
Towns in Massachusetts Are Building Their Own Gigabit Fiber Network - adamnemecek
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/22-towns-in-massachusetts-are-building-their-own-gigabit-fiber-network
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chockablock
Great quote from a resident (in a press release linked from the OP):

“Our family has lived in Goshen for almost 30 years. Over that time during
town meeting, we’ve debated the costs of a fire truck, an ambulance, several
highway trucks and police cruisers, capping our dump, a new elementary school,
an addition to the high school and now the construction of a regional
broadband network. Never [before] in the history of Goshen have we had to
change the venue of the meeting because so many people turned out.” All 240
voters were unanimous in their support of the bond authorization.

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js2
Cities in NC did this[1]. TWC didn't like it, so they bought the state
legislature and had it made illegal[2]. The FCC is trying to pull rank on NC,
but NC is fighting back[3].

1\. [http://www.greenlightnc.com/](http://www.greenlightnc.com/)

2\. [http://www.wired.com/2011/05/nc-gov-anti-muni-
broadband/](http://www.wired.com/2011/05/nc-gov-anti-muni-broadband/)

3\. [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/north-carolina-
su...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/north-carolina-sues-fcc-for-
right-to-block-municipal-broadband/)

~~~
ams6110
Well TWC had their original monopoly granted by the government, so pretty
natural they would look there to defend it.

I don't defend big ISP monopolies. But my concern with municipal broadband is
that municipalities generally do a bad job running what should be private
sector services. They end up being used for patronage jobs and other political
shenanigans among other things. Plus your average elected city councilman
doesn't know the first thing about the technical or financial realities of
running an ISP. It's more like "hey we can pass a tax levy and take some money
from each citizen to build a Cadillac internet service with no concern for
profit or cost." It's thinking like this that had my town buying acres of land
for a "tech park" that has sat undeveloped for years, and working plans for a
waste materials separation facility that no private waste hauler will build
because it's a guaranteed money-loser.

I wish I had more choice in ISPs. But I don't think my neighbor should be
forced to pay for my internet service.

~~~
HarryHirsch
On the other hand, municipalities generally run water and sewage services
without complaints; incompetence and corruption in that department are so rare
that they are news.

You can privatize bus or trash service and hand the concession to someone else
should the incumbent be too awful at their job, but things like water, sewage
and data are natural monopolies, and for these different rules apply.

The sad thing is that we know how regulated utilities ought to be run, but we
choose not to. Hence Comcast and the Enron-sponsored electricity shenanigans
in CA.

~~~
bennylope
> municipalities generally run water and sewage services without complaints

I'd largely agree with this from my own experience. The caveat here in
comparing water & sewage to internet service is that water and sewage service
- at least what we experience as end users - hasn't changed much over the
years. Municipal governments are good at managing that type of service. I'm
happy with the same water and sewage service that I had 15 years ago. Not sure
I'd like the same Internet service. And I'm not so sure I'd trust my city to
keep such a service up to date.

~~~
baddox
Indeed, imagine if municipalities had needed to increase their sewage
"bandwidth" per customer tenfold over the last decade.

~~~
HarryHirsch
There was a fairly heady construction boom _in_ the last decade, let me remind
you of that. That said, everyone seems to have a beef with Comcast, while the
complaints about the Vermont muni ISPs and the only muni ISP in North Carolina
([http://www.greenlightnc.com/](http://www.greenlightnc.com/)) are muted.

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rayiner
$80 million for an area that has 20,000 households. If they get 40% uptake,
that's $10,000 per household. TWC's market cap per subscriber is less than
half that. The economics of building fiber suck.

~~~
brianwawok
The $80 million in fiber only lasts 1 year?

Laying water pipes is expensive.. but water pipes are good for what, 80 years?
The cost spread out through bonds over a long period is not that bad.

The trick is how long is gigabit "good" internet for? In 2001, they could have
built a 1mbit connection to every house and been seen as pretty awesome, but
now, 15 years later, it would be pretty worthless.

Though I am not a fiber expert, I think there may be ways to future proof it
so current 1gbit fiber could be 10gbit or 100gbit down the road with better
back office equipment..

~~~
mdaniel
In my mental model, it's laying the conduit that is _expensive_ (but the
collective clearly has an edge over a traditional vendor because they
presumably don't have to get permits from the towns), followed by the cost of
the actual fiber and/or equipment. But hopefully once that conduit is in
place, if Super Awesome Fiber 2.0 comes along, they are one small remote
controlled fiber-pulling device away from stringing the updated medium through
said conduit.

I am purposefully not even addressing the multiplicative power of multi-modal
fiber connections, or any such in-medium improvements.

~~~
amalag
When ISPs get federal money to lay fiber they will never lay conduit because
then they would not get money again when "Super Awesome Fiber 2.0" comes
around.

~~~
fiberrun
Installing conduit and pulling the fiber is about three times more expensive
than just doing direct burial fiber. In rural areas it can be more cost
effective to just do direct burial fiber.

Fiber strands are also quite cheap. It is often faster, cheaper and easier to
direct bury a fiber cable with "enough" fiber strands to cater for current and
any forseeable demand than to install a condiit system in rural areas.

Furthermore it is quite rare to replace the fiber in a last mile network. I
can't recall a single instance since single mode fiber was introduced. It just
isn't cost effective. It's much easier, cheaper and faster to just change the
electronics/optics.

Even adding more fiber strands by means of a new cable is rare. Again it just
isn't cost effective. It's much easier, cheaper and faster to just change the
electronics/optics. Even so, in rural areas it is just cheaper to plow down
another cable than to build a conduit network.

In summary, a conduit system is more expensive to install, repair and maintain
than a direct burial network. Aerial systems are generally even cheaper, but
have their own downsides.

A direct burial network might not be as flexible and easily upgradeable as a
conduit system, but sometimes this does not matter, especially if you are on a
fixed budget.

~~~
DannyBee
"Installing conduit and pulling the fiber is about three times more expensive
than just doing direct burial fiber. In rural areas it can be more cost
effective to just do direct burial fiber." True, but everyone also fights the
laws around making sure the same ground doesn't get torn up again and again.

Where I lived in Maryland (which installed FIOS, then comcast upgrades, then a
municipal broadband network), they literally tore up the same streets 3 times
in a year and a half.

 _This_ is why it's so expensive.

But nobody wants to have to subsidize anyone else when they do work, so they
fight regulations around burying extra/empty conduit tooth and nail.

~~~
ensignavenger
If your crossing pavement, it makes since to add conduit. It also makes since
for cities to require anyone tearing the concrete/pavement up to allow other
companies to lay conduit at the same time- it doesn't cost anything extra to
the company doing the tearing up to let others install conduit into the same
trench. (Perhaps a bit of time, but the time they are alloted to get their
extra conduit in should be minimal.)

~~~
fiberrun
> If your crossing pavement, it makes since to add conduit.

Yes, of course. I'm not advocating direct burial in all circumstances, just
that it should be considered on it's own merits in rural deployments. Likewise
one should not always build a full conduit system.

"It also makes since for cities to require anyone tearing the
concrete/pavement up to allow other companies to lay conduit at the same time-
it doesn't cost anything extra to the company doing the tearing up to let
others install conduit into the same trench."

It always takes a bit of time, effort and planning. Subcontractors also want
to be paid for any extra work, so there is always the question of who will
carry that cost.

There are a lot of models for sharing digging costs, from simple co-dig
projects to full scale infrastructure sharing efforts as in Stockholm.

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coldcode
That people are willing to spend huge amounts just to avoid the monopolist
ISP's says a lot.

~~~
drfritznunkie
If that were only the case... My parents live in one of these rural Western
Massachusetts towns building their own fiber networks, Leverett, Ma. The town,
is which directly north of Amherst and the Five College, had _ZERO_ available
landbased broadband options.

So no, they didn't spend huge amounts of money just to avoid the monopolist
ISPs as there are none servicing the area. And this is pretty typical of the
towns participating, it's not that they have crappy service, it's that they
have _NO_ service.

Also, having fiber has other ramifications. Try selling a house these days
without available broadband and tell me how far you get or how much you have
to drop the price. You'll get nowhere. My parents went through this several
years ago when they were planning on moving, and quite literally had people
simply turn around walk out when they found out that broadband was unavailable
at the house.

Verizon is basically letting the copper in the area rot... it wasn't until 97?
or 98? that my parents got touch tone dialing, and after every storm the line
quality got worse and worse. At least now, for better or worse, the town and
its residents are on the hook for the quality of service.

And I think everyone should have to dogfood their own products over a
satellite connection. You'd be surprised how much everything sucks or breaks
when you've got huge latency and basically modem++ speeds.

~~~
ensignavenger
Exactly- I am on satellite Internet, and it is amazing how many sites are
difficult to use or break entirely (even Android apps that won't work at all)
because of the latency. There was a study about a year ago that found that
having Fiber would add 5-10k or more on to the value of a home.

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baldfat
I lived in Monterey, MA as a camp director for years. We had dial up forever
and they were able to get 100 kbs in 2003 till today at almost $75 a month.

There is no way I can tell you how rural it is. When we had a medical
emergency we speed 90 mph + one time down the road to meet the ambulance half
way to the hospital that was 45 minutes away. Houses are about 1/2 mile away
from each other on dirt roads that are not plowed during the winter. The
center of town equals one general store and the post office and maybe 8 homes.
The one saving grace for funding is that many rich and famous people have
summer homes there. It would be great for these people to actually have

~~~
mitchty
Sounds a lot like where I was born. Well outside of the summer homes for rich
people bit that is.

Fun bit about not plowed roads in winter. We had a storm come through one year
in the... 90's? can't recall but anyway the national guard had to, well there
is no good way to describe this, tunnel might be a good analogy, their way
through 13" snow drifts.

That was fun. Was like driving through the death star for the rest of the
winter.

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dk8996
The funny thing is that, land of MIT and tech, the city of Boston has one
cable company that is slow and overpriced.

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doughj3
What? Boston has both Comcast and RCN, the latter of which is awesome and the
former is decent (unlike how they are in other areas) due to the competition-
I've used both. There's also FiOS depending on where in Boston you are.

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MrFoof
What Boston neighborhood -- not nearby city, Boston neighborhood -- has FiOS?

I was fairly certain Verizon refused to deploy after Menino denied them tax
breaks for a buildout, and have declared that they will never deploy within
city limits. Ever.

If I could get FiOS within Boston city limits, I would've moved to said
neighborhood already. To be fair I can't complain about Comcast's service over
the past 7 years at all -- I get what I pay for, been down once ever I think
-- but I'd take FiOS in a heartbeat.

~~~
geertj
My appartment in Arlington MA has FiOS.

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MrFoof
That was my point. Arlington is not Boston. It is Arlington. It was
incorporated in 1807 and has not been annexed by Boston since. That's not the
case for former towns like Charlestown and Dorchester (which have been annexed
and are now large neighborhoods of Boston), but Arlington is not Boston --
which is exactly why Verizon was willing to deploy FiOS there.

You cannot get FiOS within Boston city limits. Though I'm well aware that you
can get FiOS in surrounding cities.

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nodesocket
1 GB/s for $109 a month, so amazing. The crazy thing is nearly all WiFi can't
even burst close to 1 GB/s, so to fully utilize the pipe, you'll need to hard-
wire in.

~~~
SG-
Yet, besides it's not so much about utilizing it all.

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ksec
Why is it to this day, we have Electricity and Water Pipes, as well as
telephone line ( Who uses that? ) all built and layout into our new home but
no one consider a CAT6/7 cable or even fiber cable? These Cable should all go
to the bottom of the building where different ISP can easily be connected and
provide Internet connection. Solving the last mile problem as well as bring in
more competition driving prices down.

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afarrell
I wonder if they could work out some deal to sell Netflix or Google bonds at a
lower rate.

~~~
rev_bird
I'm not sure whether this is a good idea, but it's _definitely_ an idea I'd
want to watch happen.

