Will wholesale-only muni actually bring the boys to your yard?

Wed Jan 30 17:56:40 UTC 2013

Having worked with lots of other municipalities who do the same thing, I
think you're 100% right. The L1/L2 solutions are nice to think of, but I
don't think in the end it actually works in the real world.

The only time a municipality operating in the L1 space has worked well from
my experience is when they were selling fiber to other carriers. Which
generally meant the only things that the carriers and the municipality
cared about and wanted fiber built to was large enterprises, telco spaces,
or as middle-mile pieces of another network. I don't think the residential
model could actually be financially feasible for any municipality.

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 8:37 AM, Art Plato <aplato at coldwater.org> wrote:

> I am the administrator of a Municipally held ISP that has been providing
> services to our constituents for 15 years in a competitive environment with
> Charter. We aren't here to eliminate them, only to offer an alternative.
> When the Internet craze began back in the late 1990's they made it clear
> that they would never upgrade the plant to support Internet data in a town
> this size, until we started the discussion of Bonds. We provide a service
> that is reasonably priced with local support that is exceptional. We don't
> play big brother. Both myself and my Director honor peoples privacy. No
> information without a properly executed search warrant. Having said all
> that. We are pursuing the feasibility of the model you are discussing. My
> director believes that we would better serve our community by being the
> layer 1 or 2 provider rather than the service provider. While I agree in
> principle. The reality is, from my perspective is that the entities
> providing the services will fall back to the original position that
> prompted us to build in the first place. Provide a minimal service for the
> maximum price. There is currently no other provider in position in our area
> to provide a competitive service to Charter. Loosely translated, our
> constituents would lose. IMHO.
>
>