Posted on 01/26/2003 9:42:16 PM PST by lewislynn
Jan. 26, 2003, 10:22PM
If you ever wince after opening your cable bill, you're not going to like this: The good folks in Glasgow, Ky., pay $19 a month for 70 cable channels, and for an additional $25 they can get blazing fast Internet access. How do they get prices nearly half the national average?
Because the city-owned electric utility provides cable TV and Internet access over wires that also monitor power usage in the town of 14,000. The utility isn't trying to profit from the service -- just recover its costs.
Utility superintendent William Ray estimates that since Glasgow began offering cable in 1989, $32 million of residents' money has stayed in town that otherwise might have been vacuumed by giant telecommunications companies -- which often don't offer advanced services in rural areas like Glasgow anyway.
"It's like an armored car wrecking in the streets once a year and spreading money in the streets for people to grab for themselves," Ray says.
Frustrated with the high cost and slow pace of broadband deployment in much of the country, 511 publicly owned utilities now provide telecom services for residents, schools, city agencies and their internal operations, up nearly 14 percent from a year ago, according to the American Public Power Association.
Some utilities built networks from scratch. Others extended infrastructure they already had, such as fiber-optic lines and networking equipment needed to monitor power flow or remote substations.
Not surprisingly, big phone and cable companies hate this, and have fought with some success to block public gas, water and electric utilities from providing telecom services. Eleven states bar or restrict the practice, sometimes by imposing artificial costs on municipal telecoms so the prices they charge end up closer to what private companies offer.
But things may be looking up for municipal telecoms -- thanks to recent favorable court rulings, weakness in the private telecom industry and a technological breakthrough that lets data be transmitted over power lines.
"A very large number of communities across the country are beginning to realize this is like the history of electrification all over again, and if they don't help themselves, they're not going to get advanced communications services any time in the foreseeable future," said Jim Baller, an attorney who has represented municipal telecoms in several cases. "Recognition of that is forcing legislatures to take a second look -- even ones that had enacted barriers."
City-owned utilities -- which generally buy their cable programming from a cooperative in Kansas and connect to the Internet by leasing facilities from big data carriers -- don't have to be rivals of telecom companies.
For example, in Washington state, which prohibits utilities from selling retail telecom services, several public power providers are becoming "carriers' carriers" -- building fiber networks that private Internet and phone providers can lease.
But generally, private companies say municipal telecoms create unfair competition because they have no need to make profits or pay off debts quickly, have preferential access to digging streets and other "rights of way" and are owned by cities that have regulatory power over the industry.
"The mere existence of the competition is not really an issue for us," said Rob Stoddard, spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. "The issue is more that the competitive playing field seems tilted in favor of municipalities."
The industry's arguments also stray into other realms.
In Palo Alto, Calif., where the public utility is considering spending $50 million building fiber-optic connections to every home, a SBC Pacific Bell executive gave officials "MuniToons," a memo describing municipal telecoms as "folly."
Among its contentions: Municipal telecoms hurt a town's tax base and may violate the First Amendment by placing the distribution of media content under government ownership.
Baller, the utilities lawyer, believes nearly every sentence in MuniToons is "incorrect or misleading or a half-truth." Even SBC spokesman Kevin Belgrade said the document doesn't exactly reflect the company's position.
Richard Carlson, chairman of Palo Alto's utility advisory committee, wasn't swayed by Munitoons. Nevertheless, he worries that a civic fiber network might lose out to private competition or become obsolete in a few years.
Ultimately, the municipal telecom fight boils down to two words: "any" and "entity."
The 1996 Telecommunications Act -- meant to usher the nation into the digital age -- said no state or city could prohibit "any entity" from providing "any" telecom service.
With that in mind, officials in Abilene, Texas, asked the Federal Communications Commission to let them wire their own broadband network despite a 1995 Texas law banning municipal telecoms.
But the FCC agreed with phone and cable companies that Congress wasn't absolutely clear whether it meant for utilities to be "entities" protected by the law. The agency declined to overrule Texas.
A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., let the decision stand.
Since then, a federal district court in Virginia and the Nebraska Supreme Court have seen things differently, ruling in favor of municipal telecoms. Most importantly, so has a federal appeals court in Missouri.
In hopes of getting clarity on the issue, Missouri's attorney general plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the meantime, municipal telecoms are finding new ways to offer broadband -- such as wireless antennas recently installed on water towers in Carthage, Mo. -- and soon could have another method.
Private electric companies are experimenting with a new technology that delivers data over existing power lines. So is the city-owned electric utility in Manassas, Va., which provides broadband to city departments but not residents.
"The interest in that is very high," said Ron Lunt, the American Public Power Association's telecom director. "It is a natural fit."
This is why they won't be in business long.
L
"....the city-owned electric utility provides cable TV and Internet access over wires that also monitor power usage-----
Glasgow began offering cable in 1989,..."
RBOCs own those lines, not the other utilities.
L
There's a simpler explanation that the AP reporter's socialist drivel: Costs are cheaper in small towns.
In any case, this deal isn't all that great. If I only took the analog channels on my cable system (70 channels) I'd only be paying $20 or $25, and my cable modem's only $30/mo. And best of all, I don't have to live in Glasgow, Kentucky.
Cities with lower electic rates can attract industry and boost the local economy. This has been a successful strategy for some cities.
Cities with poor management or other problems that make them unsuitable for utility ownership can end up with a major boondoggle.
So much for lower costs.
The question to ask is have the fine folks running this scheme bothered to look them up?
L
I don't regard everything printed in newspapers as "socialist drivel", after all they aren't giving access away at the cost of others, they're providing a service the community otherwise may not have had.
If my community offered it, I'd much rather support them than the rip off I'm getting from AT&T Broadband. I'm right now on the verge of going back to rabbit ears.
I think the point is (possibly due to deregulation) the small town has cable access they wouldn't normally have because it's too rural for a cable company to have infrastructure there.
You need a line of site between your wireless and another.
generally speaking, a wireless transmitter or link has a six to seven mile radius.
any links within that radius extend the re-transmitted wireless service area by the same six to seven mile radius.
Check for wireless networks in your area.
I see in your profile you're near Waco, which should have at least one wireless ISP.
The wireless provider's online site should have an area map on their website, showing present locations of transmitters and linking antennae.
If you are located within a transmitter's or a link's range, you are covered and eligible for service.
One of the wireless services in the Kansas City area charges about $75.00 for the initial setup.
If I recall correctly, this includes the wireless link (re-transmitter) which hooks you into the wireless network.
I don't recall what the monthly fee was, but it seems it was comparable to dial-up, definitely less than cable or DSL.
Try a "Google" search with parameters like:
wireless internet waco
If there's anything in your area, it should show up on the 1st page of search results.
Hope this helps.. and good luck.
The Federal Communications Commission released statistics for broadband customers per state (See "FCC Releases Report on the Availability of High-Speed and Advanced Telecommunications Capability" here.) An updated report should be available soon.
The FCC also has statistics per ZIP code, but I don't know if they have released that publicly.
I believe cities should be able to do so if the local citizens want it and are willing to bear the risks. But if the local utility get in trouble, it should not expect a federal or state bailout.
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