Longmont Power & Communications General Manager Tom Roiniotis set a Comcast senior director straight when the director lied to a Fort Collins resident about NextLight, Longmont’s municipal internet service.

It all started when Fort Collins resident Glen Akins emailed his City Council to ask why Comcast is offering 1 gigabit service to Longmont residents for $70 per month but charging Fort Collins customers between $110 and $120 per month.

Comcast announced on May 31 that it would offer 1 gigabit-per-second service in every place it serves in Colorado.

“Is there some additional value that Fort Collins residents are receiving for their additional $40 to $50 (per) month that Longmont residents are not receiving?” Akins asked.

LPC’s NextLight competes with Comcast and CenturyLink for internet customers in Longmont because voters authorized the city to use an underground fiber optic network to sell NextLight. Other cities, including Fort Collins, are following Longmont’s lead and considering building out municipal fiber internet networks.

Gerry Horak, Fort Collins mayor pro tem, then forwarded Akins’ questions on to Jon Lehmann, Comcast Cable Corporation senior director of government and regulatory affairs.

Lehmann responded on May 31 to Akins, Horak and other Fort Collins officials, saying that there are a variety of hidden fees and drawbacks to NextLight as compared to Comcast’s 1 gig offering.

The email chain found its way to Roiniotis, who endeavored to set Lehmann straight on the differences between the two services.

Lehmann wrote that the “price for 1 gig varies greatly” with NextLight because charter members who sign up in the first three months it’s available pay $49.95 per month while people who miss that window pay $99.95 per month.

While true, Roiniotis pointed out that more than 99 percent of NextLight customers are charter members and that after paying the $99.95 price for one year, customers have the option to become loyalty members, where they pay $59.95 per month.

Lehmann also wrote that NextLight customers must lease a wireless gateway for $8.95 per month and pay an installation charge of either $39.95 or $49.95.

That’s just plain not true, Roiniotis said.

“Customers have the choice to utilize our service without a wireless gateway, use their own, or lease one from us. Currently over 75 percent of our customers choose to either not utilize a wireless gateway or use their own,” Roiniotis replied. “All standard installations have been and continue to be waived.”

Lehmann wrote that NextLight comes with additional taxes and fees.

No, again, Roiniotis said.

“There are no taxes or other fees for our NextLight Internet customers. Our Charter Members receive an Internet bill for $49.95; not a penny more,” he responded.

Lehmann also leveled a technical accusation at NextLight.

“Longmont’s Wireless Gateway is not capable of 1 gig wifi, thus, if you want to truly get 1 gig you have to plug in a hard line into your computer,” Lehmann wrote.

Nope, Roiniotis replied.

“Nextlight wireless routers are 4×4 MU-MIMO capable and dualband, supporting connection speeds up to 2033Mbps. The 5GHz wireless AC mode alone supports connection speeds up to 1733Mbps,” he wrote.

Lastly, Lehmann alleged that NextLight’s 1 gig service actually maxes out between 150 and 250 megabits per second. Both Comcast and NextLight’s “1 gig service” means speeds of 1 gigabit (1,000) per second.

NextLight’s FAQ section offers the example that 1 gigabit per second “is fast enough to download the entire ‘Harry Potter’ movie series in high definition in about 5.5 minutes.”

PC Magazine recently ranked Longmont as the U.S. city with the fastest internet speeds in its 2017 top-10 rankings.

Roiniotis corrected Lehmann and threw in a barb at Comcast’s service as well.

NextLight touts 1-gigabit-per-second upload and download speeds (although equipment can cause those speeds to vary).

“Comcast’s service only provides 35 (megabits per second) upload. That means that NextLight’s upload speed is about 29 times faster than Comcast’s,” Roiniotis wrote.

The email found its way onto the Fort Collins subreddit, where it was picked up by Muninetworks.org.

Leslie Oliver, director of external communications for Comcast’s Colorado region, said that Lehmann shouldn’t have been speaking about other company’s offerings.

“He’s one of our government affairs team members who works in the Northern Colorado area and he was providing a response to Fort Collins officials in response to our 1 gig announcement,” Oliver said. “He’s not one of our tech people and I think in the future we need to make sure we’re being a little more specific on what Comcast’s technical abilities are and talk about our products.”

Oliver agreed when asked if she meant Comcast employees should avoid comparing Comcast’s services to other company’s services, such as NextLight.

Karen Antonacci: 303-684-5226, antonaccik@times-call.com or twitter.com/ktonacci