In the News: Christopher Mitchell
January 12th, 2018
Media Outlet: Telecompetitor
Recently, Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society released a study detailing the pricing in municipal broadband networks versus large-scale Internet service providers. Joan Engebretson of Telecompetitor took up the story to dig into the findings of the study that munis are more competitive on price than commercial networks.
For her story Engebretson referenced the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s research on municipal networks. Here’s our contribution:
Researchers actually studied 40 community networks for the report, titled “Community-Owned Fiber Networks: Value Leaders in America,” but were unable to make price comparisons in 13 of those markets. In some cases, this was because there was no competitor offering comparable service. In other cases, it was because the commercial operator’s terms of service prohibited data collection.
In selecting the 40 communities for the report, researchers started with a list of 400 community-owned networks in the U.S. created by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, then focused in on fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks. Researchers noted that some of these networks serve multiple communities, but where that was the case, research focused on the community in which the network originated.
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