Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Colorado city OKs broadband plan despite opposition from internet providers

Brad Jones
By

fiber optic, computing
CreativeCommons
Voters in Fort Collins, Colorado have approved a proposal for a citywide municipal broadband service. When unofficial returns came in during the early hours of this morning, the measure was seen to pass with a 57.15 percent share of the vote.

Fort Collins is proposing the construction of a fiber optic network that will provide the entire city and the area it’s likely to expand into over the coming years with gigabit-per-second upload and download speeds. Pricing estimates for residential customers stand at $70 per month for 1gbps, and $50 per month for 50mbps.

Recommended Videos

The proposal offers some flexibility in terms of how Fort Collins might go about establishing the network. The council will be able to set up its own dedicated utility company, but there’s also scope for a partnership with an existing organization. Later this month, a session will be held to establish the next steps that need to be taken.

Related

Not everyone is enthused about the idea of the city council fostering municipal broadband. A group known as Priorities First Fort Collins spent $451,564 on its campaign to oppose the idea – by contrast the Fort Collins Broadband Committee only reported spending $9,250 on its campaign to support the proposal.

““I was very encouraged with the passage today, and particularly with the headwinds of incumbents trying to misinform the electorate,” commented Mayor Wade Troxell, according to a report from The Coloradoan. “And also, I was very disappointed in the [Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce] playing an active role in misinformation.”

It should come as no surprise that internet service providers played a key role in what Troxell characterized as a “misinformation” campaign. CenturyLink is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and Comcast contributed funds to the campaign run by Priorities First, according to a report from Ars Technica.

On the face of it, making broadband available to all residents seems like a no-brainer, but it’s the idea of pitting the government against private providers that some can’t agree with. There are concerns that putting these powers in the hands of the council will make it more difficult for commercial companies to compete, which could ultimately result in higher prices.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Brad Jones
Brad Jones
Contributor
Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…
About a third of U.S. households lack broadband internet. 5G may change that
d links new 5g home router link nr dwr 2010

A new report that addresses the topic of broadband internet access in the United States features a startling statistic: Almost a third of U.S. households do not have access to a broadband internet connection.

The report was published by market research company The NPD Group. According to a press release published by The NPD Group on Thursday, July 25, the report, known as the Rural America and Technology report, found that 31% of U.S. households didn’t have a broadband connection. In this case, a broadband internet connection would be defined as a connection that provides either a minimum of 25Mbps download speed or greater. The report notes that 31% of households without broadband would work out to “roughly 100 million consumers” who don’t have access to broadband connections and that most of these households are in rural markets.

Read more
Amazon takes another step toward being your home internet provider
Jeff Bezos Blue Origin

Amazon is moving forward with a plan to launch thousands of satellites into space in order to bring broadband internet service to nearly all of the United States.
Amazon subsidiary Kuiper Systems filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Thursday to obtain permission to launch 3,236 broadband satellites into low-Earth orbit. The goal of the satellites would be to cover the majority of the United States with broadband, with the exception being Alaska due to the state’s high latitude, ArsTechnica reports.
We first learned of Amazon's Project Kuiper in April. At the time, an Amazon representative described the project as “a new initiative to launch a constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites that will provide low-latency, high-speed broadband connectivity to unserved and underserved communities around the world. This is a long-term project that envisions serving tens of millions of people who lack basic access to broadband internet. We look forward to partnering on this initiative with companies that share this common vision.”
The new filings suggest that beyond home and business internet service, the satellites could also potentially be used by mobile phone companies to provide better coverage in rural areas.
Amazon hasn’t provided a timeline for the launch of the service; however, the FCC will require at least half of the satellites to be deployed within six years of it authorizing them. The remaining half will need to be deployed within nine years unless Amazon obtains a waiver. The company could also opt to offer broadband through a third party rather than directly to consumers.
If approved, Amazon’s satellites will be deployed at three different altitudes, 784 satellites at a height of 367 miles, 1,296 more at 379 miles, and 1,156 at 391 miles from Earth’s surface.
Kuiper’s president, Rajeev Badyal, was previously fired from SpaceX after CEO Elon Musk was unhappy with his progress in creating a satellite-broadband program. SpaceX already has permission from the FCC to deploy 12,000 similar satellites as part of its Starlink satellite internet program and has already sent some into space.
The first batch of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites was launched in May. In late June, the company announced that 57 of the first 60 satellites were working as intended and were in communication with the company’s ground stations. SpaceX lost communication with the remaining three satellites at launch and hasn’t heard from them since.

Read more
The 23andMe data breach just keeps getting scarier
A 23andMe kit

The 23andMe breach that took place in October has been confirmed as much worse than originally reported, affecting 6.9 million people, as opposed to the 14,000 users first thought.

Information stolen in the breach included users' full names, birth years, relationship labels, and locations. Approximately 1.4 million users also had Family Tree profile information on the service compromised. Hackers could also access genetic information in the breach, including details about common DNA percentages shared with relatives, and specifics such as chromosome matching, according to a spokesperson.

Read more