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The New York City government has released an "Internet Master Plan" that calls for universal broadband throughout the five boroughs, relying on open-access fiber networks that can be used by multiple ISPs.
[...]There's often a big difference between municipal plans and reality, of course. Los Angeles announced a universal fiber plan in November 2013. But the plan stalled after striking many experts as unrealistic—the city wanted to find a private company that would build the network at its own cost, offer free Internet to all residents (while charging for faster speeds), and make the infrastructure available to any other service provider on a wholesale basis.
[...]The New York City plan has raised excitement, though. Gigi Sohn, a consumer advocate and former Federal Communications Commission official, called NYC's plan "the most thoughtful and comprehensive blueprint by any major city to ensure that every resident and small business has affordable and open access to high-performance broadband." Sohn argued that states and municipalities must act because the "federal government has failed to meet the broadband needs of tens of millions of Americans."
[...]Importantly, the plan calls for wiring up parts of the city with the worst broadband access first. "The Master Plan prioritizes infrastructure development for neighborhoods that have low levels of commercial fiber service and where new construction opens the way for new providers and services," the document says.
[...]It's not clear how long the plan would take to implement, although it would certainly be at least a few years if the city does everything it aims to. Instead of charting out construction for the entire city in a single bidding round, the plan calls for an iterative process with multiple "procurement cycles to address infrastructure and service goals in new batches of neighborhoods or for new bundles of assets."
[...]The city's commitment to invest money instead of relying solely on the private sector is promising, Bergmayer said. "Substantial public investment will be necessary for truly universal service," he added. "The plan's focus on public investment in shared infrastructure is a good start."
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday January 10 2020, @03:40PM (2 children)
It would be great for NYC to have real broadband. It is infrastructure necessary for 21st century commerce and life.
I would bet against its happening, though. Lawyers and selfish political fiefdoms will immediately attack, trying to get a slice of the public largesse. Powerful companies like Google, Time-Warner, AT&T, and Verizon will lobby against it. It will be poorly implemented and badly rolled out and face endless delays. It will squander billions of dollars in kickbacks and other corruption, only to be abandoned after the current inept mayor leaves office. It's DOA.
Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by EEMac on Friday January 10 2020, @04:12PM (1 child)
I'm sure New York would love to have this. Unfortunately there's a long history of companies taking the money and not delivering [duckduckgo.com].
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 10 2020, @06:38PM
I was looking for example stories that have been posted here, but I just gave up after my initial search didn't get me what I wanted.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Informative) by MrGuy on Friday January 10 2020, @06:34PM (2 children)
NYC has a massive contract with Verizon FiOS to do this when I lived there. Never materialized, even though I theoretically lived in a “served” neighborhood. Verizon’s definition of “served” was that fiber ran nearby in the street past your building. No effort to provide actual connectivity in the building. When asked, n blames building owners for not giving access. Building owners blamed Verizon for demanding thousands of dollars in setup costs and/or a monopoly on broadband in the building. Don’t know who to believe, but it was a mess and massively under delivered on its promise.
I don’t see this ending differently.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday January 10 2020, @07:23PM
I think you can believe both sides. Verizon wanted buildout costs from center street to the building and exclusive access and the building owners wouldn't accede to that and therefore wouldn't allow access. You can also believe that NYC contracted with Verizon to put FiOS lines into the public conduit, but NYC didn't pay for actual buildouts onto private property. Politician gets to claim the 'built broadband' into the neighborhoods and nobody calls them on the carpet for not actually building out the last 200ish feet to every home. From there it is simple math & economics... the operator does not (and should not IMVVHO) have to pay for their crews to put the line up to the building for free. The city isn't paying them to do that part of the job, and there is some argument that if someone wants they utility they should have to pay for the actual tunneling from the public conduit to the building.
When I was a teenager and cable TV finally came out to the sticks on the fringes of the desert we looked up the codes and dug a trench for the cable to be taken from roadside to our home. Did it all to code and the cable company took care of connecting our wire into their conduit box. One difference... it was all sand, no concrete or asphalt to deal with (even the roadbed was sand...) Which made it an easy job for a teenager with a shovel, too much free time, and a father who had a little bit of brains. I'd bet that would have been somewhere between $200-$500 to have the cable company do that.
The two ways this gets solved in NYC: In striking the deals they specify the buildout terms as covering installation to doorstep and also lay out terms like there cannot be any exclusivity. And they negotiate a fair price for that.
But I agree with you, I doubt it will actually end any differently.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @03:10AM
Having dealt with both ends (verizon and building owners). They are both right. They both fucked off took your money and laughed all the way to the bank. The building owners never show up and demand stupid fees. The VZ guys show up and do a half ass job if they do it at all and also want fees from the building owners.
Just a bunch of greedy people who never bothered to help their customers who would have paid for the whole job in under a year. All for the possibility to get a bit of extra cash up front.
Shove ready jobs ... MY ASS.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 10 2020, @07:57PM (1 child)
In Japan there is a fibre optic network known as FLET'S, owned and operated by NTT, however, you are no more obligated to use their Internet service while using their fibre any more than you were obligated to use the phone company's own Internet service in the days of dial-up Internet. I believe the Japanese government basically told NTT that they can't use the last-mile fibre network they built as their exclusive property, but must allow interconnectivity the way the POTS did back in the day. And so today in Japan there is a selection of dozens of Internet service providers that can use the FLET'S network for last mile connectivity. After NTT installs the FLET'S fibre at your premises, you could then essentially "dial up" (using PPP over Ethernet no less) to a third-party provider like Biglobe, Plala, Asahi Net, OCN, Yahoo-BB, etc. to get connectivity. So in Japan Internet bills come in two parts: one for the last-mile (e.g. FLET'S) and the other for the Internet service itself. I believe this is the model that NYC is trying to emulate, although for some reason I doubt they'll be able to force AT&T or Verizon or whoever to provide reasonable and non-discriminatory access to third party ISPs with any such fibre network they might build, the way the Japanese government did NTT. These are after all the same bastards who somehow took billions of dollars in taxpayer money on a promise to build broadband infrastructure and just pocketed it!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @10:36AM
Yep, its like this in Japan, and its awesome. Cheap too, around $45 monthly for 1gb fiber Internet. Get 'Flets' (NTT last mile) fiber Internet, and then choose your ISP from a list of about 20 or so.
Flets FIber is available pretty much anywhere in the country, from central Tokyo to small mountain towns.
Not like the cluster that American Internet is..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 11 2020, @03:13AM
Where are they going to get the money to do that.
Then who is going to do it? Remember pretty much all of the people who can do exactly what they want work for the union that works for verizon. Good luck with that.
They will pass some bond. Then laugh all the way to the bank with yet another 1-2 billion that does not light up one line. Just like the last 3 times they did this.