Tri-County becomes the first electric co-op in Florida to tackle FTTH

Re:Tri-County becomes the first electric co-op in Florida to... by dljsjr on Monday April 18, 2022 @05:43PM (#31076980)

This is somewhat notable because Florida is one of several state with laws that present roadblocks for municipal broadband efforts in the US.

From [1]:

> Florida state laws impose “ad valorem” taxes on municipal broadband networks, but does not impose such taxes on other public utilities or services sold to the public. The state laws generally subject municipalities to restrictions on capital-intensive initiatives that make broadband projects difficult to begin. The statutes require municipalities to hold at least two public hearings, during which local officials must offer a roadmap to profitability within four years — making nearly any citywide municipal broadband proposal unfeasible.

I'm wondering if the fact that they're leveraging the co-op's power grid to do the build-out helps them get around this.

[1]: https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc...

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Re:Tri-County becomes the first electric co-op in Florida to... by gigatexal on Monday April 18, 2022 @05:49PM (#31077054)

This is amazing. 2Gbit service for 99 a month is a great deal in the US. If it's reliable and fast ... * I almost considered thinking twice about moving down to Florida...*

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Re:Tri-County becomes the first electric co-op in Florida to... by spullara on Monday April 18, 2022 @09:28PM (#31078855)

You can get up to 10 Gbit in Chattanooga with a similar system:

https://epb.com/

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Re:Tri-County becomes the first electric co-op in Florida to... by vmurthy on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @03:03AM (#31080358)

I am crying look at this. We're lucky to get 50 Mbps here in Sydney,Australia :(. The "gigabit" speeds here seem to be in the 250 Mbps range [0]

[0]https://www.techradar.com/au/best/best-nbn-1000-plans

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Re:Tri-County becomes the first electric co-op in Florida to... by madengr on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @08:00AM (#31081982)

Sure, 0.25 Gbps, it’s not like your ISP is lying. I had 0.1 Gbps before Google Fiber came through.

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Re:Tri-County becomes the first electric co-op in Florida to... by zinekeller on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @02:40AM (#31080248)

EPB of Chattanooga is always the model system for muni internet. They also said that their goal is not to dominate (which is their current position now), but to make sure that at least competing companies will match up their offerings (which commercial consumer ISPs tried until EPB rolled out multi-gigabit symmetrical speeds).

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Re:Tri-County becomes the first electric co-op in Florida to... by gigatexal on Tuesday April 19, 2022 @03:33AM (#31080494)

Amazing. Love muni-fiber efforts.

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