Tired Of Being Ripped Off By Monopolies, Cleveland Launches Ambitious Plan To Provide Citywide Dirt Cheap Broadband::Cleveland has spent years being dubbed the “worst connected city in the U.S.” thanks to expensive, patchy, and slow broadband. Why Cleveland broadband sucks so badly isn’t really a mystery: consolidated monopoly/duopoly power has resulted in a broken market where local giants like AT&T and Charter don’t have to compete on price, speeds, availability, customer…
Question: could not a private company mostly owned by the city do it? Normal for profit company providing alternatives? And do it block by block…
They could… but typically that required pulling tons of permits to do. Also means that they intend not to make a whole lot of money doing it since “cheap” is part of this. Companies are a bit allergic to doing a lot of work for cheap.
But to that point, I have enough density in my area that centurylink is installing fiber (finally…) and actually offering it at almost reasonable value. It makes monetary sense for them in this case. So they’re doing it.
CenturyLink from where I grew up (rural Wisconsin), still only offers DSL as the fastest option. I now live in rural South Vietnam, and I have a fiber drop into my bedroom. Ridiculous really.
Where I lived before, the city had the municipal power company build the open-access fiber network. They already have all the right of way and lines right up to people’s houses so perfectly suited.
Right of way doesn’t mean they don’t still have to submit permits and such to the city/county.
Easements on your property for utilities are usually out of your hands as a homeowner anyway.