The city of Loveland, Colorado is one step closer to creating a municipal broadband network after the City Council voted to amend the city’s current codes to allow the electric utility company to also oversee communication. The ordinance created a nine-member advisory board for the project and appropriated $2.5 million from the Power Utility Fund to finance the network, roughly $2.2 million of which will go toward the development of a gigabit symmetrical fiber-optic network, according to a report from MuniNetworks.com. Loveland’s Broadband Task force recommended that the city implement either a retail model or a public-public, public-private model.
Council members considered holding a referendum on the project, but in light of a recent similar vote in Fort Collins, in which Comcast funneled nearly $1 million into citizens groups in an attempt to sway the decision, the Council decided to move the project forward without putting the issue on a ballot, according to Councilman John Fogle. “It’s not an even playing field when incumbent industries will spend $900,000 at the drop of the hat to perpetuate … a monopoly,” Fogle said at the February 6 meeting.
Loveland has long endured substandard customer service and high prices due to a lack of competition in the local market, according to MuniNetworks.com. Residents may not have been allowed a vote on the establishment of a municipal broadband network, but Councilor Rich Ball said he’s heard from many residents who support the project.
Susan Collins is one resident standing by the City Council’s decision, telling MuniNetworks.com, “I hope those TV ads run last fall in Fort Collins…taught our state a lesson on what cable monopolies will do to protect their monopoly … We already had a vote when we elected our City Council. If people don’t like what they are doing, they can vote them out again.”
February 20, 2018
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