Municipal broadband: The other side of the story

The incumbent telecom providers have been flooding the public arena with relentlessly negative (and often very misleading) information about public broadband projects.

The American Public Power Association (APPA) interviewed the managers of two municipal utilities to get their perspective on communities getting into cable television and broadband services. It's an eyeopening article that provides a lot of information you don't usually get to hear.

One interesting bit of information: one of the cities has two Fortune 500 company headquarters, and only one cable route out of the community. If that cable was cut with a backhoe, the company would come to a dead stop for as long as the cable was damaged. When the telecom company which owned the cable was asked if they planned to provide an alternate cable route into the community, they said, "No."

So we are talking about keeping jobs and companies in rural communities, and a single cable path is just not acceptable any more. But if the private sector is not willing to make the investment (for perfectly good business reasons, from their perspective), then it is entirely appropriate for the community to step in and get involved in providing that service--just as so many rural communities around the country had to step in to get telephone and electric service decades ago.

The article also addresses the issues of "fairness," franchise fees, and taxes. It is well worth a read.

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