12 ms·

Colorado communities secure the right to build their own broadband

313 points by Libertatea 12y ago

iliketolearn 12y ago
I wish this could happen everywhere. In Weston, FL we had one local provider (Advanced Cable). The customer service (and product in general) was much better than that of Comcast/ATT. I guess competition forces better products/service to be offered to the individual, go figure. What laws prevent other communities from doing the same? And what justified their existence?
- nathancahill 12y ago
  Because ISPs sign deals with cities for exclusive rights to provide broadband in the city. The offer incentives to the government (providing cheaper/faster service to schools and government buildings) in exchange for exclusivity. Part of these deals prohibits local governments from becoming ISPs. The root of the problem is that ISPs are not classified as common carriers.
sebnukem2 12y ago
"[..]states have laws limiting the ability of local governments or their partners to offer their own broadband services, often passed with the encouragement of big commercial broadband providers who complain about unfair competition." Amazing statement considering that the providers in question are likely to be local monopolies.
qwerta 12y ago
City hall != community. Eventually this will become just another tax on house, impossible to opt-out. In Germany you MUST pay for privileges such as TV or rain water disposal. There are many community networks build by volunteers, for example CZFree had almost 1M users at its peak.
- MikeKusold 12y ago
  The city government in Boulder is claiming that they intend to lease out the 100+ miles of fiber in the city to interested ISPs so that they can provide fiber to the citizens. Right now, my understanding is that the majority of the fiber is dark.
- teacup50 12y ago
  This was a general vote, not a city hall edict.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
hipsterrific 12y ago
I wish this would happen in Minneapolis. When ISP's get in bed with politicians creating laws that subsequently shut out all competitions, the ones that suffer the most are the consumers. Comcast has been the bane of my existence: slow speeds, high price, terrible customer service. The CEO has the audacity to say that people don't like COmcast customer service? Right, because I enjoy paying $90/month for 50mbps. Allowing municipals/counties/districts built their own will benefit the consumer overall, it might even improve neighborhoods to foster businesses to open up (or local offices, what have you).
- Omniusaspirer 12y ago
  If you're paying $90/month for just the 50mbps (no TV) then I recommend you call and be utterly furious. When they attempted to bump me to that price it took a phone call and insisting on escalations through 4 people but here I am- back at $40/month where I started a few years ago. The first several people you get on the phone will tell you there's nothing you can do, just ask to be elevated to "somebody useful". It's rude but it's the game they force you to play, so go in swinging.
skywhopper 12y ago
I'm glad to see this. Internet service is a necessary utility like electricity, water, sewer, roads, and police and fire protection. Particularly at the level of last-mile infrastructure, it's inevitable that there's going to be a monopoly on high-speed service. So it makes sense for it to be built out by the municipalities themselves. In fact, the federal government should be helping this along. Once we have fiber to everyone's house, ISPs who want to offer something beyond the raw connectivity the city provides can do so, and make use of that last-mile infrastructure on a resident-initiated opt-in basis.
- nickff 12y ago
  You have enumerated a list of the worst services available to today's consumer. In none of those areas has there been any significant improvement in service level, cost, efficiency, or technology for many years (, though you could argue 'smart meters' will be a small step forward for electricity). Governments regularly use all of these utilities as revenue-raising 'businesses', which they consistently strip of any capital that could be used for infrastructure improvements. In addition, some of the services have consistently proven unreliable, as they are run for the benefit of certain special interest groups at the expense of everyone else. Water is subsidized for farmers and golf courses, and this often causes everyone else to suffer droughts. Roads are often subsidized for truckers, which causes everyone else to pay higher gas taxes than they should, and suffer damaged road surfaces. Police departments are poorly regulated, and the policemen protect each other, resulting in the consistent and horrific violation of the rights of many people on a regular basis. Fire departments are run for the firemen, as can be seen from the fact that the number of paid firemen has been consistently increasing over the last 50 years, despite the increase of fire resistance of buildings, and the decrease of blazes. All of these utilities also have some of the worst customer service available. On could argue that it is possible to get roads fixed through the city council, but this is the only one of the utilities mentioned which gives the consumer a modicum of recourse. In short, if you are going to argue that ISPs should be a utility, please describe how it will be different from the existing ones, not how it will be the same.
  - gt565k 12y ago
mrfusion 12y ago
Does anyone live in Boulder? It sounds like a nice place, or is it just a suburb on Denver? I couldn't tell from the map.
- jonlucc 12y ago
  I don't live there, but I've been several times. As I understand it, Boulder county owns all of the land around Boulder and won't sell it, so the city can't expand. I think there's also a lot of restriction on how high buildings can be. The result is a small-town feel, but with a college atmosphere. There are a lot of engineering firms in and around Boulder, and plenty of beer. Add to that a culture of outdoorsy-ness, and it's one of the most lovely places I've had the pleasure to visit.
  - blackaspen 12y ago
    Map: http://gisweb.ci.boulder.co.us/agswebsites/osmp/OSMPTrails/ http://gisweb.ci.boulder.co.us/agswebsites/osmp/OSMPTrails/ Everything green is open space.
- ary 12y ago
  I lived there for several years, and yes lots of people also live there. The view from Google Maps should make it clear that it is definitely not a suburb of Denver. Once you get there you realize that the two towns are worlds apart. It has a decent tech-scene and extremely beautiful outdoor environment. Good food and beer can also be had very easily.
- lotharbot 12y ago
  Boulder has a population of around 100,000 (about 30,000 are students at the University of Colorado.) In some ways it feels like a (distant) suburb of Denver; there are people who commute from one to the other, though it's about a 40 mile drive. But in other ways it's very isolated. It's politically comparable to Berkley or Austin. It's racially a strong white majority with few hispanics (Denver is over 1/3 hispanic). As another commenter mentioned, Boulder has intentionally created open space around itself. There's a city ordinance limiting water service to under a certain elevation in order to reduce the attractiveness of building up on the mountainsides. The city owns a huge amount of open space around its borders and allows only very limited, controlled development.
eklavya 12y ago
Am I the only one surprised by the fact that "the people" have to secure right to start a business for the common good in a democracy? I may be misinformed but in India I can not ever imagine having to need to do this. p.s. I am not trying to show anyone in a bad light, just wondering if things like this are possible in a democracy.
- cookrn 12y ago
  The state of Colorado passed bill in 2005 [0] disallowing municipalities to offer their own advanced communications (read: broadband/fiber/wireless) services without a local vote. These local votes are what the OP was referring to. [0] http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2005a/csl.nsf/billcontainers/FA216226F45192FE87256F41007B483C/$FILE/152_01.pdf http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2005a/csl.nsf/billcontainers...
- mudetroit 12y ago
  It is a difficult problem. Governments have a number of built in advantages over private companies trying to deliver the same services. I say this while being, in general, a supporter of the ability for municipalities to provide broadband if they choose to do so. There are a number of complex opposing factors in allowing them to do so though. For example, Boulder has required companies leasing space on the public right of way to install, at the company's expense, fiber to be owned by the city. (http://www.branfiber.net/Conduit%20Lease%20Agreement%20between%20Zayo%20and%20the%20City%20of%20Boulder.pdf http://www.branfiber.net/Conduit%20Lease%20Agreement%20betwe...) Basically, Boulder can force competitors for it's own broadband service to subsidize their own competitor. These are non-trivial problems to overcome.
  - Zigurd 12y ago
    > * Boulder can force competitors for it's own broadband service to subsidize their own competitor. These are non-trivial problems to overcome.* If it is the will of the people, it isn't a problem. Nobody has a right to operate a for-profit SP any more than they have a right to operate a for-profit water utility.
- bhhaskin 12y ago
lotharbot 12y ago
Of the communities listed in the article, Boulder is by far the largest (with a population just over 100,000.) The rest of the counties and small towns combine for a population of under 25,000. These projects are going to have a very different profile in terms of cost and difficulty compared to the same project in a major metro area. [Sources: wikipedia. Plus, my great grandparents homesteaded in Wray in the 1890s, and relatives in the area still host family reunions.]
- cookrn 12y ago
  Fair point! My understanding is that, when Xfinity/CenturyLink have laid fiber in Boulder in the past, they were required to lay city-owned fiber along with it. So, hopefully the build out is much more feasible. (I may be entirely _underestimating_ the "last mile" costs relative to larger infrastructure though...)
- hovestol 12y ago
  I would like to point out that Longmont had already been doing this, a town of 90,000 near Boulder.
sigstoat 12y ago
and the nearby city of longmont did the same thing, and it hasn't gotten the people anything, last i checked. (not that voting for it was a bad idea; i'm largely ambivalent.) digging under ground and laying cable is significantly more expensive than most people realize, and when they get the quote, they're suddenly a lot happier with 100Mbps. comcast probably didn't fight it because it doesn't matter. or they figure they can lease some, and it'll be that much less they've got to bury for their business customers.
- cookrn 12y ago
  This is not true. Longmont has proceeded with building out a fiber utility for its citizens [0] called NextLight. As I mentioned in another comment [1], my understanding is that Boulder city has required private telecom operators to lay city-owned fiber alongside its own. [0] http://longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/longmont-power-communications/broadband-service http://longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/long... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8568436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8568436
  - sigstoat 12y ago
    ok, so starting 3 days ago, some people are maybe getting something. that's a lot better than i expected, but let's be clear to folks not clicking the link, the whole city isn't magically rolling in gigabit, and won't be for some time yet.
- swasheck 12y ago
  the most successful case studies have a history of forethought such that the infrastructure is largely in place before the decision is made.
- mschuster91 12y ago
  "Digging underground is expensive" isn't that justified, it always depends on the environment in which you're digging. In city/village areas with roads, shitloads of existing cables and pipes it literally can take days to dig a trench deep enough to bury a telco cable pipe (here, 60cm below ground minimum - most electricity in the 230VAC level is also at this ground level, 20kVAC and water are deeper in most cases) due to all the cable crossings. In rural areas you can usually just forget about cable crossings and easily do hundreds of meters a day (we call this "Bodenrakete" aka ground rocket). (I'm working as a digger and technician in Germany for the current 100mbit/s-in-the-fucking-desert campaign)
swasheck 12y ago
Here's an "interesting" counter-point from an academic who has strong ties to the cable industry. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_26474974/no-municipal-broadband-is-risky-proposition http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_26474974/no-municipal-b... http://daniels.du.edu/faculty-staff/ronald-rizzuto/#sthash.XejKuEyU.dpuf http://daniels.du.edu/faculty-staff/ronald-rizzuto/#sthash.X... This is discouraging to me because, in my idealistic mind, academia should transcend "lobbying" and produce information for the public to consume. I don't have a problem with academics earning a livable wage from their research efforts, but I have an increasing sense of corporate "plants" in the academic realm that generate the results from research that benefits the corporation. It seems like things have gotten backwards - research used to be used to make a better product/service/commodity for which a company can charge a premium. Now it seems like research is used to justify stagnation tactics. Anyway, germane to the actual content of the article, this is encouraging, but as has been noted, many of these are very small communities anyway. There's not as much of a loss if they are not part of the larger loss of a metro area. The notable exceptions are Boulder (which is, honestly, considered to do its own thing) and Cherry Hills Village. CHV is a curiosity for me because that's where the extravagantly wealthy of the Denver metro area live and is a fairly "red" area so I wonder if this is becoming enough of an issue that it's transcending party lines and affiliations. Poor service knows no political alignment, I guess. Enough rambling.
- jobposter1234 12y ago
  Can you elaborate on this sentence? > There's not as much of a loss if they are not part of the larger loss of a metro area. I appreciate you posting the link, it was an interesting counter-point. Yet your comment doesn't really address anything he writes about, instead going off-topic with something about lobbying. Focusing on his article, what is your response to his study of 75 municipal-operated ISPs/telecoms all costing the region (often significant) money? Is there a reason you consider his main point wrong? (Specifically, his point that the discussed regulations only require voter approval before undertaking a costly ISP infrastructure business.)
eiji 12y ago
Here is a video explaining some developments in the area of community rights by the Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJS6sjBbHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJS6sjBbHg
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
drawkbox 12y ago
Colorado is leading the way to freedom on multiple fronts. Maybe they have taken the place of California in terms of moving forward with innovative ideas like municipal broadband and removing wasteful laws.
maerF0x0 12y ago
Wolf in sheep's clothing. In a few years a big internet company will bid to be the "provider" of said broadband. Voila, you now have to buy comast with your legislated tax dollars. Freeing the markets would have been the win.
- RaptorJ 12y ago
  I'm not saying this isn't going to happen in Colorado, but it hasn't happened in Chattanooga, TN. They've had municipal broadband since 2009 [1] which far outstrips the national averages for speed and price. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technology/innovation/chattanooga-internet/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technology/innovation/chatta...
cvet 12y ago
"unfair competition" is all you really need to hear to understand that these companies hate the free market. so do the politicians that make laws to secure oligopolies. the doublethink on this issue is amazing: the telecom companies are providing crappy internet, so let's make a law preventing competition, which is the nominal foundation of our economic system.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  I'm fine with the phrase "unfair competition"; I want the competition between peers regulated. The horrible part is the assumption that the public is a peer, rather than the authority under which corporations are allowed to operate. If the public decides that it will be more efficient to provide some service itself, why would it grant special status to a project to provide that service less efficiently? It's unfair to private corporations that we can do it cheaper without them?
  - x0x0 12y ago
    it does tend to cut into giant ceo earnings; it's much harder to be a parasite when you have to compete with public utilities run at or near cost it also puts a dent into the size of bribes available to the more venal politicians...

313 points by Libertatea 12y ago

I wish this could happen everywhere. In Weston, FL we had one local provider (Advanced Cable). The customer service (and product in general) was much better than that of Comcast/ATT. I guess competition forces better products/service to be offered to the individual, go figure. What laws prevent other communities from doing the same? And what justified their existence?

nathancahill 12y ago
Because ISPs sign deals with cities for exclusive rights to provide broadband in the city. The offer incentives to the government (providing cheaper/faster service to schools and government buildings) in exchange for exclusivity. Part of these deals prohibits local governments from becoming ISPs. The root of the problem is that ISPs are not classified as common carriers.

sebnukem2 12y ago

"[..]states have laws limiting the ability of local governments or their partners to offer their own broadband services, often passed with the encouragement of big commercial broadband providers who complain about unfair competition." Amazing statement considering that the providers in question are likely to be local monopolies.

qwerta 12y ago

City hall != community. Eventually this will become just another tax on house, impossible to opt-out. In Germany you MUST pay for privileges such as TV or rain water disposal. There are many community networks build by volunteers, for example CZFree had almost 1M users at its peak.

MikeKusold 12y ago
The city government in Boulder is claiming that they intend to lease out the 100+ miles of fiber in the city to interested ISPs so that they can provide fiber to the citizens. Right now, my understanding is that the majority of the fiber is dark.
teacup50 12y ago
This was a general vote, not a city hall edict.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

hipsterrific 12y ago

I wish this would happen in Minneapolis. When ISP's get in bed with politicians creating laws that subsequently shut out all competitions, the ones that suffer the most are the consumers. Comcast has been the bane of my existence: slow speeds, high price, terrible customer service. The CEO has the audacity to say that people don't like COmcast customer service? Right, because I enjoy paying $90/month for 50mbps. Allowing municipals/counties/districts built their own will benefit the consumer overall, it might even improve neighborhoods to foster businesses to open up (or local offices, what have you).

Omniusaspirer 12y ago
If you're paying $90/month for just the 50mbps (no TV) then I recommend you call and be utterly furious. When they attempted to bump me to that price it took a phone call and insisting on escalations through 4 people but here I am- back at $40/month where I started a few years ago. The first several people you get on the phone will tell you there's nothing you can do, just ask to be elevated to "somebody useful". It's rude but it's the game they force you to play, so go in swinging.

skywhopper 12y ago

I'm glad to see this. Internet service is a necessary utility like electricity, water, sewer, roads, and police and fire protection. Particularly at the level of last-mile infrastructure, it's inevitable that there's going to be a monopoly on high-speed service. So it makes sense for it to be built out by the municipalities themselves. In fact, the federal government should be helping this along. Once we have fiber to everyone's house, ISPs who want to offer something beyond the raw connectivity the city provides can do so, and make use of that last-mile infrastructure on a resident-initiated opt-in basis.

nickff 12y ago
You have enumerated a list of the worst services available to today's consumer. In none of those areas has there been any significant improvement in service level, cost, efficiency, or technology for many years (, though you could argue 'smart meters' will be a small step forward for electricity). Governments regularly use all of these utilities as revenue-raising 'businesses', which they consistently strip of any capital that could be used for infrastructure improvements. In addition, some of the services have consistently proven unreliable, as they are run for the benefit of certain special interest groups at the expense of everyone else. Water is subsidized for farmers and golf courses, and this often causes everyone else to suffer droughts. Roads are often subsidized for truckers, which causes everyone else to pay higher gas taxes than they should, and suffer damaged road surfaces. Police departments are poorly regulated, and the policemen protect each other, resulting in the consistent and horrific violation of the rights of many people on a regular basis. Fire departments are run for the firemen, as can be seen from the fact that the number of paid firemen has been consistently increasing over the last 50 years, despite the increase of fire resistance of buildings, and the decrease of blazes. All of these utilities also have some of the worst customer service available. On could argue that it is possible to get roads fixed through the city council, but this is the only one of the utilities mentioned which gives the consumer a modicum of recourse. In short, if you are going to argue that ISPs should be a utility, please describe how it will be different from the existing ones, not how it will be the same.
- gt565k 12y ago

mrfusion 12y ago

Does anyone live in Boulder? It sounds like a nice place, or is it just a suburb on Denver? I couldn't tell from the map.

jonlucc 12y ago
I don't live there, but I've been several times. As I understand it, Boulder county owns all of the land around Boulder and won't sell it, so the city can't expand. I think there's also a lot of restriction on how high buildings can be. The result is a small-town feel, but with a college atmosphere. There are a lot of engineering firms in and around Boulder, and plenty of beer. Add to that a culture of outdoorsy-ness, and it's one of the most lovely places I've had the pleasure to visit.
- blackaspen 12y ago
  Map: http://gisweb.ci.boulder.co.us/agswebsites/osmp/OSMPTrails/ http://gisweb.ci.boulder.co.us/agswebsites/osmp/OSMPTrails/ Everything green is open space.
ary 12y ago
I lived there for several years, and yes lots of people also live there. The view from Google Maps should make it clear that it is definitely not a suburb of Denver. Once you get there you realize that the two towns are worlds apart. It has a decent tech-scene and extremely beautiful outdoor environment. Good food and beer can also be had very easily.
lotharbot 12y ago
Boulder has a population of around 100,000 (about 30,000 are students at the University of Colorado.) In some ways it feels like a (distant) suburb of Denver; there are people who commute from one to the other, though it's about a 40 mile drive. But in other ways it's very isolated. It's politically comparable to Berkley or Austin. It's racially a strong white majority with few hispanics (Denver is over 1/3 hispanic). As another commenter mentioned, Boulder has intentionally created open space around itself. There's a city ordinance limiting water service to under a certain elevation in order to reduce the attractiveness of building up on the mountainsides. The city owns a huge amount of open space around its borders and allows only very limited, controlled development.

eklavya 12y ago

Am I the only one surprised by the fact that "the people" have to secure right to start a business for the common good in a democracy? I may be misinformed but in India I can not ever imagine having to need to do this. p.s. I am not trying to show anyone in a bad light, just wondering if things like this are possible in a democracy.

cookrn 12y ago
The state of Colorado passed bill in 2005 [0] disallowing municipalities to offer their own advanced communications (read: broadband/fiber/wireless) services without a local vote. These local votes are what the OP was referring to. [0] http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2005a/csl.nsf/billcontainers/FA216226F45192FE87256F41007B483C/$FILE/152_01.pdf http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics2005a/csl.nsf/billcontainers...
mudetroit 12y ago
It is a difficult problem. Governments have a number of built in advantages over private companies trying to deliver the same services. I say this while being, in general, a supporter of the ability for municipalities to provide broadband if they choose to do so. There are a number of complex opposing factors in allowing them to do so though. For example, Boulder has required companies leasing space on the public right of way to install, at the company's expense, fiber to be owned by the city. (http://www.branfiber.net/Conduit%20Lease%20Agreement%20between%20Zayo%20and%20the%20City%20of%20Boulder.pdf http://www.branfiber.net/Conduit%20Lease%20Agreement%20betwe...) Basically, Boulder can force competitors for it's own broadband service to subsidize their own competitor. These are non-trivial problems to overcome.
- Zigurd 12y ago
  > * Boulder can force competitors for it's own broadband service to subsidize their own competitor. These are non-trivial problems to overcome.* If it is the will of the people, it isn't a problem. Nobody has a right to operate a for-profit SP any more than they have a right to operate a for-profit water utility.
bhhaskin 12y ago

lotharbot 12y ago

Of the communities listed in the article, Boulder is by far the largest (with a population just over 100,000.) The rest of the counties and small towns combine for a population of under 25,000. These projects are going to have a very different profile in terms of cost and difficulty compared to the same project in a major metro area. [Sources: wikipedia. Plus, my great grandparents homesteaded in Wray in the 1890s, and relatives in the area still host family reunions.]

cookrn 12y ago
Fair point! My understanding is that, when Xfinity/CenturyLink have laid fiber in Boulder in the past, they were required to lay city-owned fiber along with it. So, hopefully the build out is much more feasible. (I may be entirely _underestimating_ the "last mile" costs relative to larger infrastructure though...)
hovestol 12y ago
I would like to point out that Longmont had already been doing this, a town of 90,000 near Boulder.

sigstoat 12y ago

and the nearby city of longmont did the same thing, and it hasn't gotten the people anything, last i checked. (not that voting for it was a bad idea; i'm largely ambivalent.) digging under ground and laying cable is significantly more expensive than most people realize, and when they get the quote, they're suddenly a lot happier with 100Mbps. comcast probably didn't fight it because it doesn't matter. or they figure they can lease some, and it'll be that much less they've got to bury for their business customers.

cookrn 12y ago
This is not true. Longmont has proceeded with building out a fiber utility for its citizens [0] called NextLight. As I mentioned in another comment [1], my understanding is that Boulder city has required private telecom operators to lay city-owned fiber alongside its own. [0] http://longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/longmont-power-communications/broadband-service http://longmontcolorado.gov/departments/departments-e-m/long... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8568436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8568436
- sigstoat 12y ago
  ok, so starting 3 days ago, some people are maybe getting something. that's a lot better than i expected, but let's be clear to folks not clicking the link, the whole city isn't magically rolling in gigabit, and won't be for some time yet.
swasheck 12y ago
the most successful case studies have a history of forethought such that the infrastructure is largely in place before the decision is made.
mschuster91 12y ago
"Digging underground is expensive" isn't that justified, it always depends on the environment in which you're digging. In city/village areas with roads, shitloads of existing cables and pipes it literally can take days to dig a trench deep enough to bury a telco cable pipe (here, 60cm below ground minimum - most electricity in the 230VAC level is also at this ground level, 20kVAC and water are deeper in most cases) due to all the cable crossings. In rural areas you can usually just forget about cable crossings and easily do hundreds of meters a day (we call this "Bodenrakete" aka ground rocket). (I'm working as a digger and technician in Germany for the current 100mbit/s-in-the-fucking-desert campaign)

swasheck 12y ago

Here's an "interesting" counter-point from an academic who has strong ties to the cable industry. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_26474974/no-municipal-broadband-is-risky-proposition http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_26474974/no-municipal-b... http://daniels.du.edu/faculty-staff/ronald-rizzuto/#sthash.XejKuEyU.dpuf http://daniels.du.edu/faculty-staff/ronald-rizzuto/#sthash.X... This is discouraging to me because, in my idealistic mind, academia should transcend "lobbying" and produce information for the public to consume. I don't have a problem with academics earning a livable wage from their research efforts, but I have an increasing sense of corporate "plants" in the academic realm that generate the results from research that benefits the corporation. It seems like things have gotten backwards - research used to be used to make a better product/service/commodity for which a company can charge a premium. Now it seems like research is used to justify stagnation tactics. Anyway, germane to the actual content of the article, this is encouraging, but as has been noted, many of these are very small communities anyway. There's not as much of a loss if they are not part of the larger loss of a metro area. The notable exceptions are Boulder (which is, honestly, considered to do its own thing) and Cherry Hills Village. CHV is a curiosity for me because that's where the extravagantly wealthy of the Denver metro area live and is a fairly "red" area so I wonder if this is becoming enough of an issue that it's transcending party lines and affiliations. Poor service knows no political alignment, I guess. Enough rambling.

jobposter1234 12y ago
Can you elaborate on this sentence? > There's not as much of a loss if they are not part of the larger loss of a metro area. I appreciate you posting the link, it was an interesting counter-point. Yet your comment doesn't really address anything he writes about, instead going off-topic with something about lobbying. Focusing on his article, what is your response to his study of 75 municipal-operated ISPs/telecoms all costing the region (often significant) money? Is there a reason you consider his main point wrong? (Specifically, his point that the discussed regulations only require voter approval before undertaking a costly ISP infrastructure business.)

eiji 12y ago

Here is a video explaining some developments in the area of community rights by the Executive Director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJS6sjBbHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJS6sjBbHg

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

drawkbox 12y ago

Colorado is leading the way to freedom on multiple fronts. Maybe they have taken the place of California in terms of moving forward with innovative ideas like municipal broadband and removing wasteful laws.

maerF0x0 12y ago

Wolf in sheep's clothing. In a few years a big internet company will bid to be the "provider" of said broadband. Voila, you now have to buy comast with your legislated tax dollars. Freeing the markets would have been the win.

RaptorJ 12y ago
I'm not saying this isn't going to happen in Colorado, but it hasn't happened in Chattanooga, TN. They've had municipal broadband since 2009 [1] which far outstrips the national averages for speed and price. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technology/innovation/chattanooga-internet/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/20/technology/innovation/chatta...

cvet 12y ago

"unfair competition" is all you really need to hear to understand that these companies hate the free market. so do the politicians that make laws to secure oligopolies. the doublethink on this issue is amazing: the telecom companies are providing crappy internet, so let's make a law preventing competition, which is the nominal foundation of our economic system.

pessimizer 12y ago
I'm fine with the phrase "unfair competition"; I want the competition between peers regulated. The horrible part is the assumption that the public is a peer, rather than the authority under which corporations are allowed to operate. If the public decides that it will be more efficient to provide some service itself, why would it grant special status to a project to provide that service less efficiently? It's unfair to private corporations that we can do it cheaper without them?
- x0x0 12y ago
  it does tend to cut into giant ceo earnings; it's much harder to be a parasite when you have to compete with public utilities run at or near cost it also puts a dent into the size of bribes available to the more venal politicians...