Tag: Internet service

Boulder hires consultant to explore municipal broadband buildout

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Optic fiber

Optic fiber (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BOULDER — The city of Boulder announced on Thursday that it has hired a consultant to conduct a broadband feasibility study, which will assess the technical aspects of building out municipal broadband services, as well as engage community members about what services they might like to see the city provide.

The goal is to have the study completed by May or June of 2016 so that, if the city council does decide to move forward with providing certain services, there would be time to place an initiative on the November ballot, if needed, to ask voters to fund such efforts. Continue reading

Barriers to Broadband (Infographic)

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This is a great infographic showing the state of broadband services in the United States, but the text in the article is a little misleading. First of all the reason that about half the rural residents can’t get broadband service is because the FCC changed the definition of broadband service and the incumbent carriers are trying to catch up to meet the new definition. Second allowing municipalities to decide their own broadband fate will not address the problem of reaching customers outside the city limits. 

The uninformed and big government types look at municipal broadband as the panacea to all our broadband ills, but there is a reason that 19 states have enacted laws preventing municipal governments from getting into this business. They recognize that about half of these ventures fail and leave taxpayers on the hook to cover the losses, and that bureaucracies are generally not market oriented. 
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Letter: Let’s work to get municipal broadband

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I personally support all initiatives that will allow the city to investigate options for increasing broadband penetration and competition in their communities. I do not support cities entering the broadband services business. Government should facilitate and promote private business activities in their cities; not compete against them. I hope that Fort Collins takes this point-of-view when deciding what to do.

Robin Gard
Downtown "Old Town" Fort Collins

Downtown “Old Town” Fort Collins (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am writing to urge a yes-vote on the November ballot issue dealing with broadband options for the City of Fort Collins. This vote would exempt Fort Collins from a 2005 state law that prohibits governments from competing with the public sector and would allow our City Council to begin exploring options about providing fiber optic broadband to the community.

Voters in almost a dozen Colorado towns and cities have acted on this issue. Local voter approval would clear the way for study and investigation toward providing increased service to local population, whether independently or as part of a public-private partnership. The city could begin collecting benchmark data to examine its options in future provision of services. Continue reading

Verizon Gets Slapped by New York City Mayor

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English: Verizon Building in New York City

English: Verizon Building in New York City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Daniel Cooper | @danielwcooper | June 19th 2015 At 11:00am

Way back when, Verizon pledged to build fiber optic services to every home in NYC, but for some reason, it never got around to finishing it. Unfortunately, New Yorkers are used to getting what they want, and so Mayor Bill de Blasio has slammed the company saying that it needs to sort out the problem, or else. The city has delivered Big Red a very public ultimatum: Either it brings its FiOS network to “every household” in the five boroughs, or it’ll face some heavy penalties.

The saga began back in 2008, when the city agreed that Verizon could operate a local cable TV franchise in exchange for a fiber optic network. The deal was that every person in NYC that wanted super-fast broadband would be able to get it by June 30th, 2014. Naturally, the overwhelming number of consumer complaints prompted the mayor’s office to conduct a full investigation into what the hell was happening. Continue reading

Cox’s G1GABLAST reaches Arizona, California, Nebraska, and Nevada

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Competition is at work here. With more than 2 players in these markets, Cox is feeling the heat. This move is good for them and the consumer.

Cox Communications

Cox Communications (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lightwave Staff

Cox Communications reports that its residential gigabit Internet service G1GABLAST is now available in Phoenix, Omaha, Las Vegas, and Orange County, CA.

Cox will be battling gigabit competition in Phoenix from CenturyLink and potentially Google Fiber, and from CenturyLink in Omaha and Las Vegas. Continue reading