We Need Broadband Internet for All

As usual, two options are presented:

1. Government-mandated monopoly provider

2. Government provider

A small business I worked at in a town with a population of 40,000 was approached by the local cable provider. We had 4x T1 lines at $1000 per month. They offered to run fiber to our building for only $1000 per month plus $4000 per year for three years installation fee. Given how many other places we could spend $4000 per year for three years, we opted to keep the existing T1 stupidness as the slow bandwidth was not a serious problem for a small manufacturer.

I found it interesting that during the sales pitch of their salespeople (new rep + her manager), they mentioned that they were "in good with the town council" and were proud of this fact.

Our building was approximately 150 feet from a cable box in a residential neighborhood that was immediately on the other side of a tall fence along one side of the parking lot.

I asked why they couldn't just run a cable from that cable box, and they told me that the city had a law that forbid them from running a single line across public property to private property that wasn't receiving service and then to another private property that would receive the service. The private property they were referring to was a 10' strip of unused property with bark ground cover.

I asked why they hadn't run cable throughout the industrial zone that we were located in. They said that they had plans approved by the city, but those plans required they use a PG&E substation on the opposite side of the industrial zone that was already at 100% capacity. They had requested, years ago, for PG&E to upgrade the substation, but this request didn't even have and ETA from PG&E, itself yet another government-mandated monopoly provider.

Now, why they could run a fiber optic cable anywhere they pleased, is beyond me. They certainly were excited at the prospect of offering us this service.

The problem here that I have personally witnessed has nothing to do with the evil cable provider and everything to do with a corrupted local government.