With Consumer Reports making the statement recently that, "CR broadly supports the concept of universal broadband and policies to support that, and we believe the internet should be treated like (and regulated like) a public utility." It seems important to provide some basic information again. This means that everyone that has looked at broadband objectively agrees that providing internet services as a utility, like electricity, makes the most sense. Our Port and PUD alone have the jurisdiction to provide this to everyone and could have for years. The COB has an existing fiber network that they sat on during a pandemic and the county has taken no real action. They all remind me of desperate people wading out into the ocean, trying to hold back the tide of public broadband. However, it's obvious that the writing is on the wall. Smart towns have already done this or are quickly starting to. Every town that had public fiber was way better off during the pandemic. In short, public fiber is the best way to ensure equitable connections for all. Here is a breakdown of the costs.
Cost of Gigabit Fiber:
South Korea: 100% coverage FTTP (Fiber to the Premises) $24/month virtually no install cost. Free for low-income households.
Japan: $25 same as South Korea
Mexico: $20 for 200 Mbits
Most Nordic Countries: About $50
Chattanooga, TN: $70, 100 Mbits is $40 but subsidized for low-income households.
Wilson, NC: About the same as Chattanooga, TN
Anacortes, WA (not far away): $70 a month usually a few hundred for an install.
Mount Vernon, WA (next door): $180 for Gigabit, install costs usually like Anacortes. A choice of 9 local net-neutral providers on their Open Access Network including PogoZone.
Kitsap PUD: 1 Gig $90/month. 5 local providers on an Open Access Network.
I can go on and on.
Bellingham... If you can get fiber at all (which most can't), WAVE charges $900 a month for Gigabit and $250 for only 100 Mbits. The average install costs seems to be around $25,000 in the County and thousands in town too. The Port's evaluation of WAVE's infrastructure showed a lot of broken strands, up to 1/2 of them and less than half of Mount Vernon's minimum for the number of strands installed in the first place. All of the big telecom connections perform much more poorly and cost even more if you do a Mbit paid for and provided comparison. In short, we pay the highest prices for the worst broadband. For example, using an RRUL load test my $102 dollar a month Comcast connection performs at about 22 Mbits down and 3 Mbits up. In Chattanooga, which provides up to 10 Gig services at this point, that would equate to about 1,500 Mbits down and up.