The one thing I want to no clarify,
> Such service is at least partially taxpayer funded which means that everyone pays for it whether they use it or not.
If the muni-broadband increases competition from 1 to two, and reduces costs for everyone, then even if some tax payer that fund the muni-broadband don’t use it actively, they do benefit from its existence.
1) The prices offered by the muni-broadband aren't too low driving out all competition
2) The prices offered by the muni-broadband are low enough to force competitors to offer the best pricing
3) The cost to taxpayers of the muni-broadband are less then the decreased prices to consumers brought about by this competition.
The end result being, that I doubt a scenario where taxpayers benefit by funding a municipal competitor will actually work out.
Umm, I hear your concerns and I agree if muni-broadband reduces competition, that is not ideal. That said, this is an odd statement to make. There is data to show muni-broadband can be successful and is many times successful.
> The cost to taxpayers of the muni-broadband are less then the decreased prices to consumers brought about by this competition.
Again, I hear you. The municipality has to be competent and use funds appropriately. Ideally, no net-new taxes should be used. Ideally, muni-broadband is a net-positive venture funding other municipality endeavors.
There are a lot of cases where both versions of this story are true, the same way a lot of companies succeed and a lot of companies fail. It is not intrinsic to muni-broadband but rather intrinsic to the people running it.
Meanwhile, I was just responding to "do all of the taxpayers in the municipality benefit from the muni-broadband?"
And specifically to that one question, yes if there are 0 or 1 broadband providers serving a municipality, then every tax payer benefits from muni-broadband.
Either:
1. The price of the muni-broadband is too-low, i.e. everyone in the municipality move over to it.
2. The price of the muni-broadband is competitive, i.e. everyone in the municipality has reduced prices through competition.
3. The price of the muni-broadband is too-high, i.e. everyone in the municipality learns that their elected officials need to be changed. And/or some policy changes need to be made by learning from other municipalities.
But my skepticism was a bit narrower than muni-broadband in general. In particular, I am skeptical of scenario where we have taxpayers paying higher taxes to subsidize muni-broadband, don't use that broadband, and yet are still better off due to increased competition, which is the sort of scenario I took you as suggesting.
But it seems that wasn't what you were talking about. It currently seems that you are arguing that if we just look at the benefits of municipal broadband, everybody benefits. Sure. But I don't see the point in looking only at the benefit side of the equation.
> In 2015, it re-upped its status as a speed leader by becoming the first provider to offer 10 gigabits per second.
> The system has proven an unqualified success. Over half of the homes and businesses in the service area are signed up with “The Gig.” Plus, its price of $68 per month for a gig connection is lower than any private-sector rival for the same service. The operation is cash-positive, allowing EPB to pay off the bonds 12 years ahead of schedule and lower home utility rates.
> A recent study documented more than $2.69 billion in economic benefits to the region during the network’s first ten years. At the beginning of 2020, Forbes magazine predicted Chattanooga would be the number one city for new jobs, and even after the pandemic hit, Time Out magazine called it the best place in the country to work remotely. The expansion has been widespread, with the city seeing one of the highest income growths in the country.
To summarize "everyone benefits" because:
- "the operation is cash-flow positive" i.e. no net-new taxes.
- "price of $68 per month for a gig connection is lower than any private-sector rival" i.e. customers are saving money.
- "$2.69 BB in economic benefits to the region" i.e. everyone else is getting a boost, because connectivity (like roads) attracts business and now also attracts remote workers.
This is just one city (I googled for this success story and saw others, but I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader), and you might argue "its run competently, most gov entities are not". I agree! People get what they vote for. Vote for competency! Meanwhile, poor voting is not specific to muni-broadband so I'll leave it there.
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/building-back-america/in...
But to reiterate my last point, I was expressing scepticism of taxpayer subsidized muni-broadband turning out to benefit everyone. If its cash-flow positive, that's a different scenario where I'm much less skeptical.
In order to ensure the best outcome for consumers, we want customers to have a variety of competing options for broadband service. That way they can select the option which gives them the best cost/value proposition. No individual provider can abuse or take advantage of customers, because they can just switch to another provider.
Municipal broadband, by its nature, is incompatible with this competition. Such service is at least partially taxpayer funded which means that everyone pays for it whether they use it or not. Further, the city controls access to the corridors needed for providing internet service. The consequence is that the city ISP would have a great advantage over other ISPs, preventing any real competition.
The case then is that we need to ban city-run ISPs so as to promote competition amongst ISPs in order to ensure the best service.
However:
I'm not sure of a good defense of forbidding it at the state level, instead of allowing individual municipalities to make their own decisions. Furthermore, I'm not sure of a good defense ensuring competition by forbidding public isps but not also requiring cities to make it easy for new isps to enter markets by giving access to corridors.