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Exactly. Municipal broadband is a potentially existential threat to Comcast. Comcast is highly motivated to see early high-profile municipal projects fail. Each

by yojo 3y ago

Exactly. Municipal broadband is a potentially existential threat to Comcast. Comcast is highly motivated to see early high-profile municipal projects fail. Each household they siphon off with this service drives up the average cost per subscriber of the municipal option. If they can get enough, the municipal option will turn into a giant money pit with a bunch of disgruntled taxpayers. A few years down the road, when other cities are considering their options, someone will inevitably point to Colorado Springs. Comcast really, really, wants that data point to be a bad one.

wannacboatmovie 3y ago
[flagged]
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - grepfru_it 3y ago
    I used to work on backend systems at both comcast and cox. Comcast’s engineering teams are stronk especially compared to Cox. One thing I took away from meeting their leadership team was that they were paying attention all of the questions an outsider was asking. The trouble that plagued them was set top boxes and they made an engineering decision over 10 years ago to git rid of them. Today I fully understand and appreciate how they are the number one cable isp. Food for thought: they pay their engineers FAANG salaries, which explains the high service costs. Their technicians can make 100k+. The costs are high but you pay for what you get, my issue with that is you are forced into that price which most municipalities must pay
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- freen 3y ago
  This is precisely counter to everything I’ve read about municipal broadband. Frankly, your description of consistent incompetence reads much more like my local cable internet monopoly…
- dgacmu 3y ago
  You're doing a pretty good job parroting what the incumbent carriers say, but have you actually studied it? UTOPIA in Utah is a good example of a major municipal fiber project. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Telecommunication_Open_Infrastructure_Agency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Telecommunication_Open_... It's a competitive open access network - customers can pick which ISP they connect to. The services offered range from affordable ($80/mo gigabit) to... way beyond what most residential customers in the US can get ($280/mo for 10gbps service). https://xmission.com/utopia https://xmission.com/utopia Competition, it turns out, is awesome but sharing last-mile fiber resources is awesome too so that you can have competition without having to pay for multiple fiber links per house. (And from my experience in Pittsburgh - Comcast's pricing is abysmal. Verizon FiOS is very reasonable but still more expensive with worse limits than Utopia. My almost-gigabit home service on FiOS is $90/month; my backup 20mbps Comcast link is $50/month.)
- kjs3 3y ago
  [flagged]
- scottLobster 3y ago
  You have any evidence that that's the case? Everyone I know with access to municipal fiber loves it vs their private alternatives. The competency of Comcast's network engineering department is irrelevant, they aren't in charge. They can only do what corporate is willing to fund, and corporate is happy to let its captive markets' infrastructure rot. It boosts their stock price to do so. If a municipality tried that, there could at least be consequences via the local government. Perhaps the ideal is what we already do for every other utility, heavy regulation but managed by private entities. Of course, every time we try that the telecom lobbyists pout, make apocalyptic ads and throw money at congress critters until it stops. So municipal fiber is the workaround we have. If our choice is between two bad options, I'll take the option where I at least have a vote/can run for office and potentially change something vs the option where I'm just screwed.
- throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  Lol, I don't know that I would call Comcast "the pros". Working there gave me even less confidence than the shitty service I got as a customer

by yojo 3y ago

wannacboatmovie 3y ago

[flagged]

SOLAR_FIELDS 3y ago
[flagged]
- grepfru_it 3y ago
  I used to work on backend systems at both comcast and cox. Comcast’s engineering teams are stronk especially compared to Cox. One thing I took away from meeting their leadership team was that they were paying attention all of the questions an outsider was asking. The trouble that plagued them was set top boxes and they made an engineering decision over 10 years ago to git rid of them. Today I fully understand and appreciate how they are the number one cable isp. Food for thought: they pay their engineers FAANG salaries, which explains the high service costs. Their technicians can make 100k+. The costs are high but you pay for what you get, my issue with that is you are forced into that price which most municipalities must pay
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
freen 3y ago
This is precisely counter to everything I’ve read about municipal broadband. Frankly, your description of consistent incompetence reads much more like my local cable internet monopoly…
dgacmu 3y ago
You're doing a pretty good job parroting what the incumbent carriers say, but have you actually studied it? UTOPIA in Utah is a good example of a major municipal fiber project. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Telecommunication_Open_Infrastructure_Agency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Telecommunication_Open_... It's a competitive open access network - customers can pick which ISP they connect to. The services offered range from affordable ($80/mo gigabit) to... way beyond what most residential customers in the US can get ($280/mo for 10gbps service). https://xmission.com/utopia https://xmission.com/utopia Competition, it turns out, is awesome but sharing last-mile fiber resources is awesome too so that you can have competition without having to pay for multiple fiber links per house. (And from my experience in Pittsburgh - Comcast's pricing is abysmal. Verizon FiOS is very reasonable but still more expensive with worse limits than Utopia. My almost-gigabit home service on FiOS is $90/month; my backup 20mbps Comcast link is $50/month.)
kjs3 3y ago
[flagged]
scottLobster 3y ago
You have any evidence that that's the case? Everyone I know with access to municipal fiber loves it vs their private alternatives. The competency of Comcast's network engineering department is irrelevant, they aren't in charge. They can only do what corporate is willing to fund, and corporate is happy to let its captive markets' infrastructure rot. It boosts their stock price to do so. If a municipality tried that, there could at least be consequences via the local government. Perhaps the ideal is what we already do for every other utility, heavy regulation but managed by private entities. Of course, every time we try that the telecom lobbyists pout, make apocalyptic ads and throw money at congress critters until it stops. So municipal fiber is the workaround we have. If our choice is between two bad options, I'll take the option where I at least have a vote/can run for office and potentially change something vs the option where I'm just screwed.
throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
Lol, I don't know that I would call Comcast "the pros". Working there gave me even less confidence than the shitty service I got as a customer