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Content tagged with "cable"
Need Cloud Services like Online Backup? Steer Clear of Comcast
I made very clear to the gentleman I spoke with that I thought Comcast’s data cap policy was arbitrary, unfair, and extremely irritating… and that if I had any decent competitive options in the neighborhood I’d dump Comcast in a heartbeat. Since I don’t, I listened to him read his canned warning that if I exceeded their cap again I’d be cut off again.Bear in mind that when you fill up the fuel tank in your car, you are at a gas station that is regularly inspected by the state to ensure it is correctly measuring the volume of gas dispensed. Comcast is not similarly regulated and we have to take Comcast's word on how much traffic we use. Most of the time I have visited Comcast's meter to see what my household usage is, I have been unable to even access it. But back to the story, our Seattle friend later found that he had unintentionally violated the cap again, despite taking precautions not to:
The Customer Security agent was polite, and after the standard identification questions notified me I was cut off for a year due to exceeding Comcast’s Acceptable Use Policy limits on their bandwidth cap. I asked for details on what had been using bandwidth, and again, Comcast would not share. In a sudden brainstorm, I then asked whether the 250 GB bandwidth cap applied to just downloads (which I had assumed, as the majority of most bandwidth used in households is downstream bandwidth), or download and upload bandwidth. Surprise, surprise!
Community Networks Provide Cable/Broadband Competition That is Otherwise Unlikely
New Video: Community Fiber Networks Better than Phone, Cable Networks
Louisiana Leg uses Porn Excuse to Target LUS Community Network
Greenville: The Texas Muni Cable Network
In 1999, Greenville, Texas' economic development leaders were unable to attract certain businesses and on the verge of losing existing companies due to a lack of high speed Internet. In response, Mayor Sue Ann Harting asked SBC for a commitment to deploy DSL. That request was denied. The city's cable franchise, Time Warner, also declined to commit to cable modem Internet deployment. Greenville found itself in a situation similar to one that many towns had faced years ago when railroads changed transportation. If the railroad was not routed through a town, that town just might die. What would happen to Greenville if the information superhighway did not come through the city?Incumbent cable and telephone companies, their lobbyists, and associated "think tanks" like to claim that communities are somehow "duped" into building publicly owned networks. The truth is that just about every community wants to avoid the hassle of building a network but incumbents refuse to invest sufficiently to keep the community competitive for economic development and a high quality of life. They build networks when backed into a corner, not because they want to. Fortunately, all that hassle almost always pays off with far more benefits than problems over the long term as communities transition from depending on some distant corporation to solving their own problems locally. In fact, the results are often like that of Greenville:
Greenville citizens were not willing to take that chance. They took destiny into their own hands by amending the city charter to allow their revenue-only supported, municipally-owned electric system to build a hybrid fiber coaxial system to make high speed Internet available to everyone.
Community Network Map
Communities invest in telecommunications networks for a variety of reasons - economic development, improving access to education and health care, price stabilization, etc. They range from massive networks offering a gig to hundreds of thousands in Tennessee to small towns connecting a few local businesses.
This map tracks a variety of ways in which local governments have invested in wired telecommunications networks as well as state laws that discourage such approaches.
Our map includes more than 900 communities, of which more than 600 are served by some form of municipal network and many hundreds more by cooperative networks. Our numbers of cooperatives are still being updated. (Muni numbers updated September, 2021):
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| 83 municipal networks serving 148 communities with a publicly owned FTTH citywide network. |
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| 57 communities with a publicly owned cable network reaching most or all of the community. |
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| 260 communities with some publicly owned fiber service available to parts of the community (often a business district). |
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| Approximately 150 communities with publicly owned dark fiber available. |
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| More than 315 networks communities in 31 states with a publicly owned network offering at least 1 gigabit services. And more than 30 communities in 10 states with a municipal network delivering 10 gigabit services. |
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| More than 330 communities served by rural electric cooperatives. 10 communities served by one broadband cooperative. (Our cooperative stats are not current and we are working on resolving that). |
Seventeen states have barriers in place that discourage or prevent local communities from deciding locally if such an investment is a wise decision. We strongly believe these decisions should be made locally, based on needs, capacity, and desire of the community itself.
Click on the pin of a network to learn more about it or click on a state with barriers (in red) to learn about the limitation. Below the map, you may select what types of information you want to display. We have written about every municipal FTTH network here. Information on rural cooperatives here.
If you want more information about a specific network, check if we have tagged it in a previous post, search our site for it using the upper right corner of the page, or check another source of information such as the database maintained by Broadband Communities Magazine.
For general information about community networks, see our Fact Sheets or read about three of the most advanced networks in the nation or an example of incremental public investments to create a network. For a better sense of how big corporations convince states to discourage community networks, see our report on North Carolina: The Empire Lobbies Back.
We continue to expand this map with other forms of publicly owned networks. Still to come are wireless networks, networks serving community anchor institutions, and more. Get updates by signing up for our one-email-per-week list announcing new stories and resources.
Please do let us know if we missed any community networks or if you want to report an error. Stay up to date with information about these networks by following Christopher on Twitter and MuniNetworks on Twitter, following us on Facebook, and/or tuning into our weekly podcast.
Media Contact: Christopher Mitchell, 612-545-5185
Credit for this map's design should be given to Eric James. The data comes from a combination of sources, notably Broadband Properties Magazine, FTTH Council, Jim Baller, and information collected for years by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Thank you to the Ford Foundation for enabling us to maintain this map.
Minnesota Cable Companies Fight to Stop Rural Lake County From Getting Broadband
The Minnesota Cable Communications Association joined the fray at the end of February, sending a massive data request to Lake County and all the governments within the project area. County Attorney Laura Auron said she “objected to the characterization” the cable industry advocate group made about the project. The MCCA wrote that is was “deeply concerned about the shroud of secrecy” about the project, calling efforts to get the project in line with state and federal rules “opaque.” The association demanded to see the county’s business plan and contracts for the project. It also asked all the cities and townships in the joint powers association, a requirement under the Rural Utilities Service rules for grants and loans, to provide all information regarding the fiber project discussed at council and board meetings.MCCA exists to protect the interests of its members -- fair enough. Too bad for the folks in Lake County that have no access to the Internet. Because a portion of the project will give the resident of Silver Bay and Two Harbors an actual choice (disrupting the monopoly of Mediacom), MCCA is using a common tactic to delay and disrupt the project: massive public records requests. All the while, MCCA pretends its core mission is advocating on behalf of the beleaguered citizens of Lake County. We commonly hear from publicly owned networks that they have to deal with constant data requests from competitors. This goes far beyond any reasonable amount as incumbent companies use the requests themselves as a time suck attack against publicly owned networks as well as mischaracterizing any detail they can in an attempt to smear the network. Communities should be ready for this onslaught. From what we can tell, it never really stops. This is another reason community projects should live in public to the greatest extent possible.
Comparing Broadband Services: Salisbury Fibrant and Wilson Greenlight to Incumbents in North Carolina
This is a video we have wanted to do for a long time. With H 129 threatening community networks across the state, we finished it. It uses information we published in a report about broadband in North Carolina in November, 2010. Our full coverage of H 129 is available here.
The Broadband Jungle of Marketing, Hype, and Lies in Volusia, Florida
Cable Franchising Video: Keep Authority Local
In 2006, this short documentary helped to stop a push from incumbent providers to gut local authority over telecommunications and cable. Unfortunately, several states then gutted that same local authority, leading to higher prices for consumers and, surprise surprise, no real increase in competition.