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City builds open-access broadband network with Google Fiber as its first ISP:
The West Des Moines government's announcement said that "once the City installs conduit in the public right of way, broadband providers will pay a license fee to install their fiber in the City's conduit. Google Fiber will be the first tenant in the network." A conduit-license agreement "calls for Google Fiber to cover a portion of the construction cost to build conduit... through their monthly lease payments."
"On a monthly basis, Google Fiber would pay the city $2.25 for each household that connects to the network," according to the Des Moines Register. Google Fiber would pay the city a minimum of $4.5 million over 20 years.
Construction is expected to begin this fall and be completed in about two and a half years, the city said.
Related:
Google Fiber's biggest failure: ISP will turn service off in Louisville
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @09:51PM (8 children)
I've never lived in Iowa, but I drove through it several times. Here you will (or would have) find small farming towns, houses centered around a high red-roofed church tower - straight out of Norman Rockwell's paintings, surrounded by green farmland.
Imagine living in such an idyllic country-side towns, where cost of living is reasonable, where you are forced to know all your (super-nosy) neighbors, but with a municipal fiber communication link connected to the whole wired world.
Not to mention, the cops, if any still bother, don't shoot blacks, because there are hardly any blacks in town.
Hm... where am I going with this
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @10:09PM (1 child)
It sounds like you're going to West Des Moines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @10:29PM
Maybe.
BTW, by "a high red-roofed church tower" I meant red-tiled church spire.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @11:09PM (3 children)
Probably only idyllic for those who believe in some partiular brand of obsolete magic sky fairies, otherwise it's probably torches and pitchforks time again.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @11:37PM
Enjoy your cities while they last.
(Score: 1) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday July 08 2020, @11:55PM
Stepford, Iowa?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 09 2020, @05:40AM
Having lived in small/med/large cities. The small ones are pretty cool. The lack of stores is kind of a bummer. But not much. Right now in the very large city I live in it is 30-40 mins to get anywhere. In a small town it is usually the same. Except there is a cow pasture in the middle of the drive.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Thursday July 09 2020, @12:15PM
Not Des Moines.
West Des Moines is just another suburb. The metro area is small by national standards, but it is still the big city in the immediate area. So you still deal with big city problems - water quality sucks, there's definitely a bad part of town full of methheads, there are several black parts of town with racist cops patrolling - but missing some of the big city amenities.
Feel free to move here if you like living in close proximity to hipsters and drug addicts, but still have to drive 4-6 hours to meet your favorite band or author somewhere big enough for them to bother stopping.
And don't expect fiber unless you're willing to live in the most embarrassingly bourgeois part of the biggest city for hundreds of miles. If you want Norman Rockwell, you'll have to go a bit farther out of town.
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I knock it, but I still live here. It's cheap, there are good software jobs, and I don't really care about the scenery.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday July 09 2020, @03:30PM
You don't have to. I know more of my neighbors and their lives on our block in Brooklyn than I ever knew in the small town in the West that I grew up in. In small towns and in the countryside you can keep yourself to yourself and people won't bother you at all, unless what you're doing affects them somehow (like burning brush on your property that winds up burning part of their land, or something).
But there probably won't be a decent shawarma place within walking distance.
Washington DC delenda est.