Chattanooga Gets to See What Broadband Competition Looks Like → Re: Comcap and AT&Trash

other cities have actual priorities and actually serving their cities the way they should; focus on providing higher quality of water, and other essential needs; such as fire/ems rescue and police services instead of wasting money building out some FTTH network; hoping to be out of the red in 10 years.

And now many states have laws that state Cities are NOT allowed to get into these businesses and WASTE money due to the ones that decided to get into BPL or FTTH and FAILED and still owe thousands of dollars to these projects.

I can tell you at least 2 of those projects in Ohio that failed with more on there way. And the one was sold to Cinci Bell for pennies.

Other cities know how to actually manage their budgets and infrastructure so they can have high quality water, fire/EMS, police, AND a fiber network without going bankrupt! I know, shocking.

I thought America was supposed to be "the greatest country in the world!" And then the brainwashed nationalists who spout that go on in the next sentence to talk about all the things America can't do because it doesn't have enough "resources" or money. So much for the "greatest country in the world" right?

The Scandinavian countries, Japan and South Korea certainly didn't cry this much. They put up and rolled out fiber alongside their solid water, police, fire/etc infrastructure.

It seems like nothing can get accomplished in the United States anymore. The days of Hoover Dam projects and moon expeditions are over. A key sign of a failing empire. It seems like all America can spend its money on these days is war toys.

According to EPB's last financial report: »www.epb.net/flash/annual ··· port.pdf

It looks, best I can tell, that the fiber business is already profitable for them.

Your city is almost certainly spending 10s or 100s of millions on projects that produce no value, not even to all those lazy fat cops and firemen.

Name them and provide references. I've heard of many muni-nets that were sued, or lobbied into oblivion, but none that collapsed under their own weight.

Clyde, Ohio bankrupt BPL network; State law blocked them building another network using FTTH.

The other Cincinnati bought- Lenanon: »www.google.com/url?sa=t& ··· 6AItsjcw

Those are just TWO in Ohio.

BPL was a non-starter. The city picked the wrong horse. FTTH however is a proven technology that they could have rolled out successfully.

That Heartland article is a joke too. "The failure of Lebanons telecommunications business illustrates why governments should not compete with private enterprise." That's utter hogwash, but I would expect nothing less from an organization such as the Buckeye institute. Someone should teach them about this thing called statistics. One failed muni cable operation does not make a sample. On the contrary, there are a multitude of municipal cable and broadband networks across the country that provide excellent service to their constituents at reasonable prices.

you certainly are obtuse.

iProvo (not dead yet, but not making enough profit to survive without heavy taxpayer subsidies): »reason.org/news/show/100 ··· 992.html

Philly muni-wifi: »arstechnica.com/gadgets/ ··· dark.ars

Portland muni-wifi: »MetroFi Antennas Could Cost $60,000 to Remove [39] comments

Utah's Utopia has also been blowing through taxpayer subsidies for years with no hope of becoming profitable anytime soon: »www.connorboyack.com/blo ··· hing-but

Of course, it's much easier for muni networks to not collapse when they can just go to the taxpayer well to get funding for operations, and every citizen is forced to pay for it whether they subscribe to the service or not.

BPL. 'nuf said. They might as well've tried starting a dialup ISP.

Lenanon is a great example of how *not* to plan and run a business. When you forecast taking 90% of an established market and hit about half that target, your venture is doomed. No amount of "government cheatiness" can save you there.iProvo is another interesting case. All things considered, they aren't losing money as bad as a lot of companies -- the bad part is where the additional funding keeps coming from ("tax payers", actually the city electric company... just like other companies, one venture being propped up by another.) While they're posting losses, they aren't making any headway on paying back the initial investors.

Provo, UT is also a good lesson to learn from... the muni "wholesale fiber" business will not make consumer prices substantially lower than the incumbent networks. Here you have *two* companies trying to eek out a living. One is actively trying to make a profit. The other (city) has to make some sort of profit to payoff the initial investment. (it doesn't help that they failed at running a cable network, too.)

It really isn't a surprise to see Muni-Wifi fail. WiFi just isn't a sustainable media for broadband. In your house, yes. In the local coffee house, sure. Across an entire city... that's a nearly unending sh**load of problems.

Thanks for point those out. Those sort of things rarely hit the front page of the internet, as it were. That just proves idiots can ruin any business, even a government business.

That's not the complete picture. It's easy to make your financials look good when you can bury costs in the power side of the house.

Japan is able to roll out their entire network with no problems due to all of the US $$$ going there for electronics we buy.

Plus they're able to roll out fiber due to they have more people per square mile than the US does.

agree but Fireman are NOT fat- LoL.

the FTTH network can NOT be profitable nor can the city. IRS Law.

still a failed project for both.

And Cinci had a great BPL network with Current.

Also if search the Toledo Blade long enough for MetroFi you'll see that it also failed before the project was up and running. All tax payer money spent on that.

It's not "profit", it's a "reserve fund". There are several government ventures that actually make money (shocking, and rare) -- however, on the whole, they tend to spend money faster than it can be printed.

Case in point... NC wants to up the sales tax to "fund education." Wasn't that the reason given for the cluster f*** known as the NC State lottery? Where's all the billions the lottery was supposed to generate "to fund education"?

So where is NYC's 1Gbps for $40/mo.?