Community-Owned Networks Offering Locals Dirt Cheap Broadband After Republicans Dismantle Federal Low Income Program
from the if-you-build-it,-they-will-come dept
Last year Trumplicans killed a popular program that provided poor people with $30 off of their monthly broadband bill. The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was, unsurprisingly, very popular, with more than 23 million Americans benefitting at its peak.
At the time, the GOP claimed they were simply looking to save money. The real reason the program was killed, of course, was that the ACP was popular with their constituents (the majority of ACP participants were in red states) and they didn’t want Dems to take credit during an election season.
A recent report by The Brattle Group actually found that the $7-$8 billion annual taxpayer cost of the program generated between $28.9 and $29.5 billion in savings thanks to expanded access to affordable internet, remote work opportunities, online education tools, and remote telehealth services. In other words: the program more than paid for itself via downstream benefits (something DOGE dudebros and other Trump cultists have a hard time getting their heads around).
When the program was killed, 23 million Americans suddenly faced significantly higher broadband bills. In some states, community broadband networks have been filling the void. Like in Longmont, Colorado, where the local community-owned Nextlight broadband network has been offering low-income families dirt cheap broadband access.
Because it’s actually interested in serving the community instead of exploiting it, Nextlight’s broadband speeds and pricing are already much cheaper than you’d see from a regional monopoly like Comcast or AT&T. But their low-income plans are even cheaper, with the town offering symmetrical 100 Mbps broadband for $15 a month, and symmetrical gigabit broadband for $45 a month:
According to Longmont officials, the low-income discounts applied to their community-owned broadband network (which just reached 28,000 users total) now reach 14 percent more low-income locals than the FCC’s ACP did:
“The IAP provides qualified households a $25 a month discount. 906 NextLight customers received the federal discount before the ACP ran out of funds. There are currently 1,034 customers taking advantage of the IAP discount.”
That a town built its own broadband network and offers most residents super fast, very cheap fiber access is a pretty cool thing that simply… doesn’t get the kind of policy or press attention it deserves. It’s an interesting example of broadband being treated as an important utility and not exclusively a profit-seeking business, and it’s an example of government directly and efficiently working for the people. And a bipartisan coalition of people being supportive and generally happy about it!
I think it’s also a useful example of the potential, highly localized future we could build if the federal government is going to continue to be too insane, incompetent, and corrupt to function.
When Republicans killed the program the press had a hard time actively blaming Republicans. Most articles just blamed a vague “congressional refusal to fund the program.” It’s part of a toxic, propaganda-laden modern media environment where modern Republicans rarely have agency or are required to take real ownership of their own unpopular policies that harm very real people.
It’s worth remembering that Republicans also tried to ban community broadband during the height of COVID, just when these networks were demonstrating their effectiveness. They didn’t do this out of any functional value system; they did it to protect shitty regional telecom monopolies from better, cheaper, faster service with better, more local customer support.
It’s not a panacea (building these kinds of networks can be complicated, expensive, and tricky to manage), but this model of locally-owned fiber networks (especially when they’re open access) often genuinely works to boost broadband quality and lower prices. It’s the kind of government-driven “abundance” guys like Ezra Klein claim to be clamoring for, yet the efforts still aren’t getting the attention they deserve in press and policy circles.
Filed Under: ACP, affordability, Affordable Connectivity Program, broadband, fcc, fiber, gigabit, low income, municipal
Comments on “Community-Owned Networks Offering Locals Dirt Cheap Broadband After Republicans Dismantle Federal Low Income Program”
Hallelujah.
But, good luck doing that in Texas.
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These days? Yeah. Texas only has 6 coops that serve residential.
If it’s dirt-cheap then somebody is subsidizing those lucky consumers
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Or service would normally be dirt cheap but somebody is keeping prices up artificially.
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Telcos VPs will say that’s the fault of Porsche and Rolex that don’t want to offer dirt cheap products.
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Broadband is already artificially high. Like 300% profit high.
Of course, municipal, coop, or smaller outfits can still be paying off initial costs, but subsidizing the “lucky” poor just creates less poor and more customers who can pay full, and contribute more financialy to their communities.
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It’s amazing how much cheap shit gets when their isn’t A board, a C Suite and a bunch of shareholders always making sure they get their money first.
Regional PUDs sell power to the locals around 3 cents a kWh.
Re: Who gets the subsidy? Me, or corporations?
For all that Republican/GOP/MAGA (RGM) say they want government to stop “picking winners and losers”, they sure like picking winners and forcing consumers to hold the sack.
Or are you saying that granting monopoly rents to major corporations isn’t doing that? Because they are, and doing it not simply directly by outright preventing competition, but in subtle ways by subsiding those corporations by privatizing the profits while socilizing the costs.
Direct is easy to point to: Cable. It’s rare for a city to have any meaningful cable competition, and telephone/cable, where CLEC’s get to rip out ILEC infrastructure on public poles and rights of way on a whim.
Indirect are things like granting free access to monopoly players for telephone poles and wire rights of way, states granting favorable trenching rules for public road crossings, forbidding competitive operators access to those same rights of way, and my favorite: Granting private incumbent power, telephone and cable the right for immediate and due process free taking of any cable/power/telephone circuits rights of way owned, maintained, or operated by private citizens via eminent domain. And let me be clear – doing it without a court order or intervention. And looking closely at places like Missouri and Texas, some pretty odd provisions with some fairly exact specifications. EG: Targeted to hit a specific competitor.
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…
So you know that every major, large, expensive isp has been heavily subsidized?
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It’s that cheap in most other countries around the world. You are just getting screwed over in the US.
I pay £30 per month for symmetrical 900 Mbps over here. There are no subsidies we just have food competition in the market (and it really doesn’t cost much to run a fiber network).
It’s much cheaper in some other countries in Europe.
Re: Nobody really is subsidizing it
It cost $47.3M to build the network between 2013-2017. Last year it brought in $21.7M in revenue and cost $12M to operate, and less than half of the original bond remains.
You could argue that i’m subsidizing it by paying $49.95 for 1G fiber, but since that’s less than any competitive offer (and far less than anything offered a decade ago) it doesn’t feel that way.
When covid first hit and schools went remote they offered completely free fiber to any low income households that didn’t have home internet. Certainly they have a mandate to serve the community, but not everyone takes it so literally.
I’m curious what will happen when the city pays off the bond as I believe the structure doesn’t allow them to create a profit.
Fun factoid I learned today...
Hitler promised to Make Germany Great Again. Now we know for sure where trump gets his ideas.
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Careful, dude. A teacher already got placed on administrative leave last year for making that exact insightful observation.
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Nah.
It’s just that shit minds think alike.
Nextlight
Back when I was on social media, people would ask “what Internet should I get” and then everyone would pile on with “Nextlight!”
But there would always be ONE person who said “no they suck, get Xfinity” and then they’d all get laughed at.
They’d say “don’t you see all the problems that get posted?” at which point everyone with gear that gave uptime stats would be say “over the last 2 years Nextlight has been down for 5 minutes”.
But there would always be ONE person, and often it turned out they confused their Wifi reception from the router in a box under the stairs with Internet performance.
The saddest Longmont residents are those that live in apartment complexes that won’t hook up to Nextlight. The city will do the hookup for nothing or peanuts, but the complex owners won’t do it.
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Governments could prohibit landlords from interfering with internet services. I believe the FCC once had such a rule, (though probably not anymore. The city would probably have the authority to pass one.