The city of Seattle has for many years been unimpressed with Qwest’s regional broadband offerings (100 Mbps is just a dream according towards the carrier, after all) so the town has been exploring the creation of the citywide fiber network. The city once more lately has been feeling out private-sector interest in building and operating a $500 million fiber to the house network. They’ve also applied for Google’s limited FTTH trials to assist out the 26% of Seattle residents nevertheless on dial up, though thousands of other towns and cities have the same plan.
According to Glenn Fleishman notes, Seattle should decide to construct their personal, the town could learn a lesson or two from Lafayette, Louisiana, whose long road in deploying fiber we’ve long covered. Lafayette locals now get access to some of the quicker speeds and lowest costs we’ve seen anywhere, but it wasn’t easy. The city faced countless legal attacks and sleazy public disinformation campaigns from local incumbents BellSouth and Cox, even following town citizens clearly voted to move ahead using the task. Amusingly, Lafayette City Parish President Joey Durel advises not to get blisteringly quick fiber at his house very first:
At one point during the interview, Durel stated he had just gotten fiber into his neighborhood several weeks ago. I stopped him, laughing. “You didn’t get it first?” I asked. Durel also laughed and stated, “My neighbors got mad at me” for producing sure he gets any city advantages last. They want him to move, he stated.
Durel tells Fleishman that Lafayette didn’t construct a fiber network simply because of a lack of broadband — they built a fiber network simply because a lack of competition meant incumbents didn’t have to try very tough to provide upgraded technologies to locals. And whilst Cox and BellSouth tried endlessly to scrap the project (which is funded with revenue bonds, not taxpayer dollars), their efforts backfired. While Lafayette spent $1.2 million in legal fees, the legal delay trimmed $8 million in gear expenses from the plan budget as gear got cheaper.
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