Submitted by finsterallen t3_10mek43 in baltimore
Comments
Xanny t1_j64loel wrote
This would make sense in a city and state totally bereft of funds to support its own infrastructure, maybe, and even then it would be horrificially shortsighted.
Baltimore and Maryland are honestly awash in cash. The city claims to have no money but that is after they earmark over a billion dollars for the schools and the cops. In truth priorities are just horribly misaligned, and selling off public infrastructure for what amounts to a drop in a bucket of corruption is just throwing away the cities future.
The conduit division is underfunded and understaffed not because there is no money left, but because politicians deprioritized it. How about we fund the conduit division and actually build a fiber network so we can get off fucking Comcast.
istayquiet t1_j64nqnp wrote
Funding a municipal fiber network probably shouldn’t be the goal. Incentivizing market entry for more providers would likely result in the same outcome for customers with very little stress to the city.
Example: Baltimore received $35m in ARPA funding earmarked for Digital Equity initiatives. So far, they’re looking at using these funds to connect rec centers to the city’s fiber ring and to deploy public Wi-Fi zones (which, let’s be honest- how useful will public Wi-Fi actually be?). To date, there’s been nothing earmarked for home broadband service. In addition, unlike almost every other municipality in Maryland, Baltimore does not have a fiber leasing program, so building fiber assets for the city will not result in increased connectivity to residential customers.
If Baltimore used some of this federal funding to establish something like a Conduit Fee Rebate Program through which qualified ISPs could more affordably build infrastructure in the conduit system in order to serve a set number of under-connected neighborhoods/households, they would essentially be unlocking restricted funding and paying themselves while encouraging a broader number of ISPs to deliver residential service.
The complete lack of competition in the internet market in Baltimore is a huge reason available service is so shitty.
Xanny t1_j65numm wrote
> Incentivizing market entry for more providers would likely result in the same outcome for customers with very little stress to the city.
Lol, ISPs are the most hated companies in the country. Its infrastructure capture to give a private corporation exclusivity in your conduits, cough cough Comcast. No, hell no. If the city wants to lay fiber, it should be our fiber, publicly owned, and the only private entity should be the backbone connection. The city does our water and our trash, it can do our Internet. Like, sometimes city services suck, but do you know what suck way more? Private water and trash cos literally everywhere.
The city could always get a... leasing program, rather than ya know, giving away infrastructure to private corporations again, when that always goes so well every time it happens.
The government being shit isn't made better by giving away the city to private companies to also run like shit. You really can't get out of fixing a shit government if you want anything to get better.
Matt3989 t1_j63t98h wrote
Seeing the work BGE does when installing gas mains. Fuck this.
>A draft agreement – submitted to Scott officials by BGE’s Chief Financial Officer David Vahos on January 13 – would terminate the company’s roughly $32 million-a-year rental payments to the city in return for making roughly the same dollar amount of capital improvements per year.
If the goal is $32 million per year of capital improvements, why not just use the rental payments?
If the city doesn't want to do it themselves, they could literally sub out everything from design, to project management, to construction. It's not like there aren't 6+ big name civil engineering firms within a half mile of downtown.
Guts_And_Black_Stuff t1_j639vg9 wrote
No
instantcoffee69 t1_j63b1ex wrote
> Such unilateral control could jeopardize the city’s stated goal of using the conduits to provide broadband access to all city residents. >Six million dollars of American Rescue Plan funds were set aside to route fiber to 23 recreation centers and create 100 Wi-Fi hot spots.
Is the city actually going to do this? I mean, has any work been contracted in support of this? And if this is the main reason, add it as a contract requirement, that's an extremely easy fix via contract management. BS argument.
Not saying this is right or wrong overall, just saying this is not the norm when it comes to conduit install in a city. The current system sucks. I don't see how keeping statue quo will make it better.
Dontaskmeaboutnam t1_j63r3rn wrote
You can’t unsell the conduit and it’s ridiculously expensive to install. It’s very shortsighted for the City to sell.
Matt3989 t1_j63v1tj wrote
I agree with the first part, but I wouldn't say that it's ridiculously expensive to install conduit. Not in the days of Horizontal Directional Drilling.
istayquiet t1_j64ccfl wrote
FWIW, directional boring is currently not permitted in Baltimore City (and neither is micro trenching, which would be a game changer for fiber-to-the-home service here).
DrJungeyBrungenMD t1_j66d1q7 wrote
Why is microtrenching not permitted? I’m sure there are plenty of ISPs that would love to move in here
istayquiet t1_j66hwqm wrote
Great question! My best guess (based on years of work in this industry) is that Baltimore City’s legal department can’t figure out how to legally permit microtrenching, so it’s one of those back-burner things that will never progress beyond “wow, other medium and large-sized cities do this and it’s great for all involved, but we should keep studying it indefinitely [and spend taxpayer dollars to commission a report from a preferred contractor that will result in nothing]”.
instantcoffee69 t1_j63tbmk wrote
Yea that's again easily fixable through contact control and permitting.
Contact includes a clause saying BGE must leave space for city fiber.
And when each new conduit is build, in the permit process, the city requires space for the said fiber conduit. If it's not shown on the permit submission, it's rejected.
Every other city has does it differently besides Baltimore. I love Baltimore city with all my heart. But I can say, i don't think Baltimore is the only one who knows this some secret of owning conduit is some genius stroke.
todareistobmore t1_j64tj35 wrote
This isn't selling the conduit, it's more like setting up an escrow account. The city would still have the right to terminate the agreement and resume full control of the conduit system before any renewal.
jabbadarth t1_j63j86c wrote
More importantly, based on how the city handles water does anyone believe they can manage a broadband network?
istayquiet t1_j64cyit wrote
Absolutely not. And current conduit division billing issues make water billing look like a well-oiled machine.
Interstate8 t1_j64i9ea wrote
I think the plan is for the city to just own the fiber infrastructure and lease it to ISPs.
todareistobmore t1_j64d3wc wrote
If the Brew wants to quote Jack Young that much in a post, they should really just give him the byline.
pk10534 t1_j67gf8i wrote
Regardless of your stance on this issue, did we not just vote to keep it under municipal control? What’s the point of these ballot initiatives if politicians can just circumvent them and do whatever they want. The mayor should respect the choices we made
istayquiet t1_j64c3ui wrote
This is a really complicated issue. The City conduit division is understaffed and still struggling with data lost during the 2019 ransomware attack. I recently waited nearly 5 months for a permit to make its way through this office and the final result wound up costing 4x as much as anticipated due to rerouting. My organization builds fiber to serve internet deserts in Baltimore, and provides low-income households with free home broadband. For a non-profit, these delays and revisions have been incredibly burdensome, and represent really significant barriers to entry for other ISPs interested in expanding service to the 40% of Baltimore households who don’t have home internet service.
For context, conduit fees are presently $2.20/foot/year. When you apply for conduit access where there is none, you are then tasked with building conduit on your own dime. After you build this conduit, the city takes possession of it and you pay them to rent what you just paid to build.
The article points out that this will put digital equity efforts in jeopardy. The truth is, the city conduit division (and the conduit fee structure, generally) are putting digital equity efforts in jeopardy already. This has been the case for years. Add the fact that Comcast’s franchise agreement allows them to submit all permits for conduit access in arrears, and equity becomes a really significant concern.
I hesitate to mention this “hot take”, but BGE might be better positioned to operate the conduit system than what we have right now. At minimum, if the city continues to own/operate the conduit system, significant changes need to be made.