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Lafayette Adds Wi-Fi to FTTH Plan
Citywide wireless using Tropos gear...
Lafayette, Louisiana, fought incumbent providers for years to be able to build an FTTH network that voters approved some time ago. Now that they've run the legal gauntlet, the city is moving ahead with the project, and has decided to add a Wi-Fi network to the mix. CSG Data Networks will build out the Wi-Fi system using Tropos gear, with a large focus on municipal services (meter reading, etc.). Also see the Tropos press release.
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FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5

Premium Member

Sounds like local pols just like spending money ...

... and having control over some patronage jobs for friends and relatives. Now they are going to expand their fiefdom by adding WiFi in to the mix.
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

1 recommendation

ISurfTooMuch

Member

Re: Sounds like local pols just like spending money ...

said by FFH5:

... and having control over some patronage jobs for friends and relatives. Now they are going to expand their fiefdom by adding WiFi in to the mix.
You'll recall that local residents overwhelmingly approved municipal broadband. If they want it, then no one who doesn't live there has any business saying anything. The services a local government provides is the business of the local population, not any outside corporation looking to protect their profits.

If Cox and AT&T had invested in offering the services people wanted, they likely could have avoided this mess. Instead, they threatened residents with the loss of local jobs, launched misleading ad campaigns, filed lawsuits, and even got a couple of stooges to sue on their behalf--stooges who, I might add, didn't even have the guts to appear in court or any other public venue to explain themselves. Yeah, I really feel sorry for any company who would employ tactics like these. My heart bleeds when I think of all the money they're going to lose.
Expand your moderator at work

truedalife
join:2003-01-10
Brooklyn, MD

truedalife

Member

Bad for taxpayers! Another government agency!

Municipally owned broadband is bad for a City and it's taxpayers. Real competition only happen when the business playing field is designed to encourage investment. I can't get my local Government to help the failing school here in Baltimore City (over $100 million dollars missing school funds). I don't think they will do a better job with a City wide Wi-Fi or FTTH project. This is very risky, and could leave the the taxpayers flipping the bills in the future. I can't get my trash picked up right by the City anymore and Rats are everywhere because of it.

Cheap prices, better service and newer products only come when there is real competition. Several companies investing in a City, upgrading and changing there systems as demands call for it. Your going to see allot of new products from the big players like Comcast, Verizon, TWC, DirecTV, Sprint and many more. Any publicly ran broadband services will always be behind the times, and require costly upgrades in the future.

The local government should not be involved in a free market enterprise business. It's a free market, your City should be reducing the red tape and lowering corporate taxes to encourage companies to invest in it's broadband future. If the local government is allowed to venture into any free market business, why not a chain of gas stations? Or Grocery stores?

If the true purpose of the City wide FTTH plans are to lower prices, can't this motto should work for any other high price services we pay for? My electric keeps going up, and I say let the local government build the power plants for me. How about building a Nuclear power plant at around 500 million dollars(they could use our tax dollars to build it). I hope you can see why this is wrong by now. Very wrong.

stomp357
join:2003-04-13
Lake Charles, LA

stomp357

Member

Re: Bad for taxpayers! Another government agency!

I don't think this is about getting cheaper broadband, but is more about moving ahead n technology. AT&T, and Cox refuse to upgrade, but don't want competition in the area that will. When ever competition arrives to do what they won't, the try underhanded tactics to cause waste of time, & money for the city.
PeterCollins
join:2005-05-23
Geneva, IL

PeterCollins to truedalife

Member

to truedalife
said by truedalife:

If the true purpose of the City wide FTTH plans are to lower prices, can't this motto should work for any other high price services we pay for? My electric keeps going up, and I say let the local government build the power plants for me.
If I'm not mistaken, Lafayette is already a municipal electric provider - »www.lus.org/site109.php

JTRockville
Data Ho
Premium Member
join:2002-01-28
Rockville, MD

JTRockville

Premium Member

Re: Bad for taxpayers! Another government agency!

If the citizens of Lafayette weren't happy with LUS as an electric provider (either price-wise or service-wise), why would they have voted for municipal fiber?

Could it be that municipal systems are actually good for the community?

T1 Rocky
join:2002-11-15
Dallas, TX

T1 Rocky

Member

Good for Lafayette!

If freekin AT&T won't build it then why can't the city do it? Hopefully this will establish precedent. The message to the telcos should be clear: you've recieved government subsidization to build, you exclusively have the right of ways and the resources SO NOW BUILD IT or someone else will and your going to lose your monopoly.
But rather than build it, they are spending their resources on lawsuits, lobbying and using totally unethical "astro turf" campaigns to stop Lafayettes progress. That is what is happening. AT&T is telling Lafayette that they do not have the right to advance their cities technology infastructure.

So are we going to allow AT&T to decide which cities get an infastructure and which one's don't?
GhostDoggy
join:2005-05-11
Duluth, GA

GhostDoggy

Member

Re: Good for Lafayette!

The city isn't planning on acting like traditional competition in the free marketplace. They are a not-for-profit institution that seeks to subvert the free market, which in the end will only make matters worse.

And when the local sherif starts snooping your home network, because 'they can', you will simply bend over and take it like the good little man they want you to be. Governments don't like nor support privacy, and you are supporting this government.

Now lets have a look at your hard drives.

T1 Rocky
join:2002-11-15
Dallas, TX

T1 Rocky

Member

Re: Good for Lafayette!

What company would be stupid enough to take on the telcos? Are you going to enter a market and go head to head with the telcos when you know its going to cost you 3 years and $20 million in litigation just to get started? Hell no. The government is the only one who is going to take on that burden and they will do that for the betterment of the community because there is no profit in it.
I think that the local sheriff will be breaking the law if he hacks into my home computer even if I am on his network. And secondly if I'm that worried about being on the cities network then I can keep on using the AT&T phone line for dial up at 56K. Hmm, so 56K or 1.5Mbps and a risk that Sheriff Roscoe might break the law and hack me looking for receipts that I sold plutonium and children to ......
A choice is not a bad thing. Even if its a choice between the government or a company.
ISurfTooMuch
join:2007-04-23
Tuscaloosa, AL

1 recommendation

ISurfTooMuch to GhostDoggy

Member

to GhostDoggy
said by GhostDoggy:

And when the local sherif starts snooping your home network, because 'they can', you will simply bend over and take it like the good little man they want you to be. Governments don't like nor support privacy, and you are supporting this government.

Now lets have a look at your hard drives.
And AT&T sure has a great track record of protecting customers' privacy. Looks to me like they already bent over for the feds.

If you think a major corporation gives a damn about your privacy, forget it. They don't care about you one bit. They answer to their shareholders, and unless you happen to hold enough stock to make a real stink about something, you won't even get their attention.

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup

Premium Member

I hope they have a family safe internet.

A a government they have a responsibility to make sure the internet doesn't carry any porn or illegal copyright material.

jhboricua

join:2000-06-06
Minneapolis, MN

1 edit

jhboricua

Re: I hope they have a family safe internet.

said by batterup:

A a government they have a responsibility to make sure the internet doesn't carry any porn or illegal copyright material.


Setting aside the fact that doing this would be a 1st amendment violation, why do YOU feel it is the government role to make sure the internet doesn't carry any porn.

And what is illegal copyright material?

batterup
I Can Not Tell A Lie.
Premium Member
join:2003-02-06
Netcong, NJ

batterup

Premium Member

Re: I hope they have a family safe internet.

said by jhboricua:

said by batterup:

A a government they have a responsibility to make sure the internet doesn't carry any porn or illegal copyright material.


Setting aside the fact that doing this would be a 1st amendment violation, why do YOU feel it is the government role to make sure the internet doesn't carry any porn.

And what is illegal copyright material?
Warez be illegal copyrighted material and I can't believe you don't know about this.
»craphound.com/images/ban ··· onbb.jpg

Do I really have to spell it out? I'll see your and raise you
CTLTech6
join:2005-04-05
Monroe, LA

CTLTech6

Member

Can't wait :)

With UL - Lafayette already having a stellar Engineering and Computer Science program, Lafayette is poised to become a tech city the south can be proud of.