And let me guess:
They’ll spin their not getting the monopoly as they “are not being allowed to compete.” I mean, be fair.
They’ll spin the local government participation as a “Big Government takeover.” And who wants that?
Finally, they’ll say “Socialism!”
There are a lot of tiny towns in that area banding together to do it. My parents have been involved in it from Plainfield (pop: 648). They can’t wait to get broadband above DSL. https://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2018/08/baker_lauds_whip_city_fiber_fo.html
Pretty sure that blazingly fast and no data caps is ideal for everyone.
In Lausanne, Switzerland, the (publicly owned) city water company also does electricity, hot-water heating from the incinerator, TV cable and Internet. The company’s name is “industrial services of Lausanne”, which pretty much sums up what Internet is today: an industrial service that needs to be provided by the government just like water.
People of Charlemont, you did good!
Given the town’s population (1266 in the 2010 census according to Wikipedia) and its distance from Boston (it’s tucked away near the northwest corner of the state) I think any attempt to classify the town government’s decision as “Big Government” would be laughable.
The Charlemont Broadband Committee has seven members while Comcast’s Board of Directors has ten people on it.
Well hello neighbor!
This reminds me of the B4RN scheme in the North of England. A bunch of locals, including retired telecoms workers decided to do the same, make their own FTTH network, and it’s not even like the UK has terrible ISP pricing like folk in the States - but if you’re ina dead zone you don’t have much choice
But not the price. Why triple the cost to someone on a fixed income when they don’t want that much bandwidth?
As I understand it, the monthly rental cost of the town’s communal broadband will be about the same as the cost of Comcast’s offering, but the town’s offering will be greatly superior in capacity.
Everyone of course will have to pay a bit more property tax to fund the infrastructure build-out, but the town’s scheme will turn a profit once enough people have joined, and after that they would be able to reduce taxes.
The scheme would be an opt-in, so no-one will be forced to purchase broadband anyway if they didn’t want to, except for the property tax element. The infrastructure cost per capita will be about $1,000. This could be financed by issuing bonds against the income stream expected from monthly fees.
Another point is that a really good local internet service owned by your own town will enhance local property values, so householders will likely gain more in equity than they lose through the property tax.
Anyway, this is all a bit of a moot point since the local citizens have already debated the issue and voted to make their own broadband. Local democracy in action!
Oh, I’m not disagreeing that it’s an improvement over Comcast. But the article makes it sound like there is only the $79 option. Is really nothing available for less than $79/mo n Charemont? Then it’s certainly a no brainer to switch. But if there are cheaper options that some retirees are happy with, then why isn’t the town finding a way to accommodate them?
Again, I think Charemont is smart. I’m just looking at the situation in my town and thinking there would be resistance to a similar scheme that eliminated some of the cheap options people are happy with. I love fast broadband, but heck, even Netflix will work with 10Mbps.
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