Muni broadband sucks (was: New minimum speed for US broadband connections)

Wed Jun 2 21:22:00 UTC 2021

Once upon a time, William Herrin <bill at herrin.us> said:
> A comparable Internet setup would be where the municipality implements
> a local network distribution service and then you buy from the
> Internet provider of your choice.

That's sort of how it works where I live.  The city-owned non-profit
utility company wanted to build out a network to support smart metering,
better monitoring, etc.  They contracted out to someone to build fiber
to the curb throughout the city, got their piece for the smart meters
and such, and then leased access to anyone that wants it.

They signed Google Fiber as the initial carrier, who then has people
come run the fiber from the curb to the house and install the ONT and
router.  I think GFiber is the only company selling service city-wide on
it, although I think there are some companies doing business services in
some areas.

It's not quite the same as the multi-vendor electricity setup, where
only one company actually delivers the amps to your house, but kind of
close.

So far, the old-school carriers (AT&T, Comcast, and WoW) I think have
ignored the utility's network.  About three months after the utility
fiber was buried on my street and I got Google Fiber, AT&T came through
digging up yards again to run their own fiber.  They then advertised
promotional rates that were $20/month more than GFiber (and the AT&T
rate required a bundle and a contract, while GFiber required neither).
I can't imagine they got many takers except from people who just stay
with AT&T out of momentum.

I'd think that eventually, AT&T/Comcast/WoW would switch over to the
utility's network, at least in new developments, but who knows.  I have
no idea how the prices works out for them vs. building and maintaining
their own thing.

We've had two cable TV companies available at most addresses since the
mid-1980s, which meant we had some of the lowest cable prices in the
country for a long time.  About the time Dish/DirecTV cranked up, I
think both recognized they could get away with raising their rates to
something competitve with the satellite providers.  No actual collusion
or anything (probably), but our cable rates went up really fast there
for a while.

-- 
Chris Adams <cma at cmadams.net>