The Orlando Sentinel published this op-ed about local government action for broadband networks on March 11, 2015. 

Local governments should make broadband choices
By Christopher Mitchell

Community broadband must be a local choice, a guest columnist writes.

When Comcast announced plans last year to invest hundreds of millions in theme parks in Florida and California, its customers may have wondered why the cable giant wasn't using those funds to deliver a faster or more reliable Internet connection. While Comcast's Universal Studios faces competition from Walt Disney World, most people don't have a real choice in high-speed Internet access.

The Federal Communications Commission has just boosted the broadband definition from 4 megabits per second to 25 mbps. At that speed, some 75 percent of Americans have no choice in providers — they are stuck with one or none.

The rest of America is living in the future, often because their local government rolled up its sleeves and got involved. In some of these communities, the local government built its own network and others worked with a trusted partner. Chattanooga's city-owned electric utility built the nation's first citywide gigabit network, which is about 100 times faster than the average connection today.

Google is famously working with some bigger cities, whereas local provider GWI in Maine has partnered with several local governments to expand gigabit access.

However, the big cable and telephone companies have almost always refused to work with local governments. Instead, they've lobbied states to restrict the right of local governments to build or partner in this essential infrastructure.

In Florida, the law puts restrictions on local governments that do not apply to the private sector, such as a strict profitability timetable that can be unrealistic for large capital investments regardless of being privately or publicly owned. Some 20 states have such barriers that limit competition by effectively taking the decision away from communities.

In 2014, Broward County completed its transition from an expensive leased data, video, and voice communications system to its own fiber network. The southern Florida county is now saving $780,000 per year with plenty of room to grow. With the transition to an IP-based telephony system, the County also saves and additional $28,000 per year.

Pat Simes, Assistant CIO of the county, recently contributed a profile on the project to Network World.

In 2009 when the network was too slow to be effective, county staff knew they had to act. Costs were increasing 15% each year as the number of lines grew and the demand for bandwidth increased. The County also had to provide funding to reach locations that the carrier's network did not serve. The situation made it difficult to budget; there was always a need to fund unexpected expansions and increasing service.

Several groups in Enterprise Technology Services (ETS) began working together to develop a way to improve systems for both groups:

Working together the teams developed a 3-year strategic initiative to upgrade Broward County to a 10 GigE core network infrastructure.   Part of the plan called for reducing complexity and duplication of infrastructure, so the County also decided to converge the voice and data networks and, with voice and data traversing the same circuits, network redundancy would have to be increased because a single line outage could cause a location outage for both critical services.

While its network continues to offer last generation speeds at high prices and their customer service reps go viral harassing customers who try to leave their grasp, Comcast executives have decided it is time to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade... their theme parks. That's right, as they shift call centers to the Philippines to save money, they are reinvesting it into roller coasters.

Having acquired Universal Orlando Resorts as part of their 2011 merger with NBC Universal, Comcast has decided to step outside its core business of providing Internet access, cable TV, and phone service in noncompetitive markets. According to a March CED Magazine article, Comcast plans to invest hundreds of millions in theme parks in both Florida and California in an effort to challenge Disney’s traditional dominance of the field. Attractions in Orlando will include an 1,800 room beach resort and a new Harry Potter ride.

This investment in rides occurs against the backdrop of falling infrastructure investment in the broadband industry, despite rapidly increasing bandwidth demands and claims by ISPs that services such as Netflix are straining their networks and must pay extra for “fast lane” service.

It is possible to imagine a world in which broadband markets are sufficiently competitive to force Comcast, CenturyLink and other incumbents to invest sufficiently in building out and upgrading their networks, delivering better service to their customers. But in our world, Comcast can spend the comparatively small sum of $18.8 million on lobbying (in 2013 according to OpenSecrets.org), becoming the seventh biggest campaign contributor in the nation and pushing legislation like the recent Blackburn amendment that eliminates potential public sector competitors.

We last took a look at Palm Coast’s FiberNET over two years ago when Broadband Communities featured the open access fiber network along Florida’s upper east coast. Due to its initial focus on community anchor institutions and incremental build out, FiberNET serves as an outstanding example of how to justify a network investment with cost savings. We recently spoke with Courtney Violette who created the initial business plan for FiberNET under his previous role as Palm Coast’s CIO; he is now a Managing Partner with Magellan Advisors, an international broadband planning firm.

A presentation on the Palm Coast government website shows how FiberNET generates hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual cost savings for the City of Palm Coast, Flagler County School District and Florida Hospital. The data is impressive. The City of Palm Coast alone saves around $160,000 per year by switching to FiberNET for its networking needs.

Flagler County School District is likely the biggest beneficiary of cost savings in the community. Before FiberNET came onto the scene, the District paid Bright House Networks more than $500,000 per year for network services over a hybrid fiber-cable network. Now Flagler County School District pays around $300,000 for faster, more reliable services over FiberNET’s all-fiber network. These savings paid for the schools’ initial cost of connection after just one year.

Florida Hospital and its affiliates are also saving big. Affiliated doctors’ offices and clinics are required to maintain a 10-Mbps (minimum) connection with the hospital. Before FiberNET, these connections cost around $900 per month from the local incumbent. FiberNET now offers them for $250 per month. Similarly, the Hospital itself saves tens of thousands on its annual networking costs by switching to FiberNET.

Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) has been deploying fiber in the north-central Florida home to the University of Florida (UF) since the late 1990s. We briefly mentioned them last year when Gig.U teamed up with GRUCom, GRU’s telecom division, to connect neighborhoods and businesses surrounding the University with fiber broadband. We’ve since taken a deeper look at GRUCom’s work and like what we see.

GRUCom was born after the FCC reclaimed the spectrum GRU used for microwave control of its SCADA systems. GRU naturally switched to fiber, and in the process of running lines for its utilities, it ran into crews doing the same for Shands Hospital, part of the University. Realizing the substantial demand for fiber broadband across the county, GRU created GRUCom to serve that demand more efficiently.

GRUCom Director, Ted Kellerman, points out that, as an enterprise division of GRU, GRUCom has a mandate to generate profit. This essentially means that the network only expands on a business case basis, so prices can vary across customers depending on connection costs. Despite this constraint, GRUCom manages to provide reliable high-speed data services at reasonable prices. 

GRUCom connects 100 public facilities including government, fire department, utilities and Alachua County Schools and Libraries. All facilities are on redundant fiber rings with route diversity and 10-Gbps capacity. Seven locations receive 1 Gbps service while the rest take either 10 or 100 Mbps. The average cost for 10 Mbps connections is $400 and $900 for the 100-Mbps links.

It is no secret to our readers that communities throughout the country have transitioned from leasing services from big corporations to building their own fiber networks to save public dollars. Some create collaborations between various entities to reduce costs. Jacksonville is the latest to dabble in collaboration and has found a way to save $200,000 on connectivity costs each year.

In a recent Government Technology article, Chad Vander Veen describes how the city found a way to eliminate leased lines and switch to a faster 1 gigabit connection via fiber (the article incorrectly says "gigabyte" in multiple places where it mights gigabit) . The City's Information Technology Division (ITD) began developing relationships and bringing various agencies together to explore its options. They held monthly meetings that included the mayor's office, public safety agencies, and libraries. Through these meetings they learned the city was eligible to participate in the Florida Lambda Rail program.

Lambda Rail is a nonprofit independent research and education network that connects universities, schools, libraries, and research facilities across the state. The network has an extensive network of fiber across the state. Because the City of Jacksonville is responsible for its libraries, it qualifies for service from Lambda Rail. Within 45 days, Lambda Rail served city facilities. 

“This is a great opportunity for all the partner agencies to work together to provide superior service and save money at a time we need to make every dollar count,” said Mayor Brown in a statement. “With a growing number of websites and applications helping to expand the reach of city government, we owe it to taxpayers to invest wisely in the most effective and efficient systems to keep everyone connected.”

Saving public dollars by elimintating leased lines and collaborating is certainly a positive outcome. Unfortunately, this solution may limit the community in the longer term. Working with entities that only serve nonprofit or specific entities means that others who need connections in the communities - including both residents and local businesses - will not directly benefit from this investment.

Near the center of Florida sits Lakeland, the largest city between Orlando and Tampa with 98,000 residents. The area boasts 38 lakes, citrus crops, and a growing healthcare industry. Lakeland also owns a fiber optic network serving education, business, and government. To learn more, we spoke with Paul Meyer, Lakeland Electric City of Lakeland Fiber Optics Supervisor.

The city's municipal electric company, Lakeland Electric, began generating and providing electricity to customers in its service territory in 1904. In the mid 1990s, the utility began replacing older copper connections between substations with fiber-optic cable. Soon after, the Polk County School District asked Lakeland Electric to connect school facilities via the fiber network for video transmissions. By 1997, almost 50 school facilities were connected to each other via using dark fiber provided by Lakeland Electric. In 1994, the District paid $219,582 $84,737 to the utility to design, construct, and install equipment for video connections in four schools. The school received an indefeasible right of use for two fibers for twenty years. over which Verizon delivers data and voice services to the School District on its own lines.

Meyer noted that the fiber project likely cost more than the school paid but the installation gave them the opportunity to expand the network. Further expansion connected the police department, libraries, and water facilities. Over time, the electric utility has incrementally expanded to every building engaged in city business. The network is aerial, using the utility's own poles to mount the fiber.

Bartow, Florida, located in Polk County near the center of the state, is considering a FTTH network for the community's 17,000 residents. At a recent City Commission meeting, members decided to put city administrators on task and develop a plan to eventually offer triple play services to residents.

Suzie Schottelkotte reported on the initiative for The Ledger.com, quoting Mayor Leo Longworth, who commented, "I think the residents are ready for it and it's something that's needed."

The City has an existing 100 mile fiber network and offers connections to some local businesses. Government and schools also use the network. At the meeting, city commissioners heard from a fiber optic consulting firm that estimated an expansion to households at $3.3 million for capital costs and $2.5 million to run the network during the startup years until the network breaks even. 

Comcast now serves the community through its cable television franchise agreement and is a source of constituent discontent:

"Without discrediting anybody, we just don't have the quality," [Mayor Longworth] said.

The Polk County Democrat also covered the discussion. Steve Steiner referred to the Mayor's comments about the private sector:

[Mayor] Long reminded commissioners that they as well as city staffers and the general public present, are familiar with the problems experienced with the current broadband provider. Long also expressed the doubt another provider would be willing to come to Bartow to install and upgrade the current system in place. The number of businesses and the size of the population does not provide any true incentive.

The Florida Cable Telecommunications Association (lobbyists for the cable industry) responded to the initiative in a predictable fashion. From the Ledger article:

We have already published a fact sheet on the critical role community broadband plays in job development. Now, ILSR presents a collection of how community owned broadband networks save money for local government, schools, and libraries while providing cutting edge services. The Public Savings Fact Sheet is now available.

Though schools, libraries, and other community anchors need access to faster, more reliable networks, the big cable and telephone companies have priced those services so high that they are breaking the budget. But when communities create their own connections, affordable high capacity connections are only one of the benefits. A community owned network offers the promise of self-determination -- of upgrades on the community's time table and increased reliability for emergency responders.

The Public Savings Fact Sheet is a great piece to share to mobilize other members of your community. Share it with decision makers and use it to start meaningful conversations. Distribute it widely and often.

We are always developing new resources. If you have an idea for a new fact sheet, we want to hear it.