My municipality (Loma Linda, CA) doesn't offer anything free, but does provide fiber connectivity (Layer 3) to residents in some portions of the city. There were plans at one point to make it available more broadly, but nearly eight years later I still am not in an area which has access nor do I think there has been great progress in the build-out efforts for whatever reasons (costs, lack of demand, etc.). Ray On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 03:26:54PM -0500, Aaron wrote:
Do you have an example of a municipality that gives free internet access to it's residents?
On 7/21/2014 2:26 PM, Matthew Kaufman wrote:
I think the difference is when the municipality starts throwing in free or highly subsidized layer 3 connectivity "free with every layer 1 connection"
Matthew Kaufman
(Sent from my iPhone)
On Jul 21, 2014, at 12:08 PM, Blake Dunlap <ikiris@gmail.com> wrote:
My power is pretty much always on, my water is pretty much always on and safe, my sewer system works, etc etc...
Why is layer 1 internet magically different from every other utility?
-Blake
On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 1:38 PM, William Herrin <bill@herrin.us> wrote:
On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:20 AM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote: Over the last decade, 19 states have made it illegal for municipalities to own fiber networks Hi Jay,
Everything government does, it does badly. Without exception. There are many things government does better than any private organization is likely to sustain, but even those things it does slowly and at an exorbitant price.
Muni fiber is a competition killer. You can't beat city hall; once built it's not practical to compete, even with better service, so residents are stuck with only the overpriced (either directly or via taxes), usually underpowered and always one-size-fits-all network access which results. As an ISP I watched something similar happen in Altoona PA a decade and a half ago. It was a travesty.
The only exception I see to this would be if localities were constrained to providing point to point and point to multipoint communications infrastructure within the locality on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis. The competition that would foster on the services side might outweigh the damage on the infrastructure side. Like public roads facilitate efficient transportation and freight despite the cost and potholes, though that's an imperfect simile.
Regards, Bill Herrin