Local Broadband Service Does Well

[lpetrich]

City-owned Internet services offer cheaper and more transparent pricing | Ars Technica
Community-Owned Fiber Networks: Value Leaders in America | Berkman Klein Center
At least in the United States.

Municipal broadband networks generally offer cheaper entry-level prices than private Internet providers, and the city-run networks also make it easier for customers to find out the real price of service, a new study from Harvard University researchers found.

Researchers collected advertised prices for entry-level broadband plans—those meeting the federal standard of at least 25Mbps download and 3Mbps upload speeds—offered by 40 community-owned ISPs and compared them to advertised prices from private competitors.

However, established broadband ISP's have not responded by trying to outperform that competition, but by trying to legally suppress it.

ISP lobby has already won limits on public broadband in 20 states | Ars Technica
Sorry, Comcast: Voters say “yes” to city-run broadband in Colorado | Ars Technica
City that was once sued by Comcast now offers 10Gbps Internet service | Ars Technica

The researchers did have difficulty collecting some of their data: legal difficulty.

There are caveats in the report, notably that it doesn't include pricing from AT&T and Verizon. "We did not collect data from AT&T because of prohibitions contained in the terms of service posted on AT&T's website," and "we did not collect data from Verizon because of prohibitions contained in the terms of service posted on Verizon's website," the report says.

 

[fromderinside]

Kind of like those moves against public funded water, sewer, roads from pooh scooping days.
City of Detroit Journal of the board of aldermen from january 8, 1883 to January 8,1884 inclusive https://books.google.com/books?id=m...y 8, 1883 to January 8,1884 inclusive&f=false

business tries to restrict public sewers, water and roads https://books.google.com/books?id=D...strict public sewers, water and roads&f=false

 

[Malintent]

I love it when a company fails at attempting a monopoly, and instead permanently dooms their future growth