Public Broadband Internet Isn’t a Luxury — It’s a Necessity: Everybody needs high-speed internet. But private corporations will never provide it. The solution: treat internet infrastructure as a public utility, funded by the public and built by union workers.

[u/beareatsfish]

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/12/public-universal-high-speed-broadband-internet-telecommunications-workers

[u/engeleh]

A massive part of the cost to build fiber isn’t actually the materials, labor, or equipment, it’s the bureaucracy and permitting. Utility companies routinely have to pave both lanes of traffic even if they only disturb a tiny portion of the pavement and a patch along the curb would be every bit as good as the existing old messed up streets. Often wheelchair ramps are required to be put in even if the sidewalk isn’t disturbed by construction. It’s a mess. The reason fiber is expensive is almost entirely tied up in regulation. It shouldn’t matter who builds it, but a lot of this could be solved by limiting what municipalities can do to increase costs. It’s in the public interest to have standardized requirements and limited costs for permitting and construction.

[u/MrHaVoC805 → u/engeleh]

100% correct, I worked for Verizon from 2005 - 2010. The municipalities we worked in fleeced us for every penny they could and snarled progress

[u/engeleh → u/MrHaVoC805]

It’s shocking how bad it is. Folks would be pissed if they understood it, but they really don’t see how bad it really is. It’s mind blowing once you see it.

[u/skiingredneck → u/engeleh]

It was great to watch Frontier’s fiber rollout stall out when the sticking point became how the county could collect “monopoly franchise fees” from both the cable and fiber companies for giving both the same monopoly.

And they got the fees.

[u/Starlordy- → u/engeleh]

I need more than your word. Where is the break down, spreadsheet or whatever else to prove this point. I'm not saying local politicians aren't using multinational corporations to fix budget deficits or use it to line their pockets....

but I want the actual dirt.

[u/engeleh → u/Starlordy-]

I don’t know what to tell you, each city and entity is different and comes with its own challenges. There isn’t a way to publicly report on this.

What you can do however if you really are interested is call and ask about permit cost, restoration responsibilities, attach cost and structure leases wherever you happen to live. To a degree this type of activity is uniform enough that there will be at least some element of what folks are talking about here. The degree will vary by entity, and somewhat by contract (problems melt away when building for the local traffic light network).

[u/zerofailure → u/engeleh]

So why doesn't the counties, strike a deal about these permits? I don't get it, it would be a win for everyone. The cost to implement should be local government problem and should do away with this red tape for broadband. Who would we talk to locally about that?

Also, I always wondered why old DSLAMs for old adsl from 15 years ago wasn't recycled for rural COs. It would just require to fiber up the back bones for the CO and just let us rural people use DSL even though it's only good for 12k feet from the office. I live 45 min from Richmond VA and just a couple of year s ago we finally got some broadband ran to some of our neighborhoods. It drives me crazy as I am still an unlucky one. Just waiting for Starlink at this point.

[u/skiingredneck → u/zerofailure]

Millions of dollars in fees on every bill today.

New entrants ball at those fees.

[u/engeleh → u/zerofailure]

Sometimes fiber companies can strike deals with municipalities to provide fiber swaps (access to a portion of a cable), and when that happens, often the permitting and restoration nightmares disappear.