Fort Collins eyes starting broadband Internet service

If the city of Fort Collins made a sound while examining the possibility at offering its own Internet service, it'd be the chirps and whirrs of a 56K modem — Almost connected but with no guarantee of success.

City officials have discussed pursuing a municipal broadband offering for several years, but the effort hasn't moved beyond the discussion phase until this year. City officials set aside $300,000 in the 2015-16 budget to create a strategic plan for providing community broadband, with a recommendation planned to go before city council by the end of the year.

Establishing the city's Broadband Strategic Plan will also be a topic at a Tuesday work session.

"Talking about it from an economic development perspective, having super-fast Internet and ubiquitous WiFi, that can help people and businesses to access the Internet for all sorts of things," said City Councilman Wade Troxell, who's been working on the issue.

A cursory search of the city council's e-mail archives have some residents clamoring for change and signaling dissatisfaction with Internet provider Comcast in particular. Troxell and Councilman Bob Overbeck, who've responded to those e-mails, say there's growing support in the community for a municipal solution.

As Dan Coldiron, chief information officer for Fort Collins, puts it, the effort comes down to wanting to guarantee a adequate connections and speed going into the future.

"We're very much in an information society and data driven," Coldiron said. "People are going to want and probably need more data access in the future. Are we prepared for a future where more bandwidth will be required?"

Troxell said the city hasn't settled on a particular course of action, though it is working to plot a course. Among barriers are a state law from 2005 that bans municipalities from starting their own telecommunications service. A local vote can override that, however, and there are other options around the ban, such as a federal waiver. City officials haven't committed to an option yet.

Voters in Boulder, Cherry Hills Village, Yuma, and other Colorado cities and counties successfully, and overwhelmingly, overrode the ban for their municipalities in the 2014 election. Longmont overrode it in 2011 after a failed 2009 attempt, utilities spokesman Scott Rochat said. Longmont issued a $40.3 million bond to build it out.

In November, Longmont started hooking up residents to its fiber optic network, which promises speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second. Rochat said Longmont has built a network they believe is "future proof." It's also one that put pressure on Comcast and CenturyLink, two broadband providers in the area, at least evidenced by their marketing materials, Rochat said.

"It's a competitive field and we're very well aware of that," Rochat said. "We're pushing a service, too, and it happens to be a very good service."

So far, 711 locations have signed up for the municipal service out of almost 3,300 eligible for it. Rochat notes that some of those eligible locations haven't been marketed to yet and that the system is still early in its life. Only about 8 percent of it has been constructed so far, he said.

Longmont's service makes use of fiber optic cable first installed in the 1990s, with more added to accommodate the municipal broadband network. The second of six phases of coverage began early this year with the city aiming to have everywhere covered by 2017.

Rochat said some of the philosophy pushing Longmont's dive into municipal broadband parallels the city's history: The city started its municipal electric company in 1912 after its residents got tired of waiting for traditional utility companies to find the town worth the investment.

"We decided we didn't want to wait," Rochat said. "So we took the steps to pursue it ourselves, and, so far, I think people have been pretty happy with the results."

Establishing its own service, however, is the most costly option Fort Collins can take to address future broadband needs.

Troxell said he ideally envisions a public-private partnership being used to cover Fort Collins in high-speed Internet.

"If the public does it solely, then how do you keep it cutting edge?" Troxell asked.

That's part of Comcast's argument against municipal broadband — it's a large, expensive undertaking that needs "constant investment to remain state of the art," according to an e-mail from Comcast spokeswoman Cindy Parsons. And even while governments struggle to keep up, the public investment can squeeze out private companies seeking to compete.

"The better option is for communities to work with broadband providers to encourage private investment in broadband by removing barriers to investment, accelerating and streamlining local permitting processes and avoiding onerous taxation," Parsons' e-mail states. It also notes that Comcast has been expanding its own fiber optic reach and has increased speeds annually for more than a decade, most recently doubling it for many customers.

Ironically, wanting a place on that cutting edge is precisely why so many seem to support municipal broadband, Troxell said.

"It's not whether people want it or not, but it's because some of the telecommunication companies haven't been serving the community the way they want to be served," Troxell said.

Longmont broadband prices

Here's a look at speeds and prices of top-tier broadband Internet services provided in Longmont:

CenturyLink: 12 megabits per second, $29.95 per month*

Comcast: 150 megabits per second, $114.95 per month

Municipal: 1 gigabit per second, $49.95 or $99.95 per month**

*Offer for first 12 months.

**Lower price reflects charter membership for those who sign up within three months of service becoming available. Higher price applies to standard customers.

Source: Comcast, city of Longmont and CenturyLink