After beating cable lobby, Colorado city moves ahead with muni broadband

[Suppressed]

After beating cable lobby, Colorado city moves ahead with muni broadband
Fort Collins plans universal broadband, net neutrality, and gigabit speeds.
JON BRODKIN - 1/3/2018, 12:22 PM
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/colorado-city-to-build-fiber-broadband-network-with-net-neutrality/


Still from an industry-funded ad warning against municipal broadband in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Priorities First Fort Collins

The city council in Fort Collins, Colorado, last night voted to move ahead with a municipal fiber broadband network providing gigabit speeds, two months after the cable industry failed to stop the project.

Last night's city council vote came after residents of Fort Collins approved a ballot question that authorized the city to build a broadband network. The ballot question, passed in November, didn't guarantee that the network would be built because city council approval was still required, but that hurdle is now cleared. Residents approved the ballot question despite an anti-municipal broadband lobbying campaign backed by groups funded by Comcast and CenturyLink.

The Fort Collins City Council voted 7-0 to approve the broadband-related measures, a city government spokesperson confirmed to Ars today.

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The city will also be developing policies to protect consumers' privacy. FCC privacy rules that would have protected all Americans were eliminated by the Republican-controlled Congress last year.

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[WingNot]

Liberals always believe they can do everything better than the private sector.   If this goes thu it will cost 8 times what a cable company would charge and still be underwritten with the taxpayers money.

[jmyrlefuller]

If it's anything like the attempt at bringing high speed Internet to my hometown, it'll be mired in delays and excuses from the contractors, eventually getting abandoned with all those taxpayer subsidies sent down the drain and the people of Fort Collins still beholden to the cable companies.