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> Fairlawn's city-run FairlawnGig network has consistently ranked as one of the fastest ISPs in the country, serving residents and businesses in Fairlawn, Akron

> Fairlawn's city-run FairlawnGig network has consistently ranked as one of the fastest ISPs in the country, serving residents and businesses in Fairlawn, Akron, and Bath with affordable gigabit Internet services. The slowest service tier delivers 300Mbps symmetrical speeds for $55/month. The municipal network has resulted in more businesses choosing to locate in Fairlawn, and at least 700 jobs can be directly attributed to the network. In recent subscriber surveys, 95 percent of respondents rated FairlawnGig's service as "very good to excellent," with some customer testimonials referring to the network as "a life saver" throughout the pandemic. From the article. That is very impressive and a really bad sign for private broadband to be beat out like this.

pulisse 5y ago
> a really bad sign for private broadband to be beat out like this Why is it bad? Sounds like customers are getting high quality service for a good price.
- neogodless 5y ago
  A better way to word that would be "That's pretty damning" or "A clear indicator that private ISPs aren't trying to optimize for the best result of cost-effective speed for their customers."
  - jliptzin 5y ago
    Why would it be a surprise to anyone that a major corporation is optimizing for shareholder profits rather than anything else
    - eatonphil 5y ago
      Do you buy Apple products or Samsung phones? Not every for-profit company is so myopic. For broadband companies to be orders of magnitude worse in _the key performance metric_ than public offerings should be a wakeup call.
      - Nullabillity 5y ago
        Apple seems like another case of the same thing?
        eatonphil 5y ago
        In which key metric is Apple being beaten by a much smaller company?
    - neogodless 5y ago
      This is an obvious result when competition is sparse, and particularly when it is artificially limited, which is the core point of the original article, where lawmakers are intentionally trying to limit competition (in this case, in the form of small, local government projects).
api 5y ago
Government is usually pretty bad at IT, yet muni broadband easily beats most private broadband. Just let that sink in. It shows how lazy and terrible most private broadband companies are. They're sitting there cashing checks and that's about it.
- mattbuilds 5y ago
  This is what happens when we allow monopolies to run wild. They have no incentive to provide anything.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  They're not just cashing checks, they're also writing checks to Republicans in Ohio to stamp out their competition for them.
- 8note 5y ago
  Municipal broadband doesn't have to deal with the expensive parts of giving service to remote areas.
ookdatnog 5y ago
Which is why it's crucial for Republicans to stamp this out as quickly as possible. Of course they're being lobbied to do so by ISPs, but more importantly, the existence of successful municipal broadband disproves neoliberal dogma that state-run anything will always be less efficient, more wasteful and more corrupt than privately owned alternatives. This belief is crucial to their political platform. Every second they allow these municipal ISPs to exist and be effective, the stories that keep them in power are being undermined.
- zajio1am 5y ago
  It is not that state-run enterprises are always less efficient, but they usually are especially in the long run, and often have unfair advantages that block market competition (direct subsidies or advantages from connection to political power). While it is possible that some cities would have great municipal ISPs, it is also likely that some cities would just outsource network operation to some shitty ISP who has good connections to townhall and people would pay much more (indirectly through taxes) and would not have alternative (who would compete against subsidised service?).
  - ookdatnog 5y ago
    A state-run enterprise is to me not preferable over a healthy market, but it is almost always preferable over a private monopoly. As a citizen you have no leverage over a monopoly, whereas a state-run enterprise still has a democratic feedback loop. Also, the Republican small government platform goes much further than just railing against government-run enterprise: it essentially states that all government intervention in the economy is bad (both morally and from an effectiveness standpoint; the effectiveness angle is crucial to make their platform appeal to enough people). In the case of ISP monopolies in rural areas leading to low quality and high costs, I think it doesn't seem likely that the free market will solve this problem by itself any time soon. So politicians without a small government ideology might consider methods such as good old breaking up monopolies or other antitrust measures. Of course, this can not be done at a local level, and if small government ideologues are in power at the state level, this approach is dead in the water. So if you're a local government and you want to attack this problem, what are your options? Municipal broadband is the only approach I can think of that's within the reach of a city council. So yes, it's a band-aid, but it's the best you can do as long as the state-level is run by small government ideologues.
EvanAnderson 5y ago
The economic angle can't be stressed enough. I live in suburban / semi-rural western Ohio and provide IT support services to a number of small businesses and government entities. I have personal experience with a number of workers who weren't able to work from home effectively because their Internet service wasn't up to snuff. Sharing their DSL or WISP service w/ their children doing home instruction during the pandemic became an either / or proposition.
willis936 5y ago
>300Mbps symmetrical speeds for $55/month Eye watering. Broadband pricing is consistent in most places throughout the country and the aggressive asymmetry of upload feels like nothing short of rent seeking. In places where you can get fiber (barring the few communities that already have it fully deployed) costs $300/mo. for symmetrical gig. The next option down is broadband with 35 Mbps upload at $120/mo.
- azinman2 5y ago
  I have symmetric 1gbps from Sonic in San Francisco for $60/month and a VoIP phone line to boot. I’ve heard of many other ISPs in the US closer to this number too.
  - azinman2 5y ago
    Note none of them are the big ISPs. All of the consolidation and removal of the local ISP has been terrible for the consumer. I get that it’s far more expensive now to start one than it was with dial up, but there needs to be a better path forward that decentralizes control and ownership of infrastructure. Particularly this BS of only ever having 1 real broadband choice in a given zip code. I’d love to see all the recent anti-trust fervor get pointed towards the Comcast’s of the world and understand how they as cartels have unofficially split up the country.
- f-securus 5y ago
  I live in a smaller metropolitan area in the southeast and 400 down/20 up is $95 a month because I don’t bundle it with other services. Fast.com maxes at 200 down so I think they are throttling certain things. I get 400 when using their Speedtest. I want to do some automated testing/logging throughout the day for a good month to have some good data to share with them but not having any broadband alternatives means they ultimately don’t care. I had the faster service for a year when it was randomly set back to the base speed. Calling and complaining about it and it gets fixed but no compensation as I couldn’t tell them exactly when it was changed and they had ‘no clue’. This was after arguing over a $99 upgrade fee initially when I increased speed. She said it was required for the tech to ensure my service was working properly. But wouldn’t have to send a tech to my home. I got that fee waived eventually after explaining I was trying to pay them extra every month and I knew for a fact a tech wasn’t doing anything specific to my account to ensure it worked as I used to work at charter and knew the provisioning process. Oh yah... they were just as scummy of a company to work for. I can only imagine things will get worse with Spectrum after their ‘no caps’ agreement expires from the Time Warner merger.

pulisse 5y ago

> a really bad sign for private broadband to be beat out like this Why is it bad? Sounds like customers are getting high quality service for a good price.

neogodless 5y ago
A better way to word that would be "That's pretty damning" or "A clear indicator that private ISPs aren't trying to optimize for the best result of cost-effective speed for their customers."
- jliptzin 5y ago
  Why would it be a surprise to anyone that a major corporation is optimizing for shareholder profits rather than anything else
  - eatonphil 5y ago
    Do you buy Apple products or Samsung phones? Not every for-profit company is so myopic. For broadband companies to be orders of magnitude worse in _the key performance metric_ than public offerings should be a wakeup call.
    - Nullabillity 5y ago
      Apple seems like another case of the same thing?
      - eatonphil 5y ago
        In which key metric is Apple being beaten by a much smaller company?
  - neogodless 5y ago
    This is an obvious result when competition is sparse, and particularly when it is artificially limited, which is the core point of the original article, where lawmakers are intentionally trying to limit competition (in this case, in the form of small, local government projects).

api 5y ago

Government is usually pretty bad at IT, yet muni broadband easily beats most private broadband. Just let that sink in. It shows how lazy and terrible most private broadband companies are. They're sitting there cashing checks and that's about it.

mattbuilds 5y ago
This is what happens when we allow monopolies to run wild. They have no incentive to provide anything.
dfxm12 5y ago
They're not just cashing checks, they're also writing checks to Republicans in Ohio to stamp out their competition for them.
8note 5y ago
Municipal broadband doesn't have to deal with the expensive parts of giving service to remote areas.

ookdatnog 5y ago

Which is why it's crucial for Republicans to stamp this out as quickly as possible. Of course they're being lobbied to do so by ISPs, but more importantly, the existence of successful municipal broadband disproves neoliberal dogma that state-run anything will always be less efficient, more wasteful and more corrupt than privately owned alternatives. This belief is crucial to their political platform. Every second they allow these municipal ISPs to exist and be effective, the stories that keep them in power are being undermined.

zajio1am 5y ago
It is not that state-run enterprises are always less efficient, but they usually are especially in the long run, and often have unfair advantages that block market competition (direct subsidies or advantages from connection to political power). While it is possible that some cities would have great municipal ISPs, it is also likely that some cities would just outsource network operation to some shitty ISP who has good connections to townhall and people would pay much more (indirectly through taxes) and would not have alternative (who would compete against subsidised service?).
- ookdatnog 5y ago
  A state-run enterprise is to me not preferable over a healthy market, but it is almost always preferable over a private monopoly. As a citizen you have no leverage over a monopoly, whereas a state-run enterprise still has a democratic feedback loop. Also, the Republican small government platform goes much further than just railing against government-run enterprise: it essentially states that all government intervention in the economy is bad (both morally and from an effectiveness standpoint; the effectiveness angle is crucial to make their platform appeal to enough people). In the case of ISP monopolies in rural areas leading to low quality and high costs, I think it doesn't seem likely that the free market will solve this problem by itself any time soon. So politicians without a small government ideology might consider methods such as good old breaking up monopolies or other antitrust measures. Of course, this can not be done at a local level, and if small government ideologues are in power at the state level, this approach is dead in the water. So if you're a local government and you want to attack this problem, what are your options? Municipal broadband is the only approach I can think of that's within the reach of a city council. So yes, it's a band-aid, but it's the best you can do as long as the state-level is run by small government ideologues.

EvanAnderson 5y ago

The economic angle can't be stressed enough. I live in suburban / semi-rural western Ohio and provide IT support services to a number of small businesses and government entities. I have personal experience with a number of workers who weren't able to work from home effectively because their Internet service wasn't up to snuff. Sharing their DSL or WISP service w/ their children doing home instruction during the pandemic became an either / or proposition.

willis936 5y ago

>300Mbps symmetrical speeds for $55/month Eye watering. Broadband pricing is consistent in most places throughout the country and the aggressive asymmetry of upload feels like nothing short of rent seeking. In places where you can get fiber (barring the few communities that already have it fully deployed) costs $300/mo. for symmetrical gig. The next option down is broadband with 35 Mbps upload at $120/mo.

azinman2 5y ago
I have symmetric 1gbps from Sonic in San Francisco for $60/month and a VoIP phone line to boot. I’ve heard of many other ISPs in the US closer to this number too.
- azinman2 5y ago
  Note none of them are the big ISPs. All of the consolidation and removal of the local ISP has been terrible for the consumer. I get that it’s far more expensive now to start one than it was with dial up, but there needs to be a better path forward that decentralizes control and ownership of infrastructure. Particularly this BS of only ever having 1 real broadband choice in a given zip code. I’d love to see all the recent anti-trust fervor get pointed towards the Comcast’s of the world and understand how they as cartels have unofficially split up the country.
f-securus 5y ago
I live in a smaller metropolitan area in the southeast and 400 down/20 up is $95 a month because I don’t bundle it with other services. Fast.com maxes at 200 down so I think they are throttling certain things. I get 400 when using their Speedtest. I want to do some automated testing/logging throughout the day for a good month to have some good data to share with them but not having any broadband alternatives means they ultimately don’t care. I had the faster service for a year when it was randomly set back to the base speed. Calling and complaining about it and it gets fixed but no compensation as I couldn’t tell them exactly when it was changed and they had ‘no clue’. This was after arguing over a $99 upgrade fee initially when I increased speed. She said it was required for the tech to ensure my service was working properly. But wouldn’t have to send a tech to my home. I got that fee waived eventually after explaining I was trying to pay them extra every month and I knew for a fact a tech wasn’t doing anything specific to my account to ensure it worked as I used to work at charter and knew the provisioning process. Oh yah... they were just as scummy of a company to work for. I can only imagine things will get worse with Spectrum after their ‘no caps’ agreement expires from the Time Warner merger.