100% agree with Brian. This seems to be the path for about 99% of the Muni WISPS out there. Keep your eye on it, get to the know the staff. When the pain seems to get to much for them to bear offer to step in.
The only thing you will have to deal with is the customers who think you should charge, or give for free, with the same structure a tax funded entity couldn't make work. That won't matter since those socialists can't understand logic there is no use explaining it to them. On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 10:06 PM, Brian Webster <i...@wirelessmapping.com> wrote: > My suggestion would be to just wait it out. Let them build it and lose > money. Eventually they will realize that they have no idea how to be an > ISP, the customers will not deal with slow government response times to > complaints, and the government will hate dealing with title II issues and > open internet regulations. They will throw their hands up and offer it via > bid or something else to a private company to manage/own/run. You might be > able to pick it up for far less than it would have cost you to build. I > certainly would not try to overbuild them before they get going. The > average consumer has already heard about their promised prices, you will be > fighting that even though they have not even started building yet. > > > > Do a search for the UC2B project in Illinois, it was a > municipal/university system built with stimulus funds. They did what they > needed to meet grant obligations, then they all argued among the partners > about who and how they would run things and failed at that. They finally > let a private company take over and expand the system. > > > > Thank You, > > Brian Webster > > www.wirelessmapping.com > > www.Broadband-Mapping.com > > > > *From:* Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] *On Behalf Of *Carl Peterson > *Sent:* Monday, July 06, 2015 8:45 PM > *To:* af@afmug.com > *Subject:* Re: [AFMUG] Plan to Compete with Municipal Fiber? > > > > > Assuming you didn't have to recoup build costs, I don't see how it would > be hard to run the network at $50 per sub. Bandwidth is dirt cheep at > scale and there isn't much to go wrong with a fiber plant. > > > On Jul 6, 2015, at 3:10 PM, Christopher Gray <cg...@graytechsoftware.com> > wrote: > > About $40M is grant funding from the state for "last mile" services that > is only available to municipalities. The balance of the funding is coming > from town borrowing. My town will receive about $1.2M from the grant and > will vote in September whether to authorize $2.3M of borrowing that would > be paid with property tax. > > > > I'm 95% sure this will go through, and the network would be lit in about 3 > years, but I can't get their numbers to work out. I cannot see how they can > actually provide service and maintain their network and offer a base > service of only $50 / month. If that jumps to $100, I could see remaining > competitive, though. > > > > > On Mon, Jul 6, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Chuck McCown <ch...@wbmfg.com> wrote: > > Where is the funding coming from? > > I would not be comfortable building in an area where I am sure to get over > built. > > > > *From:* Christopher Gray <cg...@graytechsoftware.com> > > *Sent:* Monday, July 06, 2015 11:56 AM > > *To:* af@afmug.com > > *Subject:* [AFMUG] Plan to Compete with Municipal Fiber? > > > > Several of the rural towns in my planned coverage area are looking into > municipal fiber (average density about 10 premises per fiber mile, all > above ground). They're claiming $50 for 25 Mbps service, $79 for 100 Mbps, > and $109 for 1 Gbps. They already have funding authorized in about half of > the towns they are targeting... but they'd be about 3 years from providing > any service. > > > > Is it reasonable or possible to compete with such a thing? Should I ignore > any area that plans to fund this, or might it be worth getting a foothold > before their system is lit? > > > > Thanks - Chris > > > > -- Lewis Bergman 325-439-0533 Cell
