Chattanooga Built Its Own Broadband Network. Now It's The Top Ranked 'Work From Home' City In The US

from the build-it-and-they-will-come dept

PC Magazine recently unveiled their list of the best cities to work at home from. To make the list, the magazine examined affordable housing, the availability of fast gigabit broadband, reasonably priced internet connections in general, and the presence of employers with friendly work from home policies. At the top of the list? Chattanooga, Tennessee:

"Our number-one remote-working town in the US is Chattanooga, known as "Gig City," which rolled out a citywide fiber network in 2010. As we recounted in a 2018 story, Chattanooga has been pushing hard to attract tech workers and companies based on its affordable real estate, business-friendly administrations, and widely available broadband internet. In 2019, according to the Census, 6.8% of Hamilton County, TN residents worked from home, compared with 5.7% of all Americans."

One of the city's primary policies was to embrace community-run broadband, offering locals ultra-fast and affordable fiber via the local city's utility. It's an effort that incumbent broadband providers like Comcast first tried to strangle via state law, then attempted to destroy via lawsuit. Neither worked, and now Chattanooga residents have access to some of the fastest and most affordable broadband in the United States (the ISP won Consumer Reports' top ISP award in 2018), which has in turn helped drive business growth and employment in the city.

This is, it should be made clear, the kind of innovation and growth we've crippled by letting incumbent telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast not only carve out geographical monopolies, but also literally write state and federal telecom law. Both companies are predominately responsible for the 20 some odd state laws that hamstring (or ban outright) towns and cities looking to get into the broadband business. They've also spent the better part of twenty years funding a coalition of dollar-per-holler think tankers and academics who try (usually poorly) to smear such efforts.

This farmed opposition to community broadband is usually built on the flimsy premise that it's "unfair" for governments to compete with the private sector. Or that these efforts are inevitable "taxpayer boondoggles" (you're to ignore the billions we throw at giants like AT&T for absolutely nothing). Both arguments are intentionally false and misleading.

Cities like Chattanooga aren't getting into the costly business of building broadband networks because it's fun, they really want to spend the money, or they want to make Comcast and AT&T executives cry. They're doing it because of market failure. They're building their own networks because incumbent providers have heavily monopolized the sector, resulting in spotty upgrades, slow speeds, high prices, privacy violations, and dodgy customer service. And when cities have tried to buck this status quo, they're usually sued, misrepresented, bizarrely demonized, or legislatively hammered by state and federal governments in mindless thrall to monopolist campaign contributions.

That's not to say that community broadband is some mystical panacea that fixes every city's ills. Nor is it to suggest that every city has the financial and technical skills or resources to pull off a successful business plan. But community broadband is a useful tool in the toolbox, particularly when it comes to nudging government-pampered regional telecom monopolies out of their comfort zones. Community-owned ISPs also tend to be more responsive to the complaints of locals, because they are locals. It's ignorant and counterproductive to ban such options in a country where 42 million have no access to broadband and another 83 million only have the choice of one ISP. Yet it's still happening.

In Chattanooga, the city has been blocked from expanding its award-winning network because of a Comcast-backed law passed decades ago. A law that served no function outside of protecting entrenched monopoly revenues from disruption. Historically, efforts to get states to dismantle such dumb, protectionist restrictions have been glacial, but as the COVID pandemic illustrates how truly counterproductive such restrictions are in a world were broadband is utterly essential, you can feel awareness and consensus start to shift.

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Filed Under: broadband, chattanooga, competition, fiber, gig city, municipal broadband, tennessee, work from hom


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  1. identicon
    Jesse Marchesseault, 18 Feb 2021 @ 5:19am

    Broad band internet

    I live west of Chattanooga. I moved to this area 7 years ago. This is a rural county (Marion County TN) There was no choice for any hard wire internet. The choices were satellite or cell hotspot. The local electric co-op SVEC got legislative approval to install fiber internet/cable just in this county. It is reasonably priced and enough people have subscribed so that it is self sufficient. The customer service is great. There are no data limits and available in two speeds. Other counties are working to get approval to get into the 21st century. It is a shame that they have to seek approval for a service that should be readily available

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Samuel Abram (profile), 18 Feb 2021 @ 6:55am

    To be fair and frank…

    Cities like Chattanooga aren't getting into the costly business of building broadband networks because it's fun, they really want to spend the money, or they want to make Comcast and AT&T executives cry.

    In all frankness, I do think spending as much money as it takes to make Comcast and AT&T execs shed tears is a worthwhile goal.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    fairuse (profile), 18 Feb 2021 @ 8:19am

    But Elon riding on a rocket will deliver GIg level

    Actually not really. https://www.starlink.com/ is an experiment today but who knows.

    The rural broadband situation made me thing about the "Rural Electrification Act" "The Rural Electrification Act of 1936, enacted on May 20, 1936, provided federal loans for the installation of electrical distribution systems to serve isolated rural areas of the United States. The funding was channeled through cooperative electric power companies, hundreds of which still exist today."
    More at -- Rural Electrification: the long struggle -- https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/667902

    My point? The most successful program ever must not be used as a model for rural coop-broadband. Big ISP (all their names) wrote law for states to insure nothing gets built.

    The cost of a mile of electric in 1936 was $2,000 to farmer, The Act reduced cost to $600.

    Gee golly, lose money says cash fat ISP, no way coop-broadband can be allowed to happen.

    And here we are.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    fairuse (profile), 18 Feb 2021 @ 8:21am

    All spelling and grammer belong to me

    oops, pressed rong button and post is :AS IS"

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Feb 2021 @ 9:59am

    it wouldn't be for long if the thick fuckers in government were to admit what they are up to, lining their own pockets to play nice with the big companies, rather than looking after the people and allowing everywhere to build their own networks!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. icon
    ECA (profile), 18 Feb 2021 @ 1:02pm

    What would happen

    IF' we forced the companies and corps to COMPETE?
    Would it be like the past, where prices would drop because they Have to compete with others in the area?
    Would the Wages for the upper paid people go Down?? at LEAST in 1/2?
    God help us for making a REAL capitalist system, that works for the people.
    Is that Socialism?

    link to this | view in thread ]


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