Colorado’s muni broadband ban overridden in 44 communities | Hacker News Reader

Colorado’s muni broadband ban overridden in 44 communities

arstechnica.com

71 pointspavornyoh8 comments

I'm a tech worker in Glenwood Springs, CO. This is their muni option (50Mb/100Mb/250Mb symmetrical for $70/$105/$175 respectively): http://gscbn.com/services/internet/business-internet/

As a business subscriber, they have provided friendly and capable local support for many years, and the service itself is top-notch at a tenth the price of the same service from a telco. Price isn't everything however - their support is excellent.

They communicate with their customer base regularly on maintenance issues and system status, having no issue with owning the rare, but inevitable screw-up expected with any industry.

At one point they had a few local ISPs reselling their service, mostly as wireless. That infrastructure is still in place but I don't see anyone currently reselling it for some reason, however other wireless providers with their own connectivity are active.

I've been dreading the day that some telco beats them up on legal grounds enough to make them go away, but now it looks like there's some momentum behind this concept making it less likely.

I would love to get a 100/100 symmetrical here in Thornton, CO for a reasonable price. Maybe after this vote, in the next some odd years we'll get something. I had to drop Comcast because their signal kept spiking too much, 6 techs over the course of a year could not figure it out. Went with century link and only have a 40/5 connection, but at least it's stable and I can work from home.

Does GSCBN cover entire Glenwood Springs? I've been meaning to move to that town for a long time now, and this is just icing on a cake :)

As far as I know it has run fiber through most of the electrical conduit in town. The fiber is mainly for business, but there may be some kind of option for residential, don't know - it's too expensive for me to live here.

On the Aspen question, I think they were one of the first to get Comcast internet in the region (before Glenwood) and may be stuck in that rut.

"I'm a tech worker in Glenwood Springs, CO. This is their muni option (50Mb/100Mb/250Mb symmetrical for $70/$105/$175 respectively)"

Does Aspen have a similar service ?

> While the votes are good news for muni Internet proponents, Community Broadband Networks pointed out that the state law forces communities to "spend precious public dollars" on referenda.

This is the most they could come up with. I really can't figure out which sector I have the greatest disdain for - TelCos, insurance companies, or mega-banks.

Well you're lucky there... a great many of the large international banks also sell insurance products.

It's difficult to square telephone/communication companies (and, well-branded name for that political action committee) lobbying for fewer restrictions on their ability to make contracts with clients, yet clamor when other alternative competition paradigms appear.

Depending on your expectation of the future:

a) home-spun local municipal providers will provide service with a dedicated and civic-minded attitude; making it hard for evil big-corps to rent-seek on an exploited mass of semi-urban dwellers

b) tiny government monopolistic fiefdoms will be set up making it difficult for competitive economies of scale to do business that would make broadband truly available

I'm of the mind that a) leads to b), but I can see the short-term allure if big-corps are themselves in league with big-government (regulatory agencies and "policy-makers") and you just want broadband now. You fight big-government with small government and small government with big-government. The downside is they both use your tax money to fight each other.

So what happens now? Is this going to happen or are all those people stuck?

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