As far as I can tell, it might be illegal to offer direct service. Every muni and PUD that offers this in the state doesn't offer it directly - the actual account is managed by a private company - the city or PUD just runs the backbone.

With that said, the effect of Tacoma's Click network has been that Comcast is both cheaper there, and has published, standard pricing.

http://chadalexander.files.wordpress.com…

I hate the metro car tab taxes, property tax hike the city would have distributed with Hansen's arena, the waterfront seawall levy, and was happy when the 0.5% sales tax hike at restaurants finally ended with Safeco field bonds being paid off..... I would accept all those being added back if it meant the city was actually rolling out municipal broadband to let me kick Comcast to the curb.

Did he discuss any "synergy" between broadband infrastructure with the electric smart meter upgrade ?

The risk, of course, is that we invest hundreds of millions of dollars in a technology that becomes obsolete within 10 years. Or worse, that the next faster, cheaper technology is developed elsewhere because there's no sense in trying to install it in a place where the existing infrastructure is subsidized by taxpayers. We could be saddled by a white elephant for decades. Laugh if you will, but read chapter 36.95 of the Revised Code of Washington first (Television Reception Improvement Distric…) and be thankful you're not in a place that still has to pay off the latest greatest thing (from 1971).

@2 it is not illegal in this state.

@5, fearmongering like the cable companies want.

String the fiber optic cable. Worst case scenario is that it becomes "dated" like the copper telephone wiring we've been using for the past 50 years. I'm ok with that.

Simply Me dear, I would love to see truly municipally owned and operated Internet service. But why does Tacoma and every PUD in the state that offers it do so through a third party? Can you cite actual legislation that enables it, or is this some Mary Baker Eddy move on your part?

As more public service transactions become available online, it makes sense that Internet access shifts toward a public-utility mode instead of a luxury. Among other things, I can now renew my car tabs, my RPZ sticker and my fishing license online. (Kudos to those agencies for making this happen - that DOL site is especially nice for a gov't site).

I don't know how viable a "muni-net" is in Seattle, but I do know this: our current options suck ass. Comcast & CenturyLink offer pathetic substandard service, and overcharge for it. I've traveled extensively in Europe and Asia, and there are lots of countries all over the world that offer significantly faster internet service for much less money than is available here in Seattle. (Same for cell phone service too, but that's another subject.) Just about anything we do would be an improvement over our current service, such as it is.

Think about it. The current system incentivizes private companies to provide the lowest amount of service they can get away with and charge as much as they can get away with. There is almost no real competition. So they have very little incentive to offer faster service or lower prices.

As a user of Click!, I can tell you that while they suck a big one, they're a net positive for our city because they force Comcast to not be incredibly shitty when we have a reasonably priced municipal alternative.

Seattle is going to need the same thing if they have any hope of recapturing their internet infrastructure.

@8, I can't remember it off the top of my head right now but municipalies do not own things like this directly, but thankfully in this state a municipality can create and charter a non-profit to perform a prescribed task.

I got my Com degree at UW in Technology and Society (you're soaking in it).
I've looked at many interesting examples, Brookline, MA, for example, had such shitty cell service that they ended up creating a muni cell/wi-fi (mesh) network.

What I came back to, over and over, was that you can contract anybody to string fiber (City Light could handle that), but the information it transmits is the thing we should be most concerned with.

This should be viewed as a utility, available to every address in the city, like power meters and trash collection.
More importantly, the only folks involved with the city that regularly hires oeople with Masters in Information Science, and regularly fight for our information privacy, is the Seattle Public Library.
Change the SPL charter to be the front end ISP.
I already have a card, and a user web page. The only thing that needs is email.
They already collect fees (fines) directly from us.
But most importantly, they already run a public internet service.

We already have had a pilot project. It was very successful, and continues to this day.

http://www.spl.org/locations/central-lib…

I think it would be pretty cool to have an email address that was @Broadview.SPL.org
I think plenty of people in various neighborhoods would rather have email service that wasn't a Google asset for datamining.

@11, how much, how fast for Click!

@14

I pay $30/month for their basic package. Download speeds are sub 1 MB/second. I don't know what the comparable package is for Comcast, but I imagine it's better.

Its worth noting that Tacomas Click was installed at a time when bendable fiber cable wasnt yet available. Had it been available, Tacoma would have spent their Docsis 3.0 upgrades to bring gigabit speeds years ago.

The problem with Seattle running fiber internet is...

1) Its obvious the city has no employees that can do this, otherwise former mayor McGinn wouldn't have chosen Gigabit Squared (a company with no experience or money to build it out). Sure they got it done ... 20+ years ago, but those employees are either retired or working for Google, Wave, Comcast, etc, lol.

2) The 17 year ban on strip clubs that was overturned by citizens initiative tells me that its very possible that Seattle could filter content.

3) Remember when Seattle pulled the plug on citywide WiFi? Yeah they cherry picked a few neighborhoods that clearly didn't need faster internet, so nobody used it and those that did (mostly businesses) couldn't get it due to reception issues. Install a transmitter on a lamppost, sure people in the apartments can get it, but ground or sub basement offices, nope. Were they still using 802.11n transmitters every 300 feet? When WiMax became commercially available in 2003, did they switch over to this? Nope. Not even when the space needle became a broadcast tower for Speakeasy to provide commercial access for WiMax tech.

4) Union labor will push the costs of the build out. If you use Seattle City Light employees, you'll need to re-train them to deal with fiber and if they have time to do this, will most likely earn overtime pay installing this between their normal schedule.

Not impressed, id rather have Tacoma build it out.

Kinison, City Light already has a very robust fiber ring, and crews that maintain it. Other city departments also have fiber networks. It's nothing new. We're not living in Mayberry.

Sure, they have a staff that's deals with he maintenance of their existing fiber, but most of it is dark and not maintained, so to light that up, they need to hire more techs. To build it out is to hire even more and pay more because its will most likely be union labor and in high demand as more and more cities are wiring up for fiber ever since Corning developed the bendable fiber.

Sure were not Mayberry, but to build out fiber in straight lines down 4th ave is one thing, wiring fiber around every corner of an 32 unit apartment complex is very different. Not even Gigabit Seattle was proposing an all fiber network, it would have been a mix of wireless tech thrown into the mix.

I still do not trust that Seattle would choose the right equipment to complete the job given how they ignored WiMax for years and continued to install Wireless N hot spots every 300 feet. Also Seattle doesn't like smut, so yeah expect pointless filtering of web sites.

Check out Chattanooga TN, which has a muni broadband public infrastructure - it's the same old de-facto regulated utility monopoly and blows the shite out of anything you're getting from Comcast or Verizon.

This is in a deep-red state, under the auspices of Bob Corker (now conservative GOP senator from TN).

Issaquah has a non profit ISP with public fiber infrastructure. If some suburban sprawl yahoos can sort out last mile issues so can city light.



Muni broadband would also take a huge hit out of the cost of smart meters and numerous other infrastructure projects the city wants to buy off the shelf from the highest bidder.



Also agree with @4 bring on the taxes for something useful

@2 - Seattle is not restricted by the state law from owning and operating a fiber network (RCW 54.16.330 - http://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?c…, for your reference).



The law only applies to PUDs, so this hits the hardest on rural districts. A few years ago Sen. Hank McCoy tried to amend the law, but it didn't even make it out of the technology committee. The impact is that rural districts that want to build and then sell Internet access directly to rural ratepayers are forbidden to do so, and are required to get a private company to sell it, and thereby giving profits that should be going to the PUD over to the private company.



It's a raw deal, and I'm mad that it's didn't even make it out of the committee (which my Rep., Reuven Carlyle) sat on at the time.

This comment thread contains way too much actual data-based, informed content to be on the Slog. You're all under notice...

Thank you, Ben. That really is a stinkbomb piece of legislation, isn't it?



Tacoma is a muni, but they opted for the third party option also. I wonder if that is because they just didn't want to deal with it? Also, they're not real fiber: It's a fiber backbone, but copper to the house. I don't know if Tacoma Power installs the service drop, or one of the third parties.

Not going to try and defend Comcast's customer service, but I pay $30 a month for internet adequate enough to stream movie/Netflix. What is in this for me?

Where exactly should we be directing our feedback?

"But he also says citizens and businesses who are unhappy with the existing Internet choices need to demand it. "

@24, new customer discount and own your modem ?

@25: Look on the right side of this page! The mayor is available on all of the Internets. http://www.seattle.gov/mayor

@26-

Hundreds of millions of dollars for a new customer discount?

@23 - It is a piece of garbage legislation. I sound like a conspiracy theorist when I start talking about this, but it was promoted by ALEC, and similar legislation exists across the United States. The rollout of this legislation seems to have slowed recently, which is good, but across the US this kind of unnecessary restrictions on local authority are all over the place as a vestige of all of that telecom lobbying.

To check out all the states that have similar restrictions, check out this map: http://muninetworks.org/communitymap.

Deja vu all over again. It sounds like the resistance to City Light over 100 years ago. The matter was not resolved until 1952.

The City of Edmonds went to court on this recently and won: "The use of excess capacity on the City of Edmonds' high speed fiber optic communication system by private individuals and non-governmental businesses and organizations that need access to ultra high bandwidth communication is DECLARED to be a lawful public purpose of the City of Edmonds." In re Limited Tax General Obligation Bonds of City of Edmonds, 162 Wn. App. 513 (2011).

How do we get this ball rolling? I'm tired of comcast robbing me with a $65 fee for internet only. Is it a petition that's needed? Enough Seattleite signatures to show the mayor this is a deal?



Jason

Forget petitions. They mean nothing. Contact council members and the mayor's office, directly and respectfully (yes, that matters. No one wants to be yelled at) and speak in a coherent manner - not about your hate for Comcast, but for the need to a low-cost alternative.