3 ms·

If your wealthy urban area’s needs are already being met, then obviously it makes little economical sense to overbuild.

tptacek 2y ago
My understanding is that places like ours are the best case scenario with municipal broadband: most likely to see uptake (the lifeblood of these schemes), universal adoption of broadband, enough density to make last mile delivery feasible. But without significant scale and guaranteed uptake --- hard when you're competing with two household name ISPs --- the fixed costs of just running an ISP (or the backend infrastructure for a white-label ISP to build on top of) are prohibitive.
- ftth_finland 2y ago
  > My understanding is that places like ours are the best case scenario with municipal broadband: most likely to see uptake (the lifeblood of these schemes), universal adoption of broadband, enough density to make last mile delivery feasible. The best case scenario requires that the municipality is also underserved. > But without significant scale and guaranteed uptake --- hard when you're competing with two household name ISPs --- the fixed costs of just running an ISP (or the backend infrastructure for a white-label ISP to build on top of) are prohibitive. This is incorrect. Running an ISP is very cheap and the fixed costs are minor. It’s the building of a network that is expensive. Source: I personally run an ISP and have built multiple networks.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    I've also run a relatively large (Chicago-scale) ISP. Here, we worked from minimal budgets and headcounts based on municipal networks in other states with published budgets; the costs are not minor. What I think I did there was misuse the term "fixed cost"; I was referring to the expenses we incur no matter how many residents opt in to the municipal network. Note that the economics here don't appear to work even given that we already have a municipal fiber network covering the whole municipality.
    - ftth_finland 2y ago
      That is interesting. Is there anything you can share about the financials? I’d be making mad cash if I had a municipalwide fiber network at my disposal. If there is no muni network to be, I hope you are at least leasing dark fiber and other assets to ISPs.
      - tptacek 2y ago
        I don't think there'd be any takers!

My understanding is that places like ours are the best case scenario with municipal broadband: most likely to see uptake (the lifeblood of these schemes), universal adoption of broadband, enough density to make last mile delivery feasible. But without significant scale and guaranteed uptake --- hard when you're competing with two household name ISPs --- the fixed costs of just running an ISP (or the backend infrastructure for a white-label ISP to build on top of) are prohibitive.

ftth_finland 2y ago
> My understanding is that places like ours are the best case scenario with municipal broadband: most likely to see uptake (the lifeblood of these schemes), universal adoption of broadband, enough density to make last mile delivery feasible. The best case scenario requires that the municipality is also underserved. > But without significant scale and guaranteed uptake --- hard when you're competing with two household name ISPs --- the fixed costs of just running an ISP (or the backend infrastructure for a white-label ISP to build on top of) are prohibitive. This is incorrect. Running an ISP is very cheap and the fixed costs are minor. It’s the building of a network that is expensive. Source: I personally run an ISP and have built multiple networks.
- tptacek 2y ago
  I've also run a relatively large (Chicago-scale) ISP. Here, we worked from minimal budgets and headcounts based on municipal networks in other states with published budgets; the costs are not minor. What I think I did there was misuse the term "fixed cost"; I was referring to the expenses we incur no matter how many residents opt in to the municipal network. Note that the economics here don't appear to work even given that we already have a municipal fiber network covering the whole municipality.
  - ftth_finland 2y ago
    That is interesting. Is there anything you can share about the financials? I’d be making mad cash if I had a municipalwide fiber network at my disposal. If there is no muni network to be, I hope you are at least leasing dark fiber and other assets to ISPs.
    - tptacek 2y ago
      I don't think there'd be any takers!