[Hidden-tech] Northampton City Municipal Network

[Mark D. Hamill]

I am looking for people on this list who reside or work in Northampton and
would be interested in joining me to advocate to the city council for
building a municipal network. I could try to do this myself but of course
there is strength in numbers.

Having spoken with Mayor Narkewicz he is not against a municipal network
and is well informed on the subject. The city even funded a study to see
what would be involved in creating such a network. However, it doesn't
appear to be a priority for the city as service is available via Comcast
and there are the other usual pressing needs that cities have to deal with.

The city already has access to the telephone polls so there is nothing
preventing it from placing fiber on these polls. In addition the city and
apparently some local businesses in certain buildings avail themselves (or
potentially could do so) of a fiber network the city already accesses.

Offhand I see two advantages to a municipal network: lower costs and the
potential to build a true fiber network. A true fiber network offers lots
of plusses including more reliability, higher speeds and huge amounts of
bandwidth. I believe having such an infrastructure city wide would
encourage more businesses to invest locally, increase property values,
allow more people to work from home and perhaps offer more flexibility in
services than Comcast can provide. It's pretty clear that Comcast sees no
reason to invest in a true fiber optic network as it is undeniably cheaper
to use their existing network and bilk it for everything it is worth, since
they have virtually no competition.

Having said that a separate network is just one approach for building a
municipal network. Here are some models:

https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-07-Muni-Fiber-Models-Fact-Sheet-FINAL.pdf

I am also seeing internet service as something that should be treated as a
utility. I suspect it is not that complex to actually set up and run such a
network given this is all off the shelf technology now. (I'm sure deploying
such a network is costly but the costs can be amortized over time.) As such
I think we should think of it like gas, electricity, water and sewage:
basic infrastructure that we should take for granted with confidence that a
local authority will manage it competently and at a fair cost, subject to
oversight by elected officials. We should subscribe to the services we need
over this network with the service provider of choice, rather than prefer
bundles available from Comcast.

I am sure there are many other advantages that some of you may know about.

Please let me know if you are interested in participating in such an
endeavor. A group of us (hopefully with some local business owners) will
have more of an impression on the city council than I would. First we would
need to meet, brainstorm and figure out a plan of action.

I am a resident of Florence, an independent consultant who works from home
and would appreciate a modern and more cost effective municipal network. I
also like choice, and there really is none at the moment.

Mark D. Hamill
markdhamill at gmail.com
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