ago
I have the 1Gb municipal broadband here in Chattanooga. The customer service is fantastic—night and day compared to what I had with Comcast when I was in Atlanta. I haven’t had any outages in the year or so I’ve been here. Latency and packet loss are better than what I had with Comcast on average. There are no caps either. I pay the same price here that I paid for 50mbps Comcast business class (business to avoid the data caps).

anotha1 5y ago

Would a municipality be able to compete regionally outside of their "jurisdiction"? I could see a major increase in these municipal providers if that could somehow be an additional revenue driver. But I also imagine the existing players already lobbied a law to prevent that.

reilly3000 5y ago

That’s fairly amazing to me considering the billions of dollars that corporate monopolies have invested in advertising and PR, compared to zero in towns that haven’t done any promotion of the idea of municipal broadband.

shakezula 5y ago
It's cause they've invested all that money in PR and advertising and not _actually running fiber to my god damn house_.
- Maxburn 5y ago
  This I literally get junk (physical) mail twice a week from my ISP trying to sell me different thing. They are using every combination of "open immediately", postcards, odd shaped, odd colors, things that fall out of envelopes when you open them etc etc. The marketing campaign must have a monster budget.
notahacker 5y ago
How is it amazing that a significant fraction of Americans said they might consider leaving a service provider if the alternative actually existed? (if, say, it was cheaper or better). If I asked you if you'd be interested in cheaper electricity, would you be more likely to say "no, I like the ads this company does" or "maybe"? Advertising lets people know that stuff exists and makes some things sexy (not so much broadband...). It doesn't render consumers incapable of considering alternatives.
ArkanExplorer 5y ago
The greatest fear of Telecommunications companies is being reduced to a 'big dumb pipe': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_pipe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_pipe The entire purpose of their marketing departments to delay that happening for as long as possible.
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  From the article > "In a world of dumb terminals and telephones, networks had to be smart. But in a world of smart terminals, networks have to be dumb." — George Gilder, The Coming of the Fibersphere, Forbes ASAP, December 7, 1992 > The Coming of the Fibersphere, Forbes ASAP, December 7, 1992 > 1992 sheds tear

devoutsalsa 5y ago

I bet the other 60% would also consider switching after the price hikes to make up for lost revenue from the other 40%.

muro 5y ago

Different country (Switzerland), have been using municipality broadband since we moved to this place. I'm happy with the service part - techs are knowledgeable, support is fast. Less happy with the price and speed - it's more expensive (about double) than places that have competition (e.g. Zurich, which is nearby) and while Zurich had 1Gb+ for years, ours was only enabled last year. They do fulfill what they promise - I pay for 600Mbit and that's what I get. No "up to" nonsense.

jonpurdy 5y ago

What I am interested in: a single entity responsible for trenching/fibre infrastructure, then allowing providers to resell access to it. Requiring each ISP to run their own fibre makes no sense to me. Let ISPs compete on price and quality of service, not on having billions in the bank to roll out the fibre (or take subsidies and not roll it out, like in many places in USA). Even worse in condos (like in Toronto) where the condo board has signed an agreement with a provider and not allowing occupants any choice. Huge shoutouts to Beanfield (Toronto) and Sonic (SF) for actually providing symmetric gigabit for cheaper than the incumbents with lower, asymmetric plans. If all companies were like them I wouldn't be advocating for municipal broadband.

q3k 5y ago
What you're talking about is called Unbundled Access / Bitstream access [1]. Although that's currently mostly talked about in the context of copper/DSL access. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbundled_access
- jonpurdy 5y ago
  Thanks for the clarification; that's exactly what I was referring to. I'd like to see fibre included in that since it's likely to be the physical medium that will last a century or more, regardless of the protocols on top of it.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    This would be better, but exactly what is the purpose of last-mile-only competition? It feels like LARPing capitalism because we are embarrassed natural monopolies exist.
    - hedora 5y ago
      The purpose is to align incentives so that there is competition for customers on both ends of the fiber cable. The fiber cable itself is enough a commodity that it can be structured (from a business perspective) more like roads or water lines. This is actually how ISP’s worked at the dawn of home Internet in the US. There’s no way the incumbent monopolies would have given people access to raw TCP/IP if not for decentralized competition. (Look at Prodigy, AOL and Compuserve’s behavior for the decade prior for hard evidence). Historically, the phone company in the US could even block the usage of answering machines and modems. It took anti-trust action to eliminate those bans. We see the same thing today, with AT&T’s crappy FTTN routers, intentional cable modem buffer bloating, and the abomination that is IPTV cable service. Last mile only competition eliminates all those things.

resfirestar 5y ago

In Minneapolis there's no municipal broadband, but there is a local company that offers FTTH. I use it and it's clearly superior to any cable company I've ever had (more speed for the price, more reliable, when you call customer service an actual person picks up the phone instead of an automated system, etc). Even so, my perception is that Xfinity is more popular because people either aren't aware that there are other options or because they want to bundle it with their TV package, particularly sports. I would think municipal broadband anywhere wouldn't take over for similar reasons, and a government service would have even less ability to win at marketing unless they booted out the cable company.

deleted 5y ago
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throwawayboise 5y ago

I would consider it, but in light of the way my municipality runs its other services (water, trash, road maintenance, transit, etc.) I'd be hesitant. In other words, they have no demonstrated record of competence to stand upon.

tyingq 5y ago

I assume the percentage would be higher if it just showed an actual comparison of upload/download speeds, bandwidth caps, and price. This poll may be just showing whether the consumers even know what "municipal broadband" means. Probably also colored with people's perceptions of how sticky "bundles" they already have for TV and phone are, how they would get their cable channels, etc.

ckemere 5y ago
I am super happy with my AT&T fiber in Houston. $60/month for gigabit, friendly union techs that came out the next day when I cut through the line in the wall by accident. It bothers me that it's only available in the fancier (whiter) parts of the city, but I have no complaints about the service or price.
- lurker24 5y ago
  Thankyou so much for mentioning unions and whiteness. Please, we need more people like you moving to Texas
dahfizz 5y ago
Its also hard to discount how much American's distrust the government. "Send all your data through a government owned server" is going to have a negative knee-jerk reaction from many/most people.
- zionic 5y ago
  I like it because now my ISP is bound by the 1st amendment.
- Spivak 5y ago
  I mean you should have some level of reaction at the thought of being subjected to network policy set by the US government. Encryption isn't magic and you're still giving the gov't a huge amount of observeability and direct influence that they don't currently have. If you believe that we'll get legislation that enforces that municipal broadband must be a content-neutral dumb pipe and not every legislature trying to stick their hands in it for all sorts of random initiatives then I have 7 perpendicular red lines I want to show you.

ShakataGaNai 5y ago

The best experience for the price are companies like Sonic, Webpass and Monkeybrains. All small providers doing something WAY better than the huge incumbents, for typically way cheaper. 100% would be off the local cable company if my municipality offered anything similar speed what I have. While I've not had much in the way of bad experiences, it's mostly because they aren't Comcast level huge.

zabzonk 5y ago

Could we possibly tag posts like this as something like "US Only" - there are no municipal broadband networks in (for example) the UK. Unless perhaps in Hull?

austincheney 5y ago

I suspect the major considerations for choosing a service provider are price, availability, and service quality. Potential customers are more likely to consider municipal broadband if they are either unhappy with their current service or that service is less than gigabit speed. I also suspect the incumbents aren't troubled by competition in areas where they provide gigabit service with strong reliability but they will fight to the death to keep municipal broadband out of areas they hope to expand into. Both of those assumptions, if accurate, would suggest network access is, at least secretly, perceived as a utility by both the providers and customers.

CivBase 5y ago

I'm not necessarily against municipal broadband - I'd probably use it over my current ISP - but it feels like a poor solution to the problem. Municipal broadband doesn't help anyone outside the municipality. Ideally, broadband ISPs would just compete with eachother. But the infrastructure is expensive, so it seems most of them have unofficially agreed it's just not worth the cost to expand into eachothers' territory and compete for customers. How did we get around this issue with the telephone grid and what's stopping us from doing the same with ISPs?

aphextron 5y ago

My guess is that the other 59.8% simply don't know what it is

elric 5y ago

Who manages this municipal broadband? Are these the same local governments who are so fond of surveillance? Why would you trust them with your internet access & data?

client4 5y ago

I don't really care who I get my internet from. If you don't spy on me, are cost competitive, and have good enough speeds I'm in (and relatively low downtime).

geon 5y ago

Here in Sweden it is kind of the norm. I have 100/100 municipal fiber in my cottage in the middle of the forest. I could have higher speed, but it didn't feel cost effective since I don't use it much.

sys_64738 5y ago

Broadband should be like your city’s water/sewer and as cheap as possible. Most municipalities with their own broadband have better service than Comcast.

soucy 5y ago

The reality is that getting municipal broadband in the US is very challenging. Even if you get the political good will early on, the fight that big players bring on is significant. One recent effort I was involved in was almost there after years of planning and having just completed a pilot build out, but got derailed by a commercial provider responding to an RFP for service by sending the municipality a non-response notice along the lines of "It's great that you're building out FTTH, but we plan on doing a full FTTH deployment of our own and it will be done within a year, just thought you'd like to know." This in itself was enough to kill any further funding, without any evidence that the company will actually follow through, because nobody has the appetite for the politics of holding the bag. They effectively got to the right people to kill the effort. Now the community is trying to see if that provider will buy a lease on what's been built so it's not a black eye in front of tax payers. The best solution is not the one that established corporations want to see: 1. The municipality owns and deploys dark fiber using an open access FTTH model in an Active Ethernet design (e.g. every household or building has a dedicated strand, no GPON). The prevents people from being locked in to a specific speed, technology, or provider. If someone needs 100G the fiber will support it just fine. 2. The municipality maintains fiber concentration points and equipment huts or facilities for providers to co-locate equipment and service customers directly (allows choice and competition). 3. An anchor non-profit ISP (established as a 501(c)(3) and managed under a member-owned Credit Union model) is funded via a grant to provide day-1 service, but any commercial provider is free to make use of the fiber to service any location using a fair and published fiber strand fee that is presented to the customer as part of their bill (usually $10 a mo.) 4. The initial build-out is fully funded as a universal service (every property in the community, not just the high margin locations) through low-interest municipal bonds (10 year) and paid for using a modest property tax increase like any other municipal infrastructure effort. Fee collection covers ongoing maintenance and if adoption is good can cut the tax burden down by as much as half. In other words we need to start thinking of dark fiber as a public utility the same way we think about water or electricity, but we also need to do it in a way where that utility doesn't get in the way of service delivery. The fiber is the road, and the delivery trucks that drive on it are the ISP. Everything here is easy to do. The problem is you can almost never win the political fight to make any of it happen, at least not at the municipal level when going up against national corporations that bring in more money in one month than your annual budget. There is no reason cost-driven for people to not have symmetrical gigabit as a baseline level of connectivity. Under the model described above, you can deliver gigabit service for about $50 a mo.