Local governments running their own cable and/or broadband services is a bad idea. The latest reason why, from Carolina Journal’s Barry Smith:
The city of Salisbury’s website boasts that it is “America’s first 10 gig city,” noting that anyone who connects to the municipal Fibrant broadband network has access to Internet connection speeds of up to 10 gigabits per second. But a technology analyst questions the wisdom of city leaders gambling with taxpayer funding over such a risky endeavor.
Salisbury officials heralded the milestone in September at Catawba College when local and state leaders, including Catawba alumnus Gov. Pat McCrory, trumpeted the launch of the latest Fibrant upgrades. While city leaders hope the move will pay off in future economic development and jobs, Berin Szoka, president of Tech Freedom, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan technology think tank, said the city is wasting money paying for a network with far more capacity than the vast majority of users would require.
“It’s just silly to say people need 10 gigabits of speed,” Szoka said. He compared it to city building an eight-lane highway reaching every home.
You can read the rest of Barry’s story here.
