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Re:The Washington state legislature has voted to end limits ... by mtnGoat on Thursday April 15, 2021 @11:53PM (#26829252)
In chelan and Douglas counties, the PUD essentially owns the fiber networks as well as the power networks, but they are only allowed to sell power directly. For broadband I have to go through another provider, I’ve always thought this was silly. A few of those providers have done quite well financially, in leveraging this situation. All they do is customer service, and hook up from the pole to the house, and lease routers. the infrastructure investment was prepaid by the public.
Re:The Washington state legislature has voted to end limits ... by CameronNemo on Friday April 16, 2021 @02:08AM (#26830138)
I don't see why that is such a terrible situation. Sure some providers are profiting off of people's naïveté, but other providers could easily undercut them with minimal investment. And let's face it, govt orgs have a bad reputation in the customer service area.
Re:The Washington state legislature has voted to end limits ... by mtnGoat on Friday April 16, 2021 @11:16AM (#26834903)
Except in this case the PUD are not for profit and do not have a monopoly. So they are forced to compete. Sad that so many public utilities have screwed up so bad and ruined the idea for the rest. The customer service at the local PUDs are quite simply amazing. They pay and treat their employees incredibly well also.

In this case I think the PUD can actually undercut the existing providers as they already have support staff in place, linemen, etc. but aren’t allowed to take a profit.

Re:The Washington state legislature has voted to end limits ... by avs733 on Friday April 16, 2021 @08:30AM (#26833052)
So do telcos