[HN Gopher] Colorado repealed law limiting municipal internet
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Colorado repealed law limiting municipal internet
        
       Author : thunderbong
       Score  : 87 points
       Date   : 2023-05-25 20:31 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (coloradosun.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (coloradosun.com)
        
       | dabluecaboose wrote:
       | I had a brief moment of hope that this might mean decent internet
       | would be available to me, before remembering the entire reason I
       | don't have fiber internet in-unit is because my condo HOA is a
       | bunch of boomers who turned down the install. Kickin' it
       | 2007-style with my DSL
        
         | samtho wrote:
         | This is infuriating and would have led me to start a smear
         | campaign against the leadership ultimately leading to a vote of
         | no confidence.
        
       | ilyt wrote:
       | > Senate Bill 152 was promoted by the cable industry as a way to
       | prevent wasting taxpayer money on infrastructure projects, like
       | municipal internet.
       | 
       | Yes, I'm sure it was to "not waste taxpayers money" and not to
       | remove competition...
       | 
       | Hell, why cable companies had a say in that in at all?
        
       | fetus8 wrote:
       | NextLight is truly an incredible service.
        
         | SplitVengeance wrote:
         | Another longmonster here. Totally agree that NextLight is
         | awesome. However, as someone that runs a nonprofit in town, I
         | wish that business/nonprofit pricing was more reasonable.
        
         | lp251 wrote:
         | a fellow longmonster!
        
           | polpo wrote:
           | We are legion! Love my NextLight.
        
           | oh_sigh wrote:
           | What's it like living in the big city? I'm just a little
           | Niwoter over here with no hope of ever getting Nextlight.
        
             | MetallicCloud wrote:
             | I'm in Erie and get Gigabit. It's not symmetrical, but it's
             | the best internet I've ever had.
        
         | cashsterling wrote:
         | It is proof that municipal internet can be awesome and is
         | probably the way most municipalities should go over time.
         | 
         | For those who don't know, Longmont Colorado's Nextlight
         | internet service provides symmetric 1Gb/sec speed for 50 USD
         | per month and they don't spy on your traffic.
         | 
         | It is the most reliable residential internet service I have had
         | to date and is more reliable than the commercial internet at my
         | places of work in Boulder.
        
           | 0000011111 wrote:
           | What is the data cap?
        
             | jffry wrote:
             | 2.6784 petabits is the most you'll be able to pull in a
             | month ;)
        
             | lp251 wrote:
             | there isn't one
        
           | bobwaycott wrote:
           | I don't brag on Chattanooga, TN often, but when I do, it's
           | always about the municipal symmetric gig fiber--CHA/EPB was
           | the first to do it in the US, it's always been cheap, it's
           | more reliable than anything else anywhere I've been, no data
           | caps or throttling, held off a Comcast lawsuit trying to stop
           | them (so Comcast went to the state to legislate away
           | meaningful competition), and (afaik) there's no spying on
           | you.
           | 
           | I was lucky enough to build a bunch of the software used
           | consumer-side to enable signing up for and managing fiber
           | internet/tv/phone service, was brought in to establish and
           | run their first internal software team, and built even more
           | cool software to make tech support real-time, improve the
           | lives of CSRs, and more. And they're now getting into quantum
           | computing. Truly a great group of people trying to take care
           | of their city, and every time I run into anyone, I'm still
           | impressed by what they're doing.
        
           | the_pwner224 wrote:
           | It's $70 per month. The $50 rate is for only for customers
           | who joined years ago. If you move to Longmont and sign up as
           | a new customer you'll be paying $70.
           | 
           | The pricing isn't super cheap, but it's very fair and the
           | service quality is good. No data caps, symmetrical speed,
           | good reliability. No IPv6 support though. They also recently
           | started offering 2.5 and 10 gbps for $150/250.
        
         | thcipriani wrote:
         | +100 Yay, Longmont!
         | 
         | My service has been rock solid:
         | https://photos.tylercipriani.com/2023-05-25_next-light.png
        
       | jahlove wrote:
       | Does any state (short of maybe California, I suppose) make it on
       | the front page of HN as much as Colorado?
        
         | thomasjb wrote:
         | Principality of Sealand?
        
         | simlevesque wrote:
         | New York ?
        
         | hesdeadjim wrote:
         | Well, we're a very polarized red/blue state, a tech hub, and
         | the source of most of the water for the entire southwest.
        
           | kyrra wrote:
           | Colorado has not been a purple state in 8+ years and is going
           | more solid blue by the year. In the 2022 election, there was
           | one thought to be close statewide election. It was a blowout,
           | 55.9% dem, 41.3% GOP. The 2020 presidential election had very
           | similar results.
           | 
           | https://www.politico.com/2022-election/results/colorado/
        
             | hesdeadjim wrote:
             | Aggregate stats are nice when it comes to presidential, but
             | we still have a bunch of reps like Boebert who cause havoc
             | in DC.
        
           | caseyohara wrote:
           | Colorado used to be very polarized, but that's not so true
           | anymore. It leans pretty strongly blue now:
           | 
           | > Biden won Colorado with over 55% of the vote, and by a
           | victory margin of 13.50%, an 8.6 percentage point improvement
           | on Clinton's victory in the state four years prior, the
           | strongest Democratic performance since Lyndon B. Johnson in
           | 1964, and the first time that it voted for a presidential
           | candidate of either major party by a double-digit percentage
           | since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
           | 
           | > In this election, Colorado weighed in as 9.1% more
           | Democratic than the nation as a whole. The results
           | established Colorado as a Democratic stronghold, rather than
           | the Democratic-leaning battleground state it had been for the
           | past three election cycles.
           | 
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidentia.
           | ..
        
             | epmatsw wrote:
             | It helps that the Colorado Republican party is about as
             | ineffective of a political group as I've ever seen. If they
             | were even moderately competent Boebert's district, Colorado
             | Springs, and to a lesser extent the new district
             | (Caraveo's) would be much redder than they voted the past
             | cycle.
        
       | donatj wrote:
       | The actual difference is almost certainly moot at the end of the
       | day since the ISPs are all in bed with the feds, but the concept
       | of getting my internet from the same institution (read:
       | Government) that brought us the patriot act sounds less than
       | ideal.
        
         | wolrah wrote:
         | You're thinking about the federal government. This is about
         | local governments developing last mile networks for the benefit
         | of their residents.
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | Better to give access to people who don't need the Patriot Act
         | to go through your stuff at will.
         | 
         | I don't think your city/county/state is administered by the
         | feds.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-05-25 23:00 UTC)