[1] https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/ewz/de/index/telecom/ewz_zuerin...
I remember clearly how the telecoms, most notably Swisscom, argued that it was overkill and not necessary.
The telecoms also invested into massive lobbying efforts and an intense advertising blitz in order to kill the necessary referendums. (At least the first, I think when it came to the second referendum covering the rest of the city they where pretty mute. But then Swisscom was already in the boat).
The referendums where necessary, since the voting public needed to decide if the city owned utility is allowed to invest the money. Both referendums sailed pretty much through in a landslide.
Basically all public utilities in Zurich are city owned and operated. And while it may appear weird in other parts of the world, people here actually love their public utilities.
This probably has to do with really high service quality being quite reasonably priced. But I digress.
Here in the states, our public utilities are more often than not of poor quality for the price. For example, I lived in Atlanta, GA for many years. Much of its sewer system dates to the rebuilding of the city after the Civil War. It's in violation of federal environmental laws, and when it rains too much it overflows and dumps untreated sewage into the local river.
I'm not sure why municipal services are so bad in the states versus in parts of Europe. After all, there's no private water/sewer company lobbying to blame for the water/sewer system in Atlanta (or Chicago or D.C. or the numerous U.S. cities with similar problems). I suspect it has to do with the locus of power vis-a-vis urban and suburban voters in the U.S. versus Europe. That is to say, most U.S. metro areas take the form of poorer central cities supported by wealthier suburbs, at least to a greater degree than I think is true in Europe.[1] Thus, there is less concentrated political will, as well as less money, to spent on infrastructure within cities.
Regardless of the reasons, I think many people in the U.S. are justifiably skeptical of public utilities. I personally would very much trust the city of Zurich to build my internet infrastructure. I wouldn't so much trust Atlanta, or Wilmington, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore . . . maybe Chicago or New York City. I say this as someone who has lived or worked in these cities, and relied on the municipal infrastructure more than the vast majority of Americans (because I take public transit and don't like to drive).
[1] For example: Atlanta has a core city only a little bit larger than Zurich proper (though only 1/3 as dense), but has a metro area 3x as large as the Zurich metro area. The vast majority of the wealthy voters in Atlanta live in the surrounding suburbs. Thus, funding for road construction to get these folks to and from work in the city takes priority over funding for services used by people who reside in the city.
>Im Gegensatz zu anderen FTTH Angeboten, die auf Layer-2 Plattformen von städtischen Werken basieren, benutzt Fiber7 eine komplett eigene Internet-Infrastruktur. (https://www.fiber7.ch/fiber7-verfugbarkeit/)
Loosely translated this means that they are using their own infrastructure not based on what the EWZ has already built.
Considering how hard it is to get permission to dig holes around here, I wonder how the hell they have done this.
I think you misread that he misread that. It translates to this:
"Contrary to other fiber-to-the-home offers, which are based on Layer-2 platforms by the municipal works, fiber7 uses an infrastructure all its own.".
That strongly implies they use different fibers.
I assume that the FTTH are what the EWZ and others built, but then the connection to the backbone etc. is their own, and not the shared one that the EWZ offers for other providers. Not sure how this technically works but obviously init7 doesn't have their own fibers to every customer.