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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
 ·Comcast
| Idiots
First this town wants to impose the costs of deploying a broadband network on its citizens. Now it wants to stop a private company from deploying such a network at no cost to its citizens. What is wrong with these people?
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claudeo
join:2000-02-23
Redmond, WA
| said by pnh102  :First this town wants to impose the costs of deploying a broadband network on its citizens. Now it wants to stop a private company from deploying such a network at no cost to its citizens. What is wrong with these people? How do you figure "at no costs to its citizens"? Any use of public right of way (over, under or through it) has a cost to the citizens. | |
Cod
join:2000-07-05
Greensboro, NC
| said by claudeo :How do you figure "at no costs to its citizens"? Any use of public right of way (over, under or through it) has a cost to the citizens. What exactly is that cost? Not disputing your claim, but perhaps you could elaborate. | |
pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| reply to claudeo
said by claudeo :How do you figure "at no costs to its citizens"? Any use of public right of way (over, under or through it) has a cost to the citizens. Say AT&T deploys this service in your area but you decide you don't want to use it. Does AT&T send you a bill? Of course not.
As for using the right of way costing people money, if we followed your example, every time I crossed the sidewalk I should have to pay a tax. When any company comes and tears up a street to do any kind of work, its that company that has to pay to fix it, not the government.
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garagerock
Premium
join:2002-06-14
Louisville, KY
| reply to pnh102
said by pnh102 :First this town wants to impose the costs of deploying a broadband network on its citizens. Now it wants to stop a private company from deploying such a network at no cost to its citizens. What is wrong with these people? quote:
Geneva, Illinois was at the center of a debate over municipal broadband, when AT&T (then SBC) ran an expensive PR campaign to turn public opinion against two local plans to offer fiber and IPTV service (once with taxpayer funds, once without)
Obviously, the local gov't/voters (or at least a portion of them) disagree with that assumption. | |
L Supreme
Premium
join:2004-06-05
Lowell, MA | That video was priceless. "What can you do with 20mbs?its like a race car with no track" lol. Their tune sure changed. | |
marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| reply to Cod
said by Cod :said by claudeo :How do you figure "at no costs to its citizens"? Any use of public right of way (over, under or through it) has a cost to the citizens. What exactly is that cost? Not disputing your claim, but perhaps you could elaborate. Well, for one, since this is Illinois the city will be required to map out and digitize the location of all the fiber with no reimbursement (depends on the size of the city, but easily a six figure cost with about $20k/year recurring costs depending on how often AT&T adds infrastructure).
Also, the city will be required to provide (normally through a contractor) locating services on that fiber and be liable for any cuts from bad locates.
Lastly, the ROW that AT&T uses will not be available for other services and if the city wishes to place any services into that ROW (such as sewer and water upgrades) they will have to pay AT&T for that access.
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Talis
join:2001-06-21
Houston, TX
| reply to L Supreme
That's what is most galling to me - and maybe the government of Geneva - about this whole story. AT&T goes out of their way to denigrate their fiber project then several years later come in and install the very same fiber they said was totally unnecessary. Talk about two-faced. This makes me wonder why anyone believes a thing AT&T says.
Personally I think the city of Geneva should use the same tactics AT&T did and accuse them of providing porn to the neighborhood. I wonder how long it would be before AT&T sued.
I have no respect for corporations that treat people with such contempt and disregard. | |
G_Poobah
join:2004-01-17
Schenectady, NY
| reply to pnh102
for example : "every time I crossed the sidewalk I should have to pay a tax"
Well, DUH, that's exactly what AT&T wants. Remember, the whole '2-tier' internet. You can't use the crosswalk unless you pay AT&T. Of course, you could walk 8 blocks out of your way, and maybe get across the street, but AT&T has decided that you need to pay an AT&T 'crosswalk' tax to use 'their' crosswalk.
AT&T wants to install all these crosswalks, but they don't want to do it in a way that benefits the citizens. AT&T is allowed to put in a crosswalk, but it's using the towns streets to do it. And it's the citizens of the town that use the sidewalks, that may or may not use the crosswalk. The town has said "yes, you can put in a crosswalk, but no, you can't make all the laws involving that crosswalk, because we the citizens will determine whats the best public interest use of that crosswalk. It's not to say you can't make money with the crosswalk, it IS to say that you will live by the rules we make when 'operating' that crosswalk'.
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pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| said by G_Poobah :Well, DUH, that's exactly what AT&T wants. Remember, the whole '2-tier' internet. You can't use the crosswalk unless you pay AT&T. Well yea... no one is saying AT&T is supposed to offer the service for free and no one is saying that subscriber fees won't be used to offset the costs of the rollout, but the major difference between what AT&T is doing and what muni people wanted to do is that AT&T is not expecting the people who aren't subscribing to the service to pay them for anything.
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gao16
join:2006-04-18
Algonquin, IL
| reply to marigolds
said by marigolds :said by Cod :said by claudeo :How do you figure "at no costs to its citizens"? Any use of public right of way (over, under or through it) has a cost to the citizens. What exactly is that cost? Not disputing your claim, but perhaps you could elaborate. Well, for one, since this is Illinois the city will be required to map out and digitize the location of all the fiber with no reimbursement (depends on the size of the city, but easily a six figure cost with about $20k/year recurring costs depending on how often AT&T adds infrastructure). Also, the city will be required to provide (normally through a contractor) locating services on that fiber and be liable for any cuts from bad locates. Lastly, the ROW that AT&T uses will not be available for other services and if the city wishes to place any services into that ROW (such as sewer and water upgrades) they will have to pay AT&T for that access. No offense, but I would take some issue with all of your points.
First, I believe it is the responsibility of the company placing the facilities to map the location of their facilities. If the city govt is keeping digital records, they should already have most of the cost built in to track where the public utilities are placed.
Second, I know it is the responsibility of the owner to locate their own facilities or contract a company to do it at their own expense. The owner(or contracted company) is also responsible for cuts due to bad locates.
Third, generally private utilities like phone,gas,electricty , and cable are put in at about 1'-5'. Water and sewer are usually placed much deeper.
I don't know if these points apply outside of Illinois, but since the story is about a city in Illinois, this should apply in this case. | |
marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| reply to pnh102
said by pnh102 :The major difference between what AT&T is doing and what muni people wanted to do is that AT&T is not expecting the people who aren't subscribing to the service to pay them for anything. Um, muni utilities are built with revenue bonds, not GO bonds.
The muni people are not expecting the people who aren't subscribing to the service to pay them for anything either.
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PeterCollins
join:2005-05-23
Geneva, IL
3 edits | reply to Talis
To lend to your point, here's a little recent history firsthand.
Voice Mail Message from David Strahl of AT&T to Mayor Kevin Burns & All Geneva City Council members
Friday, April 14, 2006
11:30 a.m. CST
Mayor Burns this is Dave Strahl with AT&T.
I’m calling with regard to the proposed moratorium on the build out of our project Light Speed in the City of Geneva. As taxpayers and property owners in the City of Geneva we obviously think that is an ill-advised strategy we would much prefer to be able to sit down with city staff and address whatever issues or concerns they may have with regard to that project.
As you probably know, Project Light Speed offers a video alternative to Comcast cable as well as provides residents with much higher speed DSL, high-speed internet access. I think both of those are things the community was crying out for during the TriCity broadband referenda. We don’t think that a moratorium advances the issue for our company or your residents. In fact, we’ve had to resort to law suits in three communities in the Chicago area who have imposed that moratorium. That’s with regret and we do believe that we can work out whatever issues or concerns whatever issues the city may have simply by sitting down and discussing those alternatives.
That would be my hope…that at your board meeting on Monday that you would direct staff to set a meeting and see if there is a way to work around any issues or concerns the City may have and allow us to get on with the work of providing your residents with some exciting new services.
I can be reached at 847.2XX.XXXX. Give me a call if you have any questions. Thanks a lot and have a great Easter. Bye Bye.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Peter Collins [mailto:pcollins@geneva.il.us]
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 4:55 PM
Dear Mayor Burns:
First off, I think it’s important to note that Geneva is anything but “anti-competition.” We welcome AT&T’s proposed investment in our community to provide another option for our citizens. It’s in this same mode that we are also exploring bringing wireless internet providers to Geneva as well.
Our issues with AT&T’s Project Lightspeed, however, stem from trying to do what is proper for our citizens and legal in our Rights of Way. AT&T appears to have real issues with guaranteeing equal services for all of Geneva – a point of contention not present in our existing franchise agreement with Comcast.
In addition, Illinois has a “Level Playing Field Statute [65 ILCS 5/11-42-11(e)], Subsections (4) and (5) which state, with emphasis added:
(4) ... Except as provided in paragraph (5) of this subsection (e), no such
additional cable television franchise shall be granted under terms or conditions more favorable or less burdensome to the applicant than those required under the existing cable television franchise, including but not limited to terms and conditions pertaining to the territorial extent of the franchise, system design, technical performance standards, construction schedules, performance bonds, standards for construction and installation of cable television facilities, service to subscribers, public educational and governmental access channels and programming, production assistance, liability and indemnification, and franchise fees.
Allowing AT&T to enter our video market without regard to the language above could be construed as allowing AT&T to have an advantage over the existing franchise holder, Comcast, and could be grounds for Comcast to stop adhering to the requirements of our existing franchise with them.
Another point to pay close attention to is the number of potential cabinets we could end up with in our r.o.w. Using AT&T’s estimates, and trying to be as generous as possible, each new Lightspeed box will serve approximately 300 - 400 customers. Using 8,800 as an approximate count of residential customers, Geneva could see roughly 22 to 29 of these pads/network ops boxes in our R.O.W. just for serving homes in Geneva. The approximate size of each one of these boxes is 63"H X 44"W X 20"D sitting on a 90"L X 68"W X 5"D concrete slab. This number excludes, of course, any additional boxes need to serve business or industrial customers.
In addition, because of last year’s ruling by the FCC that new fiber builds do not have to be shared, any new provider that might come to Geneva could quite possibly have to build their own cabinets in similar numbers, should AT&T decide not to share facilities with that new provider. (An unfortunate aside of all this is that as while we get fiber further out into the neighborhoods, I fear we will begin to lose what little semblance of competition we have in the EarthLink/Covad dsl market. New fiber means less copper for those providers to use.)
Per your request, I've attempted to address some of the claims of AT&T we've heard about recently.
I've heard that AT&T representatives have attempted to call you and the Aldermen, and that the gist of the message is something along the line of, "If you pass the moratorium on Monday, we'll sue Geneva."
The voice mail I heard suggested City staff would/had not met with AT&T. This is plainly false.
AT&T did come in, sat down with us, and explained their position. That meeting took place on March 9th at 1:30 p.m. at Geneva Public Works. In attendance representing the City were Mary McKittrick, Travis Parish, Jennifer Hilkemann, Dan Dinges, Chris Bong, Dave Morris, & myself. Representing AT&T were Dave Strahl, Tony Bily, Pam Summers & Bruce Brown.
AT&T also just did the same at the DuPage Mayor's & Manager's Conference on April 7th in Oak Brook. Again, among the AT&T representatives was Dave Strahl.
AT&T's position has remained the same. They feel they are not subject to local franchising because of the delivery mechanism of their services (IP) while strangely, on the federal level, they continue to push for national franchising regulations.
AT&T has only today returned to us with their model Memorandum of Understanding – their idea of an alternate agreement to a local franchise - as they suggested the would at the March 9, 2006 meeting at Public Works. This MoU is nowhere close to meeting the same standards our cable franchise does.
Most important to Geneva though is the dismissal order came last week from the courts in California regarding an SBC lawsuit against Walnut Creek, CA for actions similar to those of Geneva.
Adding more flames to the fire are AT&T’s past actions as SBC & Ameritech. I find it rather amusing that Mr. Strahl tries to sell the merits of their upgrades while invoking the TriCity Broadband referenda – an issue according to the Daily Herald they spent over $205,000 to defeat.
»www.dailyherald.com/kane/main_st···=3838567
Broadband quest cost $300,000
By Garrett Ordower Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted Wednesday, February 02, 2005
To Tri-Cities residents, the onslaught of advertising aimed at defeating last fall's municipal broadband referendum request might have seemed novel: An entire campaign dreamed up to quash a plan that itself was little more than a dream.
But to the coalition of consultants, pollsters, ad gurus and public affairs veterans employed by SBC and Comcast to create the $301,065 campaign, it was old hat.
“….All told, SBC spent $208,324 and Comcast went through $92,440 successfully fighting the municipal broadband referendum request, according to campaign disclosures filed Monday. Voters defeated the question by 60 percent to 40 percent in St. Charles and Geneva, and 53 percent to 47 percent in Batavia.”
During that same pre-election period, SBC (now AT&T) executives also stood before the Batavia City Council and added some confusing statements before their Mayor and Council. On July 6, 2004, SBC’s Midwest Network Services President, Kirk Brannock told citizens of Batavia that that fiber to the home technology suggested by TriCity staff “is not proven”, that they “can not prove it in economically,” and asked, “What are you going to do with 20 megabits?” “The technology that’s being touted….is not there yet.” “We’re going to be offering 3 meg [down in a new development] and most users won’t use that.” (See video at »www.tricitybroadband.com/videos/unproven.wmv . For the record, Mr. Strahl was also in attendance.)
Except SBC then and AT&T now doesn’t really believe that. In fact, Project Lightspeed was announced in June 2004 (»www.convergedigest.com/Bandwidth···ID=12617 ), a full month before Brannock’s statements to the Batavia City Council. At that point, Mr. Brannock knew (or should have known as SBC upper management) SBC’s (now AT&T’s offering) would require at least 25 megabits to each customer.
Even more discouraging is SBC’s announcement last December that they would begin building fiber to the home in a new subdivision in Sugar Grove, roughly 10 miles as the crow flies from Geneva. Remember, according to Mr. Brannock fiber to the home is an unproven technology.
Sugar Grove subdivision taps into speed of light By Leslie Hague Daily Herald Staff Writer Posted Monday, December 05, 2005
When new residents start moving into the Settlers Ridge subdivision in Sugar Grove, they'll have plenty of ways to keep in touch with their old neighbors.
Each of the 2,678 homes in the subdivision south of Route 56 and east of the Chelsea Meadows and Mallard Point subdivisions will be wired with fiber-optic cable for high-speed Internet, phone and cable service.
It reflects the newest step forward for communications technology, said Virgil Pund, vice president and general manager of AT&T Illinois, formerly SBC.
"As we build out, fiber to the home will become standard," Pund said.
Fiber-optic networks allow for faster Internet use, and all household communications go through the same line. Fiber optics will also be able to handle new technology as it progresses, like VoIP phone service, or interconnected electronics, such as calling your house from your cell phone to record a show on TV, Pund said.
The fiber optics in the Settlers Ridge subdivision will offer a speed of 3 to 6 megabits per second and Dish network for television, Pund said.
Many files will download in a matter of seconds through those lines, AT&T spokeswoman Blair Klein said.
DSL lines carry about 1.5 megabits per second, and cable lines carry about 3 megabits per second.
AT&T is working on laying fiber optics to three different subdivisions in the state now, and plans more in the future, Pund said.
"It's a huge value add," said Frank Scaramuzza, chief information officer for Kimball Hill Homes, which is building the subdivision. "It's a pretty big selling point."
Because the fiber is going in as the homes are built, it won't add much to the home price, he said.
"If there's any increase in price, I'd say it would be in the hundreds, not thousands, if even that," he said.
Settlers Ridge will likely be their first subdivision selling houses with fiber optics, he said.
With the cost of laying fiber optics decreasing every year, providing it to entire subdivisions is more plausible, and as new services come along, more and more require a higher bandwidth, Pund said.
AT&T is working with a handful of subdivisions to install the fiber optics to the home technology, Pund said. Settlers Ridge is one of the first because of the company's relationship with Kimball Hill, he said.
Residents won't have to sign up for all the services offered, or even use the fiber optics access from AT&T, but will be encouraged to, Pund said.
"But what we're finding is that most households are becoming more dependent on broadband access," he said. "Everything from having kids in school to managing the household."
Voters in Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles twice voted against - in March
2003 and November 2004 - looking into creating a municipal broadband system that would provide high-speed Internet, phone and cable service to the towns' residents.
Both SBC and Comcast lobbied hard against that proposal during both elections.
>www.dailyherald.com/news/kanesto...d=128912
Where does all this leave us? I would suggest extreme caution with all proceedings concerning the future of Geneva’s Rights of Way. Until agreements can be ironed out that protect the rights of the citizens and the city, while also emcompassing the fair playing field laws we are required to uphold in Illinois, I would urge the Council to allow for time via this moratorium to clarify points of contention before any construction is allowed.
Regards,
Peter I. Collins
Information Technologies Manager
City of Geneva, Illinois
22 South First Street
Geneva, IL 60134
pcollins@geneva.il.us
Phone: 630.232.1743 | |
RadioDoc
58ef2c0
Premium,ExMod 2000-03
join:2000-05-11 | reply to gao16
Take issue with all of them. He's not really up to speed with this area.
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| reply to gao16
said by gao16 : First, I believe it is the responsibility of the company placing the facilities to map the location of their facilities. If the city govt is keeping digital records, they should already have most of the cost built in to track where the public utilities are placed. Second, I know it is the responsibility of the owner to locate their own facilities or contract a company to do it at their own expense. The owner(or contracted company) is also responsible for cuts due to bad locates. Third, generally private utilities like phone,gas,electricty , and cable are put in at about 1'-5'. Water and sewer are usually placed much deeper. I don't know if these points apply outside of Illinois, but since the story is about a city in Illinois, this should apply in this case. All of that depends completely on the state.
In Illinois:
Cities are required by law to map private infastructures in ROWs (common for midwest states). I don't know of any state actually that places the responsibility on the private company beyond supplying paper records. Even if the city has a full GIS department, the cost is pretty significant for creating the layers (if they do not have a full GIS department or have to do the mapping in CAD, the cost gets much bigger). To take an example from Geneva, they recently contracted out the electric utility GIS conversion maintenance (not mapping, but conversion), and the cost of maintenance alone was $86k. They choose to contract act because the conversion would have required 100% of staff time for a full year.
»www.geneva.il.us/minutes/PDF_min···0822.pdf
Cities are required to operate or fund the locating service, not the utilities, but can collect franchise fees from utilities to fund this (but AT&T is refusing to pay franchise fees) (might only be true of Illinois, but in other midwest states cities are liable for cuts in their ROW if the locate is bad). Geneva might not be a big enough city to be required to provide a one-call service, yet since they have multiple municipal utilities (water, sewer, garbage, electric) they probably do have their own one-call service. Also, statewide one-call bears no liability at all in Illinois.
As you said, water and sewer are placed deeper than utilities like fiber lines. That means that the city will have to get access through that part of the ROW to do water and sewer upgrades.
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moonpuppy
join:2000-08-21
Glen Burnie, MD
 ·Verizon Online DSL
| reply to PeterCollins
What you have posted here is first hand accounts of either the complete ignorance or sheer stupidity of ATT.
"What are you going to do with 20Mbits" means "why offer it when we don't have to."
Twenty three years of networking experience? Sounds like 23 years of penny-pinching to me.
Verizon is making it work. ATT doesn't want to make it work and refuses to let anyone else try.
Mr. Collins, it is time to tell ATT to take a hike.  | |
gao16
join:2006-04-18
Algonquin, IL
| reply to marigolds
I will say that I am unsure of the obligations of cities in Illinois to map private infrastructure in the ROW, and the costs involved. Your example of costs incurred by the city of Geneva is flawed, however, because they own their own electric utility.
In Illinois a service named JULIE operates as a one call center for excavators to provide information to all utilities.
JULIE is a non-profit company that does not do their own locating, their costs are covered by the member utilities as are the costs to locate the facilities. JULIE covers the entire state except for the city of Chicago. You can find more detail at »www.illinois1call.com/about_us/c···file.htm. | |
gao16
join:2006-04-18
Algonquin, IL
| reply to PeterCollins
Kirk Brannock's statements, including the “What are you going to do with 20 megabits?” are examples of either corporate stupidity or corporate greed.
If AT&T executives truly believed that people would not want or need higher speeds than those offered at the time they are a bunch of morons. If they used those statements to dissuade voters from using tax money to pay for that infrastructure until they were ready to offer it, that's pure greed. I don't know which is worse. | |
pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD
·Comcast
| reply to marigolds
said by marigolds :Um, muni utilities are built with revenue bonds, not GO bonds. The muni people are not expecting the people who aren't subscribing to the service to pay them for anything either. It doesn't matter how the government tries to pass them off as not costing people money, they do. EVERY municipally run broadband operation is either subsidized by taxes or by siphoning funds from some other municipal service. In the end, non-subscribers in such a model are are paying for service they do not use.
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axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC | Isn't this how school districts are funded? Not everyone has school-age children, and not everyone uses broadband, but they are worthwile things to spend for the benefit of society as a whole. | |
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