[1st-mile-nm] Should Denver city government enter the internet business to compete with Comcast

[John Brown]

I know that our fiber network in downtown ABQ has caused others to
reduce their pricing, thus benefiting the local consumer.
Our OPEN ACCESS dark fiber has enabled other national and global
providers to enter the market and provide competitive services.
Same can be said about our fixed wireless services, and those fixed
wireless services provided by other locally owned companies.

The challenge is that the local Muni doesn't really get this and they
have failed to deliver on providing access to dark fiber that was
advertised
as being open access (think the fiber that CABQ installed as part of
the ART transportation project).  That fiber today could really be
useful during pandemic times.
But the City still hasn't done anything with it, or allowed anyone to
use it, yet the TAXPAYERS paid for it.

A new fiber network is about to be built on the east side of the
mountains, and that provider is a fully locally owned company.
I'm not mentioning who it is, since they need a bit more "stealth
mode" to get some glass into the ground.

Locally owned, non-incumbent providers have done wonderful things to
improve broadband access.

What we need now is a simple regulatory environment that enables easy
access to POLES, DUCTS and other infra-structure that are located in
muni rights of way.


On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 2:29 PM Andrew Cohill <cohill at designnine.com> wrote:
>
>
> > On Aug 2, 2020, at 9:49 AM, Steve Ross <editorsteve at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > My data from every USA county shows that when municipalities can threaten to build, carriers fall into line and improve service.
> >
> > I might add that no carrier has ever disputed the data.
>
> We have joked for a long time that the best way to get the incumbents to cut prices and to improve service is to announce a study on muni broadband.
>
> It’s happened so often to our muni clients that it has become a truism: “Hire us and watch prices fall.”
>
> In one study, I was in the city doing the kick off meeting in the morning, and later that day, the incumbent phone company, which had for years wanted enormous fees to connect local businesses to their local fiber network, called the City and told them that they were, effective immediately, waiving all construction charges for new connections.
>
> I can’t find the original article, but I remember that Lafayette, Louisiana actually calculated how much residents saved on incumbent Internet charges once the City started competing with fiber.  It was tens of millions of dollars.
>
> Andrew
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Andrew Michael Cohill, Ph.D.
> President
> Design Nine, Inc.
>
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-- 
Respectfully,

John Brown, CISSP
Managing Member, CityLink Telecommunications NM, LLC