Colorado Fiber To The Home – Glenwood Springs eyes expanding existing $3.5 million network to residents…

In: broadbandreports.com|Site Feeds|VoIP

8 Apr 2008

The city of Glenwood Springs, Colorado is mailing residents a ballot asking their approval to expand the city’s fiber network to residents. The city currently has a $3.5 million fiber network in place (we mentioned this back in 2002) that serves just businesses, and the city wants to spend an additional $12 million to offer full triple play services to residents. The original network suffered from, oh, a lack of any business plan whatsoever at one point, according to the Glenwood Springs Post Independent:

The best the current network has ever done financially is to lose about $189,000 last year, according to the city…Hecksel said the network got into its current situation through a series of decisions outside the original business plan. A city status report on the network says the network eventually operated with no business plan. Hecksel said public works director Robin Millyard has a saying that describes the current network: “It s like having a Ferrari in a garage on a gravel road.”

Alcatel Lucent is telling locals that $10 million a year is leaving the city as users (in some cases feet from an existing fiber loop) pay local carriers for broadband service. The city is currently engaged in the same, never-ending debate we’ve been having for the better part of a decade in our forums: should the city build the network and compete against private industry if private industry isn’t meeting user needs in coverage or speed?
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