Fuck you Ajit Pai!
So say we all.
I am excited about this, but I expect it will years until we see something.
Amusingly I’ve exchanged emails with the Kitsap Public Utility District (KPUD) who have for years been slowly (I’m talking really slowly) building out fiber here. Basically I wanted to see if they were serious or not about it so I’d have competition for Comcast.
They wanted 50k more or less to build it out for my street and told me to go hit up my neighbors to spread the cost.
This of course just made me laugh and answered the question, no they’re not serious about this at all.
They might get serious if/when the federal government picks up most of the tab – which sounds like a distinct possibility with the money being thrown around on infrastructure. Don’t give up hope!
My city, OTOH, has been talking about attracting competition for years (since VA makes it almost impossible for the city to actually do anything about building a muni network, despite Blacksburg, VA being one of the better muni networks in the country!) Instead, they keep going out for bid on encouraging someone else to build a middle mile network, but they won’t promise that the city will act as anchor tenants and they won’t address anything related to last mile, so – shocker! – no one will invest. As a result, Comcast (which generously supports the city council) is somehow the undisputed monopolist for broadband within the city, just as it has been since the city told Verizon to screw off and not bother to install Fios. Small town politics suck.
I’m glad CA and WA are standout progressive states in the dystopia that is Amurrikka.
My town in Oregon is starting the process of muni broadband. Right now it is only going in for new developments but could expand out over time. Basically ‘adding this in to the new sub divisions and housing projects is easier than tearing up existing neighborhoods so let’s start there’.