
City-owned Internet services offer cheaper and more transparent pricing - jseliger
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/city-owned-internet-services-offer-cheaper-and-more-transparent-pricing/
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Simulacra
I remember in North Atlanta a huge problem to competition was access to
utility poles. Comcast and other entrenched monopolies preventing companies
like Google access to those poles. Is this still an issue?

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dboreham
I'm guessing "it depends" on the locality but in general there's nothing
magical about being an entity that can sling cable around the town on poles.
There are already typically two providers doing so (besides the electricity
utility) : phone and cable tv. If you want to you can start a company and do
it too, if you live by their rules, man. Rules include things like using
qualified people to attach stuff to poles, be insured appropriately, other
kinds of "government over-regulation" stuff, and of course that there be space
available on said poles. In our very small town there's a retail store that
has their own fiber between two of their locations. I suspect they contracted
its installation to one of the regional fiber maintenance and installation
companies. That's probably how you'd do it too unless you like owning bucket
lift trucks and being on-call to come out and repair fiber when someone drives
into a pole.

Now, in some cases the city has issued a "licence" to a provider to deliver
some service city-wide (e.g. cable tv). That agreement might include some non-
competition provisions, on the basis that said provider spent $$$ installing
their system and is only willing to do that if they are guaranteed to not have
competition. This might be viewed as "not allowing access to poles" even
though it actually isn't.

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mlinksva
Seems ridiculous to me that the researchers chose to abide by telco website
dubious terms of service restrictions, resulting in less complete research.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16152194](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16152194)
is discussion of the research this story is reporting on.

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yorby
Could the federal government "force" cities to offer fiber services? that
might speed up the process... (they would offer grants based on city
population density... lower density = more money (Build It, They will come!))

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delinka
And which federal entity will over see this? Considering it's a Communications
service, perhaps a Federal Communications Commission?

We have one. Have you seen what they've been up to? What's the likelihood this
policy would ever be enacted under the current administration?

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yorby
Maybe we need a new federal entity... one that doesn't allow lobbying. Maybe
it could be called: For The People.

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grahamburger
Article links to this site which also has a lot of relevant info:
[https://muninetworks.org](https://muninetworks.org)

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xrd
And from there, this map:
[https://muninetworks.org/communitymap](https://muninetworks.org/communitymap)

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davycro
Most of the municipalities listed in this table are located in the Southeast
Appalachia area. Does anyone know why community owned fiber is biased towards
this part of America?

[https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/01/muni-...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2018/01/muni-broadband-prices.jpg)

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autokad
might have something to do with hydro electric dams and cheap electricity, so
they can subsidize the costs

(Just guessing)

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Pharylon
In news that will shock only Americans, it turns out the government is better
than the private sector at offering public utilities. :)

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duckMuppet
In news that will shock only Americans.. After regulations imposed by govt at
all different levels (state, fed, municipal), it turns out the only ones
capable of competing in such an environment are the ones who restricted and
closed the market to competition in the first place..

ftfy

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scarface74
It's not about regulation, providing internet service over cable is capital
intensive and all the incumbent has to do is lower prices, drive the new
entrant out of the market and raise prices again.

