> Today, you can get 200/10 for $100/month. Not bad, but head a bit east to Salisbury, MD and you can get 1000/35 through Comcast for $105 ($80 for the first year). That's the big fear with municipal services. Upgrading head ends won't get you press like rolling out a broadband service in the first instance will.
A counterpoint to your argument is Time Warner didn't improve speeds or customer service until Google Fiber started building in Kansas City. Only a few ISP's serve large parts of the country. If they can ignore you while getting monopolistic profit, they will. Building a locally owned competitor might be the only way for lower tier cities and communities to get the gigabit fiber and proper customer service that is so attractive to techies like me.
Edit: Now that I think about it. I have only seen your 'fear' come up once. With Provo's locally owned fiber, which yes, they seemed to have bungled. They did get Google to come and take it over. Many other places have done so much better. Noah from AskNoah/Jupiter Broadcasting lives in Grand Forks, ND. When they had a flood that required them to redo the sewer system a decade ago they put in fiber and now have gigabit internet to residents.
A counterpoint to your argument is Time Warner didn't improve speeds or customer service until Google Fiber started building in Kansas City. Only a few ISP's serve large parts of the country. If they can ignore you while getting monopolistic profit, they will. Building a locally owned competitor might be the only way for lower tier cities and communities to get the gigabit fiber and proper customer service that is so attractive to techies like me.
Edit: Now that I think about it. I have only seen your 'fear' come up once. With Provo's locally owned fiber, which yes, they seemed to have bungled. They did get Google to come and take it over. Many other places have done so much better. Noah from AskNoah/Jupiter Broadcasting lives in Grand Forks, ND. When they had a flood that required them to redo the sewer system a decade ago they put in fiber and now have gigabit internet to residents.