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As a former Los Alamos resident I wish you luck in this endeavor, but my guess is Los Alamos is probably too small to run a cost effective ISP operation. My re

As a former Los Alamos resident I wish you luck in this endeavor, but my guess is Los Alamos is probably too small to run a cost effective ISP operation. My recommendation is to approach this from a "how do we bargain with ISPs as a single unit" perspective, not a "how do we build and operate our own network" perspective. My apartment building in Seattle just converted from cable to fiber. We're only 200 units but it was still enough of a prize to get some competition and concessions out of the vendors, and collectively LA has 50x those numbers. If you can get even 2 vendors to bid on a contract for the whole city then you may be able to get a pretty decent deal. Conceivable they'll refuse to play ball because they're scared of the community broadband concept, but at some level they are still businesses and so if the deal makes sense they may take it. Probably still need to hire a manager, but the expertise to look for is how to manage vendors and negotiate contracts more than "Cisco advanced certification", and you may be able to hire them initially as a consultant instead of a permanent employee.

fraserphysics 5y ago
We may be too small, but I think we have a good utility department that provides electricity, gas, water and waste water service. We certainly need a manager as a first step. I agree that "Cisco advanced certification" may not describe what we need.
- femto113 5y ago
  What would you consider more of a win here: everybody in town has internet that they pay for through the city (either via taxes or fees), or Los Alamos owns and operates its own network? The model used for the other utilities may not work, for example the DOE puts up the money the lab uses to buy electricity which effectively subsidizes the town's costs, but they need power and don't really have much of an alternative (unless they fire up the reactors again...). The lab already has their own backbone connection so I doubt they're going to be interested in buying internet services from the town.
  - fraserphysics 5y ago
    The best win is that the County owns the last mile fiber and customers buy service that they choose. Part of the reason I prefer that has to do with issues like net-neutrality. You are correct about the other utilities. The Feds actually built some of the infrastrucure and simply gave it to the County when they gave up running it. You are sort of correct about the lab's backbone connection. However that connection is owned and operated by the phone company, now called Lumen. Lumen sells capacity on that link to Comcast. The lab is not going to be interested in buying service from the County, but as a consequence of the pandemic they have said that they are interested in supporting employees working from home. Working from home with the available Internet connections is difficult.
    - femto113 5y ago
      Seems like that last item is the thread to pull on--get the DOE to cough up some dough to help ensure that lab employees have reliable home access. If you dangle the promise of federal money you can probably get Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties interested in the idea too. So now I'm thinking your manager needs political experience above anything else.
brianolson 5y ago
I'd guess the layout of the town is a benefit? It's mostly dense-ish between the mesas of Los Alamos and the blob of White Rock. Other towns fade into low density and get a lot sparser, but you only get that in one neighborhood of White Rock.

fraserphysics 5y ago

We may be too small, but I think we have a good utility department that provides electricity, gas, water and waste water service. We certainly need a manager as a first step. I agree that "Cisco advanced certification" may not describe what we need.

femto113 5y ago
What would you consider more of a win here: everybody in town has internet that they pay for through the city (either via taxes or fees), or Los Alamos owns and operates its own network? The model used for the other utilities may not work, for example the DOE puts up the money the lab uses to buy electricity which effectively subsidizes the town's costs, but they need power and don't really have much of an alternative (unless they fire up the reactors again...). The lab already has their own backbone connection so I doubt they're going to be interested in buying internet services from the town.
- fraserphysics 5y ago
  The best win is that the County owns the last mile fiber and customers buy service that they choose. Part of the reason I prefer that has to do with issues like net-neutrality. You are correct about the other utilities. The Feds actually built some of the infrastrucure and simply gave it to the County when they gave up running it. You are sort of correct about the lab's backbone connection. However that connection is owned and operated by the phone company, now called Lumen. Lumen sells capacity on that link to Comcast. The lab is not going to be interested in buying service from the County, but as a consequence of the pandemic they have said that they are interested in supporting employees working from home. Working from home with the available Internet connections is difficult.
  - femto113 5y ago
    Seems like that last item is the thread to pull on--get the DOE to cough up some dough to help ensure that lab employees have reliable home access. If you dangle the promise of federal money you can probably get Santa Fe and Rio Arriba counties interested in the idea too. So now I'm thinking your manager needs political experience above anything else.

brianolson 5y ago

I'd guess the layout of the town is a benefit? It's mostly dense-ish between the mesas of Los Alamos and the blob of White Rock. Other towns fade into low density and get a lot sparser, but you only get that in one neighborhood of White Rock.