John at Lafayette Pro Fiber posted about an upcoming Lafayette TV ad. Apparently, this is an advance copy. It emphasizes the ways in which LUS differs from privately owned networks.

Community networks, no matter how technically superior to incumbent offerings, must have an outreach or advertising strategy. Having the best network does little good if few people know about it.

We've previously noted the successes of the Santa Monica approach to leasing dark fiber, but a new article reveals that Los Angeles, Burbank, and Anaheim also lease city-owned fiber assets.

In fact, Burbank generates substantial net income for its general fund through leases, including to major Hollywood studios.

Burbank first laid its fiber in the late 1980s and began leasing in the mid 1990s, said Robert DeLeon, a senior electrical services planner in Burbank. It currently leases to 15 studios, such as Warner Brothers and Disney, or studio-related businesses, like post-production companies. Like Santa Monica, Burbank's main goal in leasing its dark fiber was to attract business. But at $200 per strand per mile, Burbank is currently making approximately $1 million that is being put back into the general fund.

Santa Monica's revenues from leases have been more modest, but the benefits of leasing go far beyond regular payments. The network increases economic development and improves the quality of life with free Wi-Fi in a variety of public areas. Further, the city no longer has to overpay for the data connections it needs for municipal functions.

Santa Monica is also leasing to 15 businesses that include hospitals, entertainment companies and new media outlets, among others, but is only making $270,000. It was never Santa Monica's intention for the leasing of dark fiber to be a major source of revenue, Wolf said.

Santa Monica - UCLA Medical Center uses city-owned fiber because the city has better customer service:

Though there are other options for obtaining a fiber optic connection, such as AT&T, Kacperski said the hospital decided to lease from City Hall because hospitals are community based and because City Hall has better customer service than private carriers.

As we have often maintained, locally owned networks win on customer service (and often reliability). Community networks may not always win on prices because massive incumbents can engage in predatory pricing by cross-subsidizing from non-competitive markets, but they can win on providing a better experience for subscribers.

Moving forward, Santa Monica is starting to go beyond simply leasing dark fiber to actually providing lit services to businesses who would prefer not to manage their connections.

Photo from public domain

More towns in Utah are deciding whether to support UTOPIA's new plan to expand the network and recover from the significant errors of the first managers. Under the new management, UTOPIA has added new ISPs and thousands of new subscribers, a significant turn around for a network many had written off as a failure.

Unfortunately, UTOPIA has too much debt and no capital to expand the network to bring new subscribers online. As we have consistently maintained, building next-generation networks is challenging in the best of circumstances - and the circumstances around the towns in Utah are far from ideal.

Most of the information in this post comes directly or indirectly from the Free UTOPIA blog which has excellent independent coverage of the network (as well as stinging critiques of wasted opportunities like the broadband stimulus).

I strongly recommend following FreeUTOPIA, but I wanted to comment on some of the recent developments.

As UTOPIA and some member cities have formed a new agency to fund further expansion. Five cities have agreed to be part of the new Utah Infrastructure Agency with at least 2 deciding against and more still considering what they want to do. The Salt Lake Tribune has tepidly endorsed the plan (which involves some changes regarding rogue providers - something I want to follow up on).

The Utah Taxpayers Association (which is funded by Qwest and Comcast, among others) decided to mount a big protest in Orem to convince the City to abandon UTOPIA. Rather than simply waiting to see what effect the rally would have, UTOPIA responded decisively.

The Utah “Taxpayers” Association thought it would get an upper hand with a BBQ in Orem just before the city council voted on a new construction bond. Unfortunately for them, the plan backfired when UTOPIA made a surprise appearance at the event with their “mobile command center” and started actually talking directly with the meeting attendees, many of whom had no opinion of UTOPIA yet and came to get more information. According to my sources, about half of the 250 or so attendees ended up registering their interest in UTOPIA services, a major coup for the network that upstaged their most vocal opponent.

This is the latest in a long line of lessons that all point in the same direction: communities must boldly defend their right to self-determination. When confronted with well-funded incumbent opposition, some will tend to ignore the lies in hopes that they will fall on deaf ears or out of the mistaken belief that responding to them would legitimize even ludicrous claims.

Lies that go unanswered become truths in the minds of many. And while claims like this may seem unbelievable, they offer opportunities:

One of the questions alluded to the city requirements for lawn watering during dry summer conditions. The question generally was phrased as “Since the city only allows you to water your lawn only three days per week, how do you feel about the city offering you cable TV service where you could only watch television three days per week?”

An outrageous question like this offers an opportunity for media attention - and the more media attention a community network can get for free, the better - which is key to educating people on the merits of a network.

As this rally in Orem demonstrates, what may be perceived by some as a monolithic block of anti-community network folks can really be a disparate group of people. In this case, many people who came out were unsure about UTOPIA and just wanted information. If UTOPIA reps and supporters had not rolled into the rally with the command center, those folks would have heard only one side and many would have undoubtedly talked to neighbors and friends about it - spreading the deceits of the Utah Taxpayers Association.

Groups like UTA have tremendous bankrolls, but when confronted with the truth, can be exposed as a sham for the monied interests they represent.

The East Central Vermont Fiber Network is launching a pilot project to start connecting rural customers with a FTTH network. EC Fiber has long labored to find funding -- it was one of many projects to see funding avenues disappear with the economic collapse following the fall of Lehman Brothers. The Feds also failed to fund them (instead opting to fund middle mile after middle mile of projects that were less offensive to powerful incumbent companies.

But they have returned to the private markets and feel sufficiently confident about financing options to build this pilot project.

The pilot project will provide a solid foundation for the capital lease used to build out the rest of the network, providing 100% coverage in 23 towns in East Central Vermont. While the intent of the project is to prove that the larger project is viable, according to Nulty, “it will be able to stand on its own if we don’t raise another dime of capital.”

The project is expected to cost some $80 million in total to cover the 23 participating towns. ECFiber has already obtained the necessary permissions from the State to offer video and telecommunications services. The Pilot Project targets the town of Bethel, where the central hub for the entire network is located.

ECFiber is one of many groups that are using a nonprofit ownership model to build the network. The towns work together to create a nonprofit that will finance, own, and operate the network to ensure community needs are put before profits -- now and in the future.

Update: The pilot project will only offer broadband and phone services due to the high fixed cost of trying to offer video services for such a small population.

A few weeks ago, I joined Curtis Beckmann, host of "Minnesota This Week" on Radio City Networks to discuss broadband networks and what communities are doing to improve access to real broadband.

The 30 minute program discusses problems with existing broadband networks, the lack of competition, how and why communities have built their own networks, and a variety of other topical subjects.  

Listen to or download the program here.

Image used under Creative Commons License, courtesy of Flickr's JSchneid

A Qwest sales person admits on tape that Qwest is trying to eliminate competition by purging the network of independent ISPs. Listen to the conversation here.

Customer: "Qwest is trying to eliminate competition?"

Customer Service Rep: "In a way."

Undoubtedly, Qwest will (if it has not already) disavow this quote and suggest the CSR just didn't know what she was talking about. But they are clearly trying to remove competition - something we have witnessed in the Twin Cities of Minnesota as the good ISPs (for instance, IP House) are slowly strangled because they are not permitted resell the faster circuits. Additionally, I believe allegations that Qwest deliberately allows more congestion on lines they resell than lines where they are the sole retailer.

Our office uses IP House and we have never had anything but good experiences with them. But we need a faster services, so we can choose between slightly faster options with Qwest or much faster options with Comcast. We have no choice but to take service from a crappy massive company if we want to maintain productivity.

Some would claim that we have additional choices because USIW runs a Wi-Fi network in Minneapolis (subsidized by the City) but the network's speeds cannot compare to Comcast and it is far less reliable than the wired network alternatives (though Qwest's reliability in some areas may actually be worse).

I found this story via the Free UTOPIA blog but it links to the original source on Xmission - a UTOPIA service provider and DSL resellter.

Last month, Mark Sullivan wrote a column expounding on the obvious: deregulation of broadband service providers has failed to produce the promised competition, Americans pay more for less than peers in other countries, and this is an area where smart government policy would benefit everyone.

When it comes to broadband, I’m a socialist. Why? Because broadband service in the United States is currently provided by a cableco/telco duopoly, and, as such, is slower and more expensive than in most of the developed world, studies show. Because I don't believe the FCC can fix that lack of competition within the current regulatory framework, despite the ambitious goals set forth in its National Broadband Plan. Because a reasonably-priced alternative to cable or telco broadband might be just the thing to bring competition to the industry and spur U.S. broadband cost and quality to world-class levels. Because our connectedness increasingly dictates our our economic standing in the world: Broadband is as important to us as the interstate highway system--a public works project--was to Eisenhower-era America.

Good column.

Notice that the commenters at the bottom pile on against the idea - though they clearly have little idea what they are talking about. There has been no discussion of the government taking over networks owned by the private sector and there is little reason to believe local government would be more likely to violate privacy than a company motivated solely by profits ... in fact, I would argue the private sector is considerably more likely to violate privacy than local governments.

As for Brett Glass, his comments long ago proved that he lives in a fantasy world. In his small town, there are 9 broadband competitors! Well, at least we know where the competition is - it surely is not present in my community.

Today's Star Tribune editorializes about the importance of broadband and calls on the state to reduce the 65% referendum barrier that prevents a number of communities from building the network infrastructure they need.

The editorial recognizes the successes of Monticello, Minnesota, as well as Bristol Virginia Utilities at spurring broadband growth and lowering prices.

Just as we previously wrote about the unfairness of the 65% referendum requirement, the Strib agreed:

An antiquated state law also stands in the way of communities that want to pursue their own version of FiberNet Monticello. With research increasingly demonstrating that high-speed service boosts rural economic development, communities underserved by current providers should not be held back by the unfair 65 percent threshold for popular support the law requires to go forward. A simple majority would suffice.

Finally, they corrected noted that broadband has been a total sleeper issue. If the next governor pays as little attention to broadband as current Governor Pawlenty, the state will be in dire straits.

As more and more of America confronts the reality that communities need better broadband networks -- networks that respond to their needs first rather than the desires of shareholders in some absentee company -- we are seeing more resources for communities determined to preserve their self-determination.

As one who has deep misgivings about Facebook increasingly being a mediator of content, I am glad to note that Communities United for Broadband has a website in addition to their Facebook page.

As Google continues to ponder which communities will get the Google Gigabit network(s), it has announced a Google Fiber for Communities website intended to get citizens involved in pushing for pro-broadband policies at the local, state, and federal levels.

Regarding the Google Gigabit, some thought the Google might be showing interest in UTOPIA with some recent meetings, but Jesse Harris at FreeUTOPIA probably has the correct analysis: far too early to tell.

LUS has asked the court in Kansas to dismiss a lawsuit against it by NCTC (I previously explained this situation here). Down in Louisiana, a local paper is continuing to cover it and John at Lafayette Pro Fiber has explained the situation as well, with more context about the NCTC.

Once this lawsuit is dismissed, we'll hope for a ruling from the FCC that the NCTC cannot simply discriminate against some municipalities based on the private company incumbents doing business there.