After A Decade Of Waiting For Verizon, Town Builds Itself Gigabit Fiber For $75 Per Month

from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come dept

Tue, Dec 29th 2015 6:28am — Karl Bode

Like many broadband black holes, Western Massachusetts has spent years asking regional duopolies for broadband. Towns like Leverett, Mass. literally took to hanging signs around town begging Verizon to install even the slowest DSL. Of course Verizon not only refused to install Western Massachusetts, they froze deployment of effectively all FiOS fiber upgrades, leaving a large number of towns and cities (including Boston, Baltimore, Alexandria, Buffalo) without next-gen broadband -- or in some cases broadband at all.

But, unlike many areas, Western Massachusetts decided to do something about it. In 2012 Leverett voters approved borrowing $3.6 million -- or roughly $1,900 per resident -- to deliver fiber to 800 premises. The initiative would be part of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute's MassBroadband 123 "middle mile" network, a stimulus-funded project that spent the last few years running 1,200 miles of fiber-optic network connecting 123 communties. That project feeds the town of Leverett's new, community owned ISP LeverettNet, giving a town that once didn't have DSL gigabit speeds for $75 a month:

"LeverettNet currently charges $24.95 per month for an internet-only, 1 gigabit per second connection. There’s also a $49.95 monthly cost to cover the maintenance for the Leverett Municipal Light Plant (LMLP), the governmental entity that builds and operates the town’s fiber infrastructure, bringing the cost to about $75 for internet-only subscribers, a cut above Google Fiber’s $70 monthly price for its 1 gigabit service.

However, the Leverett Broadband Committee notes that the LMLP maintenance costs are divided between the number of subscribers, and could be lowered as more households subscribe, meaning it could one day reach a price that’s equal to or less than Google Fiber."

And while most incumbent ISPs are abusing the lack of competition to raise rates in January, Leverettnet (alongside Crocker Communications, which helps run the ISP business itself) has announced it's dropping the cost of broadband and phone services starting next month. Uptake rate has been phenomenal, with eighty-one percent of households signing up for service. And what's more, despite all of the hand-wringing on some fronts (read: AT&T, Verizon, Comcast) about community broadband being an irresponsible fiscal nightmare, locals will actually see lower taxes than expected:

"The median residence will also see a lower-than-anticipated impact on property taxes, with $219 per year for the financing bond to build the network, much lower than the original estimate of close to $300 per year. The light plant, along with Holyoke Gas and Electric, which provides network operation and maintenance, and Crocker Communications of Greenfield, providing the high-speed Internet and phone service, collaborated to review the finances and usage and determined that the adjustments could be made."

Granted in twenty states, your town or city wouldn't be able to do this, since incumbent providers have quite literally paid state legislatures to write laws banning this kind of effort, even if incumbent ISPs have refused to service the area. This is also the sort of thing Presidential candidates like Marco Rubio hope to put an end to, without offering an alternative solution for broadband coverage gaps. But as Leverettnet shows, there's an obvious role for private/public partnerships in shoring up broadband coverage gaps -- especially in areas incumbent providers couldn't care less about.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: broadband, gigabit internet, leverett, massachusetts, municipal broadband
Companies: leverettnet

59 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

That One Guy (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 6:44am

'Leave it to the professionals'
But, unlike many areas, Western Massachusetts decided to do something about it. In 2012 Leverett voters approved borrowing $3.6 million -- or roughly $1,900 per resident -- to deliver fiber to 800 premises. The initiative would be part of the Massachusetts Broadband Institute's MassBroadband 123 "middle mile" network, a stimulus-funded project that spent the last few years running 1,200 miles of fiber-optic network connecting 123 communties.

Meanwhile the larger cable companies insist that they need 'incentives', either directly or indirectly, in amounts that make $3.6 million look like pocket change, take years spending the incentives on exec bonsus, fail to deliver as a result, and then buy off the right people so that they're let off the hook for failing to meet the contract terms.

Yup, can't possibly imagine why the major cable companies might be worried about smaller operations like this given the notable difference in cost and build-out speed...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TheResidentSkeptic (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 6:56am

Easy fix.
They have the legislature declare the area "sovereign" and then file an ISDS suit for the "trillions" in lost profits..
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 7:01am

Housing Prices
I bet if you track the housing prices in this town compared to comparable non-fiber towns in the area, you'll see a significant increase over the next couple of years. Having gigabit fiber in a town is going to make it a lot more desirable to many home buyers, especially young cord cutters. And unlike most cord cutters, they will actually be able to be disconnected from the cable and telecom conglomerates.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael, 29 Dec 2015 @ 7:09am

Re: Housing Prices
Or FIOS will suddenly become available for $60 in the area until the municipal project goes bankrupt and then magically become $185 to "better serve" the customers.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael, 29 Dec 2015 @ 7:10am

Re: 'Leave it to the professionals'
Don't worry, politicians are inexpensive and Verizon and Comcast will replace the ones in this town soon.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 7:42am

...w$219 per year for the financing bond to build the network...Granted...your town or city wouldn't be able to do this, since incumbent providers have quite literally paid state legislatures to write laws banning this kind of effort...

I don't know if my area is one of those with state laws but I do know it's a chore getting any bond election passed. If the locals won't support bonds for building and/or improving our schools, police & fire stations, and streets, then it's hard to imagine them voting in a bond for fiber.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Magical Mimi, 29 Dec 2015 @ 7:47am

As someone who lives in an almost as badly served Western MA town (i.e. a town slightly to the west and farther south where Verizon offers a 1 Mbps DSL connection and rarely even delivers half that speed, and Comcast claims to offer service, but only to homes where you either have an 30+ year old barely maintained connection, or pay an insanely high 'last mile' fee for a new connection that's kept some VERY expensive brand new houses from even getting connected) , all I gotta say is 'You go Leverett!' Especially due to how certain factors were moving against this even happening for them.

What isn't mentioned in this story is how the local media covered this in the early stages (and barely) and once Comcast and Verizon started trying to push back/bully the town (or so someone who lives in the town told me) in an effort to stop this, any and all local media coverage up and vanished from anything but the most local newspaper to that town. I.E. the TV stations talked about it in the very early stages, Big Cable (according to my friend) started to push back against the town, and the TV stations went up and quiet on the whole thing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 7:49am

Re:
In a community without fast internet there is not many options. You could sit at home and wait for that gif to download in an hour or so, go to the bar and drink, or pass legislation to get everyone internet.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ninja (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 7:57am

This is one of those many, many cases where it's obvious that current regulations aren't enough or at least are not working as intended and yet the Government ears are firmly plugged with corporate money so they won't move a finger to fix it...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TechDescartes (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:17am

The Power of Taxes
This headline (and the town's statement) 's misleading:
After A Decade Of Waiting For Verizon, Town Builds Itself Gigabit Fiber For $75 Per Month
The monthly cost is much more:
(1) $24.95 per month connection fee
(2) $49.95 per month maintenance fee
(3) $18.25 per month in increased taxes ($219 annually)
Total Cost: $93.15, and that is before you acknowledge the $4.28 per month subsidy from non-subscribers (152 premises (19%) paying $219 in annual taxes for a service they do not use). Actual Total Cost: $97.43

It is hard to evaluate the merits of an idea when the math is bad.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Karl Bode (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:18am

Re: Re: Housing Prices
Verizon's so finished with fixed-line broadband at this point I doubt they care. Their solution for every area that hasn't been upgraded is expensive, capped LTE service.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:21am

Re:
When you own the news and the service that delivers it, you literally control the flow of information.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:23am

It is hard to evaluate the merits of a headline ...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:24am

For years we had the same prices in San Antonio, TX from Time Warner. Every year they would raise the rates. We had AT&T/DSL and Cable to choose from. Nothing great. The week they announce google fiber is coming was the week they raise the bandwidth and lowered prices.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
musterion (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:24am

Service
Do you mean a town that is home to a large state university?

I remember in the 70s when, if it rained there was wso much line noise that a 300 baud acousting couple modem was nearly worthless.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:25am

Re: The Power of Taxes
People tend not to take into account property tax increases since just about anything can affect them. Build a park down the road, property tax goes up. Put in a back deck, property tax goes up.

We had to fight that not all that long ago here. Nothing changed and our property tax went up.

Still, I'd pay $94/m for gigabit connectivity. I'm paying almost that now for 50Mbps.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:27am

Re: The Power of Taxes
Let's round up to $100 to make things easy. Say we do that, the article is off by $25. Now, how does that $100 per month compare to what they had available previously, and at what cost? Assuming that they even had a comparable option?

Because given the first paragraph of the article, I'm guessing the previous options all make $100 a month for that speed look like an amazing deal.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:33am

Re:
Funny how that works isn't it?

Before there's competition in the area:

"It would not be feasible to upgrade our existing networks without drastically increasing price, as well as taking several years to manage. By the way, here's your biannual price increase."

The second actual competition shows up:

"Hey, turns out we were wrong, we can absolutely increase your connection speed, immediately, and temporarily decrease the price, so there's no need to go elsewhere for your service!"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 9:05am

Re: The Power of Taxes
I'd take that over what I'm paying for a crappy internet speed. how does taxes spent to Verizon to drag their heels makes a better scenario?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ninja (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 9:16am

Re: The Power of Taxes
Well, suppose I'm paying that much for some park I don't use, because I don't like parks. Even so I would gladly pay because it improves life overall. This is thinking collectively because at some point I'll have the opportunity of having Gb connection but some other person won't want but they will support the cause because it improves life overall.

So, yeah, we don't live alone.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ltlw0lf (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 9:33am

Re: Re:
Funny how that works isn't it?

What is sad is that when companies fight the government and each other to buy up their competition, people still parrot the line "bigger company means better support." You know what they say about insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Every time I hear it, I have a Pavlovian response and roll my eyes even before they finish the statement. A friend was talking about how awesome it will be when AT&T owns Direct-TV, and how he will have better support from both AT&T and Direct-TV as a result, and I could just count the minutes between that statement and his overall disgust for the whole thing...he figured once he got AT&T to hook up his house with fiber, he was set...their immediate response...not available in your area, you get 1mbps DSL. Best they could offer him was a capped LTE network.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
New Mexico Mark, 29 Dec 2015 @ 9:41am

Re: The Power of Taxes
While I appreciate accurate math, you are definitely focusing on the trees and missing the forest entirely. I'm not sure if you are just an industry shill, but I'll respond as if you are actually a real person.

If you want to do even better math, don't forget to subtract $80 - $150/month for cutting the cord of cable or satellite TV, landline phone service, etc. and replacing these with Internet options that will work just fine with gigabit Internet. There may be other opportunities in lowering cellular service options and better utilizing home that bandwidth at home. Think things like telecommuting, which can save a great deal in travel / vehicle expenses, remote medical monitoring / diagnostics, remote education, etc. These things can save many thousands of dollars, but require realistic broadband services to make them feasible. (As someone stuck with TWC 30Mb down / 5 Mb up for over $65/month, I'm drooling at the thought of this kind of service.)

To put gigabit service in perspective, someone with kind of bandwidth has 50 times more bandwidth than what is defined as 20 Mb/s "broadband" service, and that minimum service would likely cost around $50 per month if the local monopoly even deigned to make it available. That's $2,500 per month collected from every 50 bottom-of-the-barrel endpoints by large "service providers".

Gigabit service can replace a lot of other data services, and make possible many other services and business opportunities, and even assuming $100/month/endpoint, this is dirt cheap compared to other options. As for non-customers paying a small fee for this infrastructure upgrade, what can I say? They will probably more than make up for this in increased property value, plus when they start seeing what their neighbors are able to do with gigabit service, they will likely jump on this opportunity as well (lowering prices even further).

It's hard to evaluate the merits of an idea when the math is penny wise and pound foolish.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ltlw0lf (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 9:44am

Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
People tend not to take into account property tax increases since just about anything can affect them. Build a park down the road, property tax goes up. Put in a back deck, property tax goes up.

Schools tend to be the big thing around here...they account for quite a bit of our property tax, and every new bond or property tax increase that seems to get put in place tends to be one of those "its for the children bonds".

I don't have children, can't stand a good majority of them in my neighborhood, but I gladly pay those property taxes each year. I'd much rather pay for your kids to get the best education possible so that they get good jobs and make something of themselves. Keeps my property values up.

So long as everyone in the community has the option to subscribe, just like I have the option to have kids and send them to school, I'll gladly subsidize it so long as it has positive benefits to the community. What I have a problem with is when some politician somewhere decides that it would be great to build a park nobody in the community can go to except their buddies that elected them or when the money is wasted needlessly on something nobody wants or needs just to make the backers of the politicians happy. If they had a referendum, and a majority of the folks said yes, I'm good with it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
bwburke94 (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 9:51am

As a former Leverett resident who still has ties to the area, I'm not surprised we'd be doing this. All we had was dial-up, and in the modern age that wasn't cutting it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 10:14am

Re: Service
That's how it was at my last place with the DSL - when it rained, the line was unusable. You call and complain, and they send a technician... a week later while it's not raining, and they find nothing. After nearly ten years of technician tag, they FINALLY showed up (by accident) one time when it was raining and actually found the problem. Then I moved a couple months later. Siiiiiiiiigh.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ltlw0lf (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 10:36am

Re: Re: Service
After nearly ten years of technician tag, they FINALLY showed up (by accident) one time when it was raining and actually found the problem.

When I ran a BBS, I had the same problem, but what was funny was the technician was the one who suggested that it may have been the rain, and that he moved me to a higher place in the telephone cabinet. My phone line after he moved my connection had never been cleaner, and I was easily pushing 48-56kbps on that line. At least until AT&T started calling me with offers for a special "digital" phone line that they were offering for folks running BBSs, modems, etc., on their networks, and I all-the-sudden ended up back at the bottom of the rack (I asked the technician where I was and he told me I was at the bottom, even though the previous technician had moved me up.)

My issues with AT&T and their digital line scam have been discussed here before. I only got relief when I switched from their service to cable telephone (shortly before abandoning my BBS in the mid to late 90s due to nobody calling any more.)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TechDescartes (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 10:43am

Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
While I appreciate accurate math, you are definitely focusing on the trees and missing the forest entirely. I'm not sure if you are just an industry shill, but I'll respond as if you are actually a real person.
Actually, no. Imagine the same discrepancy on the bandwidth side. If you were promised 1 Gbps but never received more than 750 Mbps, that certainly would be relevant to discussing the merits. $100 versus $75 per month is proportionally the same discrepancy. Granted, it might not be decisive (as evidenced by many commenters responding that $100 is not too much), but you can't deny that it is relevant.

P.S. Out of curiosity, which industry is it that sends out "shills" to point out the true cost of services? Last I checked, it wasn't telecom or government.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 10:57am

Re: Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
Techdirt has, in the past, found IP addresses from various law firms defending things like patents. Also Wikipedia has been known to be edited by people with IP addresses that link back to the corporation being discussed. So shills do exist and they do frequent forums. Oh, and they lie about it too.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 10:59am

Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
and property taxes contributes towards a social/government function (or they're supposed to anyways) whereas money spent on a corporation contributes towards corporate profits.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ninja (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 11:06am

Re: Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
Again, if the service works and it benefits the community as a whole as he pointed out then the extra tax does not matter. Besides considering what I pay today for my 50 mbit connection $100 would still be dirty cheap. To put it to perspective a 1Gb plan here costs about $350 to install plus $250 monthly. We don't know the details but maybe there are slower offerings for those that don't need this much, no? Taxes paid for this are a non issue.

Not to mention that cities with good connections tend to attract technology companies or those who don't need a physical presence elsewhere to do their business. How much value does this add to the city?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 11:06am

Re: Re: Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
(though I don't think TechDescartes is a shill).

Also TechDescartes where are the sources for your numbers if I may ask?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
tqk (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 11:31am

Re: The Power of Taxes
It is hard to evaluate the merits of an idea when the math is bad.

Fair enough, but also note they're signing people up in droves and the more they sign up spreads the cost of #2 & #3. Cutting those two in half gets them into the $60 total range. That's less than I pay for 1 Mb.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 11:35am

Re: Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
Also lets not forget that this price is in an area that regular ISPs don't serve because it's more expensive and less profitable to serve these areas than the areas that ISP's do serve. So even in less profitable areas that regular ISPs refuse to serve an alternative method can provide better bandwidth cheaper than what ISPs charge in more profitable, cheaper to serve, areas.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 11:45am

Re: Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
Though exact dollar amounts are nice, they really aren't necessary for this discussion.

I went to UMass Amherst and Leverett was the next town over. Quite a few professors I knew (including Computer Science profs) had homes in Leverett and were just befuddled that they couldn't get anything better than dial-up out there (especially with the University so close).

When there is no choice, cost really isn't a major factor until it becomes 'insanely expensive'.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ltlw0lf (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 11:45am

Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
Because given the first paragraph of the article, I'm guessing the previous options all make $100 a month for that speed look like an amazing deal.

If we are talking about true costs, including all the taxes, how much money has been spent on the Information Superhighway, or Broadband America, or Wiring America or Universal Access that we've been paying over the years to the telcos and the cable industry, in which the money was collected and then "lost" without actually doing the work. We've been paying for broadband improvements since 1995, and telephone improvements even longer and we've got very little to show for it (at least until Google showed up and scared the industry and government into actually improving their networks and regulating those who didn't.)

I'd love to see an accounting of the money spent there, to include in the costs of the legacy telecom and cable industry, but quite frankly I don't think we'll ever get those numbers.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TechDescartes (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 12:36pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
I deliberately avoided any mention of the merits and merely used the numbers from Karl's article (800 premises with 81% adoption rate (conversely, 19% non-adoption rate), $24.95 connection fee, $49.95 maintenance fee, $219 annual taxes):
In 2012 Leverett voters approved borrowing $3.6 million -- or roughly $1,900 per resident -- to deliver fiber to 800 premises... . "LeverettNet currently charges $24.95 per month for an internet-only, 1 gigabit per second connection. There’s also a $49.95 monthly cost to cover the maintenance for the Leverett Municipal Light Plant...The median residence will also see a lower-than-anticipated impact on property taxes, with $219 per year for the financing bond to build the network, much lower than the original estimate of close to $300 per year."
It's just math.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 2:26pm

Re: Re:
I suspect there are a lot of small towns with a lot of older residents who couldn't care less about fast internet. A couple hundred extra dollars in property taxes for something they don't understand the benefit of doesn't sound like a good idea to them. Again, I'm just speculating, I don't have numbers.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 2:34pm

Re: Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
Actually, no.

New Mexico Mark isn't disagreeing with your math, he's saying there are larger issues that make the discrepancy you point out less significant. There will be an extra 20 bucks a month in property tax until the bond is paid off, and it's appropriate to mention that. But if you're going to look at that, it makes sense to look at all the other factors too.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
tracyanne, 29 Dec 2015 @ 2:41pm

Re: Re: Re:
Yep, I've had exactly that response to my arguments for faster internet where we are.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
JohnK, 29 Dec 2015 @ 3:30pm

Re: 'Leave it to the professionals'
Leverett is fortunate to have had the skills in an all-volunteer committee to make this happen. It is a testament to the self-reliance of small town New England. It is a model for moving forward but it is not an easy or short road in MA. http://leverett.ma.us/content/broadband-committee Presently there are more than two dozen other towns trying to follow their lead in one form or another.

Some more detail on Leverett: Leverett turned on its fiber last Spring and is providing service for all its customers. The data service is not throttled but depends on backhaul limits coming into town. It is a FTTH Active Ethernet P2P system with a fiber homerun from the premise to the hub. Their ultimate bandwidth is determined by the fiscal limits. As of Summer 2015, Leverett had a take rate of 89%, getting to that level in less than a year.

The Reinvestment Act, funded by the feds and the state, did great 2 things for unserved Western and Central MA towns including Leverett: 1) provided a backbone to the Internet, in this case, in Springfield MA, and 2) provided middle-mile backhaul, 4-8 fibers, to one or more Community access points in each of the 45 unserved towns. Leveret's network would have been much more difficult logistically and more expensive without that. Then, Leverett took it upon itself to fund a a network build.

MBI, the state agency cited above, has been funded to assist these 45 towns with partial grants. I do not believe that Leverett has yet seen much if any of that money. The money allocated for them, when they receive it in full, would amount to only about 1/3 of the total cost for the build. http://broadband.masstech.org/building-networks/last-mile/program-unserved-towns The difficulty is that many of these small towns do not have the wealth or income to afford the remaining cost. Leverett has about 42 miles of roads and a little more than 800 premises and is one of the larger towns being helped by the Commonwealth. It had no internet other than dial-up, some satellite and some cell service. Cell access in town was spotty and wireline copper phone service often had noise on the line in inclement weather. This is typical of the other 44 towns interested in participating in the MBI project/funding. ( I add this as most folks do not consider MA as being at all rural and remote.) But Leverett's multi-million dollar investment, even after help from the state, will bring its citizens into a telecomm environment that most in our country take for granted.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Malor (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 3:49pm

>Uptake rate has been phenomenal, with eighty-one percent of households signing up for service.

That's REALLY impressive. EPB in Chattanooga, which offers similar service for a similar price (and is run EXTREMELY well), was pleased as punch when they hit 30% uptake. And they had to advertise *constantly*. Even now, just about six years after their first rollout, they still advertise all the time. (I don't know what their current figures are, but I suspect it must be at least 40% by now.)

This was their actual plan; I believe they figured it as breakeven at 20%, and hit that fairly quickly. Everything after that has been gravy, and it's working out real well.

It's interesting, wandering around Chattanooga with a laptop, because it's quite normal to have extremely high-quality free WiFi networks available. It's a slow process, but the Internet is becoming omnipresent here, like air. There's a fundamental scarcity most places, and that's not really true here anymore.

Anyway, my biggest takeaway was this: just building the network is normally not enough. You've also got to remind people you exist *all the time*. Switching away from other providers is difficult, and most people don't realize how bad their Internet is.

An 81% uptake is ... dayam. Things must have been BAD in Leverett.

Oh, and as an aside: muni fiber from the power company works out really well. Their purpose isn't pricing as high as possible, their purpose is serving their residents, so they can pass through the *real* pricing of bandwidth. The only scarcity is peak demand, not total usage. Bandwidth caps are a literal racket.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TheDoNothings, 29 Dec 2015 @ 3:54pm

Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
Pretty much anywhere $100 is a great deal for that.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Malor (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 3:57pm

Re: The Power of Taxes
$95/mo for gigabit Internet isn't quite as cheap as Google Fiber or EPB, but if they follow the path that EPB did, the cost will steadily *drop* over time, especially if they can keep expanding and adding more customers; bandwidth gets cheaper the more of it you buy.

And by the standards of nearly everywhere else in the country, that is an amazing deal. I'm lucky, and get gigabit for $70, but if I weren't, it's not like $95 would upset me.

When I first moved here, it was $150/mo for 250MBit, so EPB has been absolutely fantastic. They quadrupled my speed, and cut my bill in half.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 4:27pm

Re:
An 81% uptake is ... dayam. Things must have been BAD in Leverett.

Dial-up only. So the only way it could be worse is if there were no phone service at all.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Kurt McDonald, 29 Dec 2015 @ 5:53pm

Re: The Power of Taxes
You somehow forgot to calculate the value of NOT having to deal with Comcast, Verizon or AT&T for their internet service, which is priceless.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 6:25pm

Re:
Police and fire don't help the proverbial "me" right now. Fiber brings the porn and Netflix in faster
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 6:35pm

Re: Re: Housing Prices
Towns can choose to keep providers out or make their lives very very difficult, it's not as easy for verizon to come in and undercut them as you may think.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That One Guy (profile), 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:39pm

Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
Monthly connection fee?
$24.95

Monthly maintenance fee?
$49.95

Monthly increase in taxes?
$18.25

Not having to deal with Comcast, Verizon or AT&T?
Priceless.

Some things money can buy, for a decent internet connection at reasonable rates, look local.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 29 Dec 2015 @ 8:40pm

Re: The Power of Taxes
There are a lot things you can do when you have the power to tax that a private company can't.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Dec 2015 @ 1:36am

now we wait and see how much Verizon sues them for. Probably claiming some nonsense or another to keep control of their monopoly of nonexistent service to these people.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dissidenzz, 30 Dec 2015 @ 5:12am

Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
The real question is, compared to what? Like many western MA residents, my ONLY option is satellite... slower than DSL, capped at 15gb/month, and costing me almost $90/month. Would I pay an extra $10/month for uncapped gigabit service? I'd be laughing if I wasn't crying so hard...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Moonkey, 30 Dec 2015 @ 6:27am

Re: Re: The Power of Taxes
We're paying nearly that for 756 kilobytes per second.

(provided by Windstream)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Bias, 30 Dec 2015 @ 8:32am

Unnecessary
When the author chose the plural for candidate, calling one out specifically became unnecessary. Shame on them and their editor.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
nasch (profile), 30 Dec 2015 @ 9:09am

Re: Unnecessary
When the author chose the plural for candidate, calling one out specifically became unnecessary.

Would you have felt better if he'd said "at least one Presidential candidate"?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard from Leverett (profile), 30 Dec 2015 @ 2:46pm

Re: Easy fix.
Massachusetts has legislation in place to allow municipal lighting plants to provide telecommunications Leverettnet is 100% legal and an ISDS suit is an inviable option.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard from Leverett (profile), 30 Dec 2015 @ 2:50pm

Re: Re: 'Leave it to the professionals'
Man you don't know Leverett or Western Massachusetts very well.

Leverett voter passed the Municipal Lighting Plant and bond issue by well over 90% margin and there is no interest by either Verizon or Comcast in serving Leverett. We run town with the town meeting system of government there are no politicians for Verizon and Comcast to buy. Also Comcast does not do business in Leverett and never has and Verizon has essentially abandoned their land lines in town and doesn't provide cell service.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard from Leverett (profile), 30 Dec 2015 @ 2:55pm

Re: Re: Re:
The average age in Leverett is in the mid sixties. I'm 67 and was on the broadband committee that managed the build of the seven people on the board 3 are retired and two are in their sixties and two in their forties or fifties. The older residents in town are the people who made this system happen.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard from Leverett (profile), 30 Dec 2015 @ 3:24pm

Leverettnet
Heere is the real deal in Leverett

Leverett had a few Verizon DSL lines close to Amherst MA. Verizon is abandoning DSL and had no intention of extending fios to Leverett.
Comcast never served Leverett and had no interest in doing so because of the distance between houses.

Internet was available for Wild Blue and Hughes but you know how lousy that service is. TV was from Dish and DirecTV. So with the ~$100 a month for Leverettnet and the increase in property taxes I am saving approximately $150 to $200 a month for far better service. Even with the taxes. Remember We operate this network at cost as a town service and in 20 years the bonds will be paid off. We have maintenance and periodic upgrades built into the cost of service.

Verizon could not care less about this because they were not maintaining the legacy copper network in Leveret and now 81% of their complaining unhappy customers are off their back.

Of the other 19% of non subscribers more the 50% of these are either summer residences or vacant and up for sale.

Of the remaining house: In a town with Leverett's demographics houses come on the market do to owners passing away. So houses are vacant for extended periods while the estate gets settled. A lot of empty houses are being renovated in town to be placed on the market because high speed broadband make it worth doing.

So what's not to like?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
tmc, 2 Jan 2016 @ 3:01pm

wildfire
I hope more towns and cities throw Verizon out on their ass for not deploying FIOS! Once its gone, it's gone.. Don't think Verizon can come back in, corner the market and then jack up rates! Once a municipality has to build it themselves.. that market is more or less LOCKED down, unless google wanted to deploy there too.. but in all likelihood, if the customers aren't getting ripjacked like $300 for 500/500 internet currently advertised by Verizon.. they're WAY ahead of the game for YEARS to come!!!

So, hope it catches on like wildfire!
[ link to this | view in thread ]