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Clarksville Fiber Rolls On
Original goal was just network monitoring

About this time last year, Clarksville, Tennessee, voters overwhelmingly approved (72%) the Clarksville Department of Electricity's (CDE) bid to provide triple play FTTH services over a new fiber-optic network. While the project has seen delays, the city is still promising residents 10Mbps fiber and triple play services next year.

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The build of course doesn't please Charter, who tried their best to derail the project by playing with numbers. According to Telecom Magazine, the city's first goal was not to compete with incumbents, it was to save the CDE money on truck rolls -- thanks to smart network monitoring technology.
quote:
That alone is worth US$30 per truck roll, said Christy Batts, telecom marketing manager for Clarksville, who said the city averages about 130,000 of them a year. As long as the network is there and every home and business is attached to it, it made sense to offer a triple play on top, she said. The city will roll out that service, including 10 Mbps of data services scalable up to a gigabit, on an area by area basis over the next year.
The CDE offers a progress map (pdf) on their website.
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travelguy
join:1999-09-03
Bismarck, ND
Asus RT-AC68
Ubiquiti NSM5

travelguy

Member

I'd Rather Fight Than Switch?

The cable and telcos are so shortsighted on this. I could understand they wouldn't want the competition if a government entity got into the business of selling TV programming or telephone services. I'm not sure I'd want my local government doing that either.

But it makes a huge amount of sense to throw the costs of maintaining the physical plant on a municipality and concentrate on marketing the various TV & voice apps. Kind of like the Utopia model. Then they've been fighting that as well.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: I'd Rather Fight Than Switch?

Instead of competing with corporations (questionable tangent that has been painfully discussed around here), the municipality should have leased the infrastructure to various providers to alleviate some of the deployment cost...à la Utopia. I'm not so sure that I'd want my town providing telco, TV, internet access either.
Sammer
join:2005-12-22
Canonsburg, PA

Sammer

Member

Re: I'd Rather Fight Than Switch?

If the incumbents had supported the project in the first place Clarksville probably would have leased the infrastructure to them. By fighting the project because they want to own the infrastructure they screwed themselves.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: I'd Rather Fight Than Switch?

Sure they would have Considering that providing these services wasn't an initial requirement when planning out the network, I find it odd to suggest that the municipality would have planned to lease the infrastructure to other providers.

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
Netgear WNDR3700v2
Zoom 5341J

KrK

Premium Member

Open network

An ideal scenario would be have the city Fiber network being used for saving the municipality money, automatic meter reads, tech access in the field, WiFi spots, Internet to schools/libraries etc etc

AND

Open network for 3rd parties to sell video services, ISP, shopping etc over.

Alakar
Facts do not cease to exist when ignored
join:2001-03-23
Milwaukee, WI

Alakar

Member

Interesting

It looks like, from their map, Fort Campbell is being wired as well. Wonder how that works on a Federal installation?

swinn
join:2001-02-16
Clarksville, TN

swinn

Member

Re: Interesting

It doesn't include the base. You can see on the upper left side of the map where Ft. Campbell is (white part).
redblkjck
Premium Member
join:2001-11-07
Pasadena, MD

redblkjck

Premium Member

Good

Clarksville needs something else. Charter always had problems when I was there, TV and Internet. I hated going by their office. Anytime I went by the office, nothing but angry customers lined up there. The service kept going down and prices kept going up. People were jumping ship as DSL expanded out in the area. It's no wonder they voted to allow something else. Never had a problem with CDE as a power company while I lived there. Clarksville seemed like a area of progress to me.