 NevsterPremium
join:2002-04-06
Dalhousie, NB | Perks with the Work... Howdy,
There are several advantages inherent in having your municipality own and operate your broadband infrastructure; some which might not be immediately obvious to a customer, or to a network administrator hired to run said system. As a member of both groups, here are a few tidbits which make the job and the service just that much sweeter:
Costs, fees, expenditures, and services are guided by City Council, who ultimately answer to the citizens. Really, would a few dozen concerned customers sway a corporate exec's decision about a fee increase or service improvements?
Costs, fees, expenditures and services are of public record, and available for scrutiny by anybody who requests them via proper channels. For the administrator, there's no need to sugar coat certain decisions, nor be vague in answering queries about capacity or pricing. Want to know how many subscribers are on your node? Wondering if there's any skimping on backbone capacity? Why did we outsource netnews? Just ask, or go through the City Clerk to get the required info. As an administrator who came from Big Corp, Inc, answering such questions honestly without rebuke is very refreshing. Tastes great, less slimy.
Explosive growth, the downfall of many a network, is usually not a factor. You can count on your municipal utility to not over-extend its resources, say by suddenly backhauling half the state's bandwidth through your local infrastructure as a cost-cutting or time-to-market smoove move. Try doing a 2 year budget for a commercial ISP, having no idea what kind of expansion might occur.
If you were an admin in the pre-commercial days, you might fondly recall the 'barter' system, trading resources for skills, and otherwise not being driven by the almighty dollar.
While it may not be every admin's idea of fun, you can still take pride in the fact that it'd be a frosty friday in heck before the network architect of Big Corp. Inc's backbone would personally make a housecall to diagnose end-to-end exactly why that particular attachment just won't go through.
One word: Pension.
And finally... While gov't bureaucracy can be frightening, on the municipal level, it's nowhere near the lumbering behemoth of Big Corp, Inc.
To verify a comment previously made in this thread: San Bruno indeed uses cable and fiber infrastructure to interconnect all offices and public buildings, water pumps, firestations and phone systems at a significant cost savings.
For more information on how and why our cable system was built and maintained as a municipal entity, see our web sites at »www.ci.sanbruno.ca.us and »www.sanbrunocable.com,
or drop me a note.
Cheers,
-nevin |
