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posted by martyb on Wednesday December 12 2018, @06:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the sueden-outbreak-of-common-sense? dept.

Comcast rejected by small town—residents vote for municipal fiber instead

A small Massachusetts town has rejected an offer from Comcast and instead plans to build a municipal fiber broadband network. Comcast offered to bring cable Internet to up to 96 percent of households in Charlemont in exchange for the town paying $462,123 plus interest toward infrastructure costs over 15 years. But Charlemont residents rejected the Comcast offer in a vote at a special town meeting Thursday.

"The Comcast proposal would have saved the town about $1 million, but it would not be a town-owned broadband network," the Greenfield Recorder reported Friday. "The defeated measure means that Charlemont will likely go forward with a $1.4 million municipal town network, as was approved by annual town meeting voters in 2015." About 160 residents voted, with 56 percent rejecting the Comcast offer, according to news reports.

Charlemont has about 1,300 residents and covers about 26 square miles in northwest Massachusetts. Town officials estimate that building a municipal fiber network reaching 100 percent of homes would cost $1,466,972 plus interest over 20 years. An increase in property taxes would cover the construction cost. But the town would also bring in revenue from selling broadband service and potentially break even, making the project less expensive than Comcast's offer. "With 59 percent of households taking broadband service, the tax hike would be 29 cents [per $1,000 of assessed home value], similar to that for Comcast," a Recorder article last month said. "But if 72 percent or more of households subscribe to the municipal-owned network, there is no tax impact, because subscriber fees would pay for it."


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by iamjacksusername on Wednesday December 12 2018, @05:53PM (1 child)

    by iamjacksusername (1479) on Wednesday December 12 2018, @05:53PM (#773555)

    I live in one of the places where the power brokers live as well. You can always tell when change is in the air because, suddenly, services start showing up which means the big players are trying to keep their regulators happy. Right now, I have 1Gb FiOS @ $80/mo. Verizon and Comcast are getting nervous; people are pushing for alternatives like municipal broadband and forgoing dedicated services in favor of things like TMobile or Sprint. Competition is a good thing.

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  • (Score: 2) by Virindi on Thursday December 13 2018, @08:02PM

    by Virindi (3484) on Thursday December 13 2018, @08:02PM (#774105)

    Yeah. Living in NoVA has always had the great benefit of getting a bunch of sucking up to regulators. We were among the first places in the country to get DSL in the early 90s, and one of the first places where they rolled out fiber for Fios not too long after that.

    The same can go for government services too; if you look at Richmond, VA you will note that for years they have had huge highways which are very well maintained and relatively underutilized compared to other places in the state. They also have more state police patrols there. Why? Well it's the capital of course.