Tired Of Being Ripped Off By Monopolies, Cleveland Launches Ambitious Plan To Provide Citywide Dirt Cheap Broadband::Cleveland has spent years being dubbed the “worst connected city in the U.S.” thanks to expensive, patchy, and slow broadband. Why Cleveland broadband sucks so badly isn’t really a mystery: consolidated monopoly/duopoly power has resulted in a broken market where local giants like AT&T and Charter don’t have to compete on price, speeds, availability, customer…

  • gareins@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    13
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    11 months ago

    Question: could not a private company mostly owned by the city do it? Normal for profit company providing alternatives? And do it block by block…

    • Saik0@lemmy.saik0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      11 months ago

      They could… but typically that required pulling tons of permits to do. Also means that they intend not to make a whole lot of money doing it since “cheap” is part of this. Companies are a bit allergic to doing a lot of work for cheap.

      But to that point, I have enough density in my area that centurylink is installing fiber (finally…) and actually offering it at almost reasonable value. It makes monetary sense for them in this case. So they’re doing it.

      • Green_Bay_Guy@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        ·
        11 months ago

        CenturyLink from where I grew up (rural Wisconsin), still only offers DSL as the fastest option. I now live in rural South Vietnam, and I have a fiber drop into my bedroom. Ridiculous really.

          • Green_Bay_Guy@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            11
            ·
            11 months ago

            for the fiber

            Actually, I just fell in love with it. Wonderful food, people are kind, internet fast, no politics, fantastic coffee. I could go on for days.

            • uis@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              11 months ago

              no politics

              Be careful, you can end up in other place with fast and cheap(100Mbit/s for ~4-10$/mo) internet and without politics - Russia.