According to this article and what I think I'm reading, it sounds like they started out using private built lines in 2001 (which would mean someone else paid for the infrastructure) for DSL. Then they upgraded to fiber network with a service bond which is paid by the revenue they generate with the new fiber optic system?

 

Where are you getting this from?  

“We couldn't get a DSL line at City Hall and this was back in 2001,” Knapp explained in the Institute for Self-Reliance Video. “We literally called the phone company and said, ‘We want broadband,’ and they said, ‘Sorry, we don't have it.’”


 

 

Construction of SandyNet’s fiber network began in June 2014 after about three years of research and negotiation with construction companies. Sandy was able to get the revenue bond because “we had all that experience of 10-plus years running an ISP, and we were able to do some pretty accurate revenue projections,” Knapp said.

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">To break even, SandyNet calculated that it needed 35 percent of the community to subscribe. It blew past that and as a result had to borrow an additional $500,000 on top of the original $7.5 million to cover the extra construction costs. Debt service will be paid off over the next 20 years.

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">SandyNet now has more than 50 miles of fiber, all underground, and it passes every residential property in the 3.14-square mile city. SandyNet offered free installation to residents who signed up during construction, and about 2,000 took the service up on the offer.

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">The first customers were brought online in September 2014. When we spoke to Knapp on July 22, about 1,400 homes were hooked up, with new ones being added at the rate of about 50 per week. Residents that haven’t already signed up will have to pay a $350 one-time construction fee “to help offset the cost of getting fiber from the distribution network up to the side of the house,” Knapp said.

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">The last few feet of construction are the most difficult.

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">“What we found is… the last 50 feet to get to the house is the most difficult part. You've got to go around irrigation systems, you're tearing up people’s landscaping. It's not the most fun,” Knapp said.

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">The city is doing all this with a very small staff. While Sandy hired a construction company to build the network, Knapp and his staff of four other employees manage SandyNet and do IT support for the city government’s internal systems.

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;"> 

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">Also keep in mind they do this in the UK as well, of which our major telecomm companies LOVE (they just don't love it enough to want it here)

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I was wrong about Trent Baalke. 

Where are you getting this from?  

“We couldn't get a DSL line at City Hall and this was back in 2001,” Knapp explained in the Institute for Self-Reliance Video. “We literally called the phone company and said, ‘We want broadband,’ and they said, ‘Sorry, we don't have it.’”


 

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;"> 

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">Also keep in mind they do this in the UK as well, of which our major telecomm companies LOVE (they just don't love it enough to want it here)

 

this is the part that has me confused,

 

SandyNet offered both a fixed wireless service and DSL, but it stopped providing DSL about five years ago.

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">“We could get better speeds on wireless, especially in far, outer reaching areas,” Knapp told Ars. “Also, it's an administrative burden to do line-share DSL; you're basically providing DSL over the phone company's wires through a wholesale agreement.” Before the fiber project, SandyNet was offering a $25-per-month wireless service with download speeds of 5Mbps and uploads of 1Mbps. It was time for an upgrade." (emphasis added)

<p style="color:rgb(38,48,52);font-family:Arial, sans-serif;">They also go on to talk about using Portland's bandwidth to purchase the capacity in the large quantities they need.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the cities pay to lay down the phone lines that eventually became the infrastructure for DSL?


Not sure about how cable lines are laid out...


Also, if one of our British friends can confirm this, but I heard their broadband came from the electrical outlets...

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the cities pay to lay down the phone lines that eventually became the infrastructure for DSL?


Not sure about how cable lines are laid out...


Also, if one of our British friends can confirm this, but I heard their broadband came from the electrical outlets...

 

No when the lines are ran the telecom companies pay for that, they usually bid with the local towns/cities and the best bidder gets an exclusive contract to build and maintane the lines in that area. Which is why we end up with monopolies in an area they've purchased the right to it through the contract negotiations. 

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No when the lines are ran the telecom companies pay for that, they usually bid with the local towns/cities and the best bidder gets an exclusive contract to build and maintane the lines in that area. Which is why we end up with monopolies in an area they've purchased the right to it through the contract negotiations. 

Which is actually a pretty good argument for why it should be publicly instead of privately owned and regulated.

 

I'm also against for-profit sewer and water utilities for the same reason.

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Worked pretty well for Sandy Oregon.  Didn't even cost the taxpayers there anything if they didn't use the service.


Guess most of us will have to wait... well forever for the Free Market to solve things.  

 

I just read about this, and there is a big difference.  Sandy Oregon has a population of about 10,000 and the city is only about 3.14 square miles.  50 miles of fiber isn't really that big of a deal and is not that expensive.  Look at the population of Jacksonville and the physical size of the city (not counting St. Johns, Nassau or Clay counties).  Do you really think that our city budget could handle such a project?

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world.  Those who understand binary and those who don't.

I just read about this, and there is a big difference.  Sandy Oregon has a population of about 10,000 and the city is only about 3.14 square miles.  50 miles of fiber isn't really that big of a deal and is not that expensive.  Look at the population of Jacksonville and the physical size of the city (not counting St. Johns, Nassau or Clay counties).  Do you really think that our city budget could handle such a project?

Couldn't they do something similar with the bonds that get paid off via service fees? It's a lot easier/faster to pay pay off investment capital when you are not trying to maximize profits. 

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I'm not even arguing for or against what they did in Sandy Oregon, heck I'd be thrilled if Palatka or Bostwick offered something similar. I was just trying to figure out how a public network was built without state funding, then offering lower prices. The answer seems to be they used part of an existing network that was built previously by a private company and then use the near by portland network to purchase large amounts of access. They wouldn't be able to offer that deal without the private sector infrastructure or the portland network. 

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I'm not even arguing for or against what they did in Sandy Oregon, heck I'd be thrilled if Palatka or Bostwick offered something similar. I was just trying to figure out how a public network was built without state funding, then offering lower prices. The answer seems to be they used part of an existing network that was built previously by a private company and then use the near by portland network to purchase large amounts of access. They wouldn't be able to offer that deal without the private sector infrastructure or the portland network. 

Also helps that they are not trying to profit off it. 

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Also helps that they are not trying to profit off it. 

 

A lack of profit all but guarantees that there is no incentive to provide quality service.


 

EDIT: See your local driver's licence office for details.

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"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"

A lack of profit all but guarantees that there is no incentive to provide quality service.


 

EDIT: See your local driver's licence office for details.

 

There's plenty of other incentives to provide quality service.  

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I was wrong about Trent Baalke. 

A lack of profit all but guarantees that there is no incentive to provide quality service.


 

EDIT: See your local driver's licence office for details.

And being for profit is not an indicator.

 

See Comcast for details

http://www.phillymag.com/business/2015/0...-rankings/

 

This is an example of the free market at work. A borderline monopoly that has no real competition and therefore has no incentive at all to innovate, provide quality service or even in my case provide the service paid for. 

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http://imgur.com/gallery/m68hwSo

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http://i.imgur.com/OY4w945.jpg

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And being for profit is not an indicator.

 

See Comcast for details

http://www.phillymag.com/business/2015/0...-rankings/

 

This is an example of the free market at work. A borderline monopoly that has no real competition and therefore has no incentive at all to innovate, provide quality service or even in my case provide the service paid for. 

 

It's a government-created monopoly. It's not a "free market" in any sense of the word.


 

Not every business responds to the customer. In a free market, those that don't fail. If Comcast is that bad, why are people still buying their product? The reason is that the city GOVERNMENT has given Comcast a monopoly. Just about every government 'service' is a monopoly. The few that aren't will sometimes respond to competition, as the Post Office has to competition from FedEx and UPS.

 

Can you think of any government 'service' that has noticeably improved since its creation? Not the DMV. Not the federal highway department. Not the VA. Not inner city police departments. Not public schools. Not the Social Security Administration. Not the IRS. Not NASA.

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"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"

It's a government-created monopoly. It's not a "free market" in any sense of the word.

I'll just throw my obligatory "deregulation is good" comment in here and be done with it.

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It's a government-created monopoly. It's not a "free market" in any sense of the word.


 

Not every business responds to the customer. In a free market, those that don't fail. If Comcast is that bad, why are people still buying their product? The reason is that the city GOVERNMENT has given Comcast a monopoly. Just about every government 'service' is a monopoly. The few that aren't will sometimes respond to competition, as the Post Office has to competition from FedEx and UPS.

 

Can you think of any government 'service' that has noticeably improved since its creation? Not the DMV. Not the federal highway department. Not the VA. Not inner city police departments. Not public schools. Not the Social Security Administration. Not the IRS. Not NASA.

If only those companies had refused those government created monopolies this would have never ever happened. It's not like Comcast tried to buy time warner to create a more real monopoly or anything like that. Real businesses would never attempt to swallow competition. No they relish it right? Wrong. They will do anything and everything to corner a market because that is what a true free market trends to. Common sense regulation is good crony capitalism is bad. 

 

And still their service is terrible. People don't leave because you have to have good internet speeds in this day and age and there is no competition. Comcast likes it that way because they don't have to work very hard to rake in all the money. 

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And still their service is terrible. People don't leave because you have to have good internet speeds in this day and age and there is no competition. Comcast likes it that way because they don't have to work very hard to rake in all the money. 

 

Which is my point. Comcast as a government-created monopoly is no different than an actual government run monopoly. It's no different than the DMV.

 

I'm not a complete ideologue. I support anti-trust rules. But even without those, companies like Comcast would face start-up competition if government regulations didn't give a big advantage to existing large companies. The problem is government interference. Cronyism. If government was limited so that it couldn't dole out special favors there would be no cronyism.

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"Why should I give information to you when all you want to do is find something wrong with it?"

Which is my point. Comcast as a government-created monopoly is no different than an actual government run monopoly. It's no different than the DMV.

 

I'm not a complete ideologue. I support anti-trust rules. But even without those, companies like Comcast would face start-up competition if government regulations didn't give a big advantage to existing large companies. The problem is government interference. Cronyism. If government was limited so that it couldn't dole out special favors there would be no cronyism.

It's really not though. You are proposing that a free market is the solution. I am saying that even without the crony-ism there would still be a trend to a monopoly. 

 

The gov contracts are likely results from campaign donations. It all starts with those. 

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It's really not though. You are proposing that a free market is the solution. I am saying that even without the crony-ism there would still be a trend to a monopoly. 

 

The gov contracts are likely results from campaign donations. It all starts with those. 

 

No, it all starts with a government powerful enough to need buying.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato