How To Get Faster Municipal Service from Incumbents:

“Lompoc, Calif., may have three options for broadband, accidentally: The city is at the center of this long and fair look at why municipal wireless is becoming a widespread phenomenon, and the reporter covers the warts and fair skin equally. But there’s a gem in this article, because it explains how any smaller town could get its service upgraded by incumbents at no expense. First, the mayor or city manager along with the council announces a surprise plan to offer subsidized or free wireless throughout the town with a private contractor handling cost and risk. Second, they fight back attacks by the incumbents to scotch the plan in the media or through special elections. Third, the incumbents commit upgrade resources to serve the town. Fourth, the town decides not to build, and enjoys its 21st-century broadband upgrades. Now, Lompoc can’t be accused of this strategy, but the incumbents should have egg on their face when they describe the expensive upgrades to cable and DSL installed in the city–only after the city’s plan to put in wireless first and fiber later was well underway. The head of the town’s wireless project said Comcast promised service upgrades for 10 years–probably from analog to digital cable for starters–and that the work to upgrade the network (which was finished this year) was done only in response to Lompoc’s plans. Likewise, Verizon admitted in this article that Lompoc was low on its list for improving DSL service and performance. This is interesting when you contrast it with the complaint of incumbents that those who ‘regulate’ them will compete against them. Regulation is a funny animal. Most telecom regulation is at a national level; franchise regulation is local. The ‘regulation’ they’re talking about is not whether a company has the right to provide service, but rather the rules and fees by which a company can use city facilities, such as light poles, conduits, and so forth. This form of regulation is really another aspect of a city’s right to self-determination. It can be used as a blunt instrument. In fact, Philadelphia reportedly prevented the entrance of a competitive cable company for years, restricting customer choice and favoring an incumbent franchise holder. But should the converse be true–should towns and cities be required to offer free or regulated (that word again) access on a non-discriminatory basis to everyone? We’ve seen that: that’s the trenching regulation. If you lived in, say, Palo Alto, Calif., during the dotcom boom, you have already seen trucks open up your street, put in cable, close it up, and then another set of trucks come in the next week. It may be that local bodies ‘regulate’ the incumbent cable and telecom providers, but they apparently have no leverage over them, otherwise Lompoc would have no reason (and no citizen support) for their fiber and wireless buildout…

Silicon Beat:

As we noted earlier, Google wants to deploy free WiFi in its home town of Mountain View, and it’ll go before the city council next week to discuss its plans. Below is a link to a copy of the staff report that’s going to the city council (the city staff is endorsing the proposal), along with an attached letter from Google. Note the unusual candor with which Google explains its motives.
“In our self-interest, we believe that giving more people the ability to access the Internet will drive more traffic to Google and hence more revenue to Google and its partner websites.”

Proposal (PDF)

eprairie:

Two years ago, Princeton, Ill., a town of about 7,500 people two hours west of Chicago, was staring at a potentially grim future. One of the town’s largest employers had just moved its manufacturing facilities to Chattanooga, Tenn.
LCN, a division of Ingersoll Rand, had just hired a new plant manager for its Princeton factory He had a wake-up call for the town’s industrial board.

“He said that if Ingersoll Rand was looking to relocate a new facility, Princeton would not be on the list,” recalled Jason Bird, superintendent of the town’s electric and telecommunications utility. The town simply did not have the communications capacity that modern companies need.

That conversation was enough to scare the town council and the mayor into action. Last October, the town started construction of a $400,000, 12-mile fiber-optic network. On Dec. 15, it announced it would take the fiber to any customer wanting it.

Since then, Ingersoll Rand has made a $6.5 million investment in its Princeton facility, according to Bird. The fiber network was definitely a factor in that decision, he said. The town has also received a $675,000 economic development grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration for development of its technology park, which is based partially on the town’s deployment of the fiber network.

Interesting look at the problems with WiMAX (long distance, high speed wireless internet access) along with some alternatives.

S. Derek Turner:

Next time you sit down to pay your cable-modem or DSL bill, consider this: Most Japanese consumers can get an Internet connection that’s 16 times faster than the typical American DSL line for a mere $22 per month.
Across the globe, it’s the same story. In France, DSL service that is 10 times faster than the typical United States connection; 100 TV channels and unlimited telephone service cost only $38 per month. In South Korea, super-fast connections are common for less than $30 per month. Places as diverse as Finland, Canada and Hong Kong all have much faster Internet connections at a lower cost than what is available here. In fact, since 2001, the U.S. has slipped from fourth to 16th in the world in broadband use per capita. While other countries are taking advantage of the technological, business and education opportunities of the broadband era, America remains lost in transition.
How did this happen? Why has the U.S. fallen so far behind the rest of its economic peers? The answer is simple. These nations all have something the U.S. lacks: a national broadband policy, one that actively encourages competition among providers, leading to lower consumer prices and better service.

Via David Isenberg.

802.11 news:

Anaheim, Calif., will consider franchising EarthLink to operate a municipal network: This is the clearest proposal I’ve heard to date regarding the franchising and exclusivity aspect of municipal broadband networks. Many requests for proposals (RFPs) hint at or ignore the fact that a winning bidder may ask for or be granted exclusive use of facilities like poles, towers, building tops, and other city resources. This article from Government Technology notes that Anaheim’s City Council will consider a 20-year agreement with EarthLink that will award the company an exclusive franchise. Anaheim has some fiber, and EarthLink would gain access to that.