Municipal Report

lots of info, since I grew up very close to glasgow ky, I decided to look at them a little, here is a link to the finicail reports.

»www.glasgow-ky.com/EPB/A ··· it20.htm

buried on page 20 is the real dirt about a successful muni ran internet. It covers 2002 to 2003 years, some very interesting stuff can be learned from this report. It is very clear customer cost went up, they went from 80 LAN support staff to 300, the profits are half what they was in 2002, the operating expense went up over $100.000.00 in one year. The net income from just the service doubled, they got 2X the money in 2003 than in 2002, but the profits went down more than half, and the support crew went up almost 3X what it was in 2002. Sales went down as well, so operating cost went up, support went up, sales went down, good plan to make money.

I really did not look at the others, I know and you should relize it took the former soviet union what 70 years to collaspe, it is clear that this business plan will collapse in about 15 years, the cost of maintence and upkeep is huge, give it time and it will fail. The rates suck as well, lowest my ass, add it up.

»www.glasgow-ky.com/epb/O ··· #HomeLAN Residential (RS-L)

No speeds are posted so I have no idea what they claim to be the speeds. The people quoted on tricity are very bias, of coruse everything is all rosey that is how they make money. It is clear sales down cost up, I give glasgow 3 years before they sell it off at a huge loss to the taxpayers.

wait it is not even fiber, why is the operating cost so high, it is not fiber. I read some more after I posted and it is just plain coax cable. Ain't even the fiber, still why have the cost went up so high. Something does not look right there. I also note ONLY 7,000 customers. I would love to see a real study running 120 miles of lit fiber serviceing 7,000 customers. This whole discussion is stupid, you would have to be a retard to even think it would break even. OMG last post for this, I choose not to discuss raping my wallet with idiots that can not read.

the black out was due to FE didnt keep up with trees along the power lines. They are now but only by contracting to a few large companies. One is based out of CA called EPA-ProvCO they also do work for PG&E

Well Posted Thought.

I respond to your questions and you start talking about something else.

Give it up - you are wrong - you have lost - have a nice day.

that's great and dandy, but it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with North KC. As has been pointed out, they have massive casino revenue. Do you think that this revenue would just stop all of a sudden or what? I mean, I was just at Harrah's last night in North KC for a birthday party and they're adding on to that, I then went out to Ameristar and they looked like they were doing great business. I haven't visited the other casinos, but I'll venture to guess that they're also doing well.

If you're going to moan and moan about the government "raping your wallet" that's fine. At least get your facts straight about the situation in North KC first though, and you'll see that it's an interesting exception to the norm.

You guys get hung up on Government verses Free Enterprise, this battle goes back to out Roots. There will always be a fine line between this argument. You are not paying attention to what I am saying. If you pay for your own FTTH and Network, what is left? Just the big pipes to what ever you want to put on your Network. Then if Muni wants to compete in Product and Service, more power to them. I don't think that will happen unless Free Enterprise falls asleep or gives up, and then do we really want them. I feel that this battle in the long run, will make for a better Product and Service.

Tacoma, Washington.
Eat your heart out.

in the smaller communities across the country if the city government does not get involved?

justncredible makes some good arguments, but it seems clear to me that he has made up his mind to be anti-government all the way.
Now, I have lived in small communities all my life, and sure the big telcos are there. But there is no way I get the same service that my brother does just outside of Tulsa. And the same providers service us both.
At this point for the community to be economically viable they have to develop a broadband plan an put it into action. Again, these communities are stuck with providers that do not want to put in capex that will take more than five years to recover.
This means these cities need to build broadband, just like the built streets, water lines, parks and so on.

I love this discussion about companies who have had a monopoly and become in effect a quasi-taxing body, yet no one really sees that as being gouged. RadioDoc you should do a little better research before you spout off on how bad it is for people who are fed up with substandard service trying to get a better infrastructure in place.

When I say quasi-taxing body, look at all the money the phone companies spend to support all these different "social" programs they subsidize. To me, if they have all this extra money - I should be paying less money for my phone service. And maybe I don't agree with who they give money to.

As for having a state-of-the-art infrastructure, if people like you do not wake up to the fact that economic development rides on that infrastructure, we will drop further in the global economy.

If North Kansas City or the TriCities in Illinois (Batavia, St. Charles, and Geneva) could get their projects going, they would shatter the old copper-based business model of the phone companies. That is what these companies fear.

And don't believe for a minute that these companies don't get subsidies and everything else that you despise as "Socialism" is alive and well with "telewelfare". I suggest you get online and read some FCC Reports like "Trends in Telecom Services" before you engage in more dialog.

As for protecting the shareholders and your analogy of the 1920s, this country's total viability is much more important than sustaining the business model and profits of a couple of buggywhip manufacturers. If you don't believe in progress, move to an Amish community and drive a horse.

I live in North Kansas City, and I work at the casino. I know what goes where and why. NKC does not decide how much money the casino gives to them, the state does. It is predetermined by the state what percentage of the revenue goes to state and local government. It just happens that one of these casinos is in a small town within a big city. Because of the casino NKC is one of the best places to live in the city.

Property and home owner taxes are very low. Water and sewer is very cheap. NKC cleans its streets twice a week, has free trash, free recycling, and free dumpster service. Everything else we have to go with the same big companies (KC Power & Light, Time Warner Cable, South Western Bell, and the list continues).

Reading all these comments, it is very clear that people don't know anything about the money that a town gets from the casino. The millions of dollars the casino gives NKC MUST be used for infrastructure and appearance. This is why NKC always has new police cars, new fire trucks, all the services listed above. What is wrong with them wanting to provide one more service for its residence.

Do a demographic study of the residence of this town. It is full of blue collar workers that work very hard for what they have, and can't afford all of the "nice things." Most of the people in this town don't have broadband because they can't afford it. The city providing these as a service is a great thing.