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ITALIAN926

join:2003-08-16 1 recommendation ITALIAN926 Member Surprise ! Obviously theres boatloads of money to be made when there are already 2, or 3 independant ISP's in a major city. :rolleyes: ITGeeks

join:2014-04-20

Cleveland, OH ITGeeks Member Re: Surprise ! Agreed! It only works in areas where money is plentiful. Like Some areas of Cleveland where they have TWC, U-Verse, WOW and even some smaller burbs have a 4th company to choose from. But when income is a half million+ per household, you know the area has money to support those extra companies.

PlusOne

@66.249.83.x 1 recommendation PlusOne to ITALIAN926

Anon to ITALIAN926

said by ITALIAN926: Obviously theres boatloads of money to be made when there are already 2, or 3 independant ISP's in a major city. :rolleyes: Stories like this are prime evidence for state legislators who want to put controls on municipalities looking to build their own broadband networks. City incompetence in managing broadband builds is a legitimate worry. asdfdfdfdfdf

Premium Member

join:2012-05-09 3 recommendations asdfdfdfdfdf Premium Member Re: Surprise ! Why is this a story of city incompetence and not a story of the failure of the private market?

The city didn't fail. Gigabit square, a development corporation out of ohio, failed to come up with the needed financing.

The deal was that gigabit seattle(as the partnership with gigabit sqared in seattle was called) would own and operate the network. The city was not putting money into the project but the project was leasing the city's fiber network and then building out fiber to multi family dwellings and businesses in key neighborhoods, supplemented by a wireless cloud. The city's part was already done and done properly. It already had a fiber network with excess capacity that it was leasing to private interests. The city wasn't building out the network and the city wasn't funding it. This is more a story about how the fixation with privatizing everything has failed. We have a history, in this country, of taxpayer funded and publicly owned universally available infrastructure(water, roads, etc.) We get these public/private partnerships because, in this right wing age, we can't get public projects off the ground. It is not a failure of government. It is a destructive nihilistic ideology which forces increasingly byzantine approaches to getting anything done.

CountyChic

@69.35.201.x CountyChic Anon Re: Surprise ! A thousand times, Amen.



So tired of the overused political pabulum of "public-private partnerships" which often end up significantly disappointing one or both partners, and overall with suboptimal results. dfxmatt

join:2007-08-21

Crystal Lake, IL 1 recommendation dfxmatt to PlusOne

Member to PlusOne

Not really, since it didn't go forward. It'd be different if it was implemented poorly AND failed. It's another when it doesn't even get to that point. Bad city judgment for vendor selection does not mean cities shouldn't be able to implement their own networks, as those are separate issues.

Packeteers

Premium Member

join:2005-06-18

Forest Hills, NY Packeteers Premium Member incompetent city the city employees should be brought to task for exposing taxpayers to a fraudulent or ill prepared vendor. ITGeeks

join:2014-04-20

Cleveland, OH ITGeeks Member Re: incompetent city Cities are doing this for other providers as well, but are doing it for FREE in hopes of GF moving in. So what's the difference? Spend the money in hopes GF moves in or spend the money and new provider never ever moves in, because they close. Or spend the money on a muni network and let the tax payers still are on the hook.



Either way, the city's tax payers pay.

mjevans1983

@71.217.117.x mjevans1983 Anon Re: incompetent city There are two categories of things Google Fiber is asking for on it's checklist:



Category A: Accurate modern documentation about a city's layout, zoning, and utility routes. (So they know the utility corridors and also so they can avoid trenching through someone else's line.)



Category B: Some (legal) recognition that /someone/ will need to do this eventually and that any flaw in the above provided data / lack of 'yes, you will allow infrastructure through that landscaping you built on city buffer land' is a liability the city has created and thus should assume; instead of Google or some other company.



These are both things a given city/area really should have been doing anyway. dubfan

join:2010-11-09

Seattle, WA dubfan to Packeteers

Member to Packeteers

If I didn't know you weren't from Seattle, I'd think you were joking. You're talking about a city whose elected attorney thinks it's cool to bring weed to work, and who thinks it's super progressive to allow street kids to get drunk and high in city parks and harass tourists and taxpayers.

josephf

join:2009-04-26 josephf Member How do you sue a non-existent entity? And who exactly will pay, even if they are awarded a judgement, considering the dissolved entity no longer exists and no longer has any funds?



In fact, who will even respond to the lawsuit? The original article states that Gigabit has missed the court deadline to file a response. Duh. Of course. They have no employees anymore, so how could they possibly respond? How could they even have been served?? ITGeeks

join:2014-04-20

Cleveland, OH ITGeeks Member Re: How do you sue a non-existent entity? You can still be served, weather it will go through is another question. The court would have to serve or try to serve them but if nobody signed for any court docs then the case would be dismissed. But when the company no longer exists, then nobody is going to even pay. Again a city spending money that should have been put in a fire truck or another actual emergency item.

battleop

join:2005-09-28

00000 battleop Member Re: How do you sue a non-existent entity? Sometimes you just have to know when to cut your losses and move on. I'm sure someone at City Hall is going to be happy to piss away even more tax payer funds to go after nothing. Unless there are some personal assets on the line just drop it.

Yucca Servic

join:2012-11-27

Rio Rancho, NM Yucca Servic Member Comcast ? Comcast is spending all extra funds building out Albuquerque,NM where there are no customers! No wonder they suck in Seattle. mlcarson

join:2001-09-20

Santa Maria, CA mlcarson Member Re: Comcast ? Since there's only Centurylink as an alternative in ABQ -- I'm glad they're doing it.

Yucca Servic

join:2012-11-27

Rio Rancho, NM Yucca Servic Member Re: Comcast ? CL is not the only alternate choice here. There is at least a dozen alternate providers doing business in our market, RWSI is one of these competitors. Comcast is collecting at least $200.00 to $400.00 per customer under contract per month. Locked and screwed.

WiFiguru

To infinity... and beyond

Premium Member

join:2005-06-21

Seattle, WA WiFiguru Premium Member Re: Comcast ? RWSI is wireless... not an exact competitor to wireline.

Yucca Servic

join:2012-11-27

Rio Rancho, NM Yucca Servic Member Re: Comcast ? Yes not wireline but still a competitor. We stay up when wireline fails. Wireline fails here alot!!!!

tshirt

Premium Member

join:2004-07-11

Snohomish, WA tshirt Premium Member Time after time... ...so city owned broadband is ONCE again moved to the back burner because THE New Monorail plan is back.

Yup that's right, once again ignoring the millions wasted on the last pre-mature ejaculation over a new monorail and fresh out of bad broadband plans, the city of seattle can't find a big enough hole to bury the tax money they don't have. Beck38

join:2014-05-12

Centralia, WA Beck38 Member Little town of Mt. Vernon, WA suceeding where Big Seattle multi-fails I had a guy who worked on the Seattle Muni build (and the state highway traffic cam builds some 20 years ago) work under me on the last submarine project I did, and just today I find that the little town of Mt. Vernon WA (some 60+ miles north of Seattle between Everett and Bellingham), has a muni-fiber build, following the same basic idea behind the PUD fiber in central Washington (Chelan and other PUD's).



It's just starting up it's roll-out, and FTTH/FTTP is just geting started, but the basic plant it in place, and there are tons of feeder lines due to the wealth of Seattle to Vancouver BC fiber lines that go up I5 right through town (a lot of which I did some of the engineering on 10-15 years ago).



I'll be looking into this, as the COL is low there, and I'm itching still to lower my retirement costs for the next 20+ years of (supposed!) lifespan, without continuing to throw money at Comcast internet or moving to even higher cost neighborhoods that have Frontier FIOS.

your comment..

