Comcast has a lot to lose if municipal broadband takes off

The correct response IMO is:

1. Don't block municipal broadband or new commercial providers, there should be no _forced_ monopoly.

2. Split access providers up into two: the wholesale access network and the services on top. The wholesale access networks offer the same regulated (cost+) terms to any ISP/service provider who wants to reach customers on that network. Now the ISP/TV component of Comcast has to compete on the same terms as any other ISP/TV provider using that access network.

[1] I say semi-natural because in the US they're not natural but regulated and there has been a fair amount of overbuilding in cherry-picked areas.

Every municipal service I can think of is overstaffed and inefficient compared to private businesses.

The "nickle and diming" is just moved to tax rates and fees that are under the radar for most people.

Just cancel the franchises and let the market compete for internet service. I think you'd be surprised.

I would pay MORE to have municipal internet if I didn't have to put up with Comcast anymore.

Actually, I’m going right now to see if there are any municipal broadband efforts in my area that I could throw money at / help out with. Is there some good place to find out more about efforts in _____ area? Sadly, like many in the Bay Area, I live in an apartment with a Comcast community manager, so we’d likely be the very last to get off of Comcast unless some great wireless tech becomes viable (and even then, we’re not allowed to have any external antennas mounted outside of our units).

Americans as a whole are horrible at managing money. They don't pay their bills on time, have tons of credit card debt, etc. This isn't my opinion, it's cold hard reality: look at the subprime crisis, debt burden, charge-offs/delinquencies, etc. Frankly, the crowd reading this website is just way out of touch with the reality of the situation.

For municipalities where people are responsible and there's a real sense of community, sure, do municipal broadband. I'm sure it works sometimes, but for my money, I'd rather pay the extra $5-10/month and not have to be a bill collector to my neighbor. I pay $40/month for 50Mbps Comcast and I'm fine with it.

Literally, literally every time we move, we've tried to cancel the internet at our old apartment and set it up at our new apartment - and had them end up canceling the internet at the new place. (What happens with the old internet is different every time; either it gets cancelled as well, or it remains an active account that we get billed for, or some other egregious customer service failure.)

Broadband, like water and electricity, is a natural monopoly - there's only so much room on the poles, and there's significant economies of scale by having everyone in a neighborhood connected to the same infrastructure.

I hope that Municipal broadband becomes more available and more common. On average, the service provided by the municipalities is much better, and much cheaper than the commercial alternatives.

It depends on who laid the fiber. In the context of cable companies like Comcast, almost all of the fiber was built with private money. Cable companies were historically not regulated as telecommunications carriers, which means they didn't get whatever subsidies were available for deploying telephone service to various places. In fact, the opposite is true. Municipalities generally treat cable-company contracts as a way to get freebies. A standard contract will require the company to pay 5% of gross revenues to the municipality, plus various goodies (wiring up municipal buildings with fiber, lump-sum contributions, etc.) That is on top of the rental fees paid to the power or telephone company for space on the poles.

That is very different from how, for example, water and sewer lines are built. In almost every county, water and sewer lines are paid for by mandatory fees paid to the county when you build a house. Most people don't realize it because it gets rolled into the price of the house. But in the county where I live, for example, the builder pays about $25,000 to the county in fees to hook up to the public water/sewer system.

They've been paid, multiple times, by varying levels of government, large subsidies with the specific mandate to improve service, increase maintenance, and so on.

And multiple times they've accepted this money and done literally nothing with it.

To the extent that Charter (I think?) was recently spanked by NY for selling packages of 50mbps, 100mbps and above... while supplying modems that were physically incapable of more than ~20mbps.

With how much in original federal subsidies? How much in annual federal subsidies? How much is the protection of monopoly provider in certain areas worth?

They (Comcast) aren't running their business with ONLY their dollars.

I wonder if cities could inspire more competition in the ISP market by making it easier for a new company to wire up a town. Another model would be for the city to provide fiber to each house as part of standard infrastructure that any ISP can provide data over. That way ISPs would be competing on price and service--not on who happens to own the wires running through your neighborhood.

For more: https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

Did the government dig those tunnels? No they hired a contractor who sold them on one price and then sent them a bill for a much higher price. So much for private enterprise saving the taxpayer money.

> why not just have the public own the 'last mile', and then let private companies plug into the grid?

This is how most municipal broadband works right now. You, the ISP, rent the fiber from them. They can't make a profit so municipalities can only charge you what it costs to install and maintain. Most govt don't want to be in the ISP business but they are given the choice of doing it or letting the free market continue to ignore them they'll do it.