Telco Won’t Install Fiber Network, Sues to Prevent City from Doing So
July 24th, 2008Individuals and local government working together to improve a situation that the “free market” has no interest in addressing?
Unthinkable. It can’t be allowed. Send lawyers, guns and money.
Via: Ars:
The small town of Monticello, Minnesota seems an unlikely spot for a battle over city-owned fiber-to-the-home. The town, which is a distant commute to Minneapolis, thought it could better attract residents and business by building its own fiber-optic network. After a couple years of due diligence, the town held a referendum; 74 percent of voters agreed to fund the $25 million scheme. The city sought the needed municipal bonds, but the day before it closed on them, the local telco filed suit to stop the plan. Its claim: taking out bonds to build a fiber network is illegal.
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The City of Monticello, which has just replied to the lawsuit, thinks the whole case is ridiculous. In its response, the city’s attorney says that the telco offers only a “plain misreading of a Minnesota statute” and “pleads no facts that tend in any way to call into question whether the project constitutes a ‘utility or other public convenience from which revenue is or may be derived’.”
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Mitchell, who has been involved with the city on this entire issue, tells Ars that he’s sympathetic to arguments from private companies about having to compete unfairly with cities. But he points out that cities have to publish their business plans, deployment, targets, and funding, which levels the playing field. And Monticello did first approach Bridgewater, asking it to deploy fiber in the town; the answer was no.
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Local control, choice of ISP
Assuming the lawsuit can be dealt with, Monticello hopes to build fiber lines to each home and business in town with the goals of:
* choice of service provider
* competitive rates
* local service
* local ownership
* economic development
* economic returns to the community
When 74 percent of town’s voters want to build themselves a fiber network, but the telco demands that they 1) not do it, and then 2) accept that the telco won’t do it for years, either, the market (such as it is) doesn’t appear to be functioning well.
Reminds me of the “frivolous lawsuit” stumping Bush did back when his opinion polls were on the >50% side. I wonder how he’d feel about this one?