| reply to tschmidt
Re: Municipal/Community Broadband Tschmidt,
In the interest of not getting anyones hackles up, because I was going to post that I disagreed that technical issues are often bigger ones than financial, I won't post a big long contradiction to tschmidts previous post. I don't however disagree entirely, because I can think of many areas where broadband service via dsl and cable is readily available that FTTH from a local public or private overbuilder is both technically and financially unfeasible.
The point of my post, however, is that in places where a municipal/public/quasi-public overbuild strategy makes technical and financial sense there are still huge obstacles. The obstacles I'm referring to were shown clearly in the recent Tri-cities referenda. Comcast and SBC both invested resources in campaigns of mis-information and fear mongering to defeat the question, and a very motivated and well-organized local group was unable to muster resources quickly enough, and in enough volume to stage a credible rebuttal that reached enough of the voters (or motivated enough people to vote at all).
I appreciate the links you've provided in your e-mail, since I had not visited the muni consortium before today. After review though, I still believe there is no one out there today organized to advocate this cause on a level that reaches out to individual communities or local organizations.
I don't think that we need some band of evangelists preaching in the desert to convert the masses, but rather an organized way to gather resources from parties that serve to gain from increases in broadband subscribers, and distribute those resources (not just money, but knowledge, strategies, campaign expertise, etc) to local groups like FFOF (the tricities citizens group) that are fighting their hardest to get a system that would be hugely beneficial to their community.
I really believe that now that the incumbents have seen that they can be successful using what is a small amount of resources to them to sqaush these local initiatives we have only seen the first of many such attempts to kill municipal/community broadband by scaring the voters into thinking their taxes are going up!
So far the lack of responses to my post is not encouraging. I'd love to hear more feedback on this issue:
Do we need more the organizations that lobby governments and such to do more (like the ftth council, munic consortium, NATOA,) or do we need to take this fight to the streets and get postcards that are just as glossy, and campaigns just as slick as the slander being spewed from the cable and telco incumbents?
Is anyone with me?
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Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!!
[text was edited by author 2003-05-27 13:21:15] |
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 ronpinImagine Reality
join:2002-12-06
Nirvana | said by Rob Froelich:
... I disagreed that technical issues are often bigger ones than financial So far the lack of responses to my post is not encouraging. I'd love to hear more feedback on this issue:...
I had hoped to make it clear in an earlier thread favorable to "Fed Gov'mt BB" that the technical issues are pretty well handled. But as soon as I did that I was cited with regulatory obstacles. I could show how those obstacles are largely solved as well -- but I now anticipate a similar retort. It seemed the respondent was actually just resisting even the [unlikely] possibility of a Federal Gov'mt FTTH buildout.
I'm so very grateful for this forum -- and in the spirit of healthy debate only -- do I submit that some respondents could be heavily vested in, for internal or external (subjective or objective) reasons, in only one path for FTTH to come-about. I could be absolutely and terribly wrong though -- so I apologize in advance.
All I want to posit here is that I, for one, am open to any and all possible paths for FTTH to come-about. Muni's are only one possible way. Indies are another. ILECs/CLECs and the Federal Gov'mt are long-shots -- but OK by me. We should know that there are vested interest in the FTTH arena. The FTTH Council has a kernel of vendors who produce EPON and ActiveE ONU's and headends. Only the Muni FTTH solution can even begin to consider such expensive hardware. So we would expect (and excuse) the FTTH Council for hammering-on the Muni path. I wish them luck!
I would be amazed if anyone who was pushing for any one of the above paths to FTTH would discourage or discredit any of the other paths. At this point I don't think anyone really knows hows it will actually unfold. We should all be pulling for FTTH in all its forms -- there's plenty of opportunity to go around!
(Even if Uncle Sam solved the FTTH problem for us -- I'd just retool to offer some awesome content) |
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 tschmidtPremium,MVM
join:2000-11-12
Milford, NH
kudos:5
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| reply to Rob Froelich
said by Rob Froelich:
In the interest of not getting anyones hackles up, because I was going to post that I disagreed that technical issues are often bigger ones than financial, I won't post a big long contradiction to tschmidts previous post. I don't however disagree entirely, because I can think of many areas where broadband service via dsl and cable is readily available that FTTH from a local public or private overbuilder is both technically and financially unfeasible.
I didn't mean to trivialize the financial issues - especially since we have not progressed to that stage yet. Seeing the wide diversity of systems already deployed indicates it is financially feasible in a wide variety of situations.
The technical and business issues seem daunting I assume once we resolve that getting the money to build it will be relatively easy.
I think a brokerage service would be extremely valuable. In many cases Ronpin's turnkey approach would be very attractive since towns typically do not have the technical or manpower to manage the project. This allows the town to treat FTTH almost the same as a CATV franchise. |
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| reply to Rob Froelich
Rob,
I am so with you on this one. Why? I lived through the war in the Tri-Cities and organized the citizen group. Had there been such an organization of which you speak we would have been able to focus more on providing vital facts to our community instead of fund raising, getting the vote out, designing advertising, marketing, and proving the incumbents were lying to our communities in many mailings and advertisements we had no money to counter etc....
For those communities requiring a referendum (or vote)before bonds can be issued to provide broadband services I say this- you cannot possibly imagine what the "tornado" will be like from the incumbents until you have been through it. Fortunately I have lived through the "tornado" and now know what it takes to build citizen groups, market a Muni broadband campaign, know the tactics incumbents use to attack Munis, know how to counter attacks made by incumbents, how to talk to the press and have press conferences etc....I've said it before, in these instances where a campaign for votes is required the govt. cannot market itself. They need a citizen group. I can certainly provide the know-how for those Muni's how to set-up a citizen group or work with an existing citizen group as to what to expect etc....
I have heard from several Munis around the country who are very interested in this type of information-as they should be. BE PREPARED! (Build a basement before the tornado hits your community!). This fight needs to be taken to the streets-sort of. I have several, very specific ideas as to what a non-profit national organization could do for supporting citizen groups and campaigns to deploy broadband. If anyone is interested in forming such an organization please contact me via this board. I have already contacted several leading Muni broadband experts and have been encouraged to go ahead with my plan.
Annie Collins |
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| Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't there some sort of organization for Muni's that run cable services that collectively bargains on behalf of them for the programming rights?
It would seem to me that this might be a place to jump off from in creating some kind of Municipal Broadband Support Organization.
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Click here to visit Tri-City Broadband |
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| Are you referring to the NCTC? They provide programming to about 1000 small cable co's around the country, not just municipal, but anyone wanting to start a cable co could join them and buy programming through their master contract.
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Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!! |
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