Fiber Duluth
Believe it or not, there are areas in Duluth that don’t have either a reliable or any internet connection- in 2020!
One of the issues I explored while a councilor was, how to at the very least expand broadband but make an effort to provide fiber internet which is currently the fastest (why invest in outdated technology if we are going to use public dollars?). The benefits of having this high connection speed would work as economic development and retention effort as well as providing educational parity to households within city limits- although if there was a municipal provider of fiber it could work in the same way that Comfort Systems does and work with surrounding municipalities.
Through COVID it has become abundantly clear that some children and households are falling behind due to lack of access to the internet and basic competition in internet providers. Coupled with this the new reality or realization that many folks can and may work remotely in the future
There are a couple of ways to do this-
Full Service-
This is where the city would act similarly to a private ISP. The city would provide internet, TV, and phone directly to residents and businesses and is fully accountable for the network's success. (Imagine being able to email the Mayor or the Council and let them know that the Twins game is coming in fuzzy! Or the future campaign promises of “A clearer picture for a brighter future vote X”)
Chattanooga was the early adopter of this. It’s worth noting that Chattanooga also has a municipal run electrical company. When the electrical company was updating to a smart energy grid (we should also) the fiber installation piggybacked on these efforts. It’s conceivable to have this type of partnership with Minnesota Power.
Open Access-
Where cities build their own fiber infrastructure and then lease capacity to private ISP’s. Communities are responsible for installing all of the necessary components for activating a network. (Utah is a good example of this with the cleverly named UTOPIA)
Dark Fiber-
Cities install the fiber cables without the components needed to activate the network. The city leases capacity and shifts material costs and responsibility to ISPs. It is still publicly owned but ISPs have to operate the fiber themselves. Stockholm Sweden is the most popular example of this.
Incremental Expansion-
(The fringe lefties hating incrementalism i.e. progress have stopped reading after that line!)
The city can start by providing fiber in smaller steps, this could be to educational facilities (think UMD and Scholastica as a pilot or LSC!) or business districts (could have put it under Superior Street during the reconstruction). Over time the network will expand to more residents and businesses. Look at Santa Monica California for a good example of this.
Public-Private Partnerships
Cities engage in public-private venters often. The city’s can work exclusively with a private ISP to build out the fiber network and operate it. The city would set the performance standard and share accountability over the success of the network (you would still get to email the city council and ask them why they aren’t doing a better job with your tv). A good example of this type of partnership can be found in Westminster Maryland.
I’ve selected the most prominent examples but there are more than 500 communities across the United States that have municipal fiber.
So you’re reading this and thinking “this actually sounds pretty good how do we make it happen or finance such a heavy lift?”
That is a good question. You could use revenue bonds in the way that Sandy Oregon did ($7.5 million), where citizens pay $40 a month for 100Mbps service and $60 for 1Gbps without having to commit to any contracts!
And this is one of the difficulties in adopting fiber networks is the changing economics and the costs. The larger the capital investment the larger the subscriber base will need to be (in the Sandy Oregon example there are 10,000 subscribers)
The other option is to tweak a franchise agreement- which is actually what got me thinking about this topic in 2017 or 2018 (I can’t remember when we renewed Charter/Specturms franchise agreement). You could place requirements within these agreements or place a fee to spur investment into a faster more reliable internet connection, or attempt to place as part of the franchise; coverage throughout the city. Working this into a franchise fee would be a secondary path but could be an easier option if the capacity from a company is already there.
If anyone is interested in exploring this option, I am happy to investigate this more and work with a citizen group to push this forward or explore the feasibility of such an effort. I am not the first to realize the value of fiber internet former Mayor Don Ness made a valiant attempt to galvanize the community to get Google Fiber to the Twin Ports; unfortunately, we were not successful.
But to be clear- this effort won’t have a video that is well…..suboptimal, but this is the type of issue that can galvanize a community to move forward.
So- want to explore this or form a loose working group around this issue? Email me or drop a comment and let’s get talking!
