Tired Of Being Ripped Off By Monopolies, Cleveland Launches Ambitious Plan To Provide Citywide Dirt Cheap Broadband::Cleveland has spent years being dubbed the “worst connected city in the U.S.” thanks to expensive, patchy, and slow broadband. Why Cleveland broadband sucks so badly isn’t really a mystery: consolidated monopoly/duopoly power has resulted in a broken market where local giants like AT&T and Charter don’t have to compete on price, speeds, availability, customer…

  • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Countdown to the lawsuit by AT&T and Charter followed by Republicans trying to ban municipal broadband.

    • PeleSpirit@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Seriously, something like that is going to happen. Tacoma, a city near Seattle, had their own broadband. The city broke all kinds of laws to give a contract to another provider so they don’t own the service anymore. Seattle was fighting for their own internet at the time and used Tacoma as an example. Guess what happened next.

      • ElectroVagrant@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Since it appears there’s precedent for this falling apart, hopefully Cleveland’s government will have done their research and be prepared, albeit I’m not necessarily optimistic either.

        • chaorace@lemmy.sdf.org
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          2 years ago

          It’s not a precedent, it’s a playbook and telecos have been following it for decades. If you have one of the big telecoms in your city, they will sue to block municipal broadband. These suits win more often than not and even when they lose the rollout is usually delayed long enough as a result that they break even on legal fees.

          This is actually Cleveland’s second attempt to expand municipal broadband after their prior effort in 2021 was thwarted when the Ohio state government banned Cleveland and other cities from offering a public option – obviously at the behest of lobbying from ISP special interests. Correction: the broadband provision was struck from the budget bill before it was signed by the governor. It appears that the 2021 effort to build out municipal fiber failed for other unrelated reasons.

          This new initiative is actually a bundle of public-private partnerships as opposed to true state-owned infrastructure:

          SiFi and CircleC, not the city, will own the finished networks. With little to no taxpayer money being spent, it’s a tradeoff city leaders say they felt made sense.

          “They already have a right to use our right of way—we’re not providing any special access to it, the agreement is just us all getting organized for how permitting for such a large scale project will go,” Davis said of the SiFi partnership. “Since the city’s [not] paying for it or putting anything in, it’s not getting an equity stake.”

          Similarly, Davis noted that DigitalC will also maintain ownership of their finished wireless network.

          “We at the City are not contracting for infrastructure,” Davis noted. “We’re contracting for DigitalC to take 23,500 households–about 50,000 residents–that don’t subscribe to at-home broadband today and get them to become at-home internet subscribers, and provide digital adoption services and training to 50,000 residents. Basically, we’re paying to halve our present unconnected rate of 32 percent.”

          NOTE: The original article has a typo where they misquote Davis as saying “Since the city’s paying for it or putting anything in, it’s not getting an equity stake.” This has been corrected in my quoting of the article

          • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            The metro area where I live had to do this public-private partnership for the same reason. They proposed public fiber years ago and Mediacom sued and blocked it. This was how our metro area (a collection of roughly 6 cities) got around that bullshit lawsuit. As a result, we now have 1Gb symmetrical fiber for $60/mo (Mediacom charged $120+/mo for 1Gb and maaaaybe 10Mb up on good days, oh and constantly had outages).

            Fuck Mediacom and their ilk.

          • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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            2 years ago

            Just because the city’s not “putting anything in” doesn’t mean they aren’t contributing or absorbing costs.

            The city should have a stake in it, since it’s on city property, and the city maintains the local infrastructure (poles, right-of-ways, etc) that these companies need to install anything. Otherwise it’s just another (local) monopoly.

        • neatchee@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          I grew up in Cleveland. Family still lives in the area. I am not expecting anything good to actually happen

      • Tyfud@lemmy.one
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        2 years ago

        They profess to, but if you look at their voting history and policy making, they really support corporations that spend lobbying money to enrich their campaign.

        Pretty nearly every time.

      • hperrin@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Sure there is. They are natural monopolies that form in the free market. The free market isn’t a good thing. It’s what gives us things like child labor and corporate owned towns.

          • hperrin@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            No, those come after they gain a monopoly. Those regulations weren’t there when the “free market” turned them into a monopoly.

            There are certain products and services that form a monopoly naturally when they operate in a free (or even relatively free) market. Those are referred to as natural monopolies, ISPs are among them.

  • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
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    2 years ago

    Ohio state legislature will make this illegal, or at least place a specific regulatory burden to make it illegal in this one city e.g. No town or city with a population over [insert Cleveland population -5%] or No city or town bordering large bodies of water [Lake Erie]. I guarantee it.

    • there1snospoon@ttrpg.network
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      2 years ago

      The solution is simple: Secede from the state of Ohio, declare Cleveland an autonomous city-state, and befriend nuclear Gandhi so no one will dare contest you.

  • Zerlyna@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    A small town near me (6,000 population) installed fiber optic around down and now it’s considered a public utility and low cost to boot.

    • Trollception@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Yea we are in the Chattanooga area and enjoy gigabit symmetrical fiber for $67/mo. No taxes or extra fees, just the 67. It’s a big part of why we chose to live here.

      • superguy@lemm.ee
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        2 years ago

        To be fair, $65/month for gigabit fiber is pretty standard.

        It’s what we got here in Southern Illinois, although I don’t use it.

        • Amends1782@lemmy.ca
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          2 years ago

          Lol I’m paying $100 a month for 500mbps asymmetrical and I know others have it worse too

    • rab@lemmy.ca
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      2 years ago

      I thought you might be referencing Olds, Alberta who also did this a decade ago

  • gareins@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Question: could not a private company mostly owned by the city do it? Normal for profit company providing alternatives? And do it block by block…

  • Waluigis_Talking_Buttplug@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    My electric coop installed fiber last year, up to gigabit with no limits and no throttling. They’re even cool with my rampant torrenting.

    I’ve been saying for years that internet should be treated like a utility, and I was right.