Comments on: Municipalities: If You Threaten to Build It Yourself, Your Faster Speeds Will Come

By: Dolphin-Safe Internet | From the Trenches

Dolphin-Safe Internet | From the Trenches — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:10:43 +0000

[...] up their own network is the big provider for that town drops prices like they were hot. Oh, and they’ll upgrade you, [...]

By: It takes a village to raise a child; a city to speed up broadband « Backseat Broadband

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:22:35 +0000

[...] friends at Stop the Cap! mentioned Wilson’s situation in their recent post about municipal broadband. They mentioned [...]

By: Christopher Mitchell

Christopher Mitchell — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:13:25 +0000

Monticello is in Minnesota (not Wisconsin – that is where TDS is headquartered). Sure TDS is offering a $50 50/20 now (for how long, no one knows). But the muni offering is pretty decent too – 20/20 is the slowest package for $35/month.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:58:02 +0000

I just read this on Ars Technica and Maximum PC and submitted it for a news tip before I saw this article. Phillip is just too quick

So here’s the question – why hasn’t anyone in Rochester tried to start a municipal fiber effort?

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:11:25 +0000

I’ve always said that if there is no competition then these ISP’s have no incentive to upgrade because upgrading entails money and they don’t want to use some of their profits for that, oh no. They want to ride the gravy train as long as they can. In Charlote NC, despite Uverse offering 18/1.5 service, Time Warner hasn’t budged one bit on what it offers. Time Warner still maxes out at 10/512Kb. I guess the reason for is that the prices for Uverse aren’t as competitive to begin with so they aren’t seeing a massive exodus over to AT&T.

I really wish they would do something like that in Charlotte. Copper is going by the wayside. Fiber is the future.

By: Pierre Guillery

Pierre Guillery — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:56:34 +0000

Fascinating article, very well researched.

I can attest that the very same thing happened in France. After extensive lobbying by the incumbent telco against any change (including unkept promises followed by threats, etc.), in 2004, a law was passed to allow public authorities to build their own telecommunications network where the incumbent didn’t want to bulge. Exactly what you described happened, and… in the end France Telecom (now called Orange) has played to the tune set by elected officials. End result: in 2009 pretty much everywhere in France (98% of the territory), the very basic (minimum) broadband offer is 2Mb at about 30 euros (45 dollars) a month. On average : 7/8Mb at the same 30 euros price. In 30% of the country : 12/18 Mb, still at 30 euros a month… So, yes, telcos need a (serious) nudge.

Today in France we’re working on FTTX deployments, and guess what – France Telecom is doing the same thing : lobbying, saying that turbo-boosted ADSL “will do”, that “there’s no need for fiber,” etc. But this time they know that elected officials aren’t so stupid. And the gov’t is watching Orange…

For once, it would be useful for US legislators to learn from what happened in France… Telcos are the same the world over.

By: Ian L

Ian L — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:41:30 +0000

Not sure about TV, but Cox’s internet rates in Lafayette aren’t terribly competitive on the high end. In fact, LUSFiber’s $28 10 Mbit tier is faster on uploads than Cox’s $90 50/5 cable offering.

It seems like the amount of effort a private telco/cableco will put into derailing a muni project via low prices and high technology is inverse to the size of that entity. As the telco/cableco gets larger they tend to just throw lobbying dollars at the issue. That’s what SBC (not AT&T) did in Lafayette awhile back. As far as I’ve heard, their 18/1.5 U-Verse service is the fastest thing the comapny offers in that town, whereas Lafayette was the first proving ground for Cox 50/5.

The extreme example in this situation is Monticello, WI and TDS Telecom, which now offers $50 50/20 fiber + local phone in the town, in an attempt to derail the muni’s own efforts. Personally, if I lived in Monticello I’d grab TDS’s internet + phone bundle, then add on whatever Monticello itself offers and bond the connections for an even more ridiculous download/upload connection.

All that said, it seems like cable providers (and to a large extent telcos) like to compete on price above anything else since the primary goal is not to roll out a fiber network of their own. They aren’t competing (or winning anyway) on performance; Cox’s internet service nominally goes to 55 Mbps with PowerBoost on the high end, but has no peer-to-peer “bonus” and tops out at 5 Mbps on the upload side.

It seems like the real sparks fly when the incumbent telephone company is willing to lay fiber to compete with a muni’s fiber, something that only really happens with smaller telcos (and never with cablecos). Then the private company tries to compete on both price and performance, with some politics thrown in for good measure. Good for the customer though.

It’s rather interesting that my hometown (Fredericksburg, TX) had somewhat of this situation several years back. I’m told by the city network manager (the town has its own dark fiber linking city buildings, but the pipe to the internet is a measly 20 Mbps) that Fredericksburg was going to work with a nearby local telephone company (now part of Windstream) to deploy an HFC network. It wasn’t FTTH, but that was back when TCI Cable reigned supreme,,,and provided the town with very crappy cable service. About that time, Time Warner Cable swooped in, bought the network and upgraded it along with their (more competitive) Austin region. The result: we have 15/2 internet for $50 with no real competition. That said usiness internet is quite expensive and the closest 5 megabit upload connection under $500 per month may well be in FiOS territory.