I say the govt needs to shit or get off the pot. Either decide they will pay for everyone’s infrastructure (like the interstate highways), or stop one-off grants like this. What telco is going to fund this internally if they think the govt might pay for it?
If we take government (or Google) funding out of the picture, is $60/mo the right price for 1 Gig service in rural areas? My customers would think I was loony if I offered them $60/mo service with a $4700 install fee. It would make a lot more sense for it to cost more per month with only a nominal upfront fee. And few rural customers, even businesses, are actually asking for 1 Gig speeds. They would be like pigs in shit if they could get 25M. I do understand though that once you build FTTH you might as well offer a 1 Gig tier, not sure you need to price it at $60. Trying to look at a scalable model that could be widely deployed without huge subsidies, you can’t spend 9 years revenue upfront to build it. Not when free cash flow from operations will be what, optimistically 25% of revenue, making it look like 36 years payback? Raising the price just a little would drastically change these numbers. But selling 1 Gig for $60/mo without the customers having any skin in the infrastructure game puts alternatives like WISPs out of business. And if telcos can get RUS grants or CAF subsidies to build fiber, no rural telco is going to build fiber until it gets its grant or subsidy. So the government should view this as all or nothing. Either build a nationwide fiber network with taxpayer funds so speeds can be high and monthly costs can be low, or stop the crony capitalism as Rory points out. From: Paul Stewart Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2015 9:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] 1G fiber for $60 ... if you get $85M govt grant I don’t understand … $4700 per home served isn’t completely out of line depending on local geographics…. Am I missing something? (other than the government funding private business discussion etc) From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof Sent: Tuesday, June 9, 2015 10:20 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [AFMUG] 1G fiber for $60 ... if you get $85M govt grant Am I doing the math wrong? $85M govt grant, service area is 18K homes and businesses, isn't that $4700 per home passed? So isn't it wonderful that people can get this service for $720/year, if the govt pays 9 times that for the construction. http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/06/10gbps-internet-for-400-a-month-can-be-yours-if-you-move-to-vermont/ Then we have to hear all the time that the only reason everyone can’t get this speed at this price is because ISPs are greedy.
