this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2024
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There's a city in Tennessee USA (Chattanooga, I think) whose government started offering fiber internet as a utility. It would be interesting to study them as a case study, and see if it would a viable solution elsewhere.
Look at Saskatchewan, Canada. We're the only province with a public telecom, SaskTel.
Most people in the cities and even larger towns have fiber, and our cell plans are significantly cheaper than anywhere else in Canada despite being a rural province with a large coverage area to population ratio.
We also have decent electricity rates considering we have no hydro, and the cheapest natural gas in Canada. Thanks to SaskPower and SaskEnergy.
Public utilities are the only way to do it, I'm always shocked to see people defend privatization in any way.
They've been lied to by the illusion of freedom of choice. Or they're rich and don't care.
Sadly (or not) most of us live a little bit south of Saskatoon
Saskatchewan is such a fucking great case study in why this shit works, because you have literally identical conditions all around them, excerpt in that one detail, and the price differences are enormous.
We have the next best thing here from municipal internet. A local ISP started up and offered to lay fiber in any neighborhood where 40% or more of the population agreeing to sign up.
I know Spectrum is desperate for people in this neighborhood to return because I get a lot of mailings and never see a Spectrum truck anymore, but the cost is about the same, the speed is massively higher (we're talking max 15 mbps to max 50 mbps on my line and you can pay for a faster speed) and it's so much more reliable.