 | | I wonder if?? There will ever be a point where these communities start looking to these fiber deployments to increase the money they take in to counteract declining tax revenue?? What I mean is price increases for more cash to meet their other obligations. | |
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| | State It's actually Indianola, Iowa. | |
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 | axus
join:2001-06-18
Washington, DC | Re: State Nice catch!
I wonder where they buy their TV bundle from? I thought negotiating with the content moguls was serious business | |
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| | | | Re: State Interestingly, they carry both FSN Midwest and Comcast SportsNet Chicago.
Mediacom only carries FSN Midwest in the Des Moines area.
Cheaper prices, and more content. It doesn't take much to have more content than Mediacom. | |
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| | | | | Re: State Directv gets you
BIG TEN HD + ALL alt feeds in HD.
Comcast SportsNet Chicago HD + Comcast SportsNet Chicago PLUS HD + Comcast SportsNet Chicago plus 2 (All teams)
FS Midwest HD (Ch. 671) - HD Available + Fox Sports Plus feeds. I think Fox Sports Kansas City sub feed.
Cardinals (HD Available)
Royals (HD Available)
St. Louis Blues (HD Available)
and with sports pack
FS North HD (Ch. 668) - HD Available + FS WI sub feed.
Brewers (HD Available)
Minnesota Timberwolves (HD Available)
Minnesota Wild (HD Available)
Twins (HD Available) | |
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| | | | | | Re: State Also NESN HD  | |
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| | | | | | So in other words, a whole bunch of crap no one cares about. | |
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| | | | | | | Re: State Just because you and 10 other people don't like sports doesn't mean its crap. Clearly its not crap because companies have been built on sports programming. Directv and others are keep in homes because of channels like ESPN and Fox Sports Nets. Tell people out in New York that YES or NESN in Boston is crap, best of luck to you on that. | |
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|  Oh_NoTrogglus normalus
join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL | Yeah, I never head of Indianola, IN nor can it be found on the map. | |
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| | | | Re: State South of Des Moines, Iowa.... and Google Map is your friend in this case... | |
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| | | Oh_NoTrogglus normalus
join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL | Re: State said by jjeffeory:South of Des Moines, Iowa.... and Google Map is your friend in this case...
I said it could not be found on the map. No one uses paper maps anymore when you say map.
It said Indiana, not Iowa. | |
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| | | | | | Re: State I pulled up Indianola, IA immediately in Google maps; in fact, it was the first suggestion offered by Google Suggest when I was typing in the search box. I suspect you need to improve your typing and or spelling fields or turn off automatic spelling suggestions when using a mobile device (it's my experience this feature rarely predicts correctly what word you are typing). | |
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| | | | | Oh_NoTrogglus normalus
join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL | Re: State Again it said Indiana, not Iowa.
Is there something wrong with how your browser displays words?? | |
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| | Bring it my way! Wow! I live in Winterset, Iowa Indianola, Iowa is just to the east thats a heck of a deal! Centurylink around there has 1.5mbps-3mbps....... Mediacom up to 50mbps but thats $79.99! Bring it this way!!!! | |
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 FBGuyPremium
join:2005-03-19
Evanston, IL | connected to the ICN ICN(Iowa Communications Network) is a very well laid out high speed fiber network that connects all the communities in Iowa. Good on Indianola for using it. Hopefully more communities in Iowa will follow their lead. | |
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 morboComplete Your Transaction
join:2002-01-22
00000 | Symmetrical speeds are great Hurray for a community deciding to help themselves by bypassing the incumbents. | |
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 JRW2R.I.P. Mom, Brian, Ziggy, Max and Zen.Premium
join:2004-12-20
La La Land
kudos:5
 ·Optimum Online
| Makes one wonder.. If they can charge these rates for internet connectivity, and I have to assume that at the very least they break even on costs.
Why does it cost so much more for less "speed" from our ISPs??? 
--
Politics is a disease, we need a cure!
In constant search for intelligent life on Earth! | |
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| | | Re: Makes one wonder.. 1. Because they can.
2. Because these aren't usually subsidized costs.
3. Because they can. | |
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| | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. Because there is/has been no competition
Because shareholders want profits | |
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| | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Are the muni's subsidized -- specifically this one? | |
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| | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. Munis have been accused of being subsidized but whenever it has gone to court, the courts have found the accounting was proper. I am not a CPA but I have no reason to suspect they are being subsidized.
Accounting for this stuff is complicated. But I think the big companies are far more likely to be getting subsidies than local towns. | |
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| | | In some places it's cheaper because they are funding it with your tax dollars. If you can get $400-500 Million in tax payer money to fund the build out then you won't have to recover those costs so you can sell it at below market prices.
If I go out and string fiber I have to recover all costs associated with building the fiber and the monthly costs associated with getting you that product because I can't force anyone to pay for my fiber projects. Munis on the other hand can get local, state, and federal grants to pay for the build out so they only have to cover their on going expenses. Therefore their costs are much cheaper than mine so they can offer their product cheaper.
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I do not, have not, and will not work for AT&T/Comcast/Verizon/Charter or similar sized company. | |
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| | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. Very few community networks are funded by tax dollars. They are overwhelmingly funded with revenue bonds bought by private investors.
Indianola has been slowly expanding its network and is working with a local company that offers services. They are simply smart, not making other people pay for it. | |
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| | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. "Very few community networks are funded by tax dollars. They are overwhelmingly funded with revenue bonds bought by private investors."
No, that's how they make up the difference. EPB has a few hundred million in government grants plus a few hundred more in bonds. At this point in time they are somewhere close to spending half a BILLION dollars.
"Indianola has been slowly expanding its network and is working with a local company that offers services. They are simply smart, not making other people pay for it."
And this is EXACTLY how it should be done. The government should remove the hurdles so that their citizens can get the services they want. I.E. make it easy for 3rd party (I.E. not the Cable co or ILEC) to come in and offer service.
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I do not, have not, and will not work for AT&T/Comcast/Verizon/Charter or similar sized company. | |
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| | | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. A few hundred million in government grants? More like $111 million from DOE. The city got some homeland security funds to build specific wireless infrastructure (I think less than $30 million) but that is not an asset of the utility which built the fiber network.
But yeah, they have probably spent between $300 and $500 million. It is an investment that will last decades. It is a smart investment that has helped the private sector create 4800 jobs in 3 years there. Possibly even more over the next 3 years. | |
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| | | | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. The wireless project is not part of the EPB network, it's done by private group. That network is currently being used for Law Enforcement though they say they plan on offering internet access to everyone at some point.
"It is a smart investment that has helped the private sector"
So long as the private sector is not classified as competition. I have worked for and with companies in Chattanooga that offer VoIP, Cloud Services, Data Backup, etc. and because these companies also offer ISP services EPB will not do business with these guys.
I have seen them tell some guys they can't service them because they have an ISP network. I have seen them quote a medical customer $2000/mo for a 100Mb connection while they quote the ISPs $5000-7500/mo for the EXACT service on the same street. They will sell a 30Mb connection for about $100/mo to a local business with out caps but the EXACT same service to another ISP was $500/m with a 60GB monthly cap.
Tell me how exactly does this help the private sector?
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I do not, have not, and will not work for AT&T/Comcast/Verizon/Charter or similar sized company. | |
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| | | | | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. As you well know, a 30/30 oversubscribed line to a resident is priced differently than a 30/30 dedicated line to an ISP. As to how different those prices are, that is up to EPB. EPB's investment has not helped _every_ business, as I'm sure Comcast and AT&T will attest.
I wish communities didn't have to get into building these networks. However, the existing ISPs were not meeting demand and EPB's network is now among the most popular I have seen. It sucks that specialized IPS are now finding themselves unable to compete, but cities cannot just wait for decades for the private sector to finally get the job done.
Thanks to EPB's network, the vast majority of private sector companies have more choices and appear to be very excited at the new possibilities. | |
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| | | | | | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. I am comparing business and enterprise circuits not residential. A medical office that uses 25mb @ 95th percentile is no different than an ISP using 25mb @ 95th percentile on a 30, 50, or 100mb circuit.
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I do not, have not, and will not work for AT&T/Comcast/Verizon/Charter or similar sized company. | |
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| | | | | | | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. I would expect that an ISP would actually have a different usage pattern than a medical office but whatever. If your point is that EPB is discouraging competitors, then I will have trouble disagreeing with you. Presumably they are acting within the law and probably still more honorably than AT&T does. | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. As far as discouraging competitors goes, considering how long it often takes for a community to get a muni fiber network off the ground, any company wanting to compete will have an ample opportunity to get in there first. There are plenty of opportunities for a company to do this, and I'm sure most communities would welcome having another player in the market as opposed to having to wire themselves. It just takes a company with the vision to make it happen and the resources and competence to pull it off. | |
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| | | | | | | | | | | No. In my example 25Mb @ 95th percentile is the same amount of bandwidth no matter who the end user is.
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I do not, have not, and will not work for AT&T/Comcast/Verizon/Charter or similar sized company. | |
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| | |  skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 | And who pays back the bonds? In California, taxpayers do, like for the bullet trains to nowhere. | |
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| | | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. The bonds are paid back by the revenues created by people buying services. I don't know how the bullet trains are financed but revenue bonds are typically used in these muni bb networks. There have been a few cases where the revenues were less than forecast and there is a potential at that point that public money would be used to make up the difference, but this starts to get into specifics that vary from community to community. | |
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| | | | | skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 | Re: Makes one wonder.. Infrastructure so expensive and prices they plan to charge so low, I wouldn't think that revenues alone would cover paying back the bonds. | |
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| | | | | | | | Re: Makes one wonder.. Bonds are an investment risk unless they are government guaranteed. Usually they are not guaranteed so if the business makes no money then the investors make no money and their bonds could very well become worthless if the business fails.
Are these guaranteed bonds? I personally dont care and think it is good and wise for virtually all communities to do this. | |
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| | | | | | | skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 | Re: Makes one wonder.. They may be revenue bonds in which case I'd be nervous about holding them. | |
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| | rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO | Money is money. The USF trough hands plenty to rural providers so they can *ahem*, make ends meet.
Regardless, what about caps? Even if I agree with all that you say, interest on borrowed capital or dividends to stock holders are fixed costs. Can we trust them when they charge overage fees to the infamous 2% of their customer base to "keep it fair" and lower costs for everyone else? | |
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| | | | ...and I am perfectly ok with you not getting a profit so everyone else can have fantastic service at a fantastic price | |
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| | | older hardware and bigger areas to cover? | |
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Oh_NoTrogglus normalus
join:2011-05-21
Chicago, IL | Can they be Profitable? Indianola, IA
9.2 sq miles
15K population
It is a spaced out rural farm town.
If they can be profitable then they destroy any argument for ATT or others for not offering rural fiber.
ISP is MCG »www.mahaska.org/ | |
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See 6 replies to this post |
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| | Poor HD lineup Why have CSN HD but no CSN + HD?
also no BIG TEN ALTs HD or SD (most systems at least have the alts' in SD)
no NHL network, MLB network or NBA TV at all.
no redzone
small Premium HD lineup.
NO PPV events or movies?
No out of market sports. | |
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| | | Re: Poor HD lineup Out-of-market sports channels are worthless. DirecTV only offers them because they have the contracts to do so. No cable company should really be wasting bandwidth on blackouts.
Mediacom doesn't carry NHL Network, NBA TV and MLB Network either. Most smaller cable companies don't.
RedZone is an odd one to be missing. I'm surprised they could carry NFL Network without it. Perhaps because they chose to offer NFLN in their basic tier, they let that slide for them.
The premium HD offerings aren't bad. Everything they offer is in HD, but it's odd how many of them they're missing altogether. | |
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| | | said by Joe12345678:Why have CSN HD but no CSN + HD?
also no BIG TEN ALTs HD or SD (most systems at least have the alts' in SD)
no NHL network, MLB network or NBA TV at all.
no redzone
small Premium HD lineup.
NO PPV events or movies?
No out of market sports.
So poor HD lineup only if you care about sports. | |
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| | brad
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON | Re: Poor HD lineup said by Jim Kirk:So poor HD lineup only if you care about sports.
So it's not an issue for most customers. | |
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| | | Meh, some people don't care about the sports channels really.
As long as I have Bigten HD, I don't care about the alternates, which I do have in SD like you said.
I really don't care about the rest of the channels you mentioned at all. | |
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| | Fiber is the future so bye bye copper cable Im glad to see more companies moving to fiber. Which in turn help us get rid of copper and it propensities to break with harsh weather change. Also the prices is very reasonable. | |
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Reviews:
 ·ooma
·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FiOS
| share the press release spotlight google fiber will have to share the spotlight with a muni..
although the speeds could have been a little better.. 25 - 100 mbits, really? this can easily be matched by a cableco with minimal upgrades.. perhaps that is the trap to lure the incumbent into doing something, vs doing NOTHING..
I'm just waiting for some poor mining town in West Virginia to give this muni thing a try.. if it can happen there, it can happen anywhere similar "withering on the vine" wireline fails to upgrade for 10+ years (and there aren't state laws reinforcing monopoly status). Just think of all that AT&T's wireline geographies.. | |
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| JTR
join:2012-05-19
Carbondale, IL | Re: share the press release spotlight At least the Muni isn't going to be data mining your every move :P | |
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| | Typical for Iowa Iowa has a lot of fiber projects currently. I have seen cooperatives offering all the way up to 220mbps for residential customers. | |
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| | | Re: Typical for Iowa said by silbaco:Iowa has a lot of fiber projects currently.
Yep. Every corn field generates tons of 'fiber'. | |
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 DavidNow accepting new patientsPremium,VIP
join:2002-05-30
Granite City, IL
kudos:78 | First world sarcasm rant- It's not 1GBps/1GBps, I think they should offer that at bare minimum! | |
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elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | Taxpayers, watch out! What do you do when the public isn't willing to pay for upgraded DSL or overages?
Why, of course, you tap the public purse and install a 3rd, municipally-backed network, at even greater cost, and charge everyone for it.
And when it fails to sell, you'll send the bill to the taxpayers.
And when you get sued... guess who gets to pay for the damages?
Hey Karl!
Got any stats on exactly how many / what percentage of customers actually were charged overages, and how much, and how many of them couldn't upgrade to bigger buckets or capless tiers?
Didn't think so. | |
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See 8 replies to this post |
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openbox9Premium
join:2004-01-26
japan
kudos:2 | Which states outright forbid said by Karl Bode:If you're one of the few states left where incumbents haven't bought laws blocking you from doing so Karl, you keep going with this rant, but I'm curious which states outright forbid municipalities deploying infrastructure and becoming ISPs? | |
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See 11 replies to this post |
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skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Cox HSI
 ·Clear Wireless
| This is great... ...so long as voters approved spending any taxpayer money that may have been spent. Pass a bond by ballot, build the service, subscribers pay back the bond.
Where I would complain is if a muni just takes taxpayer funds and does it without voter approval. We've seen this type of stuff bankrupt cities and it has to be done very carefully. | |
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| brad
join:2007-09-06
Etobicoke, ON | Re: This is great... Because AT&T/Verizon/Comcast, etc. getting subsidies from the government is so much better. | |
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ToddKgm
join:2012-08-23
Indianola, IA
1 edit | IMU Network Services basics I am the General Manager for the municipal utility building the network out to Indianola, IA. Basics:
1. We currently provide electric service to Indianola and are replacing much of the system underground over the next 5-10 years. Boring in conduit for fiber at the same time as electric is highly cost-effective and a one-time opportunity. No taxes support it. We eventually see applications for smart-grid deployment and remote metering if our community supports that direction and we can gain efficiencies for our customers.
2. Both Mediacom and Qwest (now CenturyLink) were offered the choice to go into our conduit at a shared cost. Both declined. They can still submit to our licensing requirements to be on our fiber that MCG of Oskaloosa, another private company, agreed to.
3. IMU can administer this as an add-on utility without subsidizing it. We have the outside plant personnel available and have MCG's technical expertise for network management. We currently serve 70+ commercial customers and are reinvesting the cash flow from that into our community. We understand the non-subsidization rules and philosophy.
4. The channel line-up can and will evolve based on take rates and customer feedback. We're learning that it's all a bundling balancing act between Dish, DirecTV, Mediacom, and those that don't want to bundle at all.
5. We have an independent board that oversees our utility as a non-profit business and who are both business and community-minded. Our strategic plan is to develop the telecom utility into a technology asset for Indianola businesses, not just be another telecom provider.
Hope that answers some questions. | |
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