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ARPA Is Quietly Funding Cheap ($50-$65 A Month) Community-Owned Gigabit Fiber Access To Long Neglected Neighborhoods
from the build-it-and-they-will-come dept
The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) continues to quietly help fund a number of extremely popular community-owned, open access fiber deployments that are challenging entrenched U.S. monopoly power, and driving super cheap, community-owned and operated fiber networks into long neglected towns.
New York State, for example, just leveraged ARPA funds to give a $26 million grant to Oswego County. Oswego County is going to use that money to build an open access fiber network. That means multiple ISPs can come in and compete over shared infrastructure owned by the county. Our Copia report showcased how this model can help disrupt monopoly power and lower broadband costs for users.
The anchor tenant on Oswego County’s new network, Empire Access, will provide locals with 500 Megabit per second (Mbps) service for $50 a month; symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) service for $65 a month; and symmetrical 2 Gbps service for $100 a month.
That’s not great news for regional New York State monopolies Charter and Verizon, who’ve grown fat and comfortable charging much higher prices for much slower access. The lack of real competition between the two giants for decades has resulted in high prices, slow speeds, spotty coverage, inconsistent upgrades, repair delays, and substandard customer service.
Charter, you might recall, was almost kicked out the state for lying to regulators about its merger with Time Warner Cable. Verizon similarly has long been under fire for cheaping out on uniform fiber upgrades despite untold millions in taxpayer subsidies.
Meanwhile in Minnesota, Carver County officials say they’ve also been leveraging ARPA funds to deploy affordable gigabit fiber to every county resident. Their model is slightly different: The city has used grant money to build dark fiber, which they then lease to a company called MetroNet as part of a public-private partnership. MetroNet is offering locals gigabit fiber for prices way less than regional monopolies:
“Metronet currently offers four tiers of service with varying promotions, which currently include symmetrical 150 megabit per second (Mbps) fiber for $35 a month; symmetrical 500 Mbps for $45 a month; symmetrical 1 gigabit per second (Gbps) for $50 a month; symmetrical 2 Gbps for $70 a month; and symmetrical 5 Gbps for $110 a month.”
Again, this kind of stuff doesn’t get much attention from a press that declares infrastructure too boring to cover. But this kind of stuff is quietly transformative all the same. It’s also not clear to me why Senate Democrats aren’t competently messaging the impact ARPA funds are having on affordable broadband. Or local community centers, local road improvements, or affordable housing.
Many states try to “address the digital divide” by throwing more and more money into the laps of giant regional telecom monopolies with a long history of subsidy abuse. Many other states are trying to “fix broadband access” by throwing money at Elon Musk’s Starlink, ignoring the LEO satellite platform’s capacity constraints, high prices, erratic leadership, and problematic environmental impact.
But some states (most notably Vermont, Maine, California, and New York) are trying a different tack: they’re investing heavily in community-owned open access infrastructure, and treating broadband more like an essential utility (where maximizing shareholder profits isn’t the top priority). They’re leveraging an historic infusion of federal funds to put local communities in charge of their own connectivity fate.
Entrenched telecom monopolies, which have worked tirelessly over decades to dismantle broadband competition and state and federal oversight, have worked tirelessly to demonize and undermine community broadband access. But in a decade it should be interesting to see what the data says about the differing approaches.
Keep in mind that states are also poised to receive more than $42.5 billion in additional broadband grants courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill. That program has significantly more restrictions than ARPA, and there’s every indication that the Trump administration will do its best to redirect as much of that money as possible away from community owned endeavors and toward companies that kiss Trump’s ass.
Filed Under: arpa, broadband, fiber, gigabit, grants, high speed internet, monopoly, municipal broadband, open access
Companies: empire access, metronet
Comments on “ARPA Is Quietly Funding Cheap ($50-$65 A Month) Community-Owned Gigabit Fiber Access To Long Neglected Neighborhoods”
Whether it’s timing, wording, or both, the Democrats suck at messaging more often than not.
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The senate dems in particular sound like they’re more on the senile side as of late.
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Sad, but true. It seems like they need to start using click-bait type lies like the Republicans or people won’t pay attention.
Fibre can be shared
Not sure why the US does not do fiber to the home and then allow different companies to share it.
You can have COMPETION for services on fiber if done correctly. Different service providers can use different light wavelengths (colors) and run over the same fiber.
A public fibre could be opened up to competition and multiple companies bidding to lease space on it to provide services.
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I don’t think that’s necessary or practical. Wavelength isn’t generally a configuration option, but something defined by standards such as GPON and 10G-PON. Every ISP would have to order custom equipment to deal with this type of sharing.
The builders could just bring multiple lines to each home, like how phone companies almost always ran 2. Then whenever someone buys service, the physical plant operator can connect to a service provider’s equipment (in a central office, a shed, or wherever).
So just more taxpayer-funded largesse, eh?
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You think taxes paying for infrastructure is “largesse”? Interesting. And by “interesting” I mean “stupid”.
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The captain has already given you the straight dope, but I’ll fill in the context for those playing at home.
Community broadband typically means more money stays in the community, helping the local economy to thrive. It’s often cheaper and therefore the poor have greater access and therefore more opportunities that high speed and consistent internet access provides. It also means others pay less for service that thus deprives large corporations of the extra profits that they in turn use to bribe/lobby politicians to subvert democracy for their own further profits.
So yeah, unless you’re in favor of individuals wasting money to give to already wealthy people so that they can afford another yacht and make your vote and interests less represented in your government, this is a win.
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Now that's what I call ARPANet!
Seriously, a very good move, all thanks to President Trump.
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but Joe Biden signed ARPA into law two months after Trump left office.
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I think you hit your head on something. Who do you think was president in 2021, when this was enacted?
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Who is the president now that hasn’t abolish this law?
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Who are you who doesn’t know that a president can’t abolish a law?
That’s also a terrible argument even if the president had the power to do so. There are too many laws for a president to review, but your perspective would be that the president would be responsible for each of them not being abolished. So I guess we should be excoriating Trump for every unjust law on the books?
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We can still excoriate him for every unjust law he didn’t pocket veto though, right?
Are you telling me the ARPANET is back?
It’s also not clear to me why Senate Democrats aren’t competently messaging the impact ARPA funds are having on affordable broadband.
Most aren’t competent.
Many may not care, nor even remember.
Those who are competent and care might not wish to bring it up currently (i cannot speak to the past, but it does occasionally speak for itself) in order that they might avoid some assholes just blowing it up.
Oh No!
So disappointed you broke this story; now they’ll know!
Trump has said America is Great Again, therefore no Americans could possibly need “rescuing”! This Biden bill is a fraud, it’s waste of taxpayer money and is abusing the telcos authority to gouge the consumer in a free market! DOGE must act now to protect America from cheaper internets!
Seriously, who wants to bet that the only reason it hasn’t been struck down is that Congress critters either confuse it with DARPA and think it’s a military thing, or know that it isn’t but are worried that somebody else (a Republican primary challenger?) will claim that it is and smear them for opposing it?