2y ago

Tired Of Being Ripped Off By Monopolies, Cleveland Launches Ambitious Plan To Provide Citywide Dirt Cheap Broadband

www.techdirt.com

Tired Of Being Ripped Off By Monopolies, Cleveland Launches Ambitious Plan To Provide Citywide Dirt Cheap Broadband::Cleveland has spent years being dubbed the "worst connected city in the U.S." thanks to expensive, patchy, and slow broadband. Why Cleveland broadband sucks so badly isn't really a mystery: consolidated monopoly/duopoly power has resulted in a broken market where local giants like AT&T and Charter don't have to compete on price, speeds, availability, customer…

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Countdown to the lawsuit by AT&T and Charter followed by Republicans trying to ban municipal broadband.
- Seriously, something like that is going to happen. Tacoma, a city near Seattle, had their own broadband. The city broke all kinds of laws to give a contract to another provider so they don't own the service anymore. Seattle was fighting for their own internet at the time and used Tacoma as an example. Guess what happened next.
  
  Since it appears there's precedent for this falling apart, hopefully Cleveland's government will have done their research and be prepared, albeit I'm not necessarily optimistic either.
- Nope. Republicans don't like anything except "owning libs".
  
  They profess to, but if you look at their voting history and policy making, they really support corporations that spend lobbying money to enrich their campaign.
  Pretty nearly every time.
  
  No. They like corporations.
Oh no, they will lose out on all that efficiency from the free market
- If only they had Comcast, they could experience the joy of 10G internets.
  
  By 10G I assume you mean a monthly data cap of 10GB?
- There's nothing free market about how cable companies operate.
  
  Sure there is. They are natural monopolies that form in the free market. The free market isn’t a good thing. It’s what gives us things like child labor and corporate owned towns.
This ia good, natural monopolies should be run by local goverments or the goverment.
Ohio state legislature will make this illegal, or at least place a specific regulatory burden to make it illegal in this one city e.g. No town or city with a population over [insert Cleveland population -5%] or No city or town bordering large bodies of water [Lake Erie]. I guarantee it.
- The solution is simple: Secede from the state of Ohio, declare Cleveland an autonomous city-state, and befriend nuclear Gandhi so no one will dare contest you.
A small town near me (6,000 population) installed fiber optic around down and now it’s considered a public utility and low cost to boot.
- Yea we are in the Chattanooga area and enjoy gigabit symmetrical fiber for $67/mo. No taxes or extra fees, just the 67. It's a big part of why we chose to live here.
  
  Howdy neighbor I’m in Tri-Cities. :)
  
  Here gigabit would be around 8-16$/mo.
  
  To be fair, $65/month for gigabit fiber is pretty standard.
  It's what we got here in Southern Illinois, although I don't use it.
- I thought you might be referencing Olds, Alberta who also did this a decade ago
Great! Now do healthcare.
- And housing.
My electric coop installed fiber last year, up to gigabit with no limits and no throttling. They're even cool with my rampant torrenting.
I've been saying for years that internet should be treated like a utility, and I was right.
Question: could not a private company mostly owned by the city do it? Normal for profit company providing alternatives? And do it block by block...
- They could... but typically that required pulling tons of permits to do. Also means that they intend not to make a whole lot of money doing it since "cheap" is part of this. Companies are a bit allergic to doing a lot of work for cheap.
  But to that point, I have enough density in my area that centurylink is installing fiber (finally...) and actually offering it at almost reasonable value. It makes monetary sense for them in this case. So they're doing it.
  
  CenturyLink from where I grew up (rural Wisconsin), still only offers DSL as the fastest option. I now live in rural South Vietnam, and I have a fiber drop into my bedroom. Ridiculous really.
  
  Where I lived before, the city had the municipal power company build the open-access fiber network. They already have all the right of way and lines right up to people's houses so perfectly suited.

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