Hate your broadband ISP? Simply tell your city to build one – that'll get the telcos' attention

digital region more or less did this in s Yorks. buried about 50 million quid (lots of wonga anyhow) and then died. personally I suspect it was BT in the server room with the halon, but am open to the suggestion of uselessness by dr.

see also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Region

Internet access as a utility

I think that internet access has gotten to the point where its almost a necessity like electricity and water. In which case, I think municipalities should be taking over more and more, or at least offering an alternative to the commercial ISPs (In the same spirit as being able to hire a taxi, or use one of the public buses).

don't hate my broadband isp

My broadband isp is city operated(or at least is named after the city and only serves within the city limits). Though I'd rather have comcast, even if I have to pay a bit more (was a comcast customer before moving to this city a few years ago). Looking forward to having comcast again in about a year with much faster business class upload speeds. Current plan claims up to 3Mbit upload, though I don't think I ever see over 2Mbit. Best plan available is up to 5mbit upload but I'd be happy with 10meg.

For download I don't care my download bandwidth has been find for a decade. I run a dedicated server at a colo(100meg unlimited on a fast multi 10G backbone less than 15ms from home) and when I upload media to it I want it to go faster.

We all know how this song goes...

Infrastructure is built at tax payer expense, and run profitably for a few years. Then a class of politicians will come along who have been bought by the right companies who'll decide that somehow providing much needed services to the citizenry is not a business the government should be in. Then the infrastructure will be sold off to private interests for a fraction of its worth, the prices will be jacked up unreasonably and the new operators will be seen whining to Whitehall every year about how beleaguered and in need of subsidies they are.

Taxpayers subsidizing hipsters?

Great idea. What could possibly go wrong?

What this story misses completely...

is the fact that Tennessee tried really hard to block Chattanooga:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/tennessee-defends-states-rights-to-limit-municipal-broadband/

until the FCC stepped in:

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/26/8114205/fcc-decision-municipal-broadband-internet

and still Tennessee kept trying:

http://www.govtech.com/network/Tennessee-Battles-FCCs-Municipal-Broadband-Ruling.html

Search for "municipal broadband illegal tennessee" on Google...

El Reg should have done a teensy little bit of value add there to reflect that the story in TN wasn't as simple as it appears in this story. It wasn't just "oh Chattanooga figured it'd build itself a network one day because the telco wouldn't" - there was an actual fight where the telcos greased the state legislature's pockets pretty heavily.

All there is in my area is different flavours of BT. It's fast enough and not too expensive (though a few years ago it was slower than my phone) but I'd be willing to pay money to get a better modem/router with my contract (currently EE). I can get 20mbit/s but struggle to use that 1/4 of that wirelessly when me and the Mrs. are trying to do something at the same time.

Not worth the bother

Over here in Blighty our local "cities" can't fix the potholes, collect the "trash" more than once a month, provide social care for those less able to look after themselves, so why the fuck would I ask them to dig up the roads and provide better broadband than the stinking 2.5Mbs I get at the moment?

Oh yeah

This really works well in Kingston-upon-Hull. Not.

In Swindon

... the council have a plan to put 4G in the areas where broadband is poor. This is some rural areas and rather more places in modern housing estates that were built rather far from the nearest exchange.

According to the MP the latter areas now have companies wanting to lay fibre there, although he would suggest that this is a complete co-incidence despite BT and Virgin sitting on their hands for many years.

Guifi.net - A Community Network

https://guifi.net/en

It is a "community network". Basically the same thing as described in the article except that instead of asking politicians or whoever else to build a network, interested parties just do it themselves in the spirit of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software).

Guifi.net originated in rural Catalonia, out of frustration with the lack of progress in getting broadband (in some cases, even telephone service) to the small villages and farms in the mountains. There is nothing stopping people from connecting nodes anywhere in the world though, and it is not limited to low population areas. There is for example a substantial density of nodes in Barcelona.

Note that, even though connected to the internet via a number of gateways, this is a completely separate, independent network, which uses its own channels, both wireless and fibre optic (owned by some of the private and institutional participants, or dark fibre loaned by other operators).

Council builds network paid for by citizens.

Council sells network.

Councillors get nice fat juicy payout.

I see no problem here. It's like building a tram system for a private company with taxpayer money while claiming you can't afford it before getting slapped down for trying to introduce a congestion charge to pay for the extension and then building it anyway proving conclusively that you are a bunch of liars.

Is there no level of government that isn't corrupt?

Google fiber

google seems to be getting around the cable monopoly in USA by each states giving them their own category for broadband/internet/leased line (or just calling them a leased line as that is what google is installing effectively as they don't provide cable tv or phone)

in the UK its more do you have a silly amount of money and will people pay 2-3x the price of normal broadband and have a 250GB cap on a 1gb connection

BT is the only company that can do it i the UK and still be profitable after 10 years

as they are doing FTTC/VDSL first then G.Fast (on the pole or street level) and FTTP where needed (talking 5-10 years before FTTP is an easily orderable service and affordable

Commswonk's Golden Rule

It doesn't matter how fast your down/upload speeds are, it's never enough.